Yuri Gagarin, first person in space, has had his name removed from fundraiser

I will admit that this action is less ugly than much of the anti-Russian hate I’ve seen lately. It still makes my stomach churn that they chose to ‘cancel’ the first human in space post-humously because the leader of a country that didn’t even exist when Gagarin was alive, chose to invade another country.

I believe wars of aggression are always wrong and are always war crimes per the Geneva Conventions, whether it is by the US (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya etc.) or Russia (Ukraine) or the Soviet Union (Afghanistan also).

I don’t believe it is right to foment or tolerate hate against an entire people or culture simply because their totalitarian leader decided to invade.

For the record, I absolutely support the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves against a foreign invader and believe other countries should help, but I stop at supporting hate towards civilians of any nations.

If anything, we who live in western democracies have more to atone for than our neighbors living in totalitarian regimes.

I am still waiting for anyone to strip George Bush Jr. and Tony Blair among others of their awards and recognition since we all now know that WMDs and spreading democracy were lies used to justify the killing of 1 million Iraqi civilians.