SUPPORTING ‘ALLIES’ UNEQUIVOCALLY IN UKRAINE MAY DISASTROUSLY BLINDSIDE THE WEST

Most people, despite all the horrors they are aware of that have been perpetrated in past times, still prefer to think in terms of absolute good and evil, that there are those who are wholly good and those that are wholly bad.

There has, in recent times, been a tendency to believe that western political elites are good and those of other nations are of dubious goodness at best and a suspicion that they are not so very good, and certainly not as good as those who fight for us.

These attitudes tend to transfer also to those who western elites fight for or with. They tend to be imbued with some of the rightness, goodness and exceptionality that western elites claim for themselves.

World War Two and its eventual outcome has fixed many of these concepts in the common western mind. The stark contrast between the evils of the Nazis and the determined resistance against them and their eventual defeat by the forces of good created a very simple model that could hardly be avoided when later conflicts erupted.

The above has stubbornly remained true despite such notable areas of conflict that had the potential to corrupt these conscious and subconscious convictions, those such as Vietnam and North America’s recent series of regime change operations in the Middle East. But still, the belief that ‘we’ are right and in the right and that ‘they’ must be assumed to be wrong prevails in the West and comes in very handy whenever the West goes to war.

Western populations in general have some of the highest standards of living on the planet. This has tended to create a below-consciousness-level belief in something being special about them, and an associated feeling that ‘doing good’ in the world is a kind of duty due to their having such a privileged position. This patrician view and overall notion that western populations must be guardians of human rights for the world has engendered a very high degree of awareness of and sensitivity to injustice and abuse of the underdog.

The combination of western feelings of an overtly felt and exhibited, or subconscious and abashedly submerged feeling of superiority and goodness with this being exported to those western elites fight for or with can and does create a certain blindness to the iniquities of western allies.

There have been many examples over the years where the ‘other side’ is demonised to the greatest extent possible without straining belief too far and lauding western ‘friends’ who are assisted in their efforts which coincide with western interests. The example of Saudi Arabia and its campaign in Yemen come to mind. However, the current conflict in Ukraine is the most obvious example of all in my opinion.

The Ukraine example has an element within it that was at one time the subject of concern to western politicians and mainstream media news. Now however, this element has become subjugated to the phenomenon first discussed above whereby a western ally at war gains the aura of universal goodness that western elites then share with an ally at war.

That element is the long history of admiration for Hitler’s Nazis within Ukraine which stems from the Second World War and which is one of the major elements behind the actions of Russia in recent times. This is a history only vaguely known in the West and only on the most shallow terms featuring some few vaguely alarming news items and mini-documentaries shown some eight years ago in the West. You may recall some of these featuring what are variously described as ‘militants’, far-right extremists’, ‘ultra-nationalists’ or ‘neo-Nazis’.

Since February 24th and the Russian intervention in Ukraine there has been scant mention of the element above. If anything in fact those featured within it have had something of a makeover. Their symbols for instance have become marketable and are on sale on items of clothing on the Amazon website. These days the words describing them are more likely to be ‘patriots’ or ‘fighters for Ukraine’s freedom’. Many of them having been incorporated into the Ukrainian military and national guard they have to quite a degree become ‘respectable’ in the West.

Here we come to the following video which I hope you will view and compare to what you know of the most troubling aspects you may have heard of concerning the Ukrainian side in the current war there. Think too of the mentality that was created among so many in western Ukraine at the time that depicted was a very real and common fact of everyday life, of how what was passed down father to son influences what has been happening in Ukraine over the past eight years.

And lastly, think over what the consequences might be for Europe in particular if the elements shown should be recognised as those who won out against Russia and expand the already high degree of influence they now have into becoming the virtual, or even actual, government of Ukraine.