Mainstream Press Turns on Ukraine- Chapter 2

Truth is not stranger than fiction- in the end, they are the same thing.

This time, an article from the New Yorker, featuring an interview with John Mearsheimer, essentially promoting the view that, with Russia and Ukraine, might makes right, and besides, it's all our fault anyway.  Here are some excerpts from this piece of trash, along with Green Eagle's usual hostile comments.  And yes, things like this do get the Wingnut Wrapup treatment, because they are just as abominable as any right wing delusion. So here we go.  Where you see Q: and A:, that refers to the interviewer's comments and Mearsheimer's.

"what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the west...it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat."

Which part is an existential threat, being pro-American or being a democracy?  Either way, apparently these things are just unacceptable in Mearsheimer's world.

"Q: It would seem like almost some sort of imperialism to tell them that they can’t be a liberal democracy.

A: It’s not imperialism; this is great-power politics."

Oh, to have Bismarck back again. Or maybe just Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney.  Look how much good they did.  Did I already say something about might makes right?  

"Q:  saying that America will not allow countries in the Western hemisphere, most of them democracies, to decide what kind of foreign policy they have—you can say that’s good or bad, but that is imperialism, right? We’re essentially saying that we have some sort of say over how democratic countries run their business.

A: We do have that say...This is the way great powers behave."

And apparently fine with Mearsheimer.  Just an unashamed apology for Putin's doing whatever he wants.  Democracy? To hell with that.

"We went around the world trying to create liberal democracies. Our main focus, of course, was in the greater Middle East, and you know how well that worked out. Not very well.

Q: I think it would be difficult to say that America’s policy in the Middle East in the past seventy-five years since the end of the Second World War, or in the past thirty years since the end of the Cold War, has been to create liberal democracies in the Middle East.

A: I think that’s what the Bush Doctrine was about during the unipolar moment."

What a bunch of unmitigated rubbish.  Our Mideast policy during the Bush Era was to create paradises for hyper-rich sociopaths, not create democracies.  Didn't work out (how could it,) but that's what we were up to, and really it wasn't much better than Putin. And anyone who can get a job writing for the New Yorker knows that perfectly well.  I.e. they know they are lying.  Which we get plenty of from Republicans, 24 hours a day, so we don't need any more hiding in the pages of a supposedly liberal magazine.

"I believe that during the unipolar moment (in the Middle East,) we were deeply committed to spreading democracy."

Oh, of course you believe that, John.  Learned quite a lesson the last few years from Donald Trump about the utility of just lying with a straight face, huh?

"Nobody seriously thought that Russia was a threat before February 22, 2014...What happened is that this major crisis broke out, and we had to assign blame, and of course we were never going to blame ourselves. We were going to blame the Russians. So we invented this story that Russia was bent on aggression in Eastern Europe.  I think the evidence is clear that we did not think he was an aggressor before February 22, 2014. This is a story that we invented so that we could blame him."

We "invented" a story which now turns out to be true, but this is an abomination because he wasn't an aggressor before February 22, 2014, so we must have fabricated that claim after February 22, 2014, when he attacked Ukraine.  Man, I can find easier to believe stuff than that every day from the Gateway Pundit.  

"My argument is that the West, especially the United States, is principally responsible for this disaster.  But no American policymaker, and hardly anywhere in the American foreign-policy establishment, is going to want to acknowledge that line of argument, and they will say that the Russians are responsible."

Because, of course, the Russians are responsible.   When you start invading a foreign country without pretext and killing tens of thousands of their citizens, you are responsible.  That was as true when the US invaded Iraq as it is today.   But don't expect this apparently paid hack for Putin to ever admit that.  Anyway, things are about to deteriorate to parody of real discussion:

"I mean, it does seem apparent that he’s not touching western Ukraine.

Q: His bombs are touching it, right?

A: But that’s not the key issue."

Of course not.  Bombing territory into oblivion apparently is not touching it.  I mean, can you imagine a more egregious instance of unapologetic denial of reality?

"Q: What do you think our policy should be in Ukraine right now, and what do you worry that we’re doing that’s going to undermine our China policy?

A: We should be pivoting out of Europe...And, number two, we should be working overtime to create friendly relations with the Russians."

Translation:  We should be capitulating unilaterally to Vladimir Putin and agreeing that he has a perfect right to invade other countries.  (Bolding because in the end, that is all this article is about.) And this seems to be the new line taken even by members of the supposed liberal press:  Hey, if you can get away with genocide, what a genius you are.  And now we come to the heart of the matter:

"I think if you join an alliance with the Soviet Union to fight against Nazi Germany, it is a strategically wise policy, but it is a morally wrong policy."

It was morally wrong to have done what we needed to do to defeat the Nazis. It was unfair to Hitler, and beating him is a stain on our character, just as beating Putin would be.  Apparently, in the case of defeating Nazi Germany, might makes right was an abomination, but not with Putin's attacks on Ukraine.  Too bad the interviewer didn't pursue this issue- I would have loved to hear more.  And in regard to the Nazis, please see the note at the end of this article.

"I think there’s a serious possibility that the Ukrainians can work out some sort of modus vivendi with the Russians."

By giving up.  This seems to be the new mainstream press answer to Putin.  And in a country where this vicious garbage is fed even to liberals, in a supposedly liberal publication, what can we expect public opinion toward Ukraine to be in a couple of months?

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I want to be open about my attitude toward Mearsheimer here, particularly in his apparent distaste for what it took to defeat the Nazis.  Mearsheimer has, in the last couple of decades, worked to promote some of the most anti-Semitic views in existence toward Jews and Israel.  I am Jewish, and I am sorry if this is a fatal character flaw on my part, but I cannot view anything he says except through this lens.  I don't want to spend time discussing this issue, however, because it is a distraction from my main point that the press is inevitably turning on Biden, and that is (also inevitably) going to mean turning on his greatest success- the marshalling of the free world's nations in opposition to Putin's barbarism.

If you would like to know a little more about Mearsheimer, you can always try Wikipedia, which is a fairly good introduction.