There Are No Good Guys Here
Answers to reader questions about my position on Ukraine/Russia
The hegemonic power of the United States had been eroding for quite some time, and the Democrats could be perhaps best defined as the political party still delusionally promising it could continue forever. It couldn’t, and Trump just happens to be the first US leader to admit American dominance was waning.
What comes next feels new and scary, but it’s much how the world has always been.
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In response to my essay, “We Have Always Been at War With Eastasia,” several readers asked questions which I think others might also have. They were great questions, particularly because they help point to matters regarding Russia, Ukraine, and the larger global situation that my essay glossed over.
First, though, I’d love to discuss that “glossing,” or specifically the places where it seems I don’t explain how I’ve come to certain conclusions. It’s something I’ve noticed I do quite often, and I think it comes from trying to strike a balance between explaining the logic behind something and focusing on the larger points I’m trying to make.
I don’t always get that right.
Sometimes, I assume certain things are self-evident when they hardly are, or I imagine readers might get quite bored (and even feel like I’m being condescending) if I explain too much. Also, I’ll admit I’m sometimes a very impatient writer, eager to finish an essay so I can instead go to the gym or do other work.
So, things get left out. Sorry for this.
Now, on to the questions. Most of them were collected in a long comment from a reader who was gracious enough to allow me to repost them.
Why not focus on Russia as the aggressor?
You ought to explain why you make no reference to Russia being the aggressor. I'm assuming - and hoping - it isn't because you think that whatever Hunter Biden was doing justified a full-scale invasion. The problem with leaving this out is that it provides an obvious explanation why so many who protested against US military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan supported it in Ukraine. You put this down to either doublethink or shifts in the tides of history. It looks to me like we could call Occam's razor on that one.
Russia was absolutely the aggressor here, just as Hamas was. And if we left it at that, the case would be quite clear. But as you probably realize, though neither Ukraine nor Russia is anything like Palestine and Israel, the matter of “who hit whom first?” — as with Hamas — leaves out important context.
I do think that the US had been baiting Russia into this, especially with the many overtures towards making Ukraine a part of NATO and thus having a reason to put US troops on Russia's border. Was Putin correct? I don't know. We will probably never know what the US was really up to in Ukraine thanks to Biden's pardon of Hunter. But the larger question is whether or not Putin was justified, and I absolutely don’t think he was because I don’t think military action is ever justified.
But again, we cannot look just at the initial act of aggression without context. It’s a lot like something I witnessed often with my two nephews when they were much younger. The oldest, who was much bigger and far stronger than the younger one, would often hit the younger and then get in trouble with his parents. I started observing them and finally noticed that the youngest one had been constantly provoking the older one when their parents were not watching. No, of course, the older one wasn’t justified in his excessive punches, but one certainly couldn’t say his aggression was coming out of nowhere.
That’s where the NATO bit, and also Ukraine’s long bombing of its own territory (the Donbas), and any potential US manipulation needs to be included in any analysis of the start and continuation of this war.
Why dismiss comparisons to 1938/1939?
You ought to explain why the comparison to Hitler in 1939 is 'absurd.' Most people in Europe think, on the other hand, that the comparison is obvious. It seems very tenuous to claim this is the result of modern propaganda.