J M White
Information
Opinion
Who is watching developments unfolding in Eastern Europe with a feeling of deja vu? Haven’t we been here before with Iraq? And Libya? And what’s its name – Afghanistan?
Who noticed how just overnight Covid coverage disappeared from television and newspapers and the big switcheroo from Plague to War took place? Within 24 hours suddenly we had no plague but we did have a war between Russians and Ukrainians. What? Apart from a few cases and declensions are they not practically the same people?
What are they fighting for? Or about? The propaganda machine tells us it is a war for freedom. Freedom from what? From Russia. Oh. Is the freedom so that Ukraine can practise democracy? Do they have a voting system? Yes, they do, but it isn’t about that sort of freedom and it is nothing to do with democracy. It is about the freedom to join NATO and the European Union. And Russia said no. Just as the Empire would say no if Russia wanted to install a Russian war machine in Cuba. Oh – wait…
The narrative tells us Russia is the bully, the threat to democracy, the invader of a peaceful country. But why did this narrative not accompany the Empire invasions of Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan?
America was not under threat from those distant lands and certainly will not be in the future, having killed a good proportion of the population and bombed their cities back into the Middle Ages. Did Putin wake up two weeks ago and all of a sudden decide it was a good idea to invade the Ukraine? No, grasshopper, there were many warnings given by Russia over the past decade which were simply ignored. The general consensus now is that the Empire wanted this war. Because wars are good for the Empire. So it prodded the Bear in the Donbas almost continually for eight years. Surely this, so close on the heels of the Afghanistan debacle, is a sign the Empire is suffering an excess of hubris.
Luhansk and Donetsk, referred to together as Donbas, is peopled by mostly Russians, rather than Ukrainians. In 2014 the Donbas voted to separate from the Ukraine and become part of Russia.
We know NATO is in favour of separatism because in 1997 it bombed Belgrade in Orthodox Serbia for 72 days solid to force it to give Kosovo – with its Field of Blackbirds – to Albanian Muslims. But, oddly enough, NATO is not in favour of separatism for the Donbas. Not even to avoid war.
Adding injury to insult in retaliation for the Donbas separatist wish, the Ukrainian forces have punished the unarmed Donbas civilian population with missiles, bombs and snipers for the past eight years. In one village of 6,600 homes, 15 were left habitable. Russia watched all that time, ground its teeth, but did nothing.
This is a war like all previous wars, planned and executed by the Empire. It is being carried out ostensibly to bring ‘freedom’ to a country that has been robbed blind by the leaders of Empire, i.e. the Elderly Crook in Charge, his offspring and their minions. Poor Ukraine is going to end up yet another bomb site, with destroyed infrastructure and women mourning their dead children, just like every country to which the Empire has brought freedom.
Who still believes the narrative of anything from anywhere presented to us by those purveyors of propaganda? Surely not the people of New Zealand.
We watched democracy and freedom die on the front lawn of our Parliament in February 2022 and NATO didn’t even raise an eyebrow. We could begin a separatist movement and leave Wellington to its own devices.
The Empire wouldn’t care. We haven’t got anything left worth stealing.
