artsforum.ca

On January 20, 2023

© By John Arkelian

“Let it not be said that the dedication of those who love freedom is less than the determination of those who would destroy it.”  (Margaret Thatcher)

There are a myriad of compelling reasons why we must defend freedom and defeat aggression in Ukraine.  The moral imperative to act is that a fellow democracy is the victim of an unprovoked attack by a bigger neighbor.  Protecting freedom, democracy, and human rights is at the very heart of our core values.  Without those core

Copyright © 2022 by Michael de Adder

values, we are nothing.  If our professed allegiance to those values has any meaning, we must stand ready to fight to protect and preserve them — at home and abroad.

The humanitarian imperative to act is the responsibility to protect those who are in mortal peril from lawless violence and oppression.  And the violence being perpetrated by the Putin regime in Ukraine could not be more wanton, lawless, and cruel.  Civilians are being targeted, countless lives (of men, women, and children) have been lost, millions have been forced to flee their homes, entire cities have been destroyed, and the contrast between right and wrong could not be clearer.  This is one conflict that has no shades of grey, no moral ambiguity.  A ruthless autocrat and his own duped citizens have inflicted a murderous war of aggression on their neighbors and erstwhile kin.

The legal imperative to act is our obligation to defend and enforce the legal tenets to which we have sworn fealty.  Engaging in a war of aggression is a crime in international law; so, too, are war crimes (such as targeting civilians or acting with a reckless disregard for their safety), crimes against humanity, and genocide.  All of those crimes are on blatantly open display in Ukraine — with the systematic bombing, rape, torture, forced deportation to Russia, or outright murder of civilians.  We expect to be free from those outrages; we must ensure and enforce that same expectation for others.  Our commitment to justice and to the rule of law requires us to act when the most sacred of laws are being shamelessly contravened.  And, there is another legal imperative.  The United Nations was founded in 1945 in order to save mankind from the scourge of war:

We have sworn allegiance to those principles, and we have a consequent moral and legal obligation to uphold them.  Alas, the U.N. Security Council is hobbled in its ability to prevent wars of aggression by the presence among its permanent (veto-power wielding) members of two of the world’s worst bad actors — Russia and China.  The United Nations serves some useful purposes; but, it generally cannot fulfil its core mandate — to prevent wars of aggression — because two of the worst state-villains can (and do) block it from acting.  The Free World therefore needs to do what the U.N. cannot — by forcefully intervening to defeat aggressors and to thwart systemic human rights abuses around the world, using its might to defend the weak when others would oppress, enslave, or kill them.  Because Ukraine is not a member of NATO, there is no contractual (treaty) obligation for us to defend it, but, that matters not one whit in the face of the other compelling imperatives that impel us to do exactly that.

The geopolitical imperative to act ought to be crystal clear.  We learned at great cost, 90 years ago, that appeasing aggressors does not work.  The only effective response to aggression is to meet it head-on with force and to defeat it.  Failing to do so only emboldens the aggressor and invites more of the same.  The West failed to respond adequately (or sometimes at all) when Putin’s regime used lawless brute force within Russia itself (in Chechnya) and elsewhere (in Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and, in 2014, in Ukraine).  Our weak responses to those acts of aggression did nothing to disincentivize Putin from ‘upping the ante’ with a full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  Defeating aggression elsewhere is therefore not just a matter of altruism, it is also a compelling matter of our own vital self-interest.  As the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said, “The war of Russia is not only the war against Ukraine.  Russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe, of all the people in the world.  It tries to show that only crude and cruel force matters.  It tries to show that people do not matter.  The world must stop the war.  I thank everyone who acts in support of Ukraine, in support of freedom.  But the war continues…”

Note:  Our in-depth analysis sets out the moral, humanitarian, legal, and geopolitical imperatives for us to act to defend freedom and defeat Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.  It considers what the West’s objectives should be and how much force is required to achieve them.  It makes the case for not blinking in the face of nuclear blackmail.  And it posits sixteen new rules of engagement designed to defeat and expel invading Russian forces from Ukraine.  See “The  Imperative of Defeating Aggression in Ukraine” at:  https://artsforum.ca/ideas/in-depth

On February 20, 2022

© By John Arkelian

No wonder many of are losing confidence in the judgment of our elected leaders, the efficacy of our public institutions, and the inclination of those with opposing points of view to engage in civil discourse.  For their part, protesters took over downtown of the national capital for a protracted raucous stay, disrupting the lives of Ottawa residents in the process.  And, on the other side, instead of enforcing existing laws, the federal government improperly invoked emergency powers in blatant violation of the terms restricting the use of those powers.

With admonitions for protesters, governments, the media, and everyone else, see: “No Hill to Die On: The Dos and Don’ts of Public Protests” at:  https://artsforum.ca/ideas/regional-perspectives

On October 31, 2021

© By John Arkelian

The Free World needs to be far more discriminating about whom we call allies, let alone friends.  During the Cold War, we supported any number of repugnant regimes throughout the Third World.  If they were hostile to communism and pliable to our economic interests, it mattered not one whit if they savagely oppressed and murdered their own people.  That shameful legacy continues to run riot today.  Principles, values, legal accountability, even mere common decency — they count for nothing against perceived material benefit or short-term geopolitical expediency.  Consider the case of Saudi Arabia.  Its vile regime is antithetical to all we hold dear.  It has contempt for human rights; indeed, disagreeing with that regime can be a capital crime.  It is an undemocratic tyranny; it oppresses women; it imprisons or kills non-violent critics; it wages a ruinous war in neighboring Yemen (with our tacit blessing) which has created a major humanitarian crisis.  It is beholden and allied to ‘Wahhabism,’ a harsh, hateful, and extremist form of Islam that spawned the 9/11 terrorists (most of whom were Saudis).  And, it encourages us in protracted hostility toward its sectarian and geopolitical rival Iran, when, in fact, there is little to qualitatively recommend one of those antagonists over the other.  It brazenly murdered a resident of the United States who was a journalist with a leading American newspaper.  And, it, and/or some of its agents, may have aided and abetted the murderous 9/11 attack upon the American homeland. And so we ask: With “friends” like these, who needs enemies?

See “With ‘Friends’ Like These…” at:  https://artsforum.ca/ideas/the-wide-world