Many of the numerous commentators on the Russia-Ukraine war who wouldn’t know their Glock from their Arsenov (which includes this correspondent) seem to be very confident in pronouncing the Russian campaign to be a failure.
This seems to be based on a presumption, on little evidence, that Putin had expected a rapid victory somewhere between the 1990-1991 US invasion of Kuwait to drive out the Iraqi army (four days), and the 2003 invasion of Iraq proper (four weeks).
The invasion of Ukraine is now in its third week. Four weeks is ludicrously short for any invasion, so if that was expected it is a measure of the delusional space to which Putin is said to have retreated. More likely, it is the ever more rapid circulation of the news cycle which has shifted our expectations of a narrative.
There is scarcely a campaign from 20th century wars that did not take at least weeks, and usually months, and this is the neighbourhood of Stalingrad. If Russia didn’t anticipate at least the possibility of a longer campaign, it doesn’t know its history. That seems unlikely.
Having spent the past six months or so saying that the Australian press gallery should spend more time thinking about the systemically distorted perspectives Australian politicians are working off, it might seem perverse to insist that it is best to look for the rational aspect of Russian action. But this is necessary because the Western assessment of Putin is so saturated with what we call “Orientalism” — the attributing to non-Westerners of passionate emotion, myth and “the Russian [Arab/Chinese/Burkina Faso] mind”, while the West works off cold reason.
Thus whatever the Russians might have done in underestimating Ukrainian resistance, the West seems to have stumbled in a campaign in which its political leaders have summoned up public emotion (which is also coming genuinely from the grassroots) for joining a wider war of solidarity, while then having to tamp down any enthusiasm for the means — a NATO-Russia air war, described as a no-fly zone — that would be its only means of being achieved.
As NATO’s commitments have become steadily less compelling — with the promise, then cancellation of a supply of MiG25 jets from Poland — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s demands for a moral response from NATO have become more all-encompassing. His irritating (to Western leaders) desire to take them at their word has made him increasingly angry in his statements — that anger is then taken as a refreshing passion and directness we so rarely see in politics these days, his video appearance before the UK Parliament taken as a dose of political Viagra for a jaded and cynical West.
Now he may have overshot the mark, and started to become an inconvenience. For a brief moment it seemed likely that Western public anger, in conjunction with the urgings of think tanks and emigres might have made an air war/no-fly zone something that would be taken up by a majority of politicians, creating its real possibility. The sudden realness of that reality might have been enough to take it off the table; now, a few days later, it is a distant memory.
As the possibility of armed action for a moral cause has faded, Zelenskyy, whether from desperation or strategy, has upped the moral demand, labelling the deaths at a maternity hospital in Mariupol as “genocide”.
At the moment, the truth of the maternity hospital episode remains unknown. Pro-Ukraine Western media have portrayed it as a targeted attack, when it appears to be part of general urban shelling. Other sources have suggested it was no longer operating as a maternity hospital, and Russian media is more or less labelling it a “false-flag” operation. The usual wilderness of mirrors begins to flash.
Unless one is a willing sentimentalist — say, much of the Western general public and numerous compliant journalists — an attack on a maternity hospital has to be assessed with some critical scrutiny.
Ukraine, having been a Western encampment of political shonks and agencies for years, has some powerful PR spinners. The “maternity hospital” attack, bloodied bedding et al, combines causes dear to both Western conservative and progressive hearts — an attack on family, and an attack on women — and reminds one of the PR campaign run during the Kuwait war in 1990-1991 by Burson-Marstellar, when we were told that invading Iraqi troops had ripped premature babies from humidicribs so that the equipment could be sent back to Iraq.
That was an earlier era, when people were less sceptical of such (as yet unnamed) memes; more sophisticated methods must be used. The Mariupol hospital attack is unlikely to be made from whole cloth, but it seems very likely to be some sort of construction. Brutal and criminal as shelling civilians is, it does not constitute “genocide”, and Zelenskyy is attempting to up the stakes by using terms that the West has turned into a form of moral licence for intervention in non-Western societies without consideration of limits of damage.
That is now taking the war into some strange places.
While the Russian invasion remains unjustifiable and unlawful, news is seeping through of the prominence of neo-Nazi groups such as the Azov brigade in the east, their prominence within the oligarch-funded politics of Ukraine, the war on ethnic Russians in the east, and the deployment of a notion of western Ukrainianism against Asiatic barbarity in their rationale.
This is the point the hapless questioner was trying to make in Q+A, before Stan Grant and the ABC enforced the Western party line and booted him out. (Imagine describing Q+A as if it were a Russian show: “The state broadcaster runs the program, which selects audience and guests according to a set political formula; questions from the selected audience are then prescreened, and no deviation from the wording is permitted, on pain of begin expelled from the studio. This is what they call ‘free speech’ …”)
The struggle against fascism thus involves the funding and supply of weapons to well-organised groups that are openly fascist and anti-Semitic, blaming the Jews in the usual fashion for the problems of decent nationalist Ukrainians. This is setting the stage for continued regional instability and civil war, even after the war proper has been resolved. Which, some suggest, has been the US/NATO game plan all along as a way of hitting back for Russia’s extension of influence into Syria.
But another paradoxical effect goes the other way, and that is a reflection back on Western standards of actions in other countries. For if the bombing of Mariupol constitutes a genocidal attack, what does that say about Israeli collective punishment attacks on Gaza? Hamas’ few rockets do not even approach the level of provocation of attacks on ethnic Russians that Putin has used as pretext, and the destruction visited by Israel on Gaza is far closer to genocide than Russia’s still-limited war in Ukraine. This is one reason why Israel has been slow to criticise Russia; it wants to reserve the right to knock the neighbours around from a position of overwhelming power and call it justice.
What also of our active support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, where we are far more enabling than in Ukraine? Does our support of mass civilian bombing and engineered famine reach the level of genocide when applied to a distinct ethnic population, one targeted for its religious-political differences with the Sunni Saudis? Is this why Western powers appear to be quietly, gradually trying to disengage their publics from full identification with the Ukrainians and their suffering?
Above all, will the “whiteness” crowd who made a few noises about selective sympathy at the start of the war have the courage to speak the deeper truth that will not be popular — that much of the solidarity of this war draws on whiteness, and extends and rejuvenates its power in the world?
Will they take the opportunity to turn it into an opportunity to make the difference between Western and non-Western suffering starker in the public mind or, by silence and omission, allow that difference to be elided and the notion of legitimate differentiation between white and brown victims of violence to be restored?
Or will they stick to the easier task of policing who writes about whom in middlebrow novels?
Daily the war is twisting and changing our conception and the reality of the world in ways that peace cannot. And there are, quite possibly, months to go …
Another great article. Rundle continues to make Crikey worth subscribing to.
unfortunately the others are getting caught up in the anti-Russian rabid hate
I don’t think it’s “anti-Russian rabid hate”, it’s more like an emotional reaction to what people are seeing and reading about the invasion. And, while there is a lot of complexity in the background about reasons, etc, Russia did actually choose to invade a neighbouring country, and that invasion does involve a lot of death, destruction, and human suffering. In such situations, it’s natural to side emotionally with the defender rather than the attacker.
Disagree. No siding with any of the Wests non-white victims is there? Afghanistan left to rot, no sanctions against the US, UK amd Australia for the 1.2 Million they killed in Iraq or the 274K killed in Afghanistan, no War Crimes investigations, no (useless) UN Resolution.
This is wholly and solely a reaction to non-western country daring to invade a white, mostly christian, European country rather than the West invading a non-Western Country. The TV coverage etc doesn’t help. It’s easy to ignore the deaths of Asian, brown and black people when they only show 5 mins on the news when it’s a Western invasion somewhere else (unless of course, the invaded country dares to actually fight back hard and actually starts killing white invaders).
It appears that the BLM movement has taught the West nothing.
“No siding with any of the Wests’ non-white victims is there?”
Both Ukraine and Russia are largely white, Christian countries.
But yes, I agree, white, christian countries (not just “the West”) do tend to be more concerned when white Christians are victims either of natural or man-made disasters.
Given the reaction by “the West” to the situation in Ukraine, “more concerned” is very much an understatement.
As it is an overstatement to say that the entire “the West” reacts in a single, entirely predictable way.
They generally don’t react at all if it’s the West doing the invading. That’s the problem. No consistency.
Who doesn’t react if “the West is doing the invading”? Who are “they”? Do you mean “the West” in general?
In which case, you’re missing the broad opposition to the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, for a start.
So did we side emotionally with all those non-European, non-white defenders Western powers felt like invading, bombing, destroying? Did we call it genocide? Did we condemn the attackers and bring them to justice for all their war crimes?
Who do you mean by ‘we’? Me? You? “the West”?
If you mean “the West”, I don’t feel qualified to speak for the entire “the West”, but I would say that, funnily enough, when Russia invaded Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, there was a general emotional siding with the ‘non-white defenders.’ I particularly remember a documentary on UK television about the “heroic mountain men” resisting the Soviet occupation.
So it does happen.
That those “heroic mountain men” turned out to be the forebears of Al-Qaeda is another story . . .
I think it’s a reason not to bother subscribing any more to Crikey, ‘churnalism’ and one understands that media are now under resourced scribes who are compelled to write x no. of words on issues of the day.
However, one can find better analysis via other Anglo or European media (more aware of the danger of Russian influence), and without the disruptive below the line commenting, deflecting from Putin, and masking many other salient issues for analysis (classic Oz legacy media on other issues, an electoral slogan or a binary; but ignore everything else).
Keir Semmens’ article 11 March ’22 ‘Putin’s folly: the Russian president has lost the war — he just doesn’t know it yet‘ is more analytical and includes sources, for basic credibility (I hope we are not seeing Fox style ‘fair and balanced’ aka ABC etc.?).
The fact is, that while both Russia and Ukraine do PR while playing hard and fast with some ‘facts’, people in Ukraine can describe and transmit what is happening with SM etc, but in Russia only state media, with censorship of its own citizens, to inform the outside world? Comparing apples with oranges, unless someone can find a credible Russian (or expert) source.
Related, apparently increasing numbers of Russians, not previously familiar, now searching for VPNs to use for outside news on Russia… along with ’emigration’ being high on the most searched ‘keywords’.
I wouldn’t get too fussed, Crikey is just one of my sources, it has lots of info and argument on national politics I don’t find elsewhere. It’s still finding its feet re gravitas and value on international matters. As for the below the line commentary, yes there are some trolls and those I regard as Crikey’s equivalent of the Herald-Sun’s 50-50 contributors, ignorant and illogical with a few pounds of outrage. I just ignore them and engage with those with saying something that has added value.
If Zelenskyy has been led on by the West, he can be forgiven some anger, frustration and strategic communications.
All this is very interesting – and important – but we’re all in the fortunate position of being able to afford the luxury of analysis like this. Ukrainians aren’t so fortunate.
‘If Zelenskyy has been led on by the West‘
An interesting idea. The ‘Marsh Kurds’ were hung out to dry iirc. Could be that Zel is going to another victim of half baked US foreign and domestic policy.
Was that meant to be a pun about “…hung out to dry…”?
The Marsh Arabs are not Kurds, who live hundreds of kms north.
Are you confusing Saddam’s long term diversion of the Tigris/Euphrates flows (to destroy their culture’s protective environment where armoured divisions & military were useless) with the abandonment of the Shia & Kurds who took Shrub snr at his word when he promised support post GW I if they rose up?
Lots of provocations in this one. Muddying up the shelling of the hospital, did the Ukrainians over-egg it, was it deliberate or not, maybe it didn’t have anyone in it. These are as out of the war propaganda handbook as the claim of genocide and attacks on women and children. Underlying reality, Russia invaded, they are shelling cities and women and children are definitely being killed, all inexcusable. It is like the defense barrister for the violent spouse, “but he didn’t use the knife and he only hit her twice not the three times she claims, she is unreliable, throw the case out.”
The we have the “hapless questioner”. His question showed he was acting in bad faith, he pretty clearly wasn’t there to engage but to proselytize and provoke. His type turn up quite regularly at meetings and demonstrations and try to hijack them. I’m sure Guy’s seen plenty of Trots and others in action doing just that over the years. In a certain way they are hapless but they are an imposition on people’s time and good will and add nothing.
Then we have all the whataboutary, an invitation to the “by comparison this can be excused brigade”. There are worthwhile points to be made about the Azov battalion and the general danger fascist movements might present to Ukraine but the slipshod, short on facts, throw it in along with a quick and mostly inaccurate and un-contextualised gloss on what has been happening in eastern Ukraine, is frankly of no value except as a provocation.
I do not object to using what is happening in Ukraine to point out Western hypocrisy and raacism, and even try and get some focus on where actions are not being taken elsewhere in the world. To this end more use of facts and sources would do a better job. For example, fleshing out the claim about doing more to help Saudi Arabi re Yemen. That would be useful in providing wider traction to that criticism, getting it out there.
But I do object to using Ukraine solely for this West shaming purpose and doing it via staging provocations that are little more than click bait.
Yeah, more credence to doubtful comments about persecution of ethnic Russians than to the obvious destruction of a hospital.
There’s no serious doubt civilian areas are being shelled. There can be serious doubt that a maternity hospital was hit, if hit was targeted, or if it was a maternity hospital at all – especially if its being used as a symbol of russia’s barbarity across the news sites of the world. Stop thinking that because yve seen a pic of a hospital bed covered in blood, that you know some truth – a truth which its therefore callous to question. A photo and a report tells you bugger all. Start questioning whats being fed to your emotional rweceptors.
As to Sacha wossname ‘provoking and proselytising’ – you mean asking difficult questions which express an alternative viewpoint?
Having seen multiple reports in three languages, I’m pretty satisfied that the hospital story is probably true. Do you really think the dastardly Ukrainians are so perfidious that they could set all this up while under heavy attack and no-one would see through it?
If you had some evidence that it was a fake, sure, let us know, but until then save your outrage about sh*t western media for another time. Anyone with sense knows it’s sh*t, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Ukrainians are dying in an unprovoked and brutal invasion.
Bob, read the article properly before commenting: i never said it was a fake or false flag operation. Im asking if the hospital was targeted, or whethrr it was part of – still brutal – random shelling, and what the pictures we were seeing were actually of. And how this one incident became a universally reproduced story, suddenly everywhere.
Obviously, a week on, we do now realise that Putin is targeting both schools and hospitals,
And the video of a very pregnant woman being stretchered out of the rubble? What serious doubt does that raise? There is evidence a maternity hospital was shelled. There is no evidence it was propaganda, unless you consider pro-Russian propaganda “evidence”. People who are willing to believe claims with no evidence are likely to make very poor decisions.
More “…a very pregnant woman being stretchered
out ofACROSS the rubble”, in oddly sharp focus, carefully framed etc etc.It might help to understand the ‘propaganda‘ – from congregatio de propaganda fide as part of Rome’s resistance to the Reformation, based on the Latin for planting or grafting.
It takes really well when minds are so full of well rotted manure.
A “fortuitous” encounter by the film crew I think not.
If you shortened your comment to “I think not” you would be 100% accurate.
If you didn’t make any comments at all, you would be 100% accurate.
True. I’m accurate whether I’m commenting here or not, because my critical faculties are in good nick. Whereas you are swallowing obvious propaganda whole and flinging insults at everyone who disagrees with you. It is very boring.
Have you actually read your own posts? You get stuck into anyone that even disagrees with you.
Lexusaussie – you repeatedly insult people instead of offering arguments. Every commenter on Crikey can see that, no matter how many accounts you or your mates have to down vote commenters who point out your errors.
Like when ZaraHarry says above that:
“And the video of a very pregnant woman being stretchered out of the rubble? What serious doubt does that raise? There is evidence a maternity hospital was shelled. There is no evidence it was propaganda, unless you consider pro-Russian propaganda “evidence”. People who are willing to believe claims with no evidence are likely to make very poor decisions.”
An honest comment like that – about a pregnant woman – gets voted down???
And the follow-up comment just makes a personal attack combined with a patronising use of a dead language.
The fact that you’re in lock-step with GR as he distracts from and plays down the horror of what Putin is doing in Ukraine speaks volumes for both of you.
Have you enlisted yet?
I love how it’s OK for you to take potshots at others who have a differing opinion but not others.
Gen Y/Z cancel culture at its finest. Otherwise known as the silencing of those with dissenting views that point out the hypocrisy of those “crying out for justice”.
Your suggested “help” is utterly irrelevant. There is significant credible evidence the maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed, and this is accepted by the UN. There is no credible evidence it was not. The only “evidence” it was not are tweets from the Russian embassy labelling it fake. People who have their critical thinking faculties intact accept a claim if and when there is credible evidence for it, and otherwise waste no time on it. By accepting Russian propaganda that this is fake news, you are adding an unjustified insult to a very significant injury. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-woman-who-escaped-mariupol-maternity-ward-gives-birth
There was “significant credible evidence” that those responsible for 9/11 were to be found in Afghanistan. Evidence that was widely accepted and so we went to war. There was also apparently “significant credible evidence” that Iraq had WMD. This “evidence” was also widely accepted and so the ‘Coalition of the willing’ went to war again. And on and on it goes…
No there wasn’t.
You’ve got a tough argument here ZaraHarry.
Imagine two kids in a school yard, the big one (“X”) thumping the snot of the small one (“Y”).
Normal person: Hey X! Stop thumping Y!
Team Pilger: No, it’s not so bad.
Normal person: What you mean?
Team Pilger: Don’t you remember what happened 50 years on the other side of the world? Where was your outrage then?
Normal person: Actually I demonstrated against that …
Team Pilger: Don’t interrupt me! You’re just concerned about your White Privilege. Get out of my sight. You are a disgusting human being.
(X keeps thumping Y while Team Pilger continues to express its great sorrow about the sad state of the world and how we need a revolution again Normal People.)
A metaphor unmoored to recognisable reality is a waste of oxygen.
Stick to Aesop,a good model, until you figure out how to do that.
I think theres enough evidence to say a hospital was hit. I dont think scenes have been fabricated.
But if you did want to fabricate it, nothing would be easier than a pregnant woman staggering out of rubble. Any such metaphorical process – one person standing for a process, locked off shots, context absence – is always easy to fake. And is the worst thing to rely on imo
The BBC research Institute for the Study of War has verified the location of a confirmed military explosion at Mariupol maternity hospital. There was reasonably extensive video coverage of the bombing of this hospital which would be very difficult to fabricate, particularly given the Ukrainians lack the most basic resources in Mariupol. It is not a metaphorical process, certainly not to the people suffering and dying. It is not one person, it is not locked off shots and there is no absence of context. There is no But.
The following ABC report includes video footage of the damage to the hospital and the evacuation of several pregnant women, including Vishegirskaya. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/woman-who-fled-mariupol-bombing-gives-birth/100905260
You need to hurry, I have many other eager buyers lined up for the bridge I’m selling.
Yawn.
Well I don’t think there can be serious doubt. Given the number of reporters and citizens as reporters on the ground, and the opportunities shelling is tragically creating, why need to create the incident? Agree re spinning and exploitation of it for emotive purposes is something to be aware of, but I suspect most Crikey readers are well aware of it. I noted days ago we should prepare for pitch-forking of babies stories from both sides.
The actual extent of reporters, plus everyone with mobile phones, is likely to make this war much more like Vietnam than Iraq or Afghanistan. There will be a propaganda war but perhaps less controllable than recent ones. Much less mediated, though the war for narratives is already intense.
Perhaps you are just succumbing to the frustration, and I often feel it myself, of seeing MSM reports and thinking, people are just swallowing this. I feel that if I spend 5 minutes listening to talkback radio. But even among the 3AW, 2GB listeners it’s not entirely true
And I’m not so much with the emotion v reason binary, what is going on deserves an emotional response as well. It would not be human not to have one. Indeed it can be dehumanising to separate them.
I won’t waste much time on Sacha. The reported change to his question to my mind either showed bad faith or he was genuinely so out of his depth he didn’t realise it mattered. Subsequent quotes from him, and I’ll admit they may distort, indicated someone whose sophistication and knowledge was early undergraduate at best. Somehow, he is apparently doing a PhD, go figure. I’ve seen plenty of people turn a room, upend a paradigm or challenge groupthink and they were all carefully across the facts and arguments and worked to persuade not provoke. Though their ideas were often (constructively) provoking nonetheless.
There are so many other related issues worth interrogating, but people get caught up with simplistic e.g. NATO, or simply scrutinising in detail events;l worse one has experienced both ageing left and right sharing same talking points.
However, this acts as block to broader understanding & analysis if it’s based on perceptions or opinions, but also works like a ‘dog whistle’ keeps attention away from other salient points, goes round in circles….
Good example is how the UK Tories (and some old Labour left) are desperate to avoid too many questions on Russian money/influence, Londongrad etc. e.g focus upon Ukraine but not policies at home.
Agree. This article is uncharacteristically blurry for Rundle.
It seems to be about moral relativism – so why doesn’t he just spit it out: What it is, why we employ it or avoid it, and site concrete examples of both in contemporary history?
Is it such an unlikely circumstance to believe that indiscriminate shelling/bombing of a mostly civilian target – such as a city – will from time to time result in damage to non-military targets such as homes, schools and hospitals? Most of the discussion of the reported attacks on Maruipol – including the hospital – that I have read condemn a Russian tactic of placing civilians at risk through their bombing attacks, and highlight the reported destruction of the hospital as an example of that. I suppose it’s possible that we have all been duped and the hospital was actually a working munitions factory or some other kind of military target, but you’ll forgive me for reading these stories and continuing to hold a dim view of Russia’s objectives and tactics. This is a view I will continue to hold no matter how much Russia’s actions are apparently justified by the grievance caused by the preceding months and years of NATO sabre-rattling, which I’m led to understand from some media sources left Russia with no choice but to lash out and invade Ukraine.
I am, however, intrigued by this argument that because ‘the West’ has turned a blind eye to foreign atrocities throughout history, some rule of consistency demands that we should continue to do so in the case of Ukraine. If it is immoral to support Saudi Arabia in Yemen (and I agree it is), my conscience tells me it must also be immoral to support Russia in Ukraine. Good point.
Well said.GR’s daily search to excuse the inexcusable are becoming beyond comprehension.
Erm, I think you misunderstood the argument Guy is making.
Where in the article does Grundle suggest a blind eye should be turned? As far as I can tell the article merely poses a bleedingly obvious question about the reasons for the difference in approach – and stops well short of pointing out the obvious answer.
Your comment merely highlights his point about this strange intolerance of any interrogation of or even reflection on the West’s position on Ukraine.
If you read attentively enough, you’ll see i agree with you. The shelling of civilian areas seems real; a hospital was part of it. I take no opinion on the argument of whether the hospital was in use or not. But shelling civilian areas is not ‘genocide’
Nor is shelling the same as bombing, and is the word “indiscriminate” justified? Both terms are emotive and seem to be used freely, probably incorrectly, for a purpose.
Different in what way? Could you please include in your answer description of the kinds of injuries that occur only in one and not the other. I fear the nuances of your distinction may be lost on the citizens of Kharkiv and Mariupol (yes and Aleppo, Sana’a, etc.)
Nuance in war reportage ended with ‘collateral damage‘, ca.1965-66,some where in SE Asia IIRC.
Not sure whether it was Gen.Wastemoreland, he of “destroying a village in order to save it”, a sub-tropical version of ‘better red than dead’ or the Col. Kurz wannabe who unleashed Agent Orange but, hey it stopped the country going commie!
Perhaps, if you’re really interested, you could examine the meanings of the words ‘shell’ and ‘bomb’. I’ll leave you to delve into the kinds of injuries if you must.
“…If it is immoral to support Saudi Arabia in Yemen (and I agree it is), my conscience tells me it must also be immoral to support Russia in Ukraine….”
Immoral it certainly is but it doesn’t stop the Brits and Americans supporting Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their attacks on the Yemen by providing armaments, intelligence and support in the latter two’s attacks on one of the poorest countries in the world. The hypocrisy on the part of the West when it comes to dealing with their b@stards certainly matches the level of their immorality. As further proof, there is Iraq and Syria where Saudi Arabia, the UAE together with Turkey have been supporting various jihadist groups in the first two countries destabilizing and fracturing those countries. In Syria, the jihadists were wrecking Syria and the Turks had thousands of fuel vehicles transporting stolen oil back to Turkey. The West just looked past not caring about the suffering in that country. It was only when Russia came in Sept 2015 and later pulling in the Iranian Quds ground forces to help President Assad take the fight to the different jihadist groups. That turned the tide and, if left to the Syrians, Russians and Iranians, they would have rid the country of ISIS within 18 months to 2 years. But then the West didn’t like what they saw and started to actively intervene with the excuse that they were going to fight ISIS??? On several occasions with fights between the Syrians and ISIS / al Qaeda spin-offs, the Americans bombed the Syrian military when the latter were about to get the upper hand. And as for the Israeli analogy, that is a correct one. Israel since 1948 has been grabbing more land from the Palestinians than was allocated to them in 1948 by the UN all while the the Americans conveniently turn a blind eye and, in the case of, former President Trump actually encouraging such actions with the movement of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (the Palestinians were formerly in control of East Jerusalem) and America was then the sole Permanent UN Security Council Member nation to recognize the Illegally Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
So much for the “Rules Based Order”…
Maybe instead of arguing the case for not backing Ukraine, it would make more sense to back Ukraine, then start pointing out our hypocrisy and culpability.as regards non-white countries. It might amaze you Rundle that many people already understand this.
And running the tired line of far-right extremism in Ukraine … seriously, the place has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister and the far right had very poor showings in the recent elections. Of course, as in Russia and across Europe, there is a disturbing far-right and anti-Jewish element.
In contrast to a state headed by Jews, in Russia you have a classic Fascist in Putin, complete with strong ties to ultra-nationalist white supremacists like Alexander Dugin, a classic Fascist fusion of state and industry, not to mention the means of further transforming the State into a fascist entity.
Seriously, Rundle, your previously exhibited weird disdain of Slavs is showing in your widespread ignorance of this part of the world.
Of 10 billionaires with Kremlin ties who funnelled political contributions to Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders, at least five are Jewish. Yes/No.
And? Showing your anti-semitic colours, consistent with your Stalinism.
anti-semitic colours. How do you come to that conclusion. The reason why Israel is so quiet and isn’t doing the sanction thing is because Israel regards Russia as a very strong friend and on a personal level Putin is a strong supporter of Israel as a nation. Typical Aussie front bar loud mouth.
“As regards non-white countries… Many people already understand this”. That’s wonderful. No doubt very comforting to the Palestinians and Yemenis that their struggles are understood, and consciously ignored.
There is an immense outpouring of support for Ukraine in Western societies which dwarfs any concern expressed for brown victims of geopolitics in recent memory. To take an obvious example, every second post on my LinkedIn is some kind of support for Ukraine but I have never once seen any mention of concern for Palestine, Yemen or any other corner of the world where actual genocide is occurring.
If you think this phenomenon need not be mentioned then perhaps you should interrogate your outlook rather than accusing Rundle of being anti-Slav. Your very post merely confirms the author’s thesis.
I never said not to mention these things and I’m fully aware of western hypocrisy, however actively arguing against supporting Ukraine because other countries haven’t been supported is ludicrous.
Rundle has frequently made anti-Slav remarks, particularly anti-Polish ones – memorably he said the Brits never really got to like Polish migrants because, unlike the Jamaicans, they didn’t smile much! (And I realise the Russians are Slavs, but he’s not supporting the Russians and Putin in this little argument)
I don’t see where in the article Grundle suggests Ukraine shouldn’t be supported. On my reading he is pointing out the gross divergence between the attitude to Ukraine and others and asking why this is so. A screamingly obvious issue which is not at all acknowledged in mainstream media or social media.
To my mind (and I am biased being brown) the fact this divergence in approach scarcely warrants comment illustrates the extent to which white supremacy is embedded in Western thinking. And the fact that a comment on it attracts opprobrium even from a notionally progressive cohort such as Crikey readers is frankly just depressing.
Great speech by Clare Daly, Member of the European Parliament on Ukraine and why Afghanistan is a much larger humanitarian crisis and why it is being ignored. White supremacy indeed.
Of course Guy Mahler hates Poles. They were the ones more responsible than anyone for the collapse of communism in Europe, something that makes Stalinists unhappy.
‘Stalinists‘
Really, in 2022?
Rubbish. Hungarians in Budapest welcomed without fear or favour Syrian etc. migrants in that caravan described as a ‘crisis’ in 2015; they were invited into homes etc.
This stopped after days when the Hungarian PM, chummy with Abbott, introduced Australian style laws criminalising support for refugees and asylum seekers by individuals, NGOs or charities, nice…..
Magyar have rightly feared invaders from the east for at least a thousand years.
The same types against whom they built electrified border fences when Mutti was welcoming them with open arms 5yrs ago.
Irrelevant and you miss the point entirely. You conflate Orban’s regime with all Hungarians… like Putin represents all Russians; both nations’ state media would agree.
Thanks for pointing that out. Orban, like conservative politicians elsewhere basing their support on fears of the other, was appealing to that base, which is more outside Budapest. I had the pleasure of visiting Hungary just before that crisis, there were many refugees being obviously treated well by locals. Which, given Hungarians wealth versus ours, was humbling if not embarrassing.
It’s also interesting that for years we’ve been able to ignore the thousands of Ukrainians killed by pro-Russians in the Donbas, and thousands of pro-Russians killed by Ukrainians, while we’re now deeply concerned about the very much smaller numbers of Ukrainians killed by Russians.
It makes more sense for journalists and writers to examine the evidence available and to build arguments about how it fits together, than to ‘back’ one side or another – a useless activity anyway unless yve got some power to act on it. Pointing out Russia’s strategic rationale isnt endorsing its methods. There seems a need to examine western pro-ukraine news for PR, while acknowledging its right to defend itself? . Do i really have to say that Russia’s newsfeed is obviously propaganda, at yhe same time as considering the possible legitimacy of its arguments for action? Articles like that fill up with boilerplate denunciations.
Finally, i think the substantial neo-nazi paramilitary presence in eastern ukraine is well established; the fact of jewish leaders etc doesnt change that
As is the fact that anti Ukraine insurgency in those eastern regions were relatively small and financed by the Russians. The majority were and are pro Ukraine and prefer democracy over whatever Putin has on offer, and are fighting for their freedom to choose.
Precisely. Many Russian-speaking Ukrainians (aka “ethnic Russians”) are staunchly fighting against Moscow’s military and for Ukraine…
On a side note … the whole thing about “ethnic Russians” being persecuted in eastern Ukraine is largely a fiction – while it might be meaningful somewhere like the Baltic states where the languages and cultures are radically different, the difference between literary Russian and literary Ukrainian, while substantial, masks a gradual change on the ground, from the Russian-with-an-accent in the east (the major difference is Russian ‘g’ is pronounced as ‘h’ e.g. Russian ‘gorod’ (city) is pronounced ‘horod’ by Ukrainians and vowels are fronted, e.g. Lvov > Lviv; khleb (bread) > khlib) to a mutually unintelligible language in the Trans-Carpathians. My Russian is fairly good and in the Ukraine I had no trouble making myself understood in the centre and the east, but in the west, despite best intentions, it was often very difficult.
Let’s see the evidence for the ‘substantial neo-nazi paramilitary presence’ in eastern Ukraine.
And is it on the Russian or Ukrainian side?
And, if it is on the Ukrainian side, how do you account for its extremely poor polling?
Agree, there are several more substantive policy issues that have emerged, and discussed elsewhere by grown up media.
For example, impact on refugee, asylum and immigration policies in the ‘Anglosphere’ after years of dog whistling and restrictions e.g. UK’s pathetic response vs. the EU’s and supported by civil society.
Further, many US fossil fuels and related industrial firms have flown under the radar and are still operating in Russia, many are donors to Koch Network, and to the same think tanks behind Brexit.
The Russian and other Orthodox Churches had a schism last year, now Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul has recognised the Ukraine Orthodox Church, which has angered the Russian Metropol, but 100+ priests complained about the war in a public statement.
Oligarchs? Parse through one of their issues, includes fossil fuels in Ukraine, since 2014 formerly pro-Moscow oligarchs have become loyal to Ukraine etc.
Dugin, Bannon, Cummings etc. are living embodiment of Rasputin type figures in related networks of traditionalists, white Christian nationalists, authoritarians etc.; open contempt for liberal democracy & open society aka EU, delusions of grandeur &/or narcissism, etc.
Related to Dugin is PRC, while many have tried to link PRC formally in a partnership with Russia (technically impossible as PRC dwarves Russia, just demographically) for a future Central or Eurasian power, Dugin in fact contradicts this himself, quoted in 2004 (from his ‘Foundations of Geopolitics’):
‘‘China, which represents a danger to Russia, “must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled”’
In fact the EU and the dreaded ‘west’ are not the greatest long term threats, the PRC is Russia’s most fundamental existential threat, and it appears that Xi may not be very happy with Putin’s disruption to order.
Having a Jewish President and Prime Minister doesn’t mean a country can’t have far-right extremists. It’s like having a married PM with daughters who couldn’t be less understanding of women’s issues. Neither did a black President prevent the USA from having racists.
I’m a Slav btw.
And I didn’t say that there were no far-right extremists in Ukraine. In fact I specifically said they did!
However, to say that Ukrainian is controlled by neo-Nazis when their two top positions are held by Jews is plain dumb.