Good morning. It’s Saturday, Feb. 22. Right here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.
In August 1939, in line with testimony on the Nuremberg trials, German forces arrested an ethnic Pole named Franciszek Honiok, murdered him and dressed his corpse in a Polish navy uniform. They left Honiok’s physique with a gunshot wound to his head at a German radio tower as proof of a repelled assault by Polish saboteurs towards the Nazi reich. Germany used it as justification to invade Poland.
Nobody believed the Nazis’ ruse, nevertheless it didn’t matter: World Struggle II was underway.
I thought of that watching President Trump stand in entrance of reporters Tuesday and say that Ukraine “should have never started” its struggle towards Russia three years in the past. That is nonsense, after all, as your complete world watched Russian forces begin the biggest struggle in Europe since World Struggle II after they invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Earlier than then, Vladimir Putin had stated his desire to rebuild the superpower misplaced on the finish of the Chilly Struggle in 1991, so anybody who had been paying consideration knew that taking on Ukraine — a former Soviet republic lengthy coveted by Putin — was a part of the plan to make Russia nice once more.
However oddly sufficient, Putin wanted a pretext, not simply rank imperialism. Earlier than the invasion, he accused the Ukrainian authorities of committing genocide against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Moscow-backed separatist forces in jap Ukraine staged an evacuation of civilians to make it appear as if harmless lives had been in danger due to Ukrainian aggression. Russia even mentioned it killed Ukrainian saboteurs close to the border (sound acquainted?).
Few believed any of this — however Trump may. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seems to have been onto one thing when he mentioned his American counterpart lives in a Russian “disinformation area.” One must take Putin at his phrase to name Zelensky a dictator and accuse Ukraine of selecting a suicidal struggle with its a lot bigger, nuclear-armed neighbor.
Does Trump imagine the faux evacuation disaster in jap Ukraine was actual or that Kyiv wished to kill or in any other case ethnically cleanse the Russian audio system inside its borders? Would he have believed the Poles authored their very own annihilation by attacking a German radio tower in 1939?
No matter motivated Trump’s migration into Putin’s “disinformation area,” we now reside in a world during which the US shrugs off its position as guarantors of European safety (fulfilled so efficiently that just about all Individuals take peace on that traditionally war-ravaged continent as a right) and appeases an accused war criminal like Putin. In different phrases, we’ve turn out to be one of many world’s unhealthy guys inside a month of Inauguration Day.
That has profound implications for the U.S. and Europe, however the speedy disaster is in Ukraine. Writing on our op-ed web page, Ukrainian creator Sergey Maidukov lays out the grim reality for his country that the struggle’s finish portends:
“A peace settlement perceived as a capitulation may additional erode nationwide morale that’s already at a low level, with falling troop ranges and Russia’s latest front-line beneficial properties within the combating. Historical past reveals that in such moments usually public disillusionment grows, weakening confidence in management. Throughout these durations, excessive factions could emerge, stoking unrest and upending a fragile order.
“When Russia launched its full-on invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians united beneath symbols that had beforehand divided them. The slogan Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine), as soon as related to ultra-right-wing nationalist actions throughout World Struggle II, was embraced nationwide, even in areas the place nationalism had been controversial.
“However in 2025, excessive nationalist fervor has waned. This could possibly be a short lived lull earlier than one other eruption of unrest, provoked by post-war trauma, hardship and disillusionment. That, mixed with an armed inhabitants and a era of younger males cast in struggle may threaten Ukraine as a lot as Russian aggression has.”
And now, for the remainder of the week in Opinion …
The problem with JD Vance’s theology of mass deportation. Father Gregory Boyle, the nationwide treasure who based L.A.’s Homeboy Industries, takes situation with utilizing the doctrine of ordo amoris, cited by the Catholic vp, to justify mass deportation: “I believe we have to hearth the god who thinks there isn’t sufficient like to go round.”
The state lags on fire safety rules, but even common sense should limit combustibles near homes. Again in 2020, California handed a invoice requiring property homeowners in fire-prone areas to create a zone of defensible area round their properties of 5 toes. There’s only one drawback, says The Instances’ editorial board: The state is 2 years previous the deadline for writing and enacting guidelines. That’s unacceptable, says the board: “Why the holdup? How lengthy does it take to determine that owners actually shouldn’t have picket fences or flamable shrubs inside 5 toes of their properties?”
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Extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to promote growth but cut spending too. Researcher Veronique de Rugy requires making the 2017 lower to particular person tax charges and the expensing of companies’ capital funding everlasting as a result of these provisions end in probably the most financial development. Political actuality requires quickly extending different tax breaks which might be common however could also be much less pro-growth, such because the Youngster Tax Credit score enlargement and bigger customary deduction. De Rugy additionally says elevating income to maintain the deficit from ballooning is necessary, so Congress ought to eradicate different tax breaks.
The reported costs of the Los Angeles fires are staggering. The hidden costs are worse. Augusto Gonzalez-Bonorino, an economics teacher at Pomona Faculty, factors out that the latest fires destroyed way more than properties and livelihoods: “Because the ashes settle, the area faces an invisible risk beneath the charred stays: compromised soil buildings, contaminated watersheds and ecosystems stripped of their pure defenses — wounds that can bleed for years to come back.”
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