Lara,
I write as a former fan and supporter, and as a person who wishes to see you earn your way back into credibility. You can start by ceasing with the misinformation about certain aspects of the larger Ukraine story.
Before I address your misinformation, though, I would like to give you credit for the parts where I believe you to be on target. Your suspicion of LTC Alexander “Flounder” Vindman is one such topic. He is a man who has earned distrust. Second, I believe that you are generally on target in your citation of a history of… or perhaps even an ingrained culture of… corruption within Ukrainian politics. I could even give you some leeway in your criticism of the current president – Volodomir Zelenskyy – due to the support he received from George Soros in his climb from the theater to the presidency; association with Soros is, by itself, reason for alarm.
But you go too far – WAY too far – with your hysterical rants about Naziism in Ukraine.
Each time I have watched/listened, you start off in your attempt to support this nonsense by mentioning that the SS established its headquarters in western Ukraine. Then you seek to extrapolate from that snippet of info the absurd assertion that it means that western Ukrainians are Nazis to this day and that Ukrainian military units are guided by Nazi ideology.
So let’s examine some of your allegations in your attempt to smear Ukrainians at large.
Allegation: Ukrainian Support of Nazis – Nazi Germany invaded Ukraine in summer 1941, starting in the west. The Ukrainians there welcomed them as liberators. Why? Was it because they loved Nazi ideology? Nope. It was because the Soviet regime had intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians less than a decade prior to the arrival of the Nazis. To Ukrainians at that time, ANYBODY would have seemed like a liberator.
A mere three years later, the Ukrainian population enthusiastically participated in the defeat and ejection of the Nazis from Ukraine. Why? Was it because they suddenly decided that they loved the Soviets who had intentionally starved them? Nope. It was because the Nazis turned out to be worse than the Soviets.
Worse than the folks who had intentionally starved them. Think about that, and place that into context with your absurd allegations that these folks are dominated by Nazi ideology.
So while it is true that Ukrainians supported Nazis, that support was for less than three years (much less, actually), and it ended about 8 decades ago.
Why not give the Ukrainians credit for their participation in defeating the Nazis? That was more recent than the brief window of time during which those in western Ukraine broadly supported the Nazis.
Implicit Corollary Allegation: A Citizenry Should be Indicted by their Great-Grandparents’ Fleeting Affiliation With Evil – We have already established that the Ukrainians’ embrace of Naziism lasted for less than three years; that it happened 8 decades ago; and that it was followed by a unified effort to eject Nazis from Ukraine. But let’s pretend that this implicit indictment of them has some merit, and then apply the Lara Logan Logic to another body of people.
Let’s try applying YOUR logic – Lara Logan Logic – to South Africa. That’s where you grew up, right? What was going on in South Africa 8 decades ago?
South Africa established Apartheid as official policy in 1948, but the de facto policy was in place long before that. Your culture maintained that policy until the 1990s.
YOU personally benefited from Apartheid.
Apartheid shared more than a few traits with Naziism, most notably that each identified a “master race” and subjected others to a lesser status.
So… actually… a better case could be made that YOU are a Nazi than any Ukrainian of today. How very Alinsky of you.
Of course I know that you are not a Nazi. And I suspect that you are not a supporter of Apartheid (although I don’t really KNOW that). But truly, your association with evil of that nature is MUCH more recent and personal than that of any Ukrainian.
Allegation: The Nazi SS Established its Headquarters in Western Ukraine – Yep. Sure did. Like every conqueror in the history of man, the Nazis set up their headquarters where they damn well pleased.
You have emphasized this historical tidbit as a means of indicting the entire Ukrainian population EIGHT (8) decades later, so this bears some examination.
How many Ukrainians do you think were empowered to make decisions related to the location of that headquarters? Asked another way – How often did the Nazis allow conquered citizenry to decide where to site key Nazi facilities?
I’ll let you ponder on that for a bit; and while you ponder, let’s examine some historical parallels.
- Imperial Japan established a headquarters on the Philippine Islands eight decades ago, and that HQ lasted about as long as the German SS headquarters in Ukraine. Does that make the Filipinos of today a bunch of Japanese Imperialists?
- USA had a headquarters in Kabul a mere eight MONTHS ago. MONTHS, not decades. Not even years. Does that make all Afghans a bunch of sycophantic, America-loving-zealots?
I could go on, but I think you might get the point; none of the citizenry of any of the occupied nations mentioned above had any way of preventing nor dissuading the occupiers from establishing headquarters on their soil, so indicting them for that history is absurdly off target.
Allegation: Western Ukrainian Politics/Population is Dominated/Guided by Nazi Ideology – Your allegation should be easy to prove. Cite the laws which follow Nazi ideology. Cite the policies in place which flow from Nazi ideology.
You have never done that in any of your rants. I wonder why…
The most logical explanation is that you cannot. Your assertions are false.
Allegation: Ukrainian Military Units, Especially the Azov Battalion, are Guided By Nazi Ideology – I actually addressed this nonsense allegation in a recent article to which I will link here:
Read the article. Learn the truth. Stop the lies.
Summary: While I know that you have gotten a lot of attention lately for your analysis of Ukraine… and we all know how much you LOVE attention… you should not confuse “attention” for “credibility”. There might be some truth associated with some of the things you allege, but your assertions about Ukrainian Nazis are all false. In the long run, your enthusiastic lies on this topic might serve to undermine the perceived veracity of the parts where you’re actually truthful. And yes, I believe that at least some of what you report is truthful.
But I know that your reporting about Nazis in Ukraine is false.
Well deserved criticism.
A group of people write stuff on the internet, and a certain number of people automatically assume it is the truth. I’m still wanting to know about this link between Zelensky and George Soros. If it is true, yeh, a bit of a concern. However, his actions don’t seem to coincide with Soros ideology, as much as the raw statement suggests.
It’s always a good idea to source information as broadly as possible, more than just one or two places because there are several supposedly very reputable sites that will do the same as the casual observer: take an article, riddled with misinformation and print it for their benefit, which still makes it unreliable and suspect. And, I’m talking about some supposedly conservative sites, not the lefties. The lefties are automatically suspect, to me.
I’ve seen enough to believe that Soros funded Zelensky. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Zelensky is a mere puppet of Soros.
No person can be a true patriot and remain under the influence of Soros. Eventually, that person will have to choose – country or Soros.
Zelensky has proven to be quite a patriot. Moreover, his personal gravitas has grown significantly such that he won’t need Soros’ funding to continue to win elections in Ukraine. This assumes, of course, that Zelensky isn’t killed by the Russians… or by Soros if he breaks with him.
What will Zelensky choose? Don’t know. Still to be seen… if he survives.
I don’t know about Zelensky. The jury is still out on whether or not he’s the heroic angel we’re being told to believe he is. Ukraine is not our fight, so why are the elites pushing this war so hard on us instead of peace talks? Why are these U.S. sanctions the first in my memory that are causing suffering here at home? Are we the target? Is Brandon’s admission of future food shortages and $10 gas intended to be our psychological prep for further suffering. Is he blundering us into WWIII? Did you see his abysmally embarrassing speech to the 82nd Airborne troops in Poland? The looks in some of those soldier’s eyes told me they have no confidence in their Commander in Chief. And, they shouldn’t. I could barely make out a coherent sentence. I don’t care about Zelensky. I care about us. There have been only 3 total wars in our (U.S.) history, Civil War, WW’s I and II. I was praying we’d be spared WWIII. With our current decision makers, I’m not sure we will be.
WWIII has already started. We’re in it. So far, we’ve committed to the war using all of our instruments of national power except one – Military. But even the military will be pulled into this war eventually, and the Democrats’ nature will cause that to happen sooner rather than later.
With reference to the Democrats’ and Brandon Cornpop’s intent, it is clear – use every crisis to exert more dictatorial control over the populace and to cede US sovereignty to foreign powers (including non-state actors); and when there isn’t a crisis to take advantage of, create one.
Many also called the Cold War, WWIII. It wasn’t. WWII wasn’t WWII for the U.S. until Pearl Harbor. This isn’t WWIII unless and until American blood is shed. Until then (Heaven forbid) it’s a proxy war like so many during the Cold War. The Dems, uniparty RINO’s, media, NGO’s and other corporate phonies (hard to separate them all out) are hellbent on driving us into war. Zelensky has made overtures to peace talks. Why haven’t the striped pantsuits at Foggy Bottom jumped all over that? It’s their forte. Brandon’s minions are prepping us for future suffering: $10 gas, food shortages, 15+% inflation, rationing, take the bus, sell your car, cut back on consumption. This is the U.S. in the 21st Century? Just 2 short years ago (seems like eons ago), we were flourishing: energy independence, record low unemployment, record low inflation, worldwide respect. We can’t allow the Masters of the Universe to have their way. We have to wake up the nation!
I think you are right on target. This is how Democrats lead the charge to enter into wars. And if no one else has a crisis, right now, it is Biden.
To me, this is less “Zelensky good” than Black Hat vs Gray Hat. If you remember the movie The Rocketeer, think the Gangster-on-Nazi shootout at the end of that.
You’re correct, but to the Average Joe, the media, Dems, RINOs, Establishment are painting one lopsided portrait for mass consumption – Zelensky = Angel, Putin = Satan. That IS black hat vs white hat. Joe and Jane Sixpack are going about their business making the country work and reading the so-called msm and gobbling up the propaganda and don’t know the difference. They’re swallowing it hook, line and sinker.
Granted, it doesn’t help that Joe and Jane Sixpack are frequently dumber than an average brownware download… the game is figuring out how to defeat the narrative and get a little bit of reality into thick, dogcrap-filled skulls.
Excuse me, that was a gratuitous, uncalled-for insult to dogcrap. My bad.
It could just be that Zelensky was not the one who was duped. It could have been Soros. Zelensky, acting as the patriot is enough for me. I think Zelensky made his choice, already, if there were choices to make.
For whatever reason, there are people wanting to paint Zelensky as some bad guy. It’s his country. That was what was invaded. The Soros topic just doesn’t matter, to me, at this time. All the things that added up to the invasion begin before Zelensky became president, and included Biden and his son. I already picked my bugaboo, and Zelensky is not it. His election was the result of years long problems inside Ukraine, and certain outside influences, primarily Biden and his son. I think this Soros stuff is just fluff. It makes the script too complicated for me.
Of course, I could be missing something, like al the rest of us.
You make very good points. I sense that you are correct about Zelensky. None of that matters, though, until he survives and maintains a unified Ukriane.
Cleanup performed as requested, Dave.
All my thoughts start from when Yakunovich was run out of office, Poroshenko replaced him, and then Zelensky beat Poroshenko by a landslide. I honestly had no idea about George Soros’ supporting Zelensky in his bid, which leads me to believe that Soros is the one who was duped because Zelensky has remained a popular nationalist ans patriot, from all the sources I’ve read, which most are not even from domestic sources except the part about Biden and a Billion dollar extortion when he was Vice President.
Your rebuttal of Lara Logan’s statements are right on target, as far as I’m concerned, and could probably be used in some others’ works, ie. Gateway Pundit, which I thought were a bit over the top, too.
Your article was refreshing to read. We need more of it.