War: propaganda, lies and more lies

It's getting to the point where having a calm and rational conversation with someone about the Russian/Ukraine war is near impossible. The propaganda in the West is particularly vile and one-sided. Since 2016 the American people and the West generally were led to believe that the elected president (Trump) was a Russian agent and the election was infiltrated by Russian spies and therefore invalid. The media pushed these evidence-free allegations about Russian interference and Trump as a Russian shill non-stop for over 4 years. The Mueller report found no such evidence about Russian meddling, let alone Trump being a Russian spy. But the damage was done. Not since the 1950s has Russia been so demonized as a true enemy of the Western world.

During any war or conflict, propaganda abounds from all sides of the information spectrum.

When teaching Year10 history, we devoted a week to WWI propaganda. Revealing to the students are the emotive posters and lying news clippings at the time; these examples brought them to laughter. "How could anyone in their right mind believe this nonsense." Granted, the current propaganda is much more sophisticated, but it's propaganda nevertheless.

Yes, for certain, the non-stop Russia-Gait lies had a profound effect on the psyches of the masses. However, now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, it's as if simply one day Putin decided to invade because of imperialist intentions to conquer Europe!

When one attempts to explain even the last years of Ukrainian history to someone, they refuse to listen and prefer to believe the propaganda. Delving more profound in the whys and wherefores for war is a thought process many refuse to entertain. What's even worse, even attempting to dig deeper into the geopolitical situation, simply asking questions, you're either censored, called a Putin puppet, or unpatriotic. This is insane.

Those governments in the West, specifically the UK, USA, France, Australia, and New Zealand, have zero moral right to criticize Russia for invading Ukraine. The US and their allies have been waging war on sovereign nations since at least the 1960s. This is not to mention the violent meddling in Southern American countries since WWII. Indeed, currently, the US is occupying a part of a resource-rich area in Syria; and as then-president Trump proclaimed: 'We're protecting the oil".

Over the last 20 years, the US set the middle east on fire. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. Israel is recognized by the United Nations as an apartheid state. The Israeli government has occupied and oppressed the Palestinians for well over 50 years. Palestine has been called by many a genocide in slow motion. Libya is now a failed state when once it was the most flourishing state in the continent of Africa. The US, UK, and NATO ensured Libya's destruction. Yet not a peep from our current protesters against the above war crimes on record for "democracy" and "freedom" that they're currently ranting and protesting for Ukraine. Is this ignorance or intentional memory loss by the world?

I believe it is a bit of both compounded by the unrelenting anti-Russia propaganda that's been waged on the people of the West for the last 5-10 years.

I've been protesting and writing against war for many years. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a war crime. But let's not forget the western allies' war crimes over the last 30 years. The occupation of Syria, the genocide in Yemen; the occupation in Somalia; the total destruction of Libya; the 20-year war in Afghanistan that is now being sanctioned, causing undue starvation and a vast exodus of women and children out of the country.

These people in the middle east are deemed "unworthy victims" once coined by the writer of Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky. Then there are "worthy victims" like the Ukrainians in this war. Spot the difference... it's not that difficult.

As citizens of the world, we should all despise war. War is a tool of the powerful to gain more power and profit. Ideas like democracy, freedom, and patriotism are rhetorical tools to hide the genuine reasons for war. This has been the case for 100 years, at least in the time of our modern world.

The only people who suffer war are the innocents, and those pushed to fight it.

Diplomacy (communication) in the case of Ukraine must reign to avoid the total destruction of the entire planet: 

WWIII.