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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered anger, vitriol, and bigotry in the United States and much of the democratic West. It is an atmosphere of intolerance that surpasses the immediate post-9-11 period (especially the lead-up to the Iraq War) and even the height of McCarthyism in the early and mid-1950s. Indeed, it is reminiscent of the toxic ideological environment in the United States during World War I.

Vladimir Putin is presented not merely as a reckless leader who has launched a war that is destabilizing Europe. Instead, the image that Western officials and their media allies foster is that Putin is a monstrous aggressor and possibly even insane. The dominant narrative is reminiscent of the World War I propaganda offensive that portrayed Kaiser Wilhelm II as the "Beast of Berlin" whose troops had invaded neighboring countries without provocation. 

Loathing the Kaiser broadened into a campaign of hatred against all things German. The German people became stereotyped as "the Hun," barbaric aggressors despoiling Europe. As in that earlier campaign, Western opposition to Putin and his war has morphed into pervasive animus against all things Russian. In World War I, manifestations of anti-German attitudes ranged from silly to sinister. Efforts to ban pretzels from restaurants, and the movement to rename items that had German names were prominent examples of the first category. Thus, dachshunds became "liberty dogs," sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage," and hamburgers became "liberty steak". 

However, other efforts to strengthen anti-German sentiment proved to be much more alarming and destructive. People were harassed and even assaulted for daring to speak German, which was the primary language for first-generation immigrants from that country. Worse, critics of the war were prosecuted and imprisoned merely for questioning the wisdom of President Woodrow Wilson’s crusade to "make the world safe for democracy" or the constitutionality of the new military draft. 

The hangover from the wartime hysteria persisted into the postwar period. The targets, though, changed from Germans to left-wing activists. The new wave of intolerance culminated in the Red Scare, when leftists (especially immigrants suspected of harboring such views) were accused of being Bolshevik terrorists. Several thousand suspects were rounded up in the infamous Palmer raids and detained in hastily constructed prison camps. Americans came perilously close to losing the Bill of Rights during Wilson’s presidency because of government-promoted hysteria. 

The current vilification of Russia also has run the gamut from silly, to obnoxious, to sinister. Liquor stores and supermarkets in most states have pulled Russian vodka from their shelves. State governments are proposing far more extensive bans on a range of Russian products. Some of the intolerance has taken on a distinctly personal quality. Anna Netrebko, the famous Russian soprano, will no longer be invited to perform at the Metropolitan Opera after failing to comply with the company’s demand that she publicly repudiate Putin. 

To a greater extent than in World War I, the current anti-Russian sentiment is at least as pervasive and nasty in the rest of the West as it is in the United States. The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra fired its Russian conductor because he refused to condemn Putin. Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere. The prize for cruel intolerance, though, goes to the organizers of the Paralympic Winter Games for barring disabled Russian athletes from their event. 

As in World War I, members of the press have aided and abetted the current onslaught against all things Russian. Moreover, in an echo of that earlier campaign, anti-Russia fanatics are demanding that anyone who opposes their views be silenced and even criminally prosecuted. The hosts of "The View" lobbied their viewers to insist that the Justice Department investigate (and hopefully charge) Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) for being Russian agents and committing "treason." Host Whoopi Goldberg observed that "they used to arrest people for stuff like this." Pundit Keith Olbermann called on the military to arrest Carlson and Gabbard as "enemy combatants" and hold them in jail to await trial for "participating in a campaign of [Russian] disinformation." Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), accused Gabbard of circulating "treasonous lies" that might cost lives.

These calls go well beyond the usual innuendoes and smears directed against Carlson and other opponents of Washington’s crusade against Russia by the likes of Hillary Clinton and Anne Applebaum. The latest episodes constitute a specific threat against dissenters, and it reflects an effort to generate not only hysteria, but dangerous hysteria. Leaving aside the key point that Goldberg, Olbermann, and other intolerant pro-war types clearly have no clue about the definition of treason in the Constitution, the attitude they express is toxic. It is precisely the same mentality that led to the horrid civil liberties abuses during and immediately after World War I. Their calls for the suppression of opposing views need to be repudiated emphatically and repeatedly. They, rather than Carlson, Gabbard, and other opponents of U.S meddling in the Russia-Ukraine war, constitute the real threat to peace and freedom. We cannot afford a repetition of World War I-style hysteria.

 

 

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 12 books and more than 950 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (forthcoming, July 2022).

 

 

READ MORE:

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2022/04/04/world-war-i-hysteria-redux-the-hate-everything-russian-campaign/

 

 

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the never-ending story…...

 

By Ramzy Baroud
Common Dreams

 

Much has been said and written about media bias and double standards in the West’s response to the Russia-Ukraine war, when compared with other wars and military conflicts across the world, especially in the Middle East and the Global South. Less obvious is how such hypocrisy is a reflection of a much larger phenomenon which governs the West’s relationship to war and conflict zones.

On March 19, Iraq commemorated the 19th anniversary of the U.S. invasion which killed, according to modest estimates, over a million Iraqis. The consequences of that war were equally devastating as it destabilized the entire Middle East region, leading to various civil and proxy wars. The Arab world is reeling under that horrific experience to this day.

Also, on March 19, the 11th anniversary of the NATO war on Libya was commemorated and followed, five days later, by the 23rd anniversary of the NATO war on Yugoslavia. Like every NATO-led war since the inception of the alliance in 1949, these wars resulted in widespread devastation and tragic death tolls.

None of these wars, starting with the NATO intervention in the Korean Peninsula in 1950, have stabilized any of the warring regions. Iraq is still as vulnerable to terrorism and outside military interventions and, in many ways, remains an occupied country. Libya is divided among various warring camps, and a return to civil war remains a real possibility.

Yet, enthusiasm for war remains high, as if over 70 years of failed military interventions have not taught any meaningful lessons. Daily, news headlines tell us that the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Germany, Spain or some other Western power have decided to ship a new kind of “lethal weapons” to Ukraine. Billions of dollars have already been allocated by Western countries to contribute to the war in Ukraine.

In contrast, very little has been done to offer platforms for diplomatic, non-violent solutions. A handful of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have offered mediation or insisted on a diplomatic solution to the war, arguing, as China’s foreign ministry reiterated on March 18, that “all sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.”

 

A Communal Struggle

Though the violation of the sovereignty of any country is illegal under international law, and is a stark violation of the United Nations Charter, this does not mean that the only solution to violence is counter-violence. This cannot be truer in the case of Russia and Ukraine, as a state of civil war has existed in Eastern Ukraine for eight years, harvesting thousands of lives and depriving whole communities from any sense of peace or security. NATO’s weapons cannot possibly address the root causes of this communal struggle. On the contrary, they can only fuel it further.

 

If more weapons were the answer, the conflict would have been resolved years ago. According to the BBC, the U.S. has already allocated $2.7 billion to Ukraine over the last eight years, long before the current war. This massive arsenal included “anti-tank and anti-armor weapons … U.S. -made sniper (rifles), ammunition and accessories.”

The speed with which additional military aid has poured into Ukraine following the Russian military operations on Feb. 24 is unprecedented in modern history. This raises not only political or legal questions, but moral questions as well — the eagerness to fund war and the lack of enthusiasm to help countries rebuild. 

After 21 years of U.S. war and invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in a humanitarian and refugee crisis, Kabul is now largely left on its own. Last September, the UN refugee agency warned that “a major humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan,” yet nothing has been done to address this “looming” crisis, which has greatly worsened since then.

[Related: Biden’s Punishment of Desperate Afghanistan]

Afghan refugees are rarely welcomed in Europe. The same is true for refugees coming from Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali and other conflicts that directly or indirectly involved NATO. This hypocrisy is accentuated when we consider international initiatives that aim to support war refugees, or rebuild the economies of war-torn nations.

Compare the lack of enthusiasm in supporting war-torn nations with the West’s unparalleled euphoria in providing weapons to Ukraine. Sadly, it will not be long before the millions of Ukrainian refugees who have left their country in recent weeks become a burden on Europe, thus subjected to the same kind of mainstream criticism and far-right attacks.

While it is true that the West’s attitude towards Ukraine is different from its attitude towards victims of western interventions, one has to be careful before supposing that the “privileged” Ukrainains will ultimately be better off than the victims of war throughout the Middle East. As the war drags on, Ukraine will continue to suffer, either the direct impact of the war or the collective trauma that will surely follow. The amassing of NATO weapons in Ukraine, as was the case of Libya, will likely backfire. In Libya, NATO’s weapons fueled the country’s decade long civil war.

Ukraine needs peace and security, not perpetual war that is designed to serve the strategic interests of certain countries or military alliances. Though military invasions must be wholly rejected, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, turning Ukraine into another convenient zone of perpetual geopolitical struggle between NATO and Russia is not the answer.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books including: “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons“(2019), “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (2010) and “The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle” (2006). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

This article is from  Common Dreams.

 

READ MORE:

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/05/natos-neverending-wars/

 

 

 

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