All acknowledged that the recent creation of an autocephalous
Ukrainian Orthodox Church would heighten tensions between Kiev and Moscow and
amplify the growing rift between the Moscow Patriarchate and that of
Constantinople.
These conflicts are playing out on multiple fronts. The
AsiaNews link explores some of the difficulties in Ukraine as its symbols,
shrines, relics and properties remain divided. Small seemingly innocuous moves
can mean a lot.
Additionally, a story broke this week about a weapons cache
found among some Neo-Nazis in Italy. The weapons were reported as bound for the
Pro-Russian and Moscow supported separatists in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass. Much
has been made of this story.
As I've been working a great deal this week I hadn't had the
opportunity to explore the story but it troubled me... because it made little
sense. The Neo-Nazis in the Donbass are fighting as paramilitaries allied with
the Ukrainian government. During World War II it was the Ukrainians that formed
fascist pro-Nazi units and participated in the war against the USSR. Their
descendants are alive and well and very active in Ukraine.
While there are some Russian Neo-Nazis out there and indeed
Neo-Nazism played a dissident role in countries like the GDR, there's never
been any substantial indication of Neo-Nazi activity in the Donbass on the part
of the pro-Russian groups. If anything they're fanatically anti-Nazi and have
succumbed to a type of Russian Orthodox fanaticism, even fascism. 'Close enough'
some will say but this is to misunderstand the history and the focus of these
movements. Despite somewhat simplistic American perceptions there's a fascist
spectrum and not all the groups get along... especially when there's old
animosities such as between the Russians and the Germans. For example the
Ukrainian fascists are not going to share the views of fellow Ukrainians with
regard to joining the EU. The EU is a threat to nationalism. However these same
groups view Moscow as a much greater even existential threat and thus
anti-Russian activity is their main focus. And frankly the powers that be in
Kiev (and Washington) are happy enough to utilise them.
My news feed located a fact checking story about RT dealing
with these issues. It piqued my interest because I had the same thoughts and
apparently RT sought to deal with them as well. The fact checking sites are
helpful at times but when it comes to anything that seriously challenges the
Western Establishment narrative especially when it comes to history or foreign
policy, the fact checkers quickly turn into spin doctors.
Here's the link to the RT piece by Danielle Ryan:
And the fact checking rebuttal:
The thing is Ryan is right, the West has been whitewashing
the role of Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine and on a fairly staggering scale. If some
of the things taking place in Ukraine had happened in the UK, France, the
United States or Germany, they would be the source of major headlines. And yet
the West has been silent. And so there's every reason to be suspicious.
The Polygraph info link muddies the waters and insists that
that the Italian Right is working on both sides and then tries to weave
together a narrative regarding Salvini and the Russians and then must do all it
can to deconstruct the official narrative regarding the capture of these
weapons. The truth is the story was changed under rather suspicious
circumstances and that while Eastern Ukraine is a confused mess, even Polygraph
has to admit that most of the Italian Right's attention and affection have been
directed toward Ukrainian Neo-Nazi's.
Does this aspect of the Right even include Salvini? It's
quite complicated. Of course I personally wish there would be more reporting
about Salvini's ties to fascist elements even as he's also starting to
collaborate with American based Evangelicals... the same folks who often and
naively still peg fascism as being a Left-wing movement. It fits the American Right's
fictitious metanarrative but also blinds them to the fact that it is the
American Right that has long had ties to European fascism and is in the process
of establishing new ones.
The Polygraph site seems determined to smear the less than
sympathetic Salvini and to gloss over the funny business that took place with
the release of the story about the captured weapons. The rabbit trails were
impressive. Just what is this Polygraph site I asked myself? When I found it, I
just shook my head.
Some might decry this as ad
hominem but let's be clear what the Polygraph website is... it's a branch
of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe. In other words it's a CIA news
outlet and a well known one at that. Officially the relationship with Langley was
severed in the 1970's but the ties are still there, they're simply buried under
layers of front organisations and liaisons with the State Department. I think
it's only the officials connected to the organisations that would try and refute
this. It's otherwise commonly known and accepted.
During the Cold War these outlets were used to propagandise
Europe and especially the Eastern Bloc. They were used again in the 1990's as
the United States working through Paul Weyrich of the Heritage Foundation and
CIA connected National Endowment for Democracy figures such as Laszlo Pasztor (and
other ex-fascists) laboured to swing ex-Warsaw Pact nations into the Western
orbit. It was a very successful operation but they weren't able to finish and
now the loose ends.... places like Serbia, Ukraine and Russia itself remain a
thorn in the Western side.
Italy has been marked as a defector by the NATO-EU Atlantic
Bloc. It has signed OBOR deals with China and is (along with the V4) playing a
dissident role in the EU. The Russian gas deals decried in the Polygraph
article are also being signed in places like Germany... also a source of
irritation for Washington. But Washington isn't going to pick on Berlin just
now. Salvini on the other hand is being targeted. Washington clearly wants him
gone. And suddenly this whole fact checking story smells funny.
The Ukrainian Conflict is complicated and its ramifications
are spreading as the West can't seem to dislodge Moscow even as the EU seems to
be growing weaker by the day. Even NATO looks shaky in light of Trump's
machinations and the moves taken by Germany and France in forming The Aachen
Treaty. It was no accident that Angela Merkel was invited to Paris to witness the
annual militaristic show put on for Bastille Day. This year the tone was
different. It included the normal military display but the organising principle
was not NATO, but the new European Defense Initiative, the Common Security and
Defense Policy (CSDP) and a host of other acronyms and programmes being used to
create an NATO-independent European army.
From the battles within Orthodoxy to the propaganda war, the
Ukraine is a battlefield not just between Russian separatists and Ukrainian
nationalists but a series of proxy conflicts between East and West, Moscow and
the United States, Moscow and Atlanticism and even Western Modernity and the
growing call to question and reject Classical Liberalism and the Enlightenment.
Biblically minded Christians are caught in the middle. From
the divided and destroyed congregations in Eastern Ukraine to the
politicisation of Christians in Central Europe, there are no good answers and
little optimism. Church leaders who have largely embraced Dominionist theology seem
quick to succumb to these Right-wing efforts. And yet in countries like Russia
it is the very sacral anti-Enlightenment model that has empowered the Orthodox
Church and in collaboration with the Putin government it has started to put a
great deal of pressure on non-Orthodox groups or 'sects' as they're seen. The
Jehovah's Witnesses are being openly persecuted. As the Moscow-Washington
conflict intensifies all Evangelical and Protestant congregations with any
bureaucratic or financial ties to the West are going to be placed in Moscow's
sights.
There's no winning here. While it's refreshing to see some
resistance to the Sodomite-Feminist wave that has overtaken the West, the
monistic sacral models that are beginning to appear in Russia and some of the
EU dissident nations are no friends to Biblical Christianity and in some cases
represent a real danger.
As this RT-Polygraph exchange shows, there's a lot of
mischief going on and the safest bet is to trust no one. There's a propaganda
war taking place and the truth is the first casualty. Do I trust RT? Generally
speaking I do not. But I absolutely do not trust Polygraph, Radio Free Europe
or VOA. No one in their right mind would.
See also:
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