It seems almost the entire US (and most of the European) political-media class has gone stark, raving, mad.
Do we need to discuss whether Ukraine is a “democracy”? It is a “democracy” in the sense that anything which is against somewhat autocratic (“managed democracy” perhaps) Russia is a “democracy”. In objective fact though, Ukraine is rather authoritarian and centralist. They have a similar score on Transparency International’s corruption index as Russia. They are perhaps somewhat to the right of Poland which has had its own run-ins with the EU about the rule of law. Democracy, in Europe, includes the concept of local self-government. There is even a Charter about this – part of the Council of Europe. Not, it seems, when the people who want it are locals in Donbas…. In other words, the idea that anyone is “defending democracy” in Ukraine is nonsense.
Just the sight of Kamala Harris from the clip from December 2022 clapping and cheering from behind the podium should be enough. (Behind the podium can also be understood metaphorically). Tens of thousands of people have died, and more are dying every day. She looks like a cheerleader at a High School football match. On the same theme another one is Ursula von Leyen, the EU Commissioner, who grins like a minor celebrity opening the Christmas lights festival whenever she visits the country which the EU has played a major role into dragging into chaos.
Final thought for the day. The UK media is celebrating Kiev’s hit on Russia’s naval HQ in Sevastopol with, apparently, a British supplied Storm Shadow. Is anyone thinking? Is there going to be no blow-back on this? It seems not; on the contrary, some, at least, really seem to think that this is going to cause Putin to negotiate.