 April the 6th, 2022, it's Wednesday, it's 11 o'clock. It's time for What Now, America? I'm Tim Epichel, your host. Today's title of the show is City of Bucha, Visuals of War Crime. The title of this program is called What Now, America? And that title could well be a question. What do we do? What now, America? What do we do about what we just saw this weekend, as far as all the pictures and the video stream of the city of Bucha as Russia has evacuated it and has retreated and has left a stream and in a river of war crimes in the streets of Bucha. So to discuss that today is my guests, Jay Fidel and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning. Morning, Tim. Morning. Jay, before I ask you the first question, I unfortunately have to run down what we all saw this weekend, be it on CNN or whatever news station, BBC, and the images were undeniable. We saw the dead laying in the streets. We saw people shot off their bicycles. We saw people who had plastic bags of potatoes or food items trying to get home and feed their family shot in the streets. We saw people with our hands bound behind them dead. We saw cars with people in them crushed by tanks. Zelensky, President Zelensky said that people's tongues were pulled out. There was rape. There was wholesale slaughter. And that's just the beginning of what we saw in Bucha. I suppose the question to you Jay is, this probably is not unlike what we saw in Grozny, Chesnya, or Aleppo, Syria. What makes the difference between what we're seeing now in Ukraine versus those other two campaigns of terror and war crimes that Putin committed on those two separate countries? The pictures, the press, the fact that they're going around the world on every media you can imagine, that makes the difference. But the brutality was the same. As a matter of fact, I keep thinking, I wonder if you guys agree, I keep thinking, how is this different from the Holocaust? I mean, these are innocent people. In the Holocaust, they were looking for certain groups of people like the Jews. In this case, it's like everybody, everybody in the country, shoot them in the eye, pull out their tongue, destroy them. And so far, it's been 5,000. And it'll be much more. It may be more already. What's the difference? I mean, they're doing genocide. They're doing countryside. Everybody in the country is at risk. So anyway, the only difference here is that, the world is getting it. And there's two sides to that. One is that it certainly would motivate the world to do something, Western Europe and the US, even China, United Nations. But at the same time, it also, it's shocking to find that these countries aren't doing enough to stop it because it continues to go on. You'd think that genocide in plain view on the screen right in front of you for hours every day would be enough to motivate the kind of action that the world needs to take to stop it, but it continues. That's what blows my mind. It's like a bad movie and it won't stop. I don't know what's wrong here, but humanity is failing the test. The Western European countries are failing the test. I don't care what they say about sanctions. I don't care about all the speeches and the name calling. It continues. How could this happen? You know, I've talked to some folks and I get the same response over and over again. I can't watch anymore. I can't take it. It's too much, it's overwhelming. I have to watch alternative programs. I have to watch cartoons. That's some of the responses I've gotten to what we all witnessed this weekend. And what does that say about human nature is that it can only tolerate so much carnage and brutality before the mind says, I can't comprehend it any further and I can't process it. How do we respond to the possibility of people becoming desensitized and nothing more gets done? I don't know, they are being desensitized. You know, Putin is a very smart guy and he set up that nucleus threat early on and the threat of biochemical weapons early on and he scared everybody. He terrified, you know, Western Europe and he terrified the US and of course the US has its own problems. But, you know, the right move would be, I'm sorry, this is not just an attack on Ukraine and the individual human beings in Ukraine. It's an attack on everything. An attack on moral society everywhere. And we have forgotten about that and we are in the throes of forgetting a lot about it. You know, never again is happening again. You know, I tell you the truth that at first there was all this discussion about, oh no, we can't take a risk of nuclear war. Oh no, we can't take a risk that he's gonna get mad. I wanna tell you a short story and then I'll stop. In the Holocaust Museum, there's an alcove that's really special. And it has a bunch of correspondence in it where the rabbis in the United States were asking the War Department in Washington if they would bomb the death camps in Germany and Poland and so forth. On the bombing runs they were making, 1944. And the War Department was not responding to these letters. And after several letters from the rabbinical organizations in the US, they did answer. And they said, we are reluctant to bomb Auschwitz and the like because we feel that it would make Hare Hitler, I'm quoting, we feel it would make Hare Hitler angry. My goodness, you make a monster angry, what happens then? He's already a monster. And so- Well, I think that's a great point, Jay. And the great point of it is how bad does this get from what we just saw this weekend? I mean, they said, well, the next step would be if Putin used a biological or chemical warfare, how is this any worse than biological or chemical warfare? In fact, I think this is the brutality of what we saw this weekend is probably worse than what chemical warfare would possibly do. Hasn't Putin struck fear into the governments of Europe and the United States and basically holding the world hostage? Yes, this is out of a bad movie. And I think the proper end for this movie is you say, damn it, you can't do that anymore. You can't do genocide right in front of our faces. We are not gonna permit it. And if you do it one more day, one more day, one more life, we are coming in for you. And if that means war, then so be it. I don't understand why we don't have the moral fiber to say that and do that. We cannot, he's making war in the whole world. We cannot let him do that. Well, moral fiber, it's not moral fiber, it's timidity of economic repercussions. I mean, we could shut down Russia and Putin in a heartbeat if Europe and the rest of the world would just agree not to buy his gas and oil products, period. Maybe, everything we've threatened so far, everything we've done, it hasn't stopped him. He's killing thousands of people. We don't know how many people he's killing and why there is no reason, because he can, because he can get away with it. Because he can. That's the answer, Jay, because he can. Cynthia, President Zelensky made an impassionate plea to the United Nations yesterday. And he was quite poignant to say, if you can't, and I'll paraphrase, if you can't kick Russia out of the UN for what we just witnessed in Bucha, in other cities, we're starting to see it, what good is the United Nations? What is the function of the United Nations if one of your voting members is guilty of perpetrating these war crimes and war crimes against humanity? Does Zelensky have a point in that? What good is the United Nations at this juncture? I saw that speech and I agree with him. What is the point? And I thought the same thing back when they voted and the Russian was able to vote and the whole thing, the proposal, this was at the very beginning of this invasion. And I think it's important we stop calling it a war. Because a war suggests that there is some wrongdoing on one side or the other. This is just a straight-up invasion from Russia into Ukraine. And I think that's an important, you know- Beyond that, it's murder. It's absolutely- I think they'll go murder all those people. That's what he's doing. It's as low as you can go. It's absolutely madness. I would go- There's question to both of you then. War, I agree with you, but I would also go further than invasion. It's murder. Yeah. And soon to probably be defined as genocide. We're probably heading down that road. Genocide. We've already headed down that. We are doing, he is doing that right now. Well, we know that Putin wants to be like Stalin, right? And Stalin used to say, all time death solves all problems. No man, no problem. And so maybe he's just trying to follow right after- And we already know he is trying to follow right after Stalin and take back all of the Soviet Union and put it back together again. And that's- I think you're right, Cynthia. I think in implementation, he's like Stalin. But as far as hopes and dreams, he's more like Catherine the Great. He has these great dreams of the 17th century of Russia and how Ukraine should be part of Russia. And he is like a child with a tantrum upset that they broke away back in the 90s. Right. Let me ask you this. Is the United Nations, is it outdated? Is its charter outdated, given the times that we're seeing right now? I mean, United Nations came about just after the war. And certainly we had fresh in our mind the camps of Auschwitz, all of the death camps in Germany and Poland and around Europe. Is it outdated though? That question's to both of you. Go ahead, Cynthia, you first. I'll say, I think so. If they're not gonna kick Russia out of it and not, or at least make them not take away their voting power, then yeah, it's useless. What good is it? I agree with Solinsky completely. What good is it if it's not gonna hold these guys accountable? Why aren't we hauling all these people into the hay right now for tribunals? That's what I think anyway. We have to get them first. Go get them and bring them out. To you, that question. I think Cynthia should go to Moscow and make a citizen's arrest. Well, no, I totally agree. The United Nations has been declined for years. And it's because there are essential flaws built into its charter. The Security Council where you have inhumane countries, who violate human rights all day long and they're supposed to decide who's violating human rights. We have a break to have Russia and China on the Security Council. It's a fatal flaw. And it's proving up right now. So I think what's happened is the United Nations it was a negotiated result after the war. Everybody felt that the winners, so to speak, the ones who were left standing after the war should have special rights and privileges and voting options and so on. And they have, but they have turned sour. And they have really pulled the rug out from under whatever moral direction the United Nations had. And right now, he's absolutely right. He's saying what we all should be saying. The United Nations is over. And furthermore, there's no way within the charter to amend the charter to change any of that. The flaw is fatal. The United Nations is over. So the big question is what do you do? You can't throw Russia out of the Security Council or the other special organizations that belongs to within the United Nations. And if you can't do that- They can't or they won't. You can't under the charter. Can a charter be amended? Yeah, but I think it's the same thing. You have to have the vote of these special countries, Russia and China, among them. All right. The problem is pretty serious because if you can't use, if the United Nations cannot act and cannot solve this problem, and there's a lot of problems they have failed to solve, how about Rwanda? The United Nations and the Blue Helmets, they left town. They left town so the genocide could proceed. What kind of uselessness is that? And that's just one example. There are many examples. And I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think it's in the public mind that the United Nations has no power. It's impotent. And so is the International Court of Criminal Justice impotent. So that was my next question is, what's their next step? And how fast does that need to happen? I understand that they can actually review the war crimes, analyze it, and come up with an evaluation of whether or not Putin is guilty of war crimes relatively in a matter of a couple of months. Do you think that will happen, Cynthia, to you on that question? You said it, Tim. You got to have the defendant in front of you. Well, they don't need the defendant in front of them. They need the evidence in front of them. They need to evaluate it. So there has to be a valuation, but my understanding is that the ICC can do this in a matter of a couple of months. And the question is, Cynthia, to you, will they? Why is it gonna take a couple of months? We've been watching this stuff for a month already. Why academics? I mean, I love them, but they want to sit around and talk all the time. Get straight to the point. You don't have to do some deep dive investigation. Turn on the television and you can see everything you need to know. I watched an interview of a Ukrainian resident who told the story of being in a crowd at a waiting for food at a grocery store in a line. And they came up and they randomly shot people in the head. Just walked up and shot them in the head or pulled them out of the line and had them pull their sweater off and pull their shirt over their head, which I don't understand what that point was, and then shoot them in front of all these people. And then the soldiers turned to the other people that they didn't shoot. And said to them, they were Nazis. We're just trying to protect you. See there, we protected you. So this crazy disinformation campaign that we look at and we think it's just going out to the Russians in Russia, but it is so much more pervasive and invasive than that. And I don't think I didn't realize it until I heard this woman talk. And when the soldier turned and said that to them, I was in shock for, I don't even know how long, I didn't even hear anything else on the TV for a while because I was trying to process what she was saying about and what it says about misinformation. Okay, thank you. You have a question, Kim. We have a question from one of our esteemed colleagues, Mr. Tespang, and he's put it like this. As you said, Jay, this is a reminder of what the Holocaust looked like. And from a German perspective, it does. That the Allied Forces basically came in and they had to end it. The United States had to end the Holocaust. They had to go in there and stop it. And you accurately read the reply from the War Department which before they did that, they were timid, they were intimidated. They were worried about Harry Hitler's being more angry than he already was. The question is, are we allied enough or too fragmented due to self-interest to be unallied? The answer is yes. We're not allied enough and we're too fragmented. I mean, this is so outrageous that the world has the power ultimately to stop it but is not stopping it. And ask me how I can show that. Well, it's not stopped. It still goes on every day. We watch it every day. Cynthia's point is well taken. The evidence is on the screen. It's on millions and millions and millions of screens around the world. And it's really pathetic that the Russian foreign minister would get up and say, no, no, no, it's all fake. All these people died, they were actors, it's fake. I mean, it's just completely outrageous. And it's my view, as I said before, this is a war on all of us, on every country. And we, the United States, the city on the hill, we cannot tolerate this. Western Europe cannot tolerate it. And yet, we tolerate it. We tolerate it, yes. To that point, Jay just mentioned, Cynthia, the evidence. Again, you heard from Lavrov. You heard from many people in Russia, the diplomats, saying that these are actors. One thing that they couldn't explain away was the satellite images of those bodies laying in the street in the exact position as early as March 15th. And as you know, the Ukraine forces just got into Butcher this weekend. And those images from the satellite matched up perfectly to the position of the bodies they saw this weekend. So Russia really can't explain that away, not accurately. And when does the world stop saying enough's enough with the, should I say disinformation or BS? But your points will take in Cynthia's that why does it take months for the ICC to get off the rear and do something? What else do you think can be done if the ICC does not act and the United Nations as a paper tiger? Do we go to Mr. Despain's point that, and Jay's point is just go in there, stop it. Well, you know, that's what I think too. I completely agree with Mr. Despain and Jay Fidel completely because, and if they wanna send me, I'll go. Like Jay said, it's gonna send me in there to get him. But no, I can't do it. But there's plenty of people that can. And I think that we need to not be afraid. And I said this in the last couple of shows that we've had about sort of about this whole thing that's going on in Ukraine is that how is it possible that we're all, and I'll use the term again, posting foot in around, you know, Putin as if we can't stop his nukes, we can. As if we can't go in there and get this done before he has a chance to do anything. Anyway, and so what we're supposed to say, and this is a question I always ask, what, how is it possible that it's okay for us to sacrifice the Ukraine's so that we won't get bombed? How is, I don't get that, I can't live with it. Isn't that the nature of all proxy wars? Yeah, exactly. And I don't, I can't live with that. And I know there's a lot of people in America that can't live with it. But one of the biggest problems is if you turn on Fox TV for even five minutes, the problem is completely Biden's. He's the one who got us into this mess or got the Ukraine's into this mess. They talk about Putin being this great guy. How can you blame him? It's his country anyway. All these just Russian talking points nonstop the whole time. And I mean, I try to tune in, but I can't take it for very long because I can only listen to these lies and this disinformation, misinformation that's not just coming out of Russia. It's coming out of our own American networks. And until we do something about that, boy, we're in big trouble. You know, where did all the Rupert Murdoch come from anyway? You know, so I don't know. I think that's our biggest problem is misinformation right here in America. Okay. Jay, I think I know the answer to this question. I'm gonna ask it anyway. Today we saw President Biden at a union rally and he mentioned, yet again, tough sanctions. And I'll go down the list of what those sanctions are. Number one is that he's gonna freeze now the major banks like Spar Bank and Alpha Bank, the two big Russian banks and stop all transactions whatsoever. Two is that he's gonna ban all new investments into Russia and that includes personnel and talent. Number three is he's gonna freeze all US bank assets here that the debt payments from Russia cannot be paid. And last but not least, his two children, his two daughters, they'll be, their assets will be seized if they're in the United States, along with Loverov and a few other people, the Security Council. I guess the question is, wasn't that done initially like weeks ago? And why is this now some cataclysmic sanction that now is gonna stop Putin from more butchers? We were timid a few weeks ago. You could argue that he was holding stuff up his sleeve. He did say that he, you know, if they kept on doing it, he was gonna take more draconian steps and I suppose these are the steps. But one thing is clear. I mean, it's just Aristotelian logic. We know that it didn't affect Putin. He's still in there. He's still doing it every day. He's still blowing people up and killing them on the street in the most brutal fashion and for the world to see. And so the sanctions, you can quote me on this, you guys, haven't worked, they haven't worked. However, they have affected the Russian economy and the world economy, they haven't worked. And these, I don't have a lot of confidence that these will work either. So it's not like the frog boiling slowly. You have to boil the frog right away. You have to take, you know, the strongest steps you can to make it clear that we have some will. Well, it's a point is the ruble. Remember it crashed horribly during the announcement of the initial sanctions. The ruble's back up and why is that? Demanded that his oil and gas products from Europe be paid in ruble. That propped up the ruble. So he just walked around the whole intent of sanctions by extorting Europe and other nations that if you want my gas and oil, you'll pay me in ruble. So my question is this, I'll get off the editorial part of it. The question is this, if the work crimes we've saw and have seen in Bucha, what possibly can the world do if he starts to use chemical weapons or biological weapons? What other parts of Putin's family will be sanctioned and say, please don't do that again? Jay, to you. What will the world do if Putin goes to chemical warfare or biological warfare? What will the world do or what will the world should do? The answer about the first question, what will the world do probably not enough? He'll have his way. He'll murder a lot of people. It'll be genocide and we'll tighten the sanctions maybe and we'll have some more discussions in the General Assembly, but it won't stop him. So that's what the world will actually do. What the world should do is get its act together and the United Nations has to follow through and NATO has to follow through and the US has to follow through. You can't kill people in our face this way. You can't do it. We're not going to let you do it. We're going to come in. We have to come in because it's already clear. Is it not? It's already clear that short of that he's not listening and he won't listen. No, and I don't know. I mean, so okay, it's not a good thing to have a nuclear war. No, it's not a good thing to have him attack the US. No, or Western Europe. No, but this is a moral question. Are we going to let one actor do this? Take over the land. And this is like making the winning of World War II irrelevant. This is what it was about. You can't take your neighbor's property. You can't attack people and kill them by the million. You can't do that. We're not going to let you do that. Never again happening. So we have to stop it from happening. Cynthia to you with the same question. If what we're seeing in Bucha and other towns and villages and cities as Russia has retreated and we're finding all these crimes, crimes against humanity, what does the world do or should do if Putin uses biological or chemical weapons? Well, I'm with Jay. They should go in and stop them, but I don't think they should wait until then. I think they should go do it now. I know that we're all sick of war. I know nobody wants to go to war, but it seems so wrong that our security is going to depend on the death of a nation, a whole nation of people are going to die because we don't want to go to war. But Cynthia, because they die doesn't mean we're more secure. If they die, we're probably less secure. Exactly. Thank you very much for adding that, Jay, because that's kind of- Okay, well, let me, I mean, this is the obvious to me. There is an alternative far less than a potential in the world war and that is convince Europe, your economy may have to take a real bludgeon hit, but stop buying gas and oil from Russia. I mean, isn't that more palatable than the potential exchange of nuclear weapons in a war that can't be won? Isn't just the fact that an economic blockade of all gas and oil products should be the next step? Definitely, that should be now. That should have already happened in my mind. We don't need to wait for chemical weapons for that to be implemented. I think that should already be right now, but I think hasn't Biden already been trying to appeal to these people to stop getting the oil? They kind of slowed down and they cut back. China is buying oil from Putin. India is buying oil from Putin. India and China is buying oil from Putin. All right, perfect. The sanctions are what economic warnings should we send to both India and China for this breach of economic blockade and the fact they're not willing to acknowledge that there is war crimes taking place. Why should consumers still be happily buying from China and India? Are you asking me? I'm gonna ask both of you that question. I'll send it to you. You answer first, Jay. You go ahead, Jay. Logically, what should happen is Biden says, well, I'm gonna put sanctions on you guys. If you buy oil, I'm gonna put sanctions on you. And then we have the whole world divided into two economic and beyond that, two clearly defined camps. Do you like Russia or not? It already is going that way, you know? And also, I wanna add this, and I'll leave you plenty of room, Cynthia. We already decided this is a hybrid war. We already decided it's not just the shooting and the missiles and the murder. I mean, the physical murder, the kinetic murder. It's everything and anything. Yesterday, there was a report that the Russian cyber hackers had hacked into Zelensky's system and included a message on Zelensky's, you know, operational website to the effect that he had surrendered. He had surrendered. This came from Russia. This came from Putin. This is just another weapon in the hybrid war, a non-kinetic weapon. And when you say that, when you conclude that we're in a hybrid war and everything, everything is on the table, including misinformation and propaganda and false threats and hacking everything is on the table. And this war has to be looked at. We have to look at it that way. We are in a third world war. It is a hybrid war. And it's not just shooting at each other. Okay, Cynthia, we've run out of time, but I'd like to hear your response. I agree with Jay. And I have a quote I'd like to say since we're over time anyway, instead of telling my opinion, I'd rather share some very wise words from a few people if that's okay. Go ahead. I have one that's from Volodymyr Zelensky. And it says, we are all here, defending our independence, our country. And it will stay that way. Glory to the men and women defending us, glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes. Plato said, only the dead have seen the end of war. Ooh, boy, did he know what he was talking about. Ernest Hemingway said, never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Howard Zinn, who was a historian, said, there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. Ooh, okay, so now my final thing, and this will be my last word even, okay. It's a quote from the Pope. The tragedy of war taking place in the heart of Europe has left us stunned. Once more humanity is threatened by a perverse abuse of power and partisan interests, which condemns defensive people to suffer every form of brutal violence. The Pope told the Catholic Church conference this that faced with the brutality and barbarity of killing of children, of innocents and unarmed civilians, no strategic reasons can hold up. The only thing to do is stop this unacceptable armed aggression before it reduces cities into cemeteries. In the name of God, I ask you, stop this massacre. And this is what the Pope said on March 23rd. No, March 23rd. All right, thank you. Jay, you get the last word. March 23rd was two weeks ago. That didn't work either. No. Nothing so far has worked, and Vladimir Putin is determined to keep going and using every weapon, the Connecticut and otherwise at his disposal. We have to find a way to stop him. All right, I want to thank our guest Jay Fidel, Cynthia Leeson-Claire. I'm Tim Appachell, your host for What Now America. And I'll ask that question again, What Now America? Join us next week, Wednesday, 11 o'clock. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.