My second commenting account on the Guardian seems to have been “disabled”. I posted a comment on this article in the Guardian by Orysia Lutsevych. Orysia Lutsevych seems to be a senior figure at Chatham House, a lobby group, (for war?), funded by US government, the UK Foreign Office, US equity companies and arms companies. [1] I have read one of her previous articles. There is a format. The articles are designed to appear very academic, balanced, serious. But, of course, the bottom line is more weapons for Ukraine and endless war, with a lacuna on anything the current regime in Kiev might have done, or not done, (such as repudiate Minsk for example), that might have contributed to the current mess.
I have written before about the Guardian’s undeclared political censorship regime. My comment on today’s article appeared momentarily and then was silently eliminated; without the customary “removed by moderators” message. The account now appears to be “disabled for commenting”. This suppression is further confirmation of my observation; the one kind of comments which are suppressed are ones which make calm, argued, evidenced points against the war. Less well argued anti-war posts sometimes make it. I guess it is necessary to give the semblance of debate.
In this case Orysia Lutsevych’s article seems rather hard to follow. A certain amount of waffle and then the main point; Trump cannot be trusted and Europe must take up the reins of support for Ukraine. This is the same message as the regime in Kiev. I didn’t call her a “Kiev stooge”, though. The Guardian’s own “moderation policy” specifically permits temperate criticism of their own material. I did point out though that you need to do more than say that Russia’s reasons for the intervention in Ukraine were more than the “fabrication” she claims. I pointed out that:
a) The Russian objection to having NATO in Ukraine is no different from the US’s Monroe doctrine, which is very much alive. (This is the doctrine that no foreign power can be allowed to establish a military presence in their hemisphere). One can point to Cuba and statements made in December 2021 by the US about mooted Russian cooperation with Venezuela as evidence of this.
b) There were a number of reasons for the Russians to be concerned about what was happening in Eastern Ukraine. Russian had been demoted from its status as an official language in Ukraine. Shopkeepers were told to greet customers in Russian. There are a large number of ethnic Russians and fellow-travellers in Ukraine. Kiev repudiated Minsk.
All of the above can pretty much be said to be “checkable facts”. The Russian view, as I said in the eliminated comment, can be assessed differently, given different weightings, – but a fabrication, it is not. And here Orysia Lutsevych betrays herself as not so much an “academic” as someone who is working on the art of writing senseless war propaganda in the style of academic writing!
But, anyway, it is interesting that the “independent” Guardian where “truth will set you free”, (or something like that), is in reality engaged in propagandising for a senseless war and hiding from the public an alternative, and rational, view.
Daily Mail readers less pro war than liberals
As a footnote to this; I also commented today on a short article by a commentator in the Daily Mail. Here the well-known journalist Peter Hitches, wrote a short piece, [2] saying that the Western narrative on Ukraine is “propaganda nonsense”. He makes the obvious argument that Russia has been openly warning about NATO on its doorstep being a red line for years, and with reason. He makes the additional point – about the 2008 Russia Georgia war. War mongers frequently trot out that “Russia started a war with Georgia in 2008 and this shows a pattern of aggression”. In fact that war was without doubt initiated by Georgia, (probably buoyed by promises of NATO membership), as a EU fact-finding report, which was reported in the mainstream media makes clear. (Some of my comments were published, some not). I did notice that approximately 65% of commenting accounts on the Daily Mail on this article were “liking” comments which were in support of Hitchens’ arguments. That was encouraging. Assuming this is not some “Russian bot farm” at work, (and I imagine the DM has some kind of control over that) then, at least amongst the Daily Mail’s C1/C2? readership, there is in fact quite strong resistance to the war propaganda. I think liberals are likely to be pro war, not because they are actually fans of Ukrainian nationalism, (notice the total media silence on Ukrainian nationalist anti LGBT positions as on the links between racism and anti-immigrant attitudes amongst the Russian liberal opposition), but because they hate anti-permissive, authoritarian and conservative Russia. It threatens their hedonistic, materialistic, atheistic cult project.
Notes