Criticism Of The West For The Invasion Of Ukraine Does Not Equal Support For Russia
The media calculus is puzzling until we follow the money.
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I’ve been reflecting on the many responses I’ve received from my February 24th story, “The War In Ukraine Is A Manufactured Distraction”. I was pleased to have received some very positive comments, thank you. When I wrote it, I had hoped that Americans were capable of enough introspection to see how 30 years of American foreign policy errors and miscalculations contributed to the conditions that gave rise to the war in Ukraine.
I have also received quite a few very mean-spirited comments in response to my article, thank you, too. I looked at those comments with some trepidation. I learned something from those comments. Though they were disheartening, I wondered about the logic of those comments.
Some people seem to believe that insulting and condescending comments will actually improve the content produced by the receipient. I guess if I had confirmed the bias of those unhappy people, they would have been less unhappy.
Maybe my critics thought that by insulting me, they could change my mind. I’ve never actually seen that work. Not for me or for anyone else. I’m confident that if I had criticized my critics, they would only respond with harsher rhetoric. With them, I try to take the high road as well as I can.
What we read in the news doesn’t tell us the whole story. It’s an approximation. It’s a narrative and every narrative has its bias. And quite often, very powerful interests can control and manage the narrative.
Maybe my experience was to be expected. I learned that many people are comfortable with objectifying Vladimir Putin as an evil madman. I have no doubt that Putin has done some very terrible things, but that doesn’t make the West innocent.
Maybe it’s not easy to see that Putin was almost certainly provoked into war. This isn’t to say that he is noble, and nothing I say here is to suggest that the war is justified, but I think we should give greater consideration to what he is fighting against.
Putin is not fighting against Ukraine. Everything that I’ve read so far indicates that he wants to demilitarize…
