Expect Issues 2 and 3 on Saturday, March 10th.
In a really rare bit of actual investigative journalism, NBC reporter, Keir Simmons traveled to Crimea to see what the people of Crimea think of “being annexed” and the conflict in Ukraine. If you have been reading The Zephyr, you will not be surprised that the majority of Crimeans are pro-Russian. He wrote, “When Victoria Nuland talks about, at the very least, we want Crimea demilitarized, I wonder how on Earth does that happen.” Not surprisingly, this led him to the conclusion that retaking Crimea was unrealistic and attempting to retake it would dangerously escalate the war with Russia.
However, for neoconservatives and neoliberals, realism is not a consideration. Take, for example, Retired US Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, a noted hawk, who published his personal plan to seize the Crimean peninsula on his Twitter. It is important to understand that Hodges, however, fully appreciates that the population of Crimea is overwhelmingly Russian. That is not his concern. The retired general believes that if the large cities in Crimea, such as Evpatoria, Sevastopol, Kerch and Dzhankoy, are turned into smoldering ruins using long-range precision weapons on them, then the Crimean peninsula will become untenable. Hodges noted that as a result of these planned rocket attacks that about a million people could become necessary victims among the civilian population of Crimea.