Ukrainian Congress Committee of America: On Disloyalty

 
Throughout our nation’s history, the most prominent examples of the disloyalty charge in the United States have come in the midst of major world conflicts. In the years leading up to World War II, anti-immigrant voices in the media would paint Europe’s fight against genocidal totalitarianism as little more than a “Jewish cause,” alleging that Jews in this country sought to involve America in foreign wars against the nation’s true interest. Similarly, when Joseph Stalin began to forcibly starve Ukrainians in the genocide of 7-10 million Ukrainians - remembered today as the Holodomor - Ukrainian Americans were dismissed as liars who sought to create a conflict with the Soviet Union, right at the moment the United States began normalizing diplomatic relations with the USSR.
 
On the evening of October 28, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a U.S. Army foreign area officer wounded and decorated for his service in Iraq, released to the press his opening statement to Congress. A member of President Trump’s National Security Council since 2018, out of a “sense of duty” Lt. Col. Vindman had twice registered his concerns about this administration’s improper demands of Ukraine, a strategic ally of the United States.
 
This brave public servant came forward to the people’s house, the U.S. Congress, guided by his conscience, as it had all of his life. This act of individual courage reminds us that truth and justice remain ideals that Americans still yearn to live by.
 
And yet, the character of Lt. Col. Vindman was immediately called into question by anti-immigrant voices in the media. This is unacceptable in a country made up of immigrants, and should be strongly rejected.
 
Chief among the media’s charges was that Lt. Col. Vindman was known to have spoken in the Ukrainian language with Ukrainian diplomats. Combined with his birth in the Ukrainian S.S.R., this immigrant, who serves the United States dutifully, is being accused of disloyalty.
 
The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the largest representative organization of Americans of Ukrainian descent, unequivocally condemns this smear campaign against an American war hero.

Source: UCCA