Ukraine Invasion

missing context

In the run up to the War in Iraq in 2003 much was made of Saddam Hussein’s crimes but little of the support granted to him previously by the US and European nations, including war hawk Donald Rumsfeld meeting with him to sell him weapons.

This is held up as symptomatic of the fact that in the mainstream media, everything happens in a vacuum with no context provided to help regular people make sense of what is going on.

While Putin is far from justified in invading Ukraine, just as Hussein was far from justified gassing the Kurds, there are (again, as always) many details missing from mainstream reporting, such as the following:

• During the Malta summit in December 1989, George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev that the U.S. would not be expanding Nato to the east to take advantage of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was the first of a series of assurances that were given to Russia of their security from the provocation of its own “Cuban Missile Crisis”. However, all these assurances were later ignored or disregarded, as Nato went about recruiting former Soviet territories into it’s military alliance brining it closer and closer to Russia’s doorstep. Ukraine is all that stands between Russia and Nato.

• In 2014 The Obama Administration backed a revolutionary coup in Ukraine to replace the government with one that was favorable to the US. People in the east-most regions of The Ukraine (Crimea and the local government of Sevastopol) who were more sympathetic to Russia were not happy with this result and held a referendum in which the people voted that they would be happier as part of Russia. Putin did not invade Ukraine to annex those areas though. They remain part of Ukraine.

• Putin said Russia has no intention to occupy Ukraine but will not permit the continued militarization of the country by the US and NATO or the Ukrainian attacks on the Donbass Russians. This does not necessarily mean that Putin can be taken at his word, but it is not being reported that these are his stated motivations. The media repeats a video Putin saying that "drug addicts and neo nazis" are operating in Ukraine, but neglects to show the minute or so of video footage prior to this comment where Putin claims Ukrainians were firing from residential areas hoping that Russian troops would fire back and kill civilians. Again, Putin is not necessarily to be taken at face value - but the reporting itself is manipulative by omission.

Again, to state the obvious, I do not mean to defend Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. People are literally fleeing Ukraine into Poland at this moment because of this conflict. I just mean to mention that the context of this invasion including provocations from The West that have contributed it are not being reported - and likely, for a reason.

Let me know if I missed anything important.

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