President Biden has ramped up the rhetoric in his face-off with Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian troops’ conduct in Ukraine an act of “genocide.”
It remains for international courts to make that official determination, but I happen to have no difficulty with our president calling Putin out on with the strong language he is using to apply maximum pressure on a despot who is waging what looks to many of us to be an illegal war against Ukraine.
Putin invaded Ukraine with the stated hope of capturing the capital city of Kyiv within, oh, a few days. It didn’t happen. Russian troops have retreated from the area around Kyiv and are reportedly staging in the eastern part of Ukraine to launch another massive assault.
They have left evidence of enormous destruction and the slaughter of thousands of civilians. Ukrainian forces have discovered thousands of bodies with single gunshot wounds to their heads; the men and women executed by the Russians had their hands tied behind their backs.
Why do this? President Biden labels it “genocide,” which by definition is the planned extermination of people based on their race and/or their ethnicity.
We have known for a long time that Putin is a bad actor. He has demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that he is incapable of being an effective partner at any level with this or any nation that values human decency.
He also has shown that President Biden’s moral outrage, which he expressed during his recent trip to Europe that “for God’s sake this man cannot remain in power,” is spot on.