As we considered how to approach the contradictory aspects and on-going frightening prospects of the current war in Ukraine that could lead to nuclear war ending life on earth, we read Nan Levinson’s most recent article in TomDispatch. We quote from Tom Engelhardt’s introduction:
As we think about the nightmarish war in Ukraine, let me just offer you a few figures: almost a million dead, nearly 400,000 of them civilians; at least 38 million people turned into war refugees or internally displaced; and perhaps $8 trillion in money squandered on that hell on Earth. Oh wait, sorry, that’s what happens when you get old and things start to blur in your mind. Yes, the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is indeed a horror of slaughtered civilians, mind-boggling numbers of refugees and internally displaced Ukrainians, and untold amounts of money already squandered on death and destruction. The figures I just gave you, however, come from the invaluable Costs of War Project’s calculations about what used to be called this country’s “Global War on Terror,” which includes the invasions, occupations of, and disastrous conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Read on for the full intro and full article.
From time to time, this country’s presidents do come out with some version of reality, although as the saying goes, one of the first casualties of war is the truth. When that happens, as can be seen in these two clips of Bush, the laughter and refusal to take seriously “the truth” by many in powerful positions, including our commercial mass media which doesn’t investigate fully and deeply wherever it leads, explains much about the level of awareness in our country.
Here Bush speaks at the Bush Center in Dallas on May 18.
Here he is speaking to the White House Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in 2004.
