Putin’s Crime

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, deserves some kind of punishment for his crime. His finger-prints are all over the downing of the passenger jet over the skies of Ukraine. Here’s a brilliant essay that calls out the Europeans for being such cowards as they refuse a face-off with Putin.
by Charlie Leck

Occasionally, I get riled up enough to beg you to read something. This is one of those occasions. An essay appeared in the NY Times yesterday (22 July 2014) that calls out the European nations and points the finger of truth at them for their failure to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

“To see the European Union acting so pusillanimously is very discouraging. France wants to hold on to its arms contracts for the jobs they are supposed to save in its naval shipyards. Germany, a hub of operations for the Russian energy giant Gazprom, is petrified of losing its own strategic position. Britain, for its part, despite recent statements by Prime Minister David Cameron, may still not be ready to forgo the colossal flows of Russian oligarchs’ ill-gotten cash upon which the City, London’s financial district, has come to rely.”

I urge you to read this powerful essay by prominent a French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy. It is translated from the French by Steven B. Kennedy. You can find it here!

The following opening, few paragraphs are to tease you with the power of Mr. Lévy’s writing…

“IN eastern Ukraine, Vladimir V. Putin has been playing with fire.

“He has mobilized the worst elements to be found in the region.

“He has taken thugs, thieves, rapists, ex-cons and vandals and turned them into a paramilitary force.

“He has permitted ad hoc commanders of separatist groups to kill or chase off intellectuals, journalists and other moral authorities in the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk.

“He has watched as a vodka-soaked rabble army destroys or takes over public buildings, hospitals, schools and municipal offices of the country it is pretending to liberate.

“He has allowed a veritable gang war to take hold — without caring that he is losing control of the forces that he has unleashed, with rival bands pitted against one another and carving out fiefs amid the growing anarchy.

“Most troubling of all: To this underworld without structure or discipline, to these undisciplined louts who know only the law of the jungle, to this new brand of fighting force that has only the dimmest idea of war and no idea, God knows, of the laws of war — to this motley collection Mr. Putin, the Russian president, gave a terrifying arsenal with which the amateur soldiers were unfamiliar and with which they have been playing, like kids with fireworks.”

Come on, Europe! Stand tall! Impose sanctions on Russia and stand tough until Mr. Putin steps aside in shame!

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