LETHAL AID: Orwellian media newspeak
Even the liberal UK Guardian is parroting the latest aberration emerging from the horrific war in the Ukraine. ‘Lethal aid’ sounds like some bizarre prescription for euthanasia. Here this euphemism/oxymoron is apparently designed to indicate that weapons sent to the alleged victims of an aggressive war, i.e. the Ukrainians, are some sort of ‘aid’, like sending grains to starving populations. Obviously those who might send ‘military aid’ to the aggressor, i.e. Russia, are aiding war crimes and must be warned to desist, i.e. the Chinese. Rather than intervening in the conflict via diplomatic means (what do the Russians want – what can the Ukrainians give) the West, i.e. NATO, is betting on stinging the Russian war machine with sophisticated weapons delivered on masse to the Ukrainian military, slowing down the Russian advances in an increasingly brutal slaughter on both sides. Even the German centrist Der Spiegel lets it rip with a cynical cartoon depicting a German arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, celebrating the money to be made from shipping weapons to the German Bundeswehr that then passes them on to the Ukraine. Had NATO adopted the Georgian model and allowed the Russians to march in without lethal aid to the Georgian army, the ‘war’ would have been over in a matter of days and death and destruction would have been avoided at a massive scale. Absurd parallels invoking the 1938 Munich agreement, appeasing Hitler – i.e. letting Putin off the hook in Georgia – are part of the Western propaganda painting Putin and his entourage as insane war criminals. As the commentator Vladimir Pozner pointed out in 2018, it was the West that created the malignant Putin who once upon a time was quite benign (e.g. didn’t Russia want to join the EU and even NATO after the collapse of the USSR?). Given that Russia is still a nuclear super power, one would have thought that pushing the Ukraine war to the limit is another form of insanity. Or is it a cynical attempt to let the Russians bleed until – and after they have laid waste to the Ukraine – they throw the towel in the rational knowledge that a nuclear war is MAD, i.e. the Russian threat that they will only use nuclear weapons if Russia’s very existence is threatened is indeed another oxymoron? Maybe ‘lethal aid’ should include the restocking of the nuclear arsenal that the Ukrainians had sensibly abandoned, just to see what the consequences of a limited tactical nuclear exchange would be (NATO aid to Ukraine includes kits for chemical and nuclear war)? Human stupidity seems to have no limits, especially at the level of nationalistic posturing of the leaders of nations. War as an extension for the ruthless struggle of economic dominance has always been the only game in town but now that the town has become the global village, there can only be one mad outcome: MAD! The only ‘lethal aid’ required for the day after is for provision of euthanasia kits to stop prolonged suffering. In the meantime we just watch from a safe distance how (in-)effective Orwellian ‘lethal aid’ in the form of weaponry can or cannot be.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/uk-doubles-number-of-missiles-sent-to-ukraine-ahead-of-nato-summit
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/nato-countries-to-give-ukraine-kit-to-protect-against-chemical-and-nuclear-attacks
https://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/cartoon-des-tages-fotostrecke-142907.html#bild-f39ec6d7-5edf-4441-9ca1-c6187533ad8f
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ
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