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MARCH 15, 2022
Meyerson on TAP
Our Neo-Guernica Moment
And how we should respond
When, in 1937, bombers from Nazi Germany bombed the Spanish village of
Guernica on behalf of Francisco Franco's fascist forces bent on
overthrowing that nation's democratic government, the impact
registered across much of the world. The aerial bombardment of civilian
targets-and with the men away fighting, it was predominantly the women
and children of Guernica whom the bombing killed-was a new and
horrifying phenomenon. It soon became the subject of what is perhaps
Picasso's most famous painting, which, in gray, black, and white, is
the color of the newsreels that brought this new horror to the world's
attention. During World War II, of course, such attacks on cities and
their civilian populations became the norm on both sides, culminating in
the two mushroom clouds that put an end to both the war and upward of
150,000 lives.
Since World War II, aerial bombardment has largely been confined to
nations far from Europe and America. Vietnam's "free-fire zones"-the
Pentagon's term for much of South Vietnam, where U.S. aircraft were
given missions to bomb just about anything-saw the forced evacuation
of much of that nation's population, and became our very own killing
fields, responsible for a significant share of the estimated two million
Vietnamese deaths during that war. Television newscasts at the time did
a pretty good job of showing the brutality of the land war we were
waging against Vietnam's civilian populace; the sight on Walter
Cronkite's nightly news of American troops burning down villages as
women and children screamed and wept was no small factor in the growth
of the anti-war movement. But there was no comparable coverage of the
destruction that our B-52s and lesser bombers rained down from on high
upon the Vietnamese.
But all that was in distant climes. No Western city, no city of white
folks, has been subjected to aerial bombardment since the Nazis
surrendered in 1945. Now, it's back, and plainly visible on iPhones,
laptops, and TV. And it's a shock-a Guernica come again.
What, then, is the proper response? In thinking this through on the eve
of Ukrainian President Zelensky's address to Congress tomorrow, the
only clear conclusion I've reached is that the one thing worse than a
neo-Guernica is a neo-Hiroshima, which the establishment of a no-fly
zone over Ukraine could very well trigger. As even a modest acquaintance
with human history should suggest, once war starts, rational calculation
is often as much a casualty as truth is. And this time, both Russia's
and our powers of destruction exceed those of our Hiroshima bombing a
millionfold.
So what then? Doug Feith was one of the neoconservative whiz kids in
George W. Bush's Pentagon who thought up the Iraq War, the most
disastrous unforced error of this century until Putin gave him a run for
his money (and for now, the toll in Iraqi lives greatly exceeds those of
Ukrainians, though Putin may just be starting out). Nonetheless, Feith
and John Hannah have an op-ed
in, of all places, The Wall Street Journal today, calling for the
establishment of a non-military airlift of medicine and food into
Ukraine, to be carried out by aircraft of such neutral nations as Egypt
and India, though it would disproportionately be the U.S. and Europe
that provided those supplies. The flight plans of those flights would be
given in advance to Russia.
This isn't exactly a new idea; Harry Truman ordered an airlift of
similar supplies to West Berlin after Stalin cut off all the land routes
through which the city had been provisioned in 1948. But it's a good
idea, one that I hope would gain U.N. sponsorship-and should Russia
veto it there, that doesn't mean it can't go ahead, unless Russia
shoots it down literally once it's begun.
Not a panacea, I readily admit, but in a world of Guernicas, panaceas
are in short supply.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
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