{"id":301000,"date":"2025-08-18T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=301000"},"modified":"2025-08-13T08:13:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T07:13:49","slug":"ukraine-we-told-you-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/ukraine-we-told-you-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: We Told You So!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-301001\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ukraine-We-Told-You-So.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>11 Aug 2025\u00a0<\/em>&#8211;\u00a0I hate to say I told you so. It\u2019s obnoxious really. But sometimes it is an important point. In this case the point is this: the people who are always right about wars were right about the war in Ukraine, whereas the \u201cexperts\u201d who are always on television and in government were, as usual, wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Which of the following statements about the war with Russia comes closest to your personal views?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war<\/li>\n<li>Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Gallup <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/worldbeyondwar.org\/poll-69-of-ukrainians-want-negotiated-end-to-war-as-soon-as-possible\/\" >asked that question<\/a> three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, and this year. It asked it of Ukrainians. The first time, 72% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to continue fighting and only 22% to negotiate an end to the war. Most recently, 24% want to continue fighting and 69% want to negotiate an end to the war.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re a good U.S. news consumer and follower of weapons-funded \u201cleaders,\u201d then you know perfectly well that Ukraine must keep fighting until it wins the war. After all, Putin will be invading Idaho by Thursday if an end to the war is negotiated. Or even if that doesn\u2019t happen, the rule of law will collapse \u2014 it will be as if someone had destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, fueled a genocide in Gaza, and sanctioned international courts for doing their jobs \u2014 total lawlessness!<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not a terrible argument \u2014 absurdly hypocritical and blinkered, but still a fair point in there somewhere. Only that\u2019s not why you used to tell me that Ukrainians needed to fight on. Do you remember what the reason was? You told me it hundreds of times. Has it slipped your mind? It was that Ukrainians said in polls that they wanted the war to continue and who THE HELL did I think I was to dare to suggest otherwise?! I mean, it\u2019s not as if I lived on the planet that a nuclear war would render uninhabitable. This was a decision for UKRAINIANS. UKRAINIANS! Why couldn\u2019t I get that through my thick skull?<\/p>\n<p>But now, after years of pointless killing, dying, wounding, traumatizing, and destroying, we\u2019ve got 69% of Ukrainians telling pollsters they think an end to the war should be negotiated as soon as possible. I\u2019m willing to bet that most, if not every last one, of those expressing that wise opinion would also now agree that such a negotiated end should have been achieved years ago. Nobody but war profiteers, sadists, and politicians clinging to power with rightwing support (yes, on both sides of this war) is better off for the now-desired negotiated end having been delayed so miserably long. Less than two years into Afghanistan and Iraq a majority in the U.S. said those wars should never have been started \u2014 including millions of people who had fervently denounced war protests months before. It\u2019s not hard to predict something that happens over and over again.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian ruler says the war must go on, presumably because democracy. This may be difficult to hear, but there\u2019s not a democracy in Ukraine or within 500 million miles of Ukraine. If we had actual democracies these wars would never get started. If we even thought in democratic terms, our priorities would be ending the mass killing and destruction, halting the arms trade to redirect resources into human needs, and devising credible means by which the residents of various sections of Ukraine \u2014 and not the Ukrainian or Russian government \u2014 can collectively make the best of the disaster they\u2019ve been handed.<\/p>\n<p>So, how can I claim that those who were prematurely for peace were \u201cright\u201d and those who didn\u2019t want to sit down and end the war until years later were \u201cwrong\u201d? Because we said, over and over and over, that a negotiated peace would have to come sooner or later and better sooner, that people would come to understand this fact eventually \u2014 but by then we\u2019d have more corpses and orphans, and that endless proclamations of victory just around the corner from both sides of an endless war are reasons to end the thing, not reasons to wave flags and cheer for the war machine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHelping Ukraine\u201d has done exactly what we said shipping weapons to a slaughterhouse would do. It has hurt Ukraine. It has hurt Ukraine deeply, militarized much of the world, and thrown global agendas and priorities wildly out of whack. The way to help Ukraine was always going to be begun by negotiating an end to the war. Don\u2019t believe me? Ask the Ukrainians! I\u2019m not sure how you dare to defy their will.<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\" lang=\"en-GB\"><em>_________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\" lang=\"en-GB\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/David-Swanson-e1513512248299.jpeg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-103625\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/David-Swanson-e1513512248299.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"97\" \/><\/a> David Swanson is the author of <\/em>War Is A Lie<em> and <\/em>Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union<em>. He holds a master&#8217;s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia and has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich&#8217;s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for <\/em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/acorn.org\/\" ><i>ACORN<\/i><\/a><\/span><em>. <\/em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/davidswanson.org\/\" ><i>http:\/\/davidswanson.org<\/i><\/a><\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/warisacrime.org\/\" ><i>http:\/\/warisacrime.org<\/i><\/a><\/span><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\" lang=\"en-GB\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/worldbeyondwar.org\/ukraine-we-told-you-so\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 worldbeyondwar.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11 Aug 2025 &#8211; Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war *** Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible &#8211; Gallup asked that question three years ago to all Ukrainians. Then, 72% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to continue fighting and only 22% to negotiate an end to the war. Most recently, 24% want to continue fighting and 69% want to negotiate an end to the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":301001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2628,442,961],"class_list":["post-301000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-conflict-mediation","tag-conflict-transformation","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301002,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301000\/revisions\/301002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}