All rational Americans agree that we shouldn’t get involved in the Russia-Ukraine War. The neocon warmongers with brain dead Biden as their figurehead want to destroy Russia, and they are willing to risk nuclear war to do it. But this doesn’t negate what I’ve just said. These monsters are anything but rational. But speaking of monsters leads to another question. Everybody knows John Quincy Adams’s line: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Is this the reason we should stay out of the Ukraine war? Is Putin a monster, bringing death and destruction to innocent people, but someone whose actions we have to ignore because it’s too dangerous to act against him? Some people who say this don’t get what’s happening, although others don’t view Putin as a monster, but think he made a mistake. I don’t agree, but this isn’t my target. Putin is a rational statesman, with legitimate security interests and the supposed hero Zelensky is a dubious character.
Why do people think otherwise? One reason is the charges of Russian atrocities in Bucha. These charges are just that “charges”. Fake atrocity claims have often been a way to inflame people to support war, and the Bucha accusations are the latest example. Christopher Roche, who isn’t pro-Putin, explains why we shouldn’t fall for it: “The reports and photographs showing an apparent massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, are truly terrible. They are reminiscent of the atrocities used to galvanize Western opinion during Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, when the Srebrenica Massacre and the Siege of Sarajevo were seared into Western consciousness.
Of course, pictures do not always tell the whole story. For example, to determine whether a war crime took place we must know who did the killing, why, and how. After all, the United States killed many thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, frequently by accident, in the course of those wars. Few in the United States or Europe would call those actions war crimes. This all became apparent after the United States exonerated itself for the annihilation of an Afghan family via a missile strike during the withdrawal of U.S. forces last summer. Oops.
Like any crime, a war crime must involve intent or at least recklessness. Killing civilians or POWs without trial, or humiliating them as an act of revenge, are each undoubtedly war crimes. The documented abuse of prisoners by Donetsk People’s Republic commander Givi was the basis for a Ukrainian war crimes investigation against him, before he was assassinated in 2017.
If civilians were shot and purposefully killed in Bucha, it undoubtedly would be a war crime and a terrible thing. But there are credible reasons to believe the so-called Bucha Massacre was not the doing of the Russian Forces, but rather of the Ukrainians—either local militia or SBU or some combination of thereof—as part of brutal reprisals against ‘saboteurs’ and ‘Russian collaborators.’
First, this fits with a pattern of Ukrainian forces violating the rules of war, as evidenced by numerous videos showing the shooting of prisoners, torturing civilians, and the like. Unlike the still photos in Bucha, these videos show the actions themselves, as well as the perpetrators, which even the New York Times recently acknowledged.
Second, Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelenskyy has given numerous speeches calling for the punishment of ‘saboteurs’ and ‘traitors,’ saying the war will ultimately end with the ‘de-Russification’ of Ukraine. These are tough words, which clearly would tend to inflame and encourage the more extremist elements.
Three, the atmosphere in Ukraine is ripe for war crimes. While U.S. Second Amendment supporters were understandably heartened by the Ukrainian government’s weapons giveaway, some of those weapons ended up in the hands of criminals and undisciplined characters. This was not a mere oversight; Ukraine deliberately freed prisoners with combat experience in order to allow them to fight. One would not expect this group to be scrupulous adherents to the laws of war.
There are also many documented accounts of Ukrainians killing one another out of paranoia about spies and saboteurs. It is easy enough to see why. There is a hair’s breadth of difference between Ukrainians and Russians, and many in the East only speak Russian, have supported Russia, or at least have a less-than-enthusiastic attitude about the Ukraine regime. This fuels the possibility of internecine violence, which will be rationalized after the fact as the clearing out of traitors and fifth columnists.
Four, the timeline of reports creates real doubts about whether Russia perpetrated the Bucha Massacre. It is widely acknowledged that Russian forces left Bucha on March 30. Then, Bucha’s mayor happily announced their withdrawal on March 31 without any mention of massacres, bodies in the streets, or other war crimes. Finally, the Ukrainian SBU said it was moving into Bucha on April 2 to conduct a ‘cleansing’ operation against saboteurs and traitors.
The photos of the dead only appeared on April 2, and Zelenskyy soon appeared in order to give international journalists a tour. Reuters and the New York Times have also posted Maxar satellite images apparently showing bodies in the streets earlier on March 19. This is not as compelling as it might otherwise be; bodies left outside for two weeks would not be in the condition seen in the April 2 photos, but instead would be significantly decomposed. If there were bodies on the street earlier in March—whether combatants or civilians—they had to be different people than the dead civilians on display from April 2.
Rather, it’s a question of whether atrocity stories will lead to U.S. involvement in another war that does not advance America’s national interests. Whether it was the Rape of Belgium alleged in World War I, genocide in Kosovo, or Iraqi troops ‘removing babies from incubators’ in Kuwait, lurid and false atrocity stories have been used before to encourage Western involvement in unnecessary wars. As with ordinary criminal investigations, it is always worth asking if the source has a motive to lie about culpability.
Russia has called for an independent investigation of these events through the U.N. Security Council, but the current chair, the United Kingdom, apparently refused to convene the council. Why? Wouldn’t an independent investigation be the best way to determine what happened? Of course, the truth here is secondary, and neither Ukraine nor the West would have any interest in uncovering the extent of Ukrainian war crimes. Rather, it is clear the United States and the EU are invested in prolonging the war in order to weaken and punish Russia, even though the next phase appears likely to be much worse for everyone involved, with the Kiev government calling for the mass evacuation of the East in its most recent communications.
For all the ink spilled in condemning what is being called the Bucha Massacre, one wonders if the calls for war crimes trials and claims that the responsible government is illegitimate would be withdrawn if it turns out not Vladimir Putin and Russia, but Voldomyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, were responsible for whatever took place in Bucha. The question answers itself.”
The real atrocities are being committed by Zelensky’s forces, which include neo-Nazis. Russians remember the horrors of the German invasion during World War II and don’t want them repeated. Hence Putin’s demand that the Ukrainian government purge the Nazi elements in its government, especially to be found in the Azov Regiment. As Joe Lauria says. “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making a virtual world tour with video hookups to parliaments around the globe, as well as to the Grammy Awards and the U.N. Security Council, sometimes with troublesome results.
On Thursday a major row erupted when Zelensky brought along a Ukrainian soldier of Greek heritage from the city of Mariupol, who just happened to be a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment. Greece was under Nazi occupation during World War II and fought a bitter partisan war against Nazism (later to be betrayed by Britain and the United States.)
With Zelensky in the screen, the man, who gave only his first name, told Parliament: ‘I speak to you as a man of Greek descent. My name is Michail. My grandfather fought against the Nazis in the Second World War. I am born in Mariupol and I am now also fighting to defend my city from the Russian Nazis.’
Ignoring Greece’s suffering under German Nazism was a slight made worse by bringing a Nazi along to address Greek lawmakers.
Zelensky has gotten into trouble before by referring to a nation’s history in his addresses to parliaments. He caused outrage in Israel for comparing what Ukraine is going through today to the Holocaust while completely ignoring the role Ukrainian fascists played in that Holocaust.
In his address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday Zelensky said Russia had committed the worst war crimes since World War II, ignoring the much bigger crime of aggression by the United States against Iraq built totally on lies.
