During my July holiday, I read a book by a former soldier of the British Army, Shaun Pinner. The Brit married a Ukrainian woman and fell in love with his adopted hometown of Mariupol. He enlisted in the Ukraine Army in 2018, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in the last six months of his enlistment contract. He was captured during the siege of Mariupol.
What makes this book so interesting is that as an American, during the cold war, I naively assumed that if the US and the USSR ever went to war that both sides would act in accordance with the Geneva Conventions because, after all, both countries had a long history of civilization and culture, and a common history of Christianity and Christian morality, even if the Soviet government was officially atheistic. Shaun Pinner’s book, along with the U.S. history of torture under George W Bush and unlawful extra-judicial killings under Donald Trump and SecDef Hegsdeth, and the gross violations of human rights by ICE, show that neither the United States nor Russia can be relied on to always adhere to international law, Christian principles, or even common morality.
Shaun Pinner’s riveting book details the extensive torture he experienced despite being a uniformed military member, when Russia should have allowed him the rights of a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Conventions. Instead, Pinner was given electric shocks, beaten repeatedly, starved, denied medical care, humiliated, used for propaganda purposes, stabbed in the leg, kept in isolation for long periods of time, and pistol-whipped. This book shows the moral depravity of the Russian forces at its worst. Torture appears to have been the policy of Russian forces in the region rather than an isolated exception. Eventually, Mr. Pinner was forced to participate in a rigged trial established for propaganda purposes where the verdict was predetermined. It was a sham trial that would have made Chinese or Soviet leaders happy. Not surprisingly, Shaun Pinner was found guilty on trumped up charges by a fake court of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, a puppet state installed by Putin after Russian forces invaded, and which has now been illegally annexed by Russia. The United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution condemning the “attempted illegal annexation” and demanded that Russian forces withdraw. The United Nations Human Rights Office and Human Rights Watch have reported torture and extrajudicial killings in the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The “DPR People’s Militia” has been held responsible for war crimes. Their sham court sentenced Shaun Pinner to death. Of note, the DPR and the DPR People’s Militia are Russian-organized and controlled. Putin and Russian forces are not acting out of moral or Christian values.
In September 2022, Mr. Pinner was freed during a prisoner exchange, in large part because of media attention in England that kept his name in the news.
Books such as this one are important for freedom-loving people around the world to read. It is also a reminder of how much those of us who value liberty and freedom must work constantly for the rule of law, to support the people of Ukraine and other freedom-fighters, and to fight to uphold civilized values such as the Geneva Conventions. The United States was moving on the right path until Bush implemented the torture of detainees at Guantanamo and at other black sites. Trump worsened America’s image as a defender of human rights and freedom with his policies undercutting the rule of law, attacking free speech, attacking an independent judiciary, authorizing mass incarceration of immigrants and refugees, Trump’s widespread abuse of detainees by ICE, and policies making the U.S. military the judge, jury, and executioner of civilians on boats far from our shores who pose no imminent threat to the United States and aren’t even headed for the U.S. This book reminds Americans of how valuable and hard-won freedom and democracy is, and the terrible consequences of authoritarian despots such as Putin, and those wanna-be authoritarians like Donald Trump who apparently does whatever Putin tells him to do. Americans have to be wondering, what exactly is it that Vladimir Putin is blackmailing Trump with?
Dr. Beaux Bonhoeffer
Find me also @beauxbonhoeffer.bsky.social and at beauxbonhoeffer.substack.com
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