PRESIDENT FROM AFAR

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking to a Joint Session of the United States Congress streamed on ABC ‘Special Report’, on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 4:30 pm PST.

THINGS LEFT UNSAID HEARD HEARTFELT

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

When a wartime president speaks to a Joint Session of the United States Congress, a lot of meaning is understood in 30 minutes that is never spoken.

The event itself makes a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke softly about the war that has deconstructed, piece by piece, over the last 300 days, the freedom that democracy build in Eastern Europe.

When Zelenskyy spoke, the United States Congress was there to listen on Wednesday, December 21, 2022. And when Zelenskyy was applauded the Ukrainian people felt that friendship and admiration, no doubt.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared at a similar event on December 26, 1941, just a few weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The British had not yet received any substantial military aid since World War II had begun in 1939 because United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was bound by the non-assist, non-intervention Neutrality Act that had been intended to prevent even more decades of continuous brutal war since the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, and I guess much war before that as well, all the way back to the War of Independence waged against the British Empire.

The Americans would fight anyway, eventually, as the world turned out.

Zelenskyy has been appealing for military aid since before day one of the present conflict because the enemy had been hacking away and recruiting rebellion leaders along the border regions since before annexing Crimea in 2014. 

United States President Barack Obama’s few foreign policy blunders was to look away here in this region then, eight years, and three presidential administrations ago. 

Zelenskyy appeared to hand the Americans what victory there has been so far though, since the survival of the Ukrainians has been achieved partly because of the military aid from the Oval Office of US President Biden, who was once vice president to President Obama. The NATO alliance has also been shipping military aid into the war zone from European partners.

These modern wars are such that military technology has a decidedly heavy influence over the battlefields and along the city streets regardless of the hearts and minds of the soldiers.

Ukraine is experiencing the deconstruction that war has been able to bring since the industrial age and which also continues on ever so cruelly during the technology age of intelligence gathering spy satellites and precision drone strikes guided by global positioning systems.

Few great cities in the world have been spared the flattening effect of artillery fire and aerial bombing runs since military technology moved beyond the sword and musket. 

And now entire countries fall to pieces as wars are waged to alter the power balance in regions. Zelenskyy stated that the Russians are following a type of ‘slash and burn’ policy, leaving nothing behind whether the enemy is advancing or retreating.

Zelenskyy ever so gently spoke of the cities being rased, mentioning battles reduced to hand to hand combat in parts of the Donbas Region, and in the City of Bakhmut. But that these close quarters with their foe is being dealt with with ‘dignity and success’.

“The light of our faith and ourselves will not go out,” Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian President also underscored the importance of winning the war of the minds and that much of the free world is now tuning the enemy out. The world is too interconnected now to stay on the sidelines of opinion about wars fought by third parties on the other side of oceans.

The enemy has recently been targeting critical infrastructure to use the deep cold and wild winter wind along the flat black earth as a weapon against the hearts and minds of the people. But these brutal acts are those acts of desperate terrorists with one terrorist only finding comfort in an alliance with another terrorist sharing the ultimate goal of causing as much pain, suffering and destruction as possible.

“But Ukraine still stands” Zelenskyy stated.

In the military fatigues Mr. President has worn throughout the war, Zelenskyy stood in front of the democratically elected representatives of the American people, who themselves stand for freedom and democracy, and thanked every American family for their support in keeping freedom and democracy alive for their grandchildren and the grandchildren around the free world.

In these modern times, the continued penchant for death and to kill another human being seems unfathomable. And yet, the world again faces a fierce adversary of peace who seems willing to risk isolation for nationalistic gratifications and individualistic gains.

Perhaps the free world overlooked too lightly the enemy’s historical wrongs committed by successive governments on their own people. When the Cold War ended freedom swelled to include the citizens of the eastern bloc, not just creating a heightened sense of peace for those people already living free in the West.

Regardless of outcomes, the people have already lost that sense of freedom, that actual camaraderie, and that nuanced belonging shared with the rest of the world.

May God Bless the Ukrainian People. May peace soon be with everyone, again.