The Endless War Propaganda Machine- Ukraine Edition
Yet again, an unwinnable war is being nurtured by mass media lies.
If you believe the Western narrative, Ukraine has been winning their war with Russia from basically day one. Despite inconvenient facts on the ground: the significant chunk of Ukraine taken almost immediately, the surrounding and capture of large numbers of the most motivated and best equipped Ukrainian troops in Mariupol, the unbroken ability from day one of Russian forces to strike anywhere in the country, repeatedly; the fantasy of ultimate Ukrainian victory continues to be peddled shamelessly.
And not only from official Western government and military sources- the Western mainstream media has blatantly chosen a side and been more than ready to abandon basic journalistic principles in an effort to ‘help the good guys.’ Obviously manufactured Ukrainian tales of success and heroism, from the early fables of ‘the heroes of Snake Island’ (which, amazingly, is still being pushed) and the ‘Ghost of Kyiv’, to more recent efforts to spin tactically meaningless Ukrainian ‘counterattacks’ as signs of the war turning in their favor, are both barely questioned, if at all, and blared across multiple outlets. Clear examples of Russian success are downplayed or ignored. And the increasingly desperate state of the Ukrainian military is only now getting quiet mentions on the margins.
The unstated excuse for this shameless abandonment of the truth appears to be something along the lines of “it’s the right thing to do.” That lying, concealing information, and spinning questionable narratives, despite being fundamentally at odds with the basic precepts of a free press, is actually proper, and helping a victimized people to resist a brutal invader.
Never considered, apparently, is the possibility that the extension of this war is actually the worst outcome possible for the Ukrainian people. That it is only extending the time it takes to complete an inevitable Russian victory. That it is leading to the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, including, increasingly, old men and barely trained conscripts thrown into hopeless fights as obvious cannon fodder.
Nor is it considered that this Western push to keep Ukraine fighting to the last Ukrainian is not motivated by a desire to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, but by an imperial and militarist scheme to hurt Russia by forcing her to defeat an existential threat on her border, break Europe economically by severing it’s access to cheap Russian oil and gas, and keep the American military industrial complex humming after losing the two decade gold mine represented by the War on Terror.
The media mockingbirds singing their hearts out to keep the weapons flowing, and their continual efforts to tug on heartstrings to keep the Western public on board, should spend a few minutes in a Ukrainian trench being blasted by Russian artillery. They should spend more time talking to the many barely trained, poorly equipped, often shockingly old ‘troops’ thrown into tactically idiotic Ukrainian military efforts that seem to be driven by purely informational, political motives. Perhaps they should think about how exactly the current trajectory could lead to anything other than an increasingly destroyed, smaller, weakened Ukraine, or optionally, an even smaller rump Ukraine both completely dependent on Western aid to survive and in a unwinnable forever war with a powerful neighbor.
It is a sick, cowardly abandonment of the basic precepts of their job that will be seen as exactly that when later examined historically. And even more unforgivable when considering that this trick has been played on them, again and again.
From Vietnam, where US military claims of constant progress toward victory were parroted for years, to Iraq, where the absurdly quick claim of ‘Mission Accomplished’ was met with little skepticism, to Afghanistan, where year after year, despite no real evidence that military efforts were doing anything other than killing civilians, incurring hatred, and wasting epic sums of taxpayer money, the media continually genuflected to US military and government claims about the strength and prospects for victory of Western proxies.
The cost of this myopia and gutlessness, the key mechanism that allowed these wars to drag on for years, has literally been millions of foreign lives sacrificed on the altar of hopeless imperial schemes, as well as a much smaller number of American and Western military personnel. And unconsidered is the possible constructive use, both in the US and abroad, of the trillions of dollars spent to kill and destroy for years in these doomed adventures.
And yes, each of the examples mentioned never had ANY chance of success. The Vietnamese had been fighting for hundreds of years for the dream of a truly independent, united Vietnamese nation, against the Chinese, then the French, then the Americans and their native proxies. The Iraqi public was never going to stop fighting against a completely alien power that subjected them to years of indirectly inflicted misery before escalating to direct murder of Iraqi civilians, as well as Iraqis legitimately resisting a foreign invasion and occupation (funnily, unlike Ukrainians doing exactly the same today, labeled ‘terrorists’ or ‘militants’). The Afghan tribesmen with a long history of refusal to bow to imperial occupiers were never going to stop fighting the latest alien empire to arrogantly assume they could rule them.
This approach has again been employed, in spades, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not only is the tone, tenor, and level of credulity- amazingly- more extreme than the WMD war propaganda campaign, the stakes are massively higher. We are flirting with World War 3, and literally the end of humanity, while swimming in a mass media ocean of (mis-?)information that is shockingly biased, blatantly militarist and interventionist.
Similarly, here, Russia will NOT lose this fight. They see a closely Western/NATO aligned, deeply hostile, increasingly militarized Ukraine as an existential threat, a fortified stepping stone on the path used three different times by invaders to brutalize and damage Russia and Russians. The Russian government has literally been telling the West for decades that weaponization of Ukrainian statehood as a tool to destabilize and threaten Russia will not be tolerated, just as the United States wouldn’t tolerate a burgeoning military buildup by Chinese or Russian troops in Mexico, for instance, were an anti-US Mexican government ever to try such a thing.
The huge military advantage Russia holds all but guarantees they will get the win they demand, no matter how slowly they get it, or how delicately they decide to prosecute a war which exposes large numbers of people they see as basically Russian to collateral damage. Despite the carefully crafted image of bumbling incompetence, the Russian military is highly sophisticated, thoroughly modern, and battle hardened and experienced from significant experience fighting in Syria. Like in any war, it has experienced it’s share of tactical defeats, most in the first few days of the war, when risky deep penetration operations led to a few clear losses to Ukrainian forces. But a closer, less biased, examination reveals a greater truth- that strategically, Russia has overwhelmingly won, from the beginning.
And they’ve done it with a remarkably small force. Unlike the Ukraine, which is sending 60 year old men to the frontlines, the Russian force is made up solely of their professional, volunteer army, and even then, only a fairly small portion- most of their professional forces continue to hold their usual positions defending various other parts of the country. If one wants to compare their effort to the US invasion of Iraq, they are using a smaller force, in a larger country, against a larger, much more heavily armed and fortified opponent, and clearly pulling many punches to avoid hurting bystanders they see as Russian or near-Russian, but three months in they are both close to achieving their key aim- the seizure of the largely Russian inhabited east- as well as degrading the Ukrainian military to near collapse.
The only way a Russian win can be prevented would be intervention by outside forces- which Russia would respond to by hitting those outside forces, hard. Such a conflict would likely escalate into a full conventional war with NATO- at best. A war which NATO would be far from guaranteed to win, a fact the West openly acknowledges by continually stating that they would quickly grab for nuclear weapons in case of a Russian attack on western Europe.
One would like to think such a choice to escalate would met with screams of horror and opposition. In fact, there are strong signs that the EU and US public are strongly opposed to such recklessness. Politically, pro-Ukraine intervention politicians, from Estonia to Bulgaria to France, are already starting to suffer losses. This trend is unlikely to shift as the corollary to the continuation and escalation of the Ukraine war, and more so the sanctions imposed on Russia- a huge surge of inflation- is unlikely to abate anytime soon. Squeals about the necessity of continuing to feed Ukrainians into the meatgrinder to ‘punish Russia’ are unlikely to sound better to common Europeans, and Americans, as they increasingly struggle to feed their families, fuel their vehicles, and pay sky rocketing energy prices, possibly as those same economic forces throw the world economy into a deep recession, if not depression.
But with a completely controlled, shockingly militaristic and subservient media playing the ‘must hurt evil Russia at all costs’ tune 24/7 at max volume, at least a veneer of support may be maintained. Just like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam, the war will continue to grind on, with every action by the ‘good guys’ excused, every military assessment designed to maintain a myth of victory just over the horizon.
And so another chapter in the imperial book of endless war will be written, in blood. Civilians & soldiers will be maimed & die, as many as needed, with no more emotion felt at their loss by the war’s choreographers than they would at sacrificing a pawn in a casual game of chess The great captains of the Empire and their callow European satraps will continue to demand that the bear mauled remains of Ukraine keep fighting, for no more reason than defeat will make them look bad.
It is an abomination. Modern day Volkstrum sent to slaughter by a media darling autocrat elected on a peace platform. Literal nazis being absolved of all their sins because they’re fighting the right enemy. The most murderous, invasion happy nation post WW2- by FAR- whining about war crimes and weeping crocodile tears about the sanctity of weak nations’ sovereignty.
And most sickening of all, the imperial mockingbirds singing their hearts out to convince understandably sympathetic Western publics that it is noble and good to fight this war to the last Ukrainian.