The Road to Bucha

4.12.22

Disclaimer: The content you are about to read contains graphic descriptions. Some may find the following details triggering or uncomfortable.

The images coming out of Ukraine are infuriating, revolting, and heartbreaking. We are seeing bodies in the middle of roads that used to be bustling markets, tortured hands bound together that used to fold in prayer, tear-stained faces that used to smile.

We see Ukrainians’ real-time reactions of anguish, rage, and disbelief. We view these reactions on a screen, anonymously, from the safety of our own homes and US soil. If we were watching a video, we might hear the anguish, the rage, and the shock.

We can’t smell it though. That is one of the worst memories from my experience at the Al Quaeda torture chambers in Iraq — I’ll never forget the stench of decaying bodies.

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you believe atrocities.” — Voltaire

Fortunately, we don’t yet have the atrocity in the United States of America that Ukraine is experiencing, but we do have many who believe absurdity and all too many who make their millions by pushing absurdities on nightly talk shows or in emails to voters. The Tucker Carlson’s and Madison Cawthorn’s of our country want you to believe absurdity: that your neighbors are “communist,” that refugees are vermin, that a family that looks different than yours is a sin.

The time to stand up to absurdity is now, long before it becomes atrocity.

In this election cycle, we are supporting candidates who have worn our nation’s uniform during wartime and served in the clandestine intelligence community.

We need your support and your time to help elevate these responsible leaders.

Help us push back against absurdity and against those who have fallen for its seductive reward: personal power. The road to Bucha is long, but every step forward only makes it more likely we arrive there. And then, if we survive, we will have to answer to our consciences and our children why we did nothing to stop the atrocity, when we could have.

In Service,

Dan Barkhuff