America to the Rescue: Why Do We Care Now?
Centering a European war is par for the course.
Day 1 of the invasion, I saw a comment in my feed from a Ukrainian woman, rightfully distressed and angry, asking Americans “Where have you all been?” Fair question. As Americans, especially white Americans, we get that a lot.
Evidently Ukraine has been fighting a war on a southern border in Donbas region since 2014. Russian troops just hung around, (like sleeper cells) waiting for the green light. So it begs the question what made us wake up? Why are we only recently paying attention to this crisis?
Why Ukraine and not other places? Tigray? 16 months of war, and the human rights violations are unspeakable with rebels setting people on fire and 9 million people starving — UN has not been able to get in aid since mid December. Afghanistan? It’s falling apart. The entire country is starving. We abandoned them, especially women and girls.
So why did we enter a new war (one we are not technically “in” yet) weeks after we finally got out of one?
Well let’s start with the obvious: They’re Euro/white, they’re at war with our biggest enemy Russia in a bigger way, and they’re the country keeping Putin from the rest of Europe. But to unpack “Why now?” takes a bit more ranting.
