OPINION
In an early episode of The Simpsons, Bart opines that, “There are no good wars… with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars trilogy.” Aside from the sunny ’90s optimism of the last part, what’s immediately obvious is that the “there are no good wars” argument is as false as it is contingent.
We see such contingency, not to say glaring hypocrisy, hard at work in the supposedly ‘anti-war’ left and the globalist elites whose dictates they so slavishly obey. Most wars they simply ignore: where have been the mass protests against, say, the Syrian civil war, the Yemeni civil war, or the decades of Congo wars? The absence of dinky little social media flags of Kenya, Myanmar or Mali, suggests that the average ‘anti-war’ activist, for all their blatherskite about ‘just not wanting innocent people to die’, simply hasn’t heard of some of the deadliest conflicts in recent history.
Even more egregiously hypocritical are the media and politicians who contingently rattle their sabers or wave their white flags.
Nowhere is this hypocrisy more staggering than in the respective cases of Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Gaza (and the puppetmasters across the Middle East). The latter, we are told, must end – Ceasefire Now! – no ifs, no buts. Not even the release of utterly innocent Jewish hostages must come before the cause of instant peace.
On the other hand, Russia must be fought to the last Ukrainian and the last Western taxpayer’s dollar. Hundreds of billions have been poured into propping up what was, until it became convenient to forget it, the most corrupt nation in Europe. Under no circumstances should Russia be allowed to reclaim the Crimean territory it only gifted to Ukraine in the 1950s, when both nations were fellow Soviet republics.
Exactly what makes one war ‘bad’ and the other ‘good’ has never been made clear.
The rationale for supporting corrupt, brutal, authoritarian Ukraine against corrupt, brutal, authoritarian Russia is, we are told, that ‘aggression cannot be rewarded’.
Really?
Aggression is regularly rewarded. If I am not mistaken, the Norman nobility replaced the English nobility. The communists took South Vietnam. China owns Tibet and cows the world into compliance on the status of Taiwan. Turkey owns more than one third of Cyprus. Russia (de facto) owns Crimea. Whether an aggressor is rewarded depends on how big is the aggressor and how strategic the territory at risk for those who might defend it. Thus the fundamental principles being tested are hardly ever the same.
Then there is, of course, the stakes: what would likely happen to the defeated party? In WWI, a Europe run along Prussian militaristic lines would have been a retrograde step, perhaps, but not a catastrophe (apart from yet another blow to French pride, along the lines of its 1870 defeat). In WWII, the prospect of a Nazi Reich from the steppes of Russia to the shores of the Mediterranean was unthinkable.
In the unlikely event that Ukraine were to win by pushing Russia out of Ukraine, including out of Crimea, then Russia would suffer the ignominy of defeat but would otherwise get on with Russian life; albeit broodingly plotting a rematch. If Russia were to win it would likely take over the four “annexed” provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, along with cementing its incorporation of Crimea. Ukrainians would otherwise remain in control of the rest of Ukraine; join the EU and receive lots of reconstruction aid.
In other words, Russia would once again control the former Soviet provinces, home to a majority of ethnic Russian or Russian-speaking populations, as well as retain its historic and critical Black Sea ports. Ukraine would quite probably be better off.
On the other hand, if Israel were defeated by the genocidal fanatics of Hamas, the prospect would be as unthinkable as in WWII. The majority of the world’s Jews would face a Holocaust on the scale of anything Germany perpetrated.
And, like Ukraine, Gazans would actually be better off if Israel prevails.
The equation in the Israeli-Gaza war is much more straightforward. If Israel wins, the people of Gaza will have a chance for a peaceful more prosperous future – the fruits of defeat. The people of Israel will live more securely. If Hamas wins, it will not only put Israeli lives at growing risk, it will embolden its enemies more generally and put the very existence of Israel at risk. And if Israel were to lose to an invading Islamic force, slaughter would ensue, of that there is little doubt. The stakes are much higher than in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. So much higher that there is no cost in terms of blood and treasure that should not be expended to ensure Israel wins. No level of support that should be withheld from Israel.
Yet, the same Western governments who are pouring hundreds of billions into a clearly hopeless cause (and the pockets of corrupt oligarchs) in Ukraine are all but starving Israel of aid and armaments. The same fatuous chatterers sprinkling their social media with Ukrainian flag emojis are donning their Pallyrags and bellowing the genocidal Hamas war cry.
Never has there been a greater betrayal of the cause of freedom and peace since Chamberlain and Daladier so shamefully threw Czechoslovakia to the Nazi wolves.
