The article that begins below, by a longtime foreign correspondent and prolific author, originally appeared on the website of Responsible Statecraft in its weeklong series, HERE, marking the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. — MCM
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Putin & Zelensky: Sinners and saints who fit our historic narrative
While war rages in Ukraine, all is blissfully peaceful on the home front. Americans have embraced the official narrative. No western movie ever drew the good-versus-evil line so clearly or crudely. The White House, Congress, and the press insist that Ukraine is the innocent victim of unprovoked aggression, that Russian forces will threaten all of Europe if they are not stopped, and that the United States must stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to assure victory.
Dissenting from this consensus is all but impossible. Even in the run-up to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, a few lonely voices cried out for restraint. Since we plunged into the Ukraine War, such voices are even harder to find.
Today it is considered heretical, if not treasonous, to suggest that all parties to the Ukraine conflict bear some blame, to argue that the United States should not pour sophisticated weapons into an active war zone, or to question whether we have any vital interest in the outcome of this conflict. A strictly enforced intellectual no-fly zone has all but suffocated rational debate about Ukraine.
In the halls of political power in Washington, Ukraine has become an almost mystic idea. It’s less a geographic place than a cosmic plane where a decisive battle for the future of humanity is unfolding. The war is seen as a glorious chance for the United States to bloody Russia — and to show that although the balance of world power may be shifting, we still rule.
America’s explosion of passionate love for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was the triumph of an irresistible media campaign. He was presented as freedom’s new global hero. Overnight, his image popped up in shop windows and on internet sites.
In the opposing corner is another caricature, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, portrayed as epitomizing all vile and degenerate qualities. He fulfills our need to focus hatred not onto a country or a movement or an idea — that’s too diffuse — but onto an individual. For years, we reveled in our moral superiority over colorful nemeses like Castro, Khadafi, and Saddam Hussein. Putin fits perfectly into this constellation. Having such a cartoonishly wicked enemy is almost as reassuring as having the saintly Zelensky as an ally.
Soon after war broke out last year, Congress voted to appropriate $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. What was astonishing was not just the size of this package but the fact that every single Democrat voted for it. Only 11 senators and 57 House members, all Republicans, were opposed. The press applauded.
No country that is at war, directly or by proxy, encourages debate over whether the war is a good idea. The United States is no exception. Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson jailed critics of the wars they waged. Some opponents of the Vietnam War were prosecuted. The ghostly absence of debate over our involvement with Ukraine marks the latest victory of official narrative-shaping.
The Cold War was arguably the most powerfully developed narrative in modern history. For years, Americans were told to believe, and did believe, that they were mortally threatened by an enemy that could attack at any moment, destroying the United States and ending all hope for meaningful life on Earth. That enemy sat in Moscow.
By then, Americans were already accustomed to seeing Russia as an incarnation of “the other,” the force of barbarism that always threatens civilization. As far back as 1873, an American cartoonist depicted Russia as . . . READ MORE . . .