Is Ukraine the new Syria?
Let’s deconstruct media narratives
In the Western corporate media, you often hear of conflict and bloodshed in far-off lands. These conflicts often involve people of whom you’ve never heard and circumstances and cultures you don’t understand. You may barely have the information that you need in order to make an educated decision based upon the actual reality. But if we examine some of the similarities between the circumstances in Syria and Ukraine, we can find some realities to look for when it comes to the next war we are supposed to support.
The first reality we must consider is the people we are supposed to support. In Syria, the United States government supported the Free Syrian Army, which claimed to be former army officers and soldiers but also included Islamists supported by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, groups that have also had direct associations with Salafi Jihadist groups like Al Qaeda. Indeed, as the weapons the United States government ended up in more and more hands such as these, the problem for the Syrian government became evermore problematic as they had to deal with more and more armed fanatics threatening the integrity of the Syrian state.
This can be compared to Ukraine, which during the same period of tumultuous revolutionary rebellions supported by the United States received NATO training and also billions of dollars worth of arms shipments. Some of this training and equipment benefitted Ukrainian nationalist fanatics too, and some of them wreaked havoc across Ukraine, targeting disfavored ethnic groups, including Russians. These fanatics also threatened the future of reconciliation between the separatists in the Donbass and the regime in Kiev.
As a result of the disorder created by these fanatics in both countries, often involving torture and thuggery of all sorts, Russians in the Donbass as well as the Syrian government become evermore ardent about protecting their own interests. This involves more and more clashes with the fanatics and involves escalation on both sides. This escalation is often intentional on the part of American sponsors as it raises the volume of international concern and provokes regimes and forces disfavored by the West to more and more desperate acts of escalation. This escalation draws humanitarian concern.
Neoconservatives and Liberal Interventionists draw upon this concern and use it to seize upon what’s known now as the “Responsibility to Protect” or “R2P.” According to the Globak Center for the Responsibility to Protect:
The Responsibility to Protect – known as R2P – is an international norm that seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The concept emerged in response to the failure of the international community to adequately respond to mass atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed the concept of R2P during 2001.
Thus, if the West can provoke and escalate preexisting tensions and conflicts within certain countries, the negative results of their policies can be used for justification for more and more interventionist policies within those same countries, allowing them to wage legally justified wars based upon events for which they themselves are culpable.
The Western corporate media may put all kinds of bloody images on your screen or show you areas of devastation as a result of the conflict. They may try to manipulate your emotions or morally blackmail you. But if you know the basic Western playbook, you will at least know the right questions to ask. This may save the world someday.
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Hmmmmm....?
You write:
"This can be compared to Ukraine, which during the same period of tumultuous revolutionary rebellions supported by the United States received NATO training and also billions of dollars worth of arms shipments. Some of this training and equipment benefitted Ukrainian nationalist fanatics too, and some of them wreaked havoc across Ukraine, targeting disfavored ethnic groups, including Russians. These fanatics also threatened the future of reconciliation between the separatists in the Donbass and the regime in Kiev."
You make the neonazis in Ukraine sound like 'outsiders' when the opposite is the reality. Far from being extremist, fanatics on the fringe of Ukrainian society, they are in fact, integrated into the Ukrainian state, from education to the military! You ignore the role of fascism in the making of modern Ukraine, especially its connection to German Nazism and the Ukrainian participation in the slaughter of 100s of 1000s of Ukrainian Jews, Roma and Slavs, during the Great Patriotic War.
Sir where do you get your information? Solovyov, Lavrov, Skabeeva, Kisselyov, Zero hedge or the serbians? Did you ever notice the trends regarding what has happened to nations who have sided with and/or succumbed to russia vs the civilized world? West vs East Germany, North/south Korea, modern Belarus vs neighbouring Poland or Baltics? It's the economy, stupid (not to imply north korea or the other friends of muscovian bastards ever had an upper hand in freedom of expression or land rights etc) Anybody who had anything to do with Russia or Russians was always bankrupt, corrupted and persecuted, ok maybe some polar/siberian/central asian or caucasus tribes managed to improve their gdp coz their level of civilization was even lower than that of the russians. Average wage in the superpower of russia's provinces is 300-600 usd, while a banana, an iphone or a car spare part at best costs no less than in Europe (where a monthly wage earns 5-10+x of said items compared to your noble "superpower"). Why would any sensible Ukrainian voluntarily choose to be a vassal of this nation of bare-bottomed bums, (albeit with nukes)? Surely it took the coercion of America to convince them.