The latest moves on the geopolitical chess board have more than a few people in the States repeating some tired old saws: Putin is Hitler, Russian aggression, and so forth. There are some historical misconceptions within those statements that need to be cleared up.
Starting with more recent history, there is a good reason why Russia would be concerned about Western intentions and actions in the Ukraine and elsewhere in her near-abroad – actually several reasons, those being previous Western efforts to invade and conquer Russia. Fr Andrew Phillips gives some dates as well as some other details, to which we shall return in a moment:
Russia has continually been invaded by Western countries, notably in more recent history in 1812, 1854, 1914 and 1941. Western aggression there is notorious. In 1812 and 1945, the invasions ended with Russian liberations of Paris, Vienna and Berlin, respectively. The dismantling of Soviet Eastern Europe and then its occupation by the US military means that the buffer zone set up to protect Russia after 1945 has gone. We wonder what the US reaction would be if Russian missiles were being positioned on the US-Mexican border, as the US is positioning its missiles on the Russian-Ukrainian border?
One can go much further back in time than this for examples of Western aggression against Russia, to the 13th century with the attacks of the German Teutonic Knights and also the Swedes, who were all defeated by the exceptional Prince Alexander Nevsky.
The present times offer no comfort, though. Per Andrew Bacevich:
As the Costs of War study notes, “Between 1995 and 2019…3,455 U.S. citizens were killed in terror attacks”—by no means a trivial number. It also states that the U.S. wars undertaken in response to 9/11 “directly killed over 929,000 people,” an altogether jaw-dropping figure. Sadly, this exchange ratio of nearly 300 to 1 is indicative not of success but of strategic bankruptcy. It also raises profound moral questions that Americans have too casually ignored.
What national leader would trust a country with that kind of dismal moral track record? The lack of trustworthiness is compounded by the lies the US told Russia during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton years that NATO would not expand to the east after the Soviet Union collapsed.
The US also have their own hypocrisy to deal with. Pres. Biden said in some recent public remarks, ‘Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belongs to his neighbors?’ If that is troublesome to Biden, he first needs to reunite West Virginia with Virginia, for the former was ‘declared a new so-called State on territory that belonged’ to Virginia by Lincoln and the Yankees, quite unconstitutionally, during the War of Northern Aggression.
The forced annexation of Hawai’i by Washington City would also need to be addressed by the crusaders against Russia before the US were in a moral position to act.
But perhaps most relevantly, why on earth are we focusing on the Ukraine, a country that affects the States hardly at all, when there is an actual, literal invasion taking place at the Mexican border?
. . .
The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2022/02/garlington-the-ukraine-should-not-be-a-priority-for-the-us/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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