No bombing, no casualties, no armed resistance, no “shock & awe” – Crimea isn’t so much an invasion as it is a hook-up.
If Russia’s retaking of a region it has held since the days of Catherine the Great is an invasion – and it surely is – then it’s an aggression of a new type. Perhaps we can call it a passive aggression, or even a pacific aggression, which might be defined as an invasion that has the tacit consent of those aggressed against. Even the Tatars – noted in every Western news article as opponents of Russia’s annexation – have apparently reconciled themselves to life in the Russian Federation, and are seeking autonomy within Crimea. That wouldn’t even have been an option had they remained within Ukraine.
It’s not exactly accurate to say the Russo-Ukrainian contretemps has resulted in absolutely no casualties – there were some, but they weren’t in Crimea, and the victims didn’t fall under fire from Russian guns. The first blood was spilled in Kiev, where the “Right Sector” neo-fascists opened fire in the Maidan, wounding the deputy mayor of Kiev and two others. There’s probably going to be more where that came from, as the Kiev coup leaders come into inevitable conflict with the ultra-nationalist militias that provided the muscle for the coup in the first place. Oh, but don’t worry, because Jamie Kirchick says they’re “imaginary” fascists – although I hear they were handing out racist newsletters.[amazon asin=1573928097&template=*lrc ad (right)]
While Crimea, the site of the Russian invasion, is calm, real chaos is enveloping western Ukraine, where the political factions are falling out among themselves and “Right Sector” and its ideological allies in Svoboda are now making their bid for power. The police are nowhere to be seen in Kiev, while armed Right Sector thugs prowl the streets dispensing “revolutionary justice” with crowbars, bats, and pilfered guns. With elections scheduled for May 25, rival oligarchs are maneuvering for position, hoping to win US/EU approval and cash grants from Western “democracy promotion” programs – while the neo-fascists of Svoboda wait in the wings for their chance.
Speaking of Western cash, no sooner did the US start sending “nonlethal” aid to the Ukrainians – in order to hold off an “imminent” Russian move into the eastern part of the country that never materialized – than the Ukrainians began selling it on the Internet. This is how America promotes entrepreneurship!
Now behold another invasion, the American “liberation” of Afghanistan – which, by any measure, wasn’t (and isn’t) anything other than an old-fashioned shock-and-awe kill-‘em-all invasion. No one really knows exactly how many deaths and other casualties were suffered by Afghan civilians and the Taliban: most casualty counting web sites only report US and allied deaths and wounded – because after all we’re talking about the wilds of Afghanistan. However, it’s safe to say the number – conservatively – is in the tens of thousands, including those taken by US drone strikes (and the Taliban which habitually attacks civilians).
Like the Russians, the Americans have held an election (or two) since their conquest of the region: unlike the Russians, however, who offered Crimean voters a choice – annexation or autonomy within Ukraine – Afghan voters only got to choose between foreign occupation under one US sock-puppet or foreign occupation under another US sock-puppet. In the end, they chose Hamid Karzai, whose chaotic reign as de facto mayor of Kabul has been fraught with corruption and worse both for the US and the long-suffering Afghan people.
In Iraq, the contrast between “liberation” American style and Russian annexation is even starker. There the death toll exacted by the Americans easily tops one million, while the electoral process has been even more [amazon asin=1933859601&template=*lrc ad (right)]corrupted by Washington’s political agenda. Here we destroyed a nation in order to “save” it – and we didn’t even gain the geopolitical advantage of acquiring a compliant ally. Iraq is now firmly in the Iranian orbit after having asked us politely – but firmly – to leave. You have to give the Americans credit for actually withdrawing – even though, in terms of domestic US politics, the Obama administration didn’t have much choice in the matter.
In short, some aggressors are more aggressive than others: indeed, there is one in particular that tops the list. Some libertarians are quite uncomfortable with these difficult yet irrefutable truths. They’d prefer we didn’t talk about them. Anthony Gregory, writing in some obscure web site that nonetheless got picked up elsewhere, complains “Our unifying enemy should be the same: aggression, whether it is ordered from Moscow or Washington DC” – and never mind the disproportionate death and destruction caused by the latter. That’s just a detail.
But is it? Doesn’t it matter that the Russian “aggression” caused no loss of life and no real destruction of property – not even a dented automobile? Doesn’t that alter the tortured calculus that instructs us in who our “unifying enemy” should be?
Say a robber breaks into your house, steals your stuff, rapes your wife, mutilates your children and then burns the house down as he’s leaving – is that morally equivalent to a robber who steals into your home when you’re not there, takes your old love letters and maybe your old model i-phone, and does no real damage?
