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Ukraine And The NGO Archipelago
Authored by David Reaboi at Substack
I’ve half-written several pieces on the unfolding Ukraine crisis—mostly as I see things through the lens of the information warfare business in the West—but my posts on Twitter might be the best place to get quick analysis on it, alongside everything else. The effectiveness of writing think-pieces at all about fast-developing stories is now an open question; the old TLDR (“Too Long, Didn’t Read”) dynamic seems to’ve been replaced by, simply, DR.
Even for Americans who, rightly, are opposed to US government involvement in the conflict, the Ukraine issue is massive knot of nearly every important concern: energy, economy, foreign policy, communications and censorship, the end of American hegemony, the Deep State, the limits of knowing, etc. All those intersections are fertile ground for pundits and analysts and citizens to consider.
Most of all, I’ve been alarmed at the predictable onslaught of one-sided propaganda and over-the-top lies coming from Western outlets, and the totalizing moral panic that discourages sober thought about the conflict. Putin’s Russia was certainly the aggressor—but American media from Fox to CNN and NBC supply an airbrushed narrative, a black-and-white morality tale. Not only is the truth in this conflict a shade of gray—but the implications are, as well.
Like BLM, Covid, and other the media and politicians of both parties have locked arms around a consensus. Allegiance to the the narrative must come before independent thought, which brings with it the possibility of questioning that narrative. Dissenters—heck, even questioners—have been shouted down and called, “traitors.”
The agitprop is so thick because Ukraine is ground zero for an ecosystem of influence that, for about a decade, has been able to wield tremendous consensus-making power within the American and western foreign policy community. Influencing the public and policy debate on Ukraine and Russia is precisely what this ecosystem was built to do.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has been a cash machine for western oligarchs. With a very low standard of living and rampant corruption, the country was the perfect place for the very wealthy to make a buck. Unlike Eastern Europe, which had gotten far more expensive by then, Ukraine was a relative badland; pennies-on-the dollar investments in Ukrainian business and infrastructure would produce a windfall if the country moved towards NATO and the European Union.
In 2014, the western-backed Maiden uprising was a Color Revolution regime change effort in order to ensure this glide-path toward NATO and the EU would continue. But that’s only half the battle; the effort required the commitment of American policymakers who would push it aggressively from within the world’s most powerful government, as well.
Western oligarchs invested in Ukraine funded a massive infrastructure of information and influence operations I often refer to as the “NGO Archipelago.”
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"Energy Shortages Could Threaten Social Cohesion": Germany Warns Against Ban On Energy Imports From Russia
from Deutsche Welle, 6 March 2022Germany's economy minister says he regrets the country is still dependent on imports from Moscow, and that Europe's largest economy is already feeling the impact of sanctions imposed over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Habeck said Germany must free itself from imports of Russian energy
Germany is currently still dependent on Russian fossil fuels, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday.
He spoke out against a ban on energy imports from Russia in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
"I would not advocate an embargo on Russian imports of fossil fuels. I would even oppose it," he said after meeting German business leaders.
"We need these energy supplies to maintain the price stability and energy security in Germany," Habeck added.
A shortage in supply could threaten social cohesion in Germany, he warned.
Habeck stressed Germany "must free ourselves" from imports of Russia's gas, coal, and oil.
In February, Germany stopped the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. It has since joined other European nations in introducing a raft of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Habeck, however, said Germany has already begun to feel the effects of those decisions.
"The impact of the sanctions and of the war on all sectors of the economy is so strong that we can fear a big impact," Habeck said.
The minister said any hopes that Europe's largest economy would return to post-pandemic levels later this year were dashed.
"We had hoped that we will experience an upswing this spring, a recovery phase. But now we have the consequences of the war," he warned.
Habeck urged consumers do their bit by reducing consumption. "If you want to hurt Putin a little, then save energy," he said.
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Zelensky Lambasts West in Tirade Against 'Weak' NATO
from Western Journal
With his life on the line every day his country fights back against Russian forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is angry that Western nations want to avoid alienating Russian leader Vladimir Putin while also backing Ukraine.
NATO leaders on Friday said that establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, as Zelenskyy has begged for, would be a step too far in putting the West on Putin’s list of enemies.
On Saturday, Putin explicitly said that any country that stands with Ukraine to support it in the skies would be considered an enemy.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainians will die because of the temporizing and half-measures of NATO members that fear Putin more than they support freedom, according to Axios.
The “narrative” that supporting a no-fly zone leads directly to Russian aggression on their own counties is the “self-hypnosis of those who are weak, under-confident inside,” Zelenskyy said.
“All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you, because of your weakness, because of your disunity,” he continued.
Zelenskyy
sought to portray the need for a no-fly zone in the stark terms of
Ukrainian survival, saying the NATO summit was a “weak summit, confused
summit, summit which shows that not everyone considers the struggle for
freedom to be Europe’s number one goal.”
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