The Ukraine war. Do Americans know what's really going on?

The man who reads nothing at all," Thomas Jefferson observed,  "is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

Jefferson's observation was accurate when he wrote it, and it's even more true today. I am interested in the war in Ukraine and try to learn more about it by reading online news stories.

As I skim through the online newspaper reports, it seems like they're all written by the same person. Day after day, I read stories about Russian rockets and drones that injure Ukrainian civilians. According to the news stories, few civilians are killed by these attacks, and most Russian missiles are shot down. The overall message of these newspaper accounts seems to be that the Russian attacks are a sign of Russian brutality but are no more than a nuisance for the civilian population. I'm skeptical.

Today, I read that Ukrainians have introduced amissile with a range of 400 miles. Did the Ukrainians invent this new menace on their own? Again, I'm skeptical. Surely, most of these innovations were developed with American assistance.

Almost daily, the legacy media refers to Russia's "illegal” occupation of Crimea. Illegal in what sense? After all, the Crimeans voted on annexation and overwhelmingly said they wanted to be part of Russia. It's possible that the voting was rigged by the Putin government and that the people living in Crimea don't want to be part of Russia.

Again, I'm skeptical. Crimea has been part of Russia since at least the 18th century. Americans have no interest in history, but they should do a little reading on the Crimean War (1853-1856).

Russia had an important naval base in Crimea in 2014 when the region was annexed. It seems reasonable that the Russians were concerned about the security of that base when Ukraine made a radical shift toward aligning with the West after the Maidan uprising.

I am no apologist for Russian imperialism, but the United States should not be promoting a war in Eastern Europe without a clear sense of what that war is about. I'm beginning to think the US has bullied its way into a conflict that is none of our damn business.

The Ukrainian War isn’t a trivial event.  According to the New York Times, nearly a half million soldiers have been killed or wounded over the past 18 months. The Times estimates that 70,000 Ukrainian troops have lost their lives. An independent military analyst thinks the number is more than five times that number. Who knows?

One thing is certain. The war between Russia and Ukraine has wrecked Ukraine. Millions of refugees have fled the country. Millions more have been displaced from their homes. Ukraine is a significant source of the world's food supply, and its ability to raise and export grain has been severely hampered.

Americans seem indifferent to the fact that our country is prosecuting a proxy war against a nuclear power. We apparently think we can get away with this reckless behavior and that there are no consequences for our participation in the slaughter.

I don't think so.