UKRAINE: FROM FEELINGS TO WEAPONS

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The war in Ukraine is not just about the movements of soldiers on the ground; it is also about feelings: those of the actors for each other, and those of the spectators for each other. 

sympathy

Barack Obama is definitely a likeable character. A smiling face, a soft and deep voice, and a woman of such passion that Le Figaro wrote about her 265 times, often calling her by her first name only. We all applauded with emotion the election of the first black president of the United States and even followed his inauguration for which French television saw fit to broadcast four hours of live coverage. Le Monde covered it more than 13,000 times. And it is not because the United States is the first economic power, because the newspaper Les Echos, a specialist in the subject, has talked about it barely 5,000 times. This sympathy and trust have been built, consolidated, even sublimated, by the almost totality of the press describing incessantly the slightest actions of the presidential family, retransmitting to us hour by hour its slightest declaration (or that of its administration), its slightest intervention, its slightest impression and even its slightest suspicions, not to mention its accusations based on hypothetical evidence. 

Journalists are rare not to have fallen into this real idolatry which makes them lose all common sense, all reason, all clairvoyance. One of those, heroic and not of the least reference, wrote in Les Echos of July 20. The least we can say is that this is not an anti-American or pro-Russian newspaper, nor is it a conspiracy-theory journalist. It’s just a man who has kept his sanity and seems a little angry that he’s one of the last people to have his eyes open. It is Jean-Luc Baslé, the former director of the newspaper Les Echos. He writes about Obama’s July 18 press conference1(1):

« How can we give credit to a nation that invaded one country, Iraq, under a false pretext, the presence of weapons of mass destruction, that falsely accuses another, Syria, of using chemical weapons, that destroys a third, Libya, after having accommodated its leader for decades, and that organizes a coup in a fourth, Ukraine(2). All this in the name of freedom and democracy! How to believe such enormities in view of the state of these countries today? In his press conference, Obama was very clear. Putin must submit to the American conditions or suffer new sanctions. Sanctions are an act of war. Strange attitude of a president who invokes diplomacy in his opening statement but confronts his opponent with an ultimatum? Putin is a disreputable man, certainly. For all that, should he be condemned without trial? »

mistrust

Almost 800 times the newspaper Le Monde associates the term KGB with Putin(3). An edifying example is an article from May 16, 2014 named « Russia displays its ambitions in soccer », in the section Sport and form dedicated to the player Beckenbauer in which we read verbatim: « One should never forget that Putin was stationed in Dresden for the KGB. » The KGB sells, certainly, with its images of cruel spies dressed in sinister gray coats, acting in the cold and engaging in serial killings. But one could also recall that the KGB (now FSB) is like all the secret services in the world, like MOSSAD, the CIA or MI6: it recruits its most brilliant and loyal elements from the elite of the army. And when we see some heads of state, we can regret that they were not chosen precisely for these two qualities. It is a fact that Obama has bugged the whole world, but what does it matter if Putin is the spy? Let’s pass over the countless times when we could hear or read the strong man or the master of the Kremlin, or qualify the Russian military parade as a show of force, or which shows its muscles, while the French military parade is only a joyful good-natured parade. And one could even hear commentators judge that Putin did not have a frank look. The case of Putin is definitively settled when Marine Le Pen expresses her esteem for him. There, it becomes definitely acquired that Putin is a dangerous monster. 

No doubt we have lost all political consciousness, we are so desperate to believe only in these miserable custom-made « revolutions ». 

All this gives an idea of the obsession that the media transmit to the public opinion along with a certain ignorance, as a legendary and totally absurd expansionist will of Russia. This is a case of ignorance of the realities of the country. One does not seem to realize the danger of such propaganda, which could, if it is not already done, lead to a hatred that could well be the engine of a new catastrophe, and which is already the main obstacle to understanding the truth about Ukraine. This is a real responsibility of the media, in the maintenance of peace, that we could sometimes remind them of. And they already bear a heavy responsibility for the war in Ukraine. 

empathy

No doubt we have lost all political awareness, are so desperate that we only believe in these miserable custom-made « revolutions », broadcast live, which we are told are spontaneous like the choice of colors they display in a united and peaceful movement, where everything is organized, even the platforms where foreign intellectuals come to make historical speeches and for which our ministers fight to come and make statements on television. It will be a moving: « We are with you in spirit » addressed to the revolutionaries. It is always the brave David against the brute Goliath, and the new liberating government is celebrated, hailed, supported without reservation. All our leaders told us: Maidan was a formidable popular movement that would finally overthrow an authoritarian and brutal president that the oppressed people could no longer stand (after having elected him in 2010 and having renewed their confidence in 2012 after two national elections validated by the OSCE). Curiously, we were not told anything about the dozens of demonstrations that were taking place in the country at the same time in opposition to Maidan and for the maintenance of legality, they had no podiums, no cameras, no signs written in English. But the people wanted to get rid of the oligarchs, it seems. And this is how he elected Poroshenko, the king of oligarchs, who himself directly appointed two other notorious oligarchs as governors of the provinces: Akhmetov, the richest man in the country (47th richest in the world, prosecuted for money laundering, organized crime, and having had to flee the country in 2004 for suspicion of murder (4)), and Kolomoisky(5), the country’s third largest fortune (financing battalions of nationalists to carry out punitive expeditions in the east of the country and offering bounties for each rebel captured). 

hatred

Hate is a large-scale enterprise. Thus, the one sown in the West against Russia, through Putin, since it stopped being a poor country. France, the United States and England are undoubtedly where this hatred, combined with ignorance, is most prevalent. In the imagination of these people, Russia remained the Soviet Union. Others, like Poland or the Baltic States, obviously do not need any propaganda to feed it. It has existed for a long time for understandable historical reasons, but these incessant campaigns revive and update it against post-Soviet Russia. 

On the other hand, Poroshenko has installed hatred for a long time in his country, where he has been bombing his own population for more than two months without any Western leader being offended by it. It has become a traditional war, one might say, but the conflict began without artillery and aviation, when the Pravyi Sektor militia, composed of illiterate wretches, were sent in small groups to these regions to engage in simple punitive expeditions, killing indiscriminately anyone and anywhere, when, on May 2, a hundred peaceful demonstrators with women and children were locked in a building in Odessa, the majority of whom died burned alive or shot. This was the beginning, the dead were still only counted in tens, one might dare to say, but this period marked the beginning of a hatred that most of the inhabitants will not be able to extinguish other than with the blood of their enemies. It wasn’t a war yet, it was murder. This hatred is long-lasting, it is the hatred that one dedicates to the murderer of one’s parents, one’s partner or one’s children. 

 » How can we forgive?  » said a resident of a bombed-out village. 

And his hatred is not only directed towards the president or the people of the West, it is also directed towards the European Union and the United States, it is directed towards those who are really responsible. Because if the reader of the The world did not want to or could not see the reality masked by all the constructions he invented for himself, the small peasant from the Lugansk region has his feet firmly on the ground and his eyesight clear, he understood perfectly who was responsible. His legitimate hatred against the European Union will last for a long time. As for his hatred of America, it will be added to that of the countries of South America, of Asia, of the countries of the Arab world and of some African countries. The great power led by the so nice Obama is responsible for too many massacres, too many bombings, too much misfortune, too much blood. It is up to us to stop believing in their lies so that this horror can stop. 

The armed conflict may last a few more weeks in its current form, but it may take a few decades to die out. This is the best hypothesis, the one where Russia resists all the provocations of Kiev and does not enter the conflict despite all the efforts of the Americans. 

But whatever the outcome, it will definitely be impossible for these populations to live with Kiev. In a few weeks, under the pretext of safeguarding its unity, Poroshenko will have definitively disintegrated the country. There will likely be a mass exodus from this region where a large number of homes have been destroyed, where the infrastructure will no longer function, where there will be no work, no hope, no water, no electricity, no gas, where there will be nothing but humanitarian disaster and hate. No doubt the European Union will send humanitarian aid like the torturer consoles his victim. But lives will remain shattered forever, people will not forget, and some of them will become what the EU and Poroshenko forced them to become by first naming them as such: terrorists. 

the shame

On June 20, Poroshenko instituted a cease-fire to go « sign in peace » on June 27 in Brussels. In the photo after signing, he is seen crossing hands with the highest personalities of the European Union’s major bodies. On the picture, the characters are hilarious, they jump for joy, they seem to celebrate a great victory. The next day, the European Union authorities gave Russia a 72-hour ultimatum to surrender, in accordance with Poroshenko’s « peace plan ». But the rebels do not plan to surrender. Back from Brussels, Poroshenko can resume the bombing by blaming Russia. 

Shame is probably the dominant feeling of those who understood what was going on, and who understood it because they wanted to pay a little attention. On the same day, the European Parliament and the President of Ukraine were elected. This state machine, which has sometimes made people smile with its heaviness, its stupidity or its absurdity, this machine which has so often been laughed at with benevolence, has become deadly. It is now opposing its member states, more and more often, with more and more force, against their interests. It invents illusory consensuses on points of detail when there are rifts on the essentials, it opposes the member states as if it had an existence outside them. Through the Ukrainian crisis, it has become a monster. Its bodies have taken on an existence of their own and have dragged its members into an indecent Atlanticism, executing the slightest whim of a grossly deceitful, aggressive and murderous America. 

To regions that only asked for a simple referendum because they felt betrayed by a coup d’état, it found it legitimate to respond by bombing the civilian population. Poroshenko could never have carried out these massacres if the EU had opposed them. Instead, she rewarded him for it. The European Union promised us peace and it has provoked war. A rebel declared « It will be a referendum, or an ocean of corpses ». The European Union has given its answer and finds the price of an ocean of corpses less than that of a referendum. Thus, we are fixed on what it is about democracy, we are fixed on what it is about choosing between the good and the safety of the people on the one hand, and the observance of an ubiquitous regulation that only serves an administration on the other hand. We can only hope that this damned European Union implodes at the same time as Ukraine when the divergence of interests becomes too strong. What other feeling than shame could one feel towards him? 

Michel Segal

Notes et références
  1. www.lesechos.fr
  2. Au mépris d’un accord passé entre Mikhaïl Gorbatchev et James Baker, alors Secrétaire d’État des États-Unis.
  3. Il suffit de faire une recherche KGB et Poutine sur le site du journal.
  4. www.kyivpost.com.
  5. fr.wikipedia.org.

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