The Ukraine Narrative Blown Apart

Maybe you caught it, maybe you didn't. In some circles it was barely a headline and in other contexts the weight of this news was softened or outright spun. Days after the fact it would seem that the mainstream media has simply chosen to ignore it.

I refer to the story regarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's statements regarding the crisis and his recent interactions with Biden.

The gist of the story is this – the crisis is manufactured and the West is guilty of generating hysteria. Zelensky is no friend of Putin or fan of Russia but as he sees it, there's no immediate or pressing threat of invasion. Nothing has changed – the scenario is very much the same as it has been for the past several years. The hysteria and warmongering by the West are severely damaging the Ukrainian economy as diplomatic missions pull out (a dramatic but completely unwarranted move), and consequently investors are beginning to balk. He wants the situation to calm down and apparently expressed as much in his recent phone call with US President Joe Biden. Needless to say, the Washington power brokers are probably not overly thrilled with Mr. Zelensky at the moment. He's deviated from the script and we're starting to see Western media begin a 'take down' campaign, calling him into question with suggestions of corruption and anti-democratic attempts to consolidate power.

It never bothered them before and still wouldn't as long as he kept to the script. The same is true of Kyiv's alliance with Neo-Nazi paramilitaries which the US utilised in 2014, and continues to back.

And lest someone suggest it, it needs to be said that Zelensky is not one of Putin's minions. Therefore the headlines should spell out this painful and poignant truth – the crisis is manufactured and the Biden administration is even starting to float fringe ideas – literally the kind of stuff that in other circles would be considered conspiracy theories – Alex Jones-type material as an AP reporter recently put it in his clash with a State Department spokesman. As journalists revealed the fraudulent nature of groups like the White Helmets and some of the videos they produced, such inquiries and exposés were decried by Western governments as delusional – and yet just a few years later we see the US government floating such suggestions of false-flag attacks, manufactured videos, and the like – but with no evidence. And as the AP reporter found out, to question the narrative will mean an attack on your patriotism and a questioning of your loyalty.

Indeed in recent weeks, turning on the BBC or NPR I feel like I'm reliving 2002 and the propaganda campaign leading up to The Iraq War. But without the emotional wave of a 9/11 to ride and manipulate, the current campaign is not proving to be as effective. And though in 2002 many of us did not buy into the WMD propaganda, this time the story's holes are appearing and large sections of the public stand in doubt.

Sadly the Right-wing has picked up on this and they (almost alone) are the ones to run with this story of Zelensky's deviation from the NATO script, and yet they're interests are not in averting war or because of affection for Moscow, or in the interest of truth. They simply want to score political points and find something to accuse Biden of, or trap him in scandal. No matter what the outcome, they will be sure to present him as feckless, naive, and reckless to the point of criminal negligence. And of course they will point out his corruption – which in that case the charges do contain some truth. And he is reckless, but not in the sense they mean. The recklessness I refer to is not ineptitude but the madness of imperialism and the militarism it is wedded to. The FOX crowd is just as reckless in that sense, if not more so. If the context were different many of these same politicians and media figures would champion such US militarism and back it with moral arguments.

The Russian system is wicked and morally bankrupt and (with an economy the size of Italy), on the economic and geopolitical defensive, but Anglo-American Atlanticism as represented particularly by NATO has no moral superiority. It is desperate to distract (as seen with Boris Johnson on a personal level and in terms of British politics), and using militarism as a means to deflect from its own deep and systemic problems – and in light of the last decade's developments, these sections appear increasingly desperate.

It's interesting to note the European response. It's not as unified as the US/NATO would paint it or hoped it would be. There are some cases of robust rhetoric but apart from the UK, what we're seeing is largely a tepid and symbolic commitment. You can be certain that Washington is unhappy with the recent accession of Olaf Scholz as German Chancellor. Angela Merkel was not as zealously anti-Russian as the Atlanticists would have liked but Scholz is part of a German political tradition (the SPD) that is highly sceptical of American leadership. The SPD has produced leaders like Willy Brandt with his Ostpolitik which angered American Cold War hawks and Gerhard Schröder who despite being no dove, strongly opposed Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq and Schröder's refusal to join the coalition generated a breach with Washington. Schröder further angered Washington by sponsoring the Nordstream 1 project and even after leaving office when in 2014 the ex-chancellor compared Russia's intervention in Crimea to NATO's actions in Kosovo fifteen years earlier. Both actions he rightly insisted were illegal.

Scholz is part of this political school and as America is beating the war drums once again they find that one of their most critical European satraps is in a state of nonconformity. Scholz clearly is not buying into the American narrative and yet his government has been forced to concede that a Russian invasion would mean the end of Nordstream 2 – a key American goal. You can be sure that as he visits Washington this week he will be under severe pressure to conform.

The US is pushing for this crisis and most can see that – except for the American public which has been so heavily propagandised that unless one ventures beyond domestic media, there's little hope of hearing an informed and intelligent analysis. Once again, the dissenting opinions appearing on FOX are not serious but mere political angling and thus just as harmful and deceptive.

Some analysts have suggested the US is trying to find a modus vivendi with Moscow in order to pursue the Chinese front. According to this line of thinking the US manufactured the crisis in order to force Russia to the table and while Washington is prepared to grant a few concessions the crisis affords an opportunity to make such concessions appear as if they're hard fought diplomatic victories. I find this narrative to be more or less dubious and uncharacteristically risky. Once again I believe the motivations of the US Establishment are complex. There is a genuine desire to put pressure on Russia but one of the key drives of this campaign is to re-assert Atlanticism – which assumes US leadership and has been the primary mechanism for US control of Europe. There are other social and economic factors at work driving this militarism on the part of Washington. The jury is still out on whether or not the Biden-fomented Ukraine Crisis will achieve its goals. Thus far there's been some success (as viewed from the American side), but it's been rather limited and thus in other respects the endeavour has been (at least thus far) a failure. The goal is to get Putin to invade and thus far he has not fallen for their trap. For the sake of peace and the many lives at stake, let's hope he doesn't and that figures like France's Macron and Germany's Scholz can negotiate a settlement.