Anna Husarska, The Washington Post; The cruel human cost of the ‘land swap’ idea for Ukraine
[Kip Currier: The callous nonchalance and indifference with which Trump speaks of the suffering that Ukraine has endured at the hands of Putin is both galling and appalling. Note, too, that this is the same person who reportedly called Sweden's finance minister recently in pursuit of a Nobel Prize for Peace: transactionalism and grandiosity are at Trump's very core.]
[Excerpt]
"On Monday, President Donald Trump elaborated on what kind of deal might emerge from his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage this week. “There’ll be some land swapping going on. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff.
“Also, some bad stuff for both,” Trump conceded.
Let us imagine a different kind of swap. Suppose Cuba invaded the United States, occupied most of Florida (justifying it with the claim that there are many Cubans living there) and three-quarters of Texas — and then agreed to withdraw from Texas if the United States gave it the whole of Florida. Would this qualify as a swap? And would it be “to the good” of the United States?
It is unjust to reward territorial aggression with territorial concessions. And such concessions would certainly set evil precedents in an increasingly chaotic world. But while these big questions are important, we must also not lose sight of the human costs such a “swap” would put on the Ukrainian people. Immediately ceding whatever territory Ukraine still holds in Donetsk region, as Russia is reportedly demanding, would be disastrous for the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians still trying to live in a war zone."
