The Enemy of My Enemies

Contemplating a moral dilemma in our multipolar world.

We are forbidden to speak of Vladimir Putin at all these days without wrapping both sides of his name with sufficient admonishments of venomous slander. Anyone who does not pledge their immediate allegiance to the fashionable and misguided present hysteria against the man or 150 million Russians will be considered prima facie an apologist at best and a traitor at worst.

They say he’s a demon, a scoundrel, a war criminal, a cosmic accident sent to destroy democracy and all that is good and noble, which of course only derives from good and noble nations of the west claiming to still be democratic. Sixty years ago they also said that by now cars would fly, there would be no more wars, liberal democracy would shepherd us from evil, and not morph into the evil it proclaimed to dispel. Thirty years ago was supposed to be the end of history.

They say Putin is our enemy and the reason they keep repeating it ad nauseam is that they know millions will believe it. Those who incessantly level these charges without irony, apparently lack any self-awareness or a mirror. Perhaps all they have are mirrors and can only make dark accusations based on their own reflections.

We used to expect so much of our enemies, with a minimal prerequisite being they behaved as such. And here we are, millions still believing the unbelievable, a new prepackaged promo kit of “The Present Thing” delivered with the usual historical inconsistencies and logical fallacies, while millions more watch this charade repeat in disbelief.

If we have learned anything from western governments in their quest to enflame a new cold war with Russia, and now a new world war with both Russia and China it’s that they can’t be trusted about anything. If they point in a direction and say, “Look! Be outraged! It’s your enemy!” The only thing more outrageous than the cartoonish nature of their sloppy programming attempts, is that they seem to work because not enough people stop and ask, “Why?”