As I stated many times in various contexts, the greatest problem of Western civilization is postmodernism, the latest reincarnation of the deranged ideas of Karl Marx.
Not communism, not socialism, but the idea that objective facts, truth and reality can be overruled by narratives, ‘stories’, spins and interpretations. The divorce between reality and our perception of it.
As you may have noticed from previous posts, I have a serious preoccupation with responsibility, especially with its multi-layered, incestuous nature. The ways we are both creators and victims of our own insanity. Culture cannot exist without participation. Lies are meaningless without those who are willing to believe them. Uncritical acceptance of partisan narratives is the essence of our problems. The embrace of comforting lies and delusional desires to avoid facing harsh realities.
Nothing exemplifies this better than the war of narratives about the Ukraine war, its causes, its progress, its prospects, its outcome and the far-reaching consequences of it.
The narrative
The ‘official’ narrative is as follows:
At some point, the corrupt AND ruthless dictator of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin went insane and decided to recreate the glory of the USSR and reunite the country with its former republics then move on to subjugate former satellite states before moving on to conquer the rest of Europe. He wants to do that because he does not like democracy, NATO and the European Union. He is just evil.
In February 2022, he launched an absolutely unprovoked attack on the sovereign state of Ukraine.
To his great surprise, he met fierce resistance from the indomitable Ukrainian nation and their Winston Churchill-like heroic leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.
This is a cosmic battle between good and evil, a fight for human rights, democracy and the future of the Western world. Even mankind! (Well, I am writing this in Canada, so I should probably correct that to ‘people-kind’)
The West should do everything in its power to help the Ukrainian nation, by imposing sanctions, implementing trade restriction, confiscating the property of the Russian Nation and any of its citizens; giving unlimited military and financial support to the Ukrainian government; and to do everything in its power to weaken the Russian economy and to support any opposition to Putin’s power with the hope that his government will collapse; so that freedom and democracy can be reestablished with the benevolent help of the freedom and democracy-loving Western powers.
Ever since the first day, the heroic Ukrainians are winning the war. The desperate Russians are losing it; their army is weak and ineffective, short of man and equipment. The Russian economy is in a dire state, continuously on the brink of collapse.
All that is needed by Ukraine to win is some more money and weapons from the West.
Every day, until their glorious victory is achieved.
Ukraine wants peace, but the unrepenting evil Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate the terms of Russia’s surrender. This war could end any day if the Russians would just roll over and die. All they must do for peace is to leave Ukraine including Crimea and hand over Putin to the International Court of Justice to be tried for the war crimes he committed.
I could go on, but I’m sure you got the idea. Every single leftist I know bought this BS and still running with it today. Even the ones having doubts will justify their sticking with the narrative with a version of the “my country, right or wrong” attitude.
Why the issue is so partisan, why are leftists the leading warmongers, would be an interesting question to explore, but it is beyond the scope of this post.
A personal side-step
My most shocking encounter of the narratives was a conversation with a friend, an ethnic Hungarian from Transylvania. He grew up in the harshest times of the Ceaușescu regime’s assimilation efforts.
When we had our first non-conversation on the subject, the moment he realized that I am questioning the war propaganda, he barked me down with some serious vehemence. NO! – he shouted. – You cannot understand what it’s like to be in an oppressed minority! Since you do not have the lived experience, you do not have the right to say anything about it!
I wanted to explain to him that the oppressed minority in this case are not the Ukrainians but the ethnic Russians of the Donbass who are suffering under exactly the same anti-minority policies that he grew up with. (Forced assimilation through denial of language and religious rights.)
I couldn’t even open my mouth without being shouted down.
I could not decide what was scarier: his righteous emotional vehemence, or the ignorant stupidity of his position.
The reality
There is no counter narrative. Apart, of course, from the countering of every claim of the warmongering narratives with facts. This history could be much longer, I will try to stick to the essential points.
This war was never between Russia and Ukraine. It was and is a proxy war between the United States and its vassal states in the EU, and Russia.
Ukraine is just a pawn; its soldiers just cannon fodder.The planning for the war started in 1992, just after Ukraine gained its independence. The first year when Ukrainian solders participated in a NATO war exercise was 1994.
Jeffrey Sacks, who was a Western negotiator for both Poland and Russia, never fails to mention how the US was ready to help the former communist states in Eastern Europe while refusing to provide any help to the struggling new Russian state. Breaking up and vassalizing Russia was the goal from the very beginning.
In 2004, the West pulled a soft coup-d'état by calling for a new vote when Yanukovych won his first election. In the recount he lost.
In 2010 Yanukovych won a clear victory. The EU was offering him membership with a caveat. Joining the EU meant cutting all trade relationships with Russia.
Yanukovych decided that this was not in the interest of Ukraine and declined.The CIA with the cooperation of the State Department and the various front groups of George Soros spent five billion dollars on fomenting pro-Western sentiments; training and financing various fascists organizations culminating in the Maidan revolution that ousted the dully elected president.
At the same time, the people of Crimea held a referendum on joining the Russian federation that passed with 95% voting for it. International observers were invited, but the West refused to send any and also refused to accept the result.
Once in power, the new government started implementing a series of policies seriously curtailing the use of the Russian language.
As a result of the oppressive measures the ethnic Russian soldiers in the Donbass walked away from their barracks with their weapons and started a rebellion.
There were two ceasefires in the fight resulting in the Minsk I and the Minsk II agreements that were supposed to be ratified later. Years later, one of the signatories, Angela Merkel, publicly admitted that they (the West and the Ukrainians) never had any intention of implementing them.
On December 17th 2021Vladimir Putin presented two draft treaties:
one between Russia and the United States, and another between Russia and NATO. Both were ignored.After the Ukrainian army and militias intensified their attacks on the Donbass Russians, Putin made a formal appeal to article 51 of the UN Charter, claiming his right to protect the Russian minority in Ukraine from genocide.
The war started on February 21, 2022
The stated aim of the Russians was to achieve the following goals and demands:Liberation of the Donbass oblasts
The disarming of fascist militias
Forcing a negotiated settlement of legally enshrined neutrality, meaning
no NATO presence in Ukraine, but security guaranties provided by third party states
The Russian army reached Kiev within a month, at which point negotiations in Istanbul took place. The two parties agreed on the main point, but the Western powers dispatched Boris Johnson to compel Zelensky to walk away from the peace.
So much for the war. The rest is detail, irrelevant to this conversation.
The war is not over yet, but there is no question about its outcome.
Russia will win; the only question is how far it must go before it can stop. It will be an unconditional surrender of the completely collapsed Ukrainian army, at which point Russia will dictate the terms. By then, the collective West will have spent well over 360 billion dollars with absolutely NOTHING to show for it. The war already has a million and a half casualties. Again, with nothing to show for it. The blood of those victims is on the people who expressed any kind of support at any time for this war that was unnecessary and completely avoidable.
The West provoked Russia into this war with the expectation that it will be a pushover.
It was a stupid idea. Even Barak Obama pointed out the obvious: Russia had the escalatory advantage. The goal was to weaken it economically to the point where the CIA can successfully initiate a coup to install a Western puppet that would assist the breakup of the country into smaller parts and give NATO the opportunity to surround its ultimate enemy: China.
The EU, NATO, the CIA and the globalists will not stop. As it is getting clear that Ukraine is lost, their efforts are already directed at new targets. Attempted and often successful regime changes and election manipulations are happening in Georgia, Armenia, Transnistria, Rumania, Moldova, and we can be assured that the list will only grow. We can add to this the internal troubles with the anti-war MAGA movement and nationalist parties rising in the UK, France, Germany, Greece, etc… to understand the desperation of a failing ideology.
The West and the Western led globalist movement are in decline in every possible sense, and on every possible front.
The results
The result of the conflict for the US, for NATO, for the EU and the globalist institutions is a total disaster. Anything and everything they tried backfired.
The sanctions made the Russian economy healthier, the military stronger, but most importantly, it turned Russia and Putin into respected Global leaders.
The EU is falling apart, and thanks to the sanctions, its most important economies are failing. Germany, France, Italy are all in trouble.
Their attempt to weaken Russia brought them quite possibly to the brink of collapse.
The military superiority of the West seems hollow.
Russian arms manufacturers can not only outproduce the Americans, but in many respects, they can out-innovate them as well.
Russia did not do any of this to the West.
The Western hegemonic, globalist world order did it to itself.
It is their arrogance that will make them lose.
The unexpected consequences
This post is #2 on my list of disappointments, the least serious of the four.
The cause of my disappointment was threefold:
Watching the suicidal stupidity of the Western hegemonic order.
My deep moral disappointment in the nonchalantly murderous attitudes of my family, friends and acquaintances.
The power of propaganda, the replacement of facts with narratives.
These disappointments, however, are balanced out by some excitingly positive developments, the unintended and unexpected consequences of the war.
This war was the repudiation of “The end of history”, the exceedingly silly idea that that globalized liberalism represent the pinnacle of societal evolution and the end of ideological conflicts. Our ideological divisions are more polarized than ever and the social democracies that were supposed to exemplify the ideals are falling apart.
International institutions are either failing or fading into irrelevance as new alternatives emerge. It could be argued that it is the resistance to these changes that was the most important motivation behind this war, a desperate attempt to slow down the inevitable. The West will have to learn to live with the rest and accept the fact that its power is not unlimited.
The third world has grown up and it began to assert itself. BRICS+ represents a new multipolar world order with a set of alternative institutions to the UN, the IMF, the World bank, etc.
All of this is a wonderful news.
The US and the rest of the West started this proxy war with the hope of that it will destroy the growing competition but managed to help it becoming a force to contend with.
I believe that history will remember this war as the labor of birth of the emerging multipolar world order.
But that’s just what I think. Tell me if I’m wrong.
More from this stack
More from Substack
The History of Ukraine’s War, vs. U.S-and-Allied ‘News’-Media’s Lies About it
References
Larry C Johnson describing in detail the history of NATO cooperation with Ukraine.
The Road to War in Ukraine — The History of NATO and US Military Exercises With Ukraine — Part 1 – New Kontinent
The End of History and the Last Man : Fukuyama, Francis: Amazon.ca: Books
One of the near-insane bullshitters about Ukraine and Russia is Peter Zeihan.
He has written some very convincing books, but when it comes to this subject, he is completely unhinged.
Pick any of his videos: peter zeihan ukraine
Trudeau – peoplekind
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Thanks for summerizing of where we are today. The USrael/UKland?EUxit Gang really think they can rule the entire world but this isn't the Britannia rules the Seas time anymore. The entire West has completely failed not only it's own people but also the butchered People in it's never ending Wars around the Globe. The Fact that "the sun rises in the east and quickly goes down in the West" is so obvious that even a blind can see it. My experience during my visits back to Germany (im a Expat living in Cambodia) was always a shock, particulary since about 5 years. The average citizen in Europe doesn't want to even think about the consequences of this warmongering on mulitple fronts starting with Covid, Militarizing and (Now Gay's and Lesbiens etc are politically used an weaponized). This whole Trend was set by a small group of People like Klaus Schwab of the WEF and it's followers. It all currently feels so bad that people get sick in the process. What a way to run a de-population program.