{"id":5617,"date":"2022-03-10T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T17:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2022-10-06T13:16:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T11:16:17","slug":"west-ukraine-bloody-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2022-03-10\/west-ukraine-bloody-putin\/","title":{"rendered":"The West\u2019s hands in Ukraine are as bloody as Putin\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Western media and politicians want us focusing exclusively on Russia&#8217;s role in Ukraine so we overlook our own responsibility for making sacrificial victims of the Ukrainian people<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mint Press &#8211; 10 March 2022<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a discursive nervous tic all over social media at the moment, including from prominent journalists such as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guardian <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">columnist George Monbiot. The demand is that everyone not only \u201ccondemn\u201d Russian president Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, but do so without qualification.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any reluctance to submit is considered certain proof that the person is a Putin apologist or a Kremlin bot, and that their views on everything under the sun \u2013 especially their criticisms of equivalent Western war crimes \u2013 can be safely ignored.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">For years I&#39;ve been arguing with a faction within the &quot;anti-imperialist&quot; left, that is neither anti-imperialist nor distinguishable in its foreign policy positions from the far right. It is pro-Putin. It recycles Kremlin propaganda and whitewashes atrocities. <br \/>Thread\/<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1497511988322258948?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How convenient for all those Western leaders who have committed war crimes at least as bad as Russia\u2019s current ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have repeatedly described Russia\u2019s invasion as illegal; I have regularly called Putin a war criminal (you may not have noticed but I just did it again in the two preceding paragraphs); and I have consistently compared Putin\u2019s deeds to the very worst actions taken by the West over the past two decades. But none of that is enough. More is always needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The demand for unequivocal denunciation is a strange, if common, one and suggests that those insisting on it are being dishonest \u2013 if only with themselves. The function of the demand is not to clarify whether any particular piece of information or an argument is credible; it is intended purely as a \u201cgotcha\u201d meme.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Do you condemn Putin&#39;s invasion and support the Ukrainian government in its resistance to the attack? Will you support the Ukrainian people in their resistance to ethno-nationalist slaughter? If yes there&#39;s nothing to worry about &#8211; these are Labour&#39;s values&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/paulmasonnews\/status\/1498410820379815939?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 28, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don\u2019t remember an insistence that anyone condemn Tony Blair or George W. Bush for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 before they could be heard or taken seriously. Or that they denounce the US-backed overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that plunged that country into murderous chaos. Or that they deplore the West\u2019s material support for Saudi Arabia\u2019s slaughter of Yemen\u2019s population, including Britain\u2019s sale of planes, bombs and training to Riyadh. Or that they criticize the West\u2019s backing of head-chopping jihadists in Syria (who coincidentally now appear to be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/english.almayadeen.net\/news\/politics\/450-arab-and-foreign-extremists-from-idlib-arrive-in-ukraine\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">drifting into Ukraine<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to become our allies again). Or that they decry decades of Western support for Israel as it has disappeared the Palestinian people.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Just to remind you Britain is still, today, supplying bombs, missiles, aircraft, operational support, training and special services to Saudi Arabia to continue years of mass murder of civilians in Yemen.<\/p>\n<p>Every crime we deplore in Ukraine we enable in Yemen. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/b7j0cGjata\">https:\/\/t.co\/b7j0cGjata<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CraigMurrayOrg\/status\/1500987229526757376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And those are things for which we \u2013 meaning Westerners \u2013 are <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">directly <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">responsible. We elected the politicians who caused this unquantifiable suffering. Those bombs were ours. We ought to be clamoring for our leaders to be dragged to The Hague to be tried for war crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By contrast, we \u2013 meaning Westerners \u2013 are not responsible for Putin or his actions. I cannot vote him out of office. Nothing I say will make him alter course. And worse, anything I do say against him or Russia simply amplifies the mindless chorus of self-righteous Western commentary intended to cast stones at Russia\u2019s warmongers while leaving our own home-grown warmongers in place.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Russian protesters being arrested aren&#39;t with you, those among us tub-thumping for a European war against a nuclear-armed Russia.<\/p>\n<p>*They* are against their government&#39;s militarism and recklessness. *You*, by contrast, are cheerleading your governments&#39; militarism and recklessness<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1499315165074010113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Westerners denouncing Putin won\u2019t make compromise and peace more likely. It will make it less likely. Russians need to be highlighting Putin\u2019s crimes as best they can to drive him to the negotiating table, while we need to be doing the same to our leaders to push them to the same table. As long as our attention is on Putin and his crimes, it is not on our leaders and their crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Fog of war<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who insist it is quite possible to denounce both Putin and Western leaders at the same time are precisely the people who have been so half-hearted in holding our own leaders to account.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Monbiot, let us note, has not used a single one of his weekly columns at <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Guardian<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to highlight the years-long plight of Julian Assange, locked away in a British dungeon for revealing US and UK war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the gravest attack on a free press in living memory, and yet Monbiot used his most recent column to attack Assange supporters, such as veteran journalist John Pilger, for not being voluble enough in denouncing Putin.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Monbiot has never written a column on the worst assault on press freedom in a generation: the political persecution of Julian Assange. Soil erosion, he said, took precedence. Now he&#39;s prioritised a witchhunt of left heretics on Ukraine over Assange&#39;s freedom. He&#39;s an utter fraud <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OtJ7pTE6gx\">pic.twitter.com\/OtJ7pTE6gx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1499098509701701637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who require unequivocal condemnation of Putin insist that now \u2013 in the midst of a war \u2013 is not the time to be sowing doubt or undermining morale in the rightness of \u201cour\u201d cause. (A small giveaway that they think of this as a Western, not Ukrainian, war with<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russia.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Again conveniently, that is precisely the message Western leaders want to send too \u2013 just ask Britain\u2019s prime minister, Boris Johnson, whose \u201cpartygate\u201d scandal is now a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/26\/partygate-putin-war-boris-johnson-ukraine-crisis-prime-minister\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">distant memory<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as he seeks to evoke Churchillian gravitas in facing off with Russia. Instead, the parties in the British parliament put aside their very superficial differences this week as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rallied them with a \u201chistoric address.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What, really, is the point of demanding Westerners denounce Putin unequivocally when the entire Western media and political class is directing our gaze exclusively at Russia\u2019s crimes precisely so Westerners don\u2019t look at equivalent Western crimes?<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">And it continues&#8230; Israel has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Gaza, including children&#39;s hospitals. Have our media ever run a front-page story accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians? Of course not! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sm4QSstJYg\">pic.twitter.com\/sm4QSstJYg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1501848428384505856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The truth is that, in power politics, unequivocal denunciations are for politicians and diplomats \u2013 and virtue-signalers. Condemnations may be emotionally satisfying, but the rest of us can put our energies to far better use.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For most of us, the better course would be to blow away the immediate fog of war and instead analyze our \u2013 meaning the West\u2019s \u2013 role in the unfolding events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If you&#39;re in the west, your first priority probably shouldn&#39;t be lobbying for more western arms to be sent into an already heavily militarised war zone. It should be disrupting western propaganda narratives. Before you can see, you have to clear away the fog<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1499705672803536900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>NATO insurance policy<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even a cursory glance shows that the West\u2019s hands are not clean in Ukraine. Not at all. The meddling \u2013 and hypocrisy \u2013 have occurred in two stages, first from politicians and then from the media.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ggreenwald?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ggreenwald<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronjmate?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@aaronjmate<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Jonathan_K_Cook<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CraigMurrayOrg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CraigMurrayOrg<\/a> <br \/>Biden in 1997 saying that the only thing that could provoke a &quot;vigorous and hostile&quot; Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GgcaVrwtRv\">pic.twitter.com\/GgcaVrwtRv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; ConniB (@Conn18149866) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Conn18149866\/status\/1501327105556107266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the choices made by Western politicians that provoked the invasion. (What\u2019s coming next is an explanation, not a justification, of those developments, for those who need such things spelled out clearly).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russian troops are in Ukraine not because Putin is \u201cHitler,\u201d \u201cmad,\u201d or a \u201cmegalomaniac\u201d \u2013 though, again, the invasion makes him a war criminal in the same mold as Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Russian troops are there because he and his officials judged the West to be acting malevolently and in bad faith in their dealings with Ukraine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Putin as \u201cmadman\u201d or \u201cHitler\u201d script deflects attention away from the very obvious fact that Western leaders wilfully played fast and loose with the security of Ukraine and the safety of its population.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: Simple-minded media propaganda \u2013 like the claim that Russia\u2019s Putin is deranged \u2013 is precisely what brought us to the current crisis over Ukraine <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QW0pbEq44G\">https:\/\/t.co\/QW0pbEq44G<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1498304876748713984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 28, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The West encouraged Ukrainians to believe that they would soon fall under NATO\u2019s security umbrella, when in fact the West had no intention of protecting them, as is now only too evident. Ukrainians were led to believe that the more Russia\u2019s posture turned belligerent towards Ukraine the more likely NATO would be to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/feb\/28\/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">come to Ukraine\u2019s rescue<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and act as its savior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which, of course, incentivized the Ukrainian government to keep poking the Russian bear in the expectation that Kyiv would have a NATO insurance policy up its sleeve. It didn\u2019t. It never did, as current events show.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Prof John Mearsheimer explains why Russia was right to view Nato&#39;s actions since 2014 in Ukraine as an &#39;existential threat&#39;. A clear, succinct backgrounder on a US-manufactured crisis (3-25mins) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/S4Wrzd5lad\">https:\/\/t.co\/S4Wrzd5lad<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1498666288247447555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 1, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reason Boris Johnson lost no time in rebuffing the emotional pressure levied by a Ukrainian journalist at a recent press conference to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/2022-03-01\/youre-not-in-kyivyoure-afraid-ukrainian-reporter-begs-pm-for-no-fly-zone\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">impose a no-fly zone<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over Ukraine is that even he understands that such a policy would be suicidal against a nuclear power like Russia. Shooting down Russian jets would likely plunge us into a rerun of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But on the back of NATO\u2019s deception, recent Ukrainian leaders confidently fomented ethnic nationalism at home and thereby themselves played a dangerous game of chicken with their superpower neighbor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That included <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AliAbunimah\/status\/1500899683346038789\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">coddling anti-Russian fascists<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at home and stoking a related civil war in the Donbas region by its ultra-nationalist allies against the Russian ethnic community living there as a way to drag NATO directly into the conflict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For those who accuse anyone who points out the long-running influence of ultra-nationalist groups in Ukraine of being Putin trolls, this 2017 video from <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Guardian<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 a newspaper now reflexively dismissive of all criticism of Ukraine \u2013 showing a neo-Nazi summer camp for Ukrainian children, may make for uncomfortable viewing. The Azov Brigade fascists running it, as well as other like-minded groups, have been effortlessly incorporated into the Ukrainian military the West is arming:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jiBXmbkwiSw\" width=\"520\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">President Zelenskyy hasn\u2019t abandoned his pre-invasion intransigence. He has entrenched, calling for Ukraine to be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/president-zelensky-suggests-ukraine-may-pursue-nuclear-weapons-to-counter-russia-putin-responds\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">armed with nuclear missiles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and for NATO to either impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine or give Ukraine the planes to enforce such a zone itself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That Zelenskyy wants NATO to bail him out, especially after NATO was responsible for enticing him into the current confrontation with Russia, is hardly surprising. But the degree to which the Western media have pushed Zelenskyy\u2019s line means a strong majority of the US public now favor Kyiv\u2019s course of action, even though it would likely trigger a World War III between nuclear powers.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Suicidal narrative<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How in thrall Westerners are to this media-confected, suicidal narrative can be gauged by the number of armchair warriors in the West accusing anyone taking a more cautious approach of not only being Putin apologists but of denying the Ukrainian people their \u201csovereign right\u201d to join NATO and come under its protection.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ukraine has the sovereign right to seek NATO membership, to choose its course.<\/p>\n<p>We will not guarantee otherwise to Russia.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Andreas Michaelis (@GermanAmbUSA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GermanAmbUSA\/status\/1494058757524967430?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 16, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But NATO membership isn\u2019t a sovereign right. And it shouldn\u2019t be viewed as some kind of glorified neighborhood-watch scheme. NATO is a military club. States qualify to join if the other members agree they want to commit to protecting that state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If NATO members don\u2019t have the ability or will to defend another state, as is the case with Ukraine, then it is a crime to pretend they do \u2013 for the very reasons the events unfolding now demonstrate. In fact, it is not just any ordinary crime, it is a crime against humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every death in the current war \u2013 Ukrainian and Russian \u2013 could almost certainly have been averted had the US and its NATO allies not led Ukraine up the garden path. Had Ukrainians not believed that with enough pressure they could force NATO\u2019s hand in their favor, they would have had to accommodate Russian concerns well before any invasion, such as by committing to neutrality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russia would have had no grounds \u2013 or pretexts, depending on how you wish to look at it \u2013 to invade. The media\u2019s \u201cmadman\u201d and \u201cHitler\u201d scripts are needed now to turn reality on its head, suggesting that Putin would have invaded whatever actions NATO and Ukraine took.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But if that is not true \u2013 and there is no evidence it is \u2013 then the blood of the victims of this war is most certainly on the West\u2019s hands, just as it is in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Gaza, Yemen and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Media hypocrisy<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second hypocrisy is the current one being peddled by the Western media. They want to flaunt a bogus moral concern about the suffering of Ukrainians under attack from Russia that they never show towards the victims of Western bombs and missiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: If we seek peace, we need the western media held to account for its mindless jingoism, exaggerations, credulity, double standards and deceptions. But who is going to act as a watchdog on the supposed watchdog of the Fourth Estate? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RrDGDCstq3\">https:\/\/t.co\/RrDGDCstq3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1499779698544500743?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Terrible as the suffering of Ukrainians is, two weeks into the invasion, it is still a pale shadow of the decades of suffering of Palestinians in Gaza or of Yemenis under Saudi planes and bombs supplied by the West. The prioritization of one over the other needs explaining.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social media warriors \u2013 much less sophisticated than the corporate media \u2013 readily rationalize this lack of interest in the West\u2019s victims by dismissing them as \u201cterrorists\u201d, or by blaming them for living under \u201cterrorist regimes,\u201d or by simply insisting that they are further removed from us, as though Britons and Americans somehow feel more of a natural affinity with Ukrainians than with Syrians or Palestinians, or with Russians. (We don\u2019t unless the corporate media keeps insisting such a bond exists.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If that tactic fails, it is on to the next one, arguing that any effort to point out the utter hypocrisy of the Western media and its entirely hollow concern for Ukrainians \u2013 rather than for Ukraine, as a pawn on the West\u2019s colonial chessboard \u2013 is so-called \u201cwhataboutery.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is bad enough that such reasoning is rooted in a profound racism that counts white Europeans as worthy victims and brown or Black victims as \u201ccollateral damage\u201d of supposed Western peace-making.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But actually the rot runs far deeper. It is not just racism at work in the special treatment of Ukraine\u2019s suffering over that of Iraqis or Yemenis or Palestinians. That could be solved through education and awareness-raising.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Pointing out western media hypocrisy in reporting Ukraine isn\u2019t just an abstract exercise in pointing out media hypocrisy.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s highlighting how power is structured to privilege some and oppress others. The corrupt global order stands or falls on our blindness to that hypocrisy<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1501487092580376579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, the Western media\u2019s identification with Ukraine \u2013 and consequently the public\u2019s identification with its plight \u2013 is based on Ukraine\u2019s usefulness to the Western imperial project. Which is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Vicious musical chairs<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In truth, a straight line runs between the West\u2019s treatment of Iraq and its treatment of Ukraine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Iraq, the US and its allies sought to reorder the chessboard by intensifying their grip over oil as Western capitalism began running up against ever-depleting stores of cheap and easily accessible fossil fuels and the climate emergency made capitalism\u2019s endless profit-making model ever more precarious. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why didn&#39;t this kind of backlash happen against the US when it illegally invaded Iraq with a &#39;Shock and awe&#39; campaign we&#39;ve yet to see in Ukraine?<\/p>\n<p>Because this isn&#39;t really about ethical foreign policy. It&#39;s about the west refusing to have any limits placed on its hegemony <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Esvm6Raanf\">pic.twitter.com\/Esvm6Raanf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1498285803180642306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 28, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But though the chess analogy for Western foreign policymaking dates back to at least the nineteenth century, it may now be inadequate to explain what we have seen taking place over the past couple of decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More accurately, Washington\u2019s planners see the world largely in terms of a high-stakes version of the children\u2019s party game, musical chairs. As the chairs disappear, it is ever more important to make sure you, rather than your enemies, grab the last seats.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main enemies on the global stage \u2013 if you sit in Washington \u2013 are Russia and China. The tools you need at your disposal are not just wits, as in chess, but muscle, as in a very adult, survival-of-the-fittest version of musical chairs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That has required the US and its allies to ever more aggressively isolate Russia and China, trying to sow divisions, and make each feel threatened and isolated. Which, as Moscow and Beijing more clearly understand Washington\u2019s strategy, has driven these two unlikely partners into each other\u2019s arms. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In 2008, Tony Blair said privately that Russia needed to be made a &quot;little desperate&quot;. This should be achieved via NATO &quot;activities in what Russia considers its sphere of interest and along its actual borders.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Russia, Blair said, &quot;had to be sown with seeds of confusion.&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bQvkVsge3O\">pic.twitter.com\/bQvkVsge3O<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kennardmatt\/status\/1501199504384659461?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rest of us have to decide which of the biggest children we want to ally with as the chairs keep disappearing and the game gets ever more vicious.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Proxy war of attrition<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back in Ukraine, meanwhile, the US and its NATO allies appear to be doing what they can to drag out the war for as long as possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russia appeared initially to want a relatively short war of attrition to pacify Ukraine, forcing its nationalist government to drop aspirations to become a launch-pad for NATO weapons and impose on it instead neutrality. (Now that Russia has committed treasure and lives to the war, it will likely get greedier and want more. Reports suggest it is already demanding independence rather than autonomy for the Donbas region.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, the conclusion even Westerners would draw, if we weren\u2019t so propagandized by the media, is that neutrality for Ukraine is inevitable \u2013 unless we are willing to risk the alternative of a World War III. Any delay in achieving neutrality for Ukraine as an outcome simply causes unnecessary death and suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US, by contrast, wants a long, proxy war of attrition, openly and covertly supplying Ukrainian forces \u2013 indifferent as to whether they are &#8220;nice ones&#8221; or neo-Nazis \u2013 to bog Russia down in years of difficult guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency. The bloodshed will feed the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/guardiannews\/status\/1501318017312985088\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hostility<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (and unthinking racism) of Western publics towards Russia and Russians, providing the pretext for Washington to sustain the West\u2019s parallel economic war on Russia. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ukrainians will pay the price as the US tries to wear down Russia, just as Syrians, Libyans, Iranians, Yemenis, Venezuelans and Palestinians have paid the price as the US has sought elsewhere to attain the goals of its globe-spanning imperial project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The most depressing thing about the new focus on Ukraine, like the previous two-year focus on C-19, is it means our elites will have another excuse not to deal a far bigger crisis: the climate emergency. Were I more cynical, I&#39;d almost imagine they want it that way <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/msi02j1oGE\">pic.twitter.com\/msi02j1oGE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1498618809896345607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 1, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Washington understands that a weakened Russia might not have been able to save Bashar Assad\u2019s government from the takeover of Syria by the West\u2019s Islamic State and al-Qaeda allies there. And in the future, it is hoped, Moscow will be in no position to support others who resist Western hegemony, especially the \u201cpariah\u201d states of Venezuela, Iran and China. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a huge ambition for a tiny elite headquartered in the US committed to the endless enrichment of itself by enforcing a binary thinking among Western publics that obscures the real reasons for the planet-wide crises we face.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If it succeeds, the West\u2019s war machine will continue trundling over the bodies of the poor and marginalized as it drives us ever faster towards ecological collapse.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Western media and politicians want us focusing exclusively on Russia&#8217;s role in Ukraine so we overlook our own responsibility for making sacrificial victims of the Ukrainian people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,65,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-5617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-media-criticism","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-war-industries"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5617"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5619,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions\/5619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}