A favoured Kremlin disinformation tactic is not simply to [deny clear evidence](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/kremlin-reverts-to-type-in-response-to-alleged-war-crimes-in-ukraine) of Russian or Soviet crimes, but to distract attention from them by claiming that the democratic world is no better. As [Peter Pomerantsev](https://unherd.com/author/peter-pomerantsev/) has documented, the purpose of Russian propaganda is both to spread falsehoods and to sow a pervasive, postmodern doubt as to the very possibility of truth or objectivity. A corrosive cynicism about our own history and political values suits the Russian state’s purposes very well.
As I was walking to a [rally in support of Ukraine ](https://ukrainianoxford.org/)held outside the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford on 27 February, three days after the Russian invasion began, I overheard a student say, “well, we invaded Iraq, so we’re not in a position to criticise”. This was a (hopefully unconscious) echo of one of the many specious justifications offered for Russian aggression by Vladimir Putin in his strange, rambling [address to the Russian people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQDrFG5Ynf0) three days before the invasion.
One callow student opinion, casually expressed, doesn’t count for much, but very similar sentiments can be found in a [spectacularly ill-judged emission](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n06/on-ukraine/day-5-day-9-day-16) by Pankaj Mishra in the London Review of Books. The eminent author and critic appeared to suggest that Putin had received his lessons in aggression from a succession of American Presidents, beginning with Bill Clinton and culminating with — well, you can probably guess. In Mishra’s world nothing can Trump the evil of American imperialism, so the real danger posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that “an ageing centrist establishment … seems suddenly galvanised by the prospect of defining themselves through a new cold war”. In other words, the united western response to Russian aggression is a bad thing. To borrow Leila Al-Shami’s term, which she coined in reference to atrocities committed by the Assad regime and the Russians in Syria, it is a perfect example of “[the ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots](https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/)”, a product of ignorance and narcissism:
>[….] blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners — only White men have the power to make history.
>We should contest and expose the Kremlin’s lying. But to suggest that the public assault on truth is new, or peculiarly Russian, is also disinformation. For generations, in countries such as the UK there was no epistemic crisis — but this was not because we shared a commitment to truth. It was because we shared a commitment to outrageous lies.
Seems like the usual neoliberal/neocon look “No It’s ok when we overthrow/bomb countries, not them!”, fuck Russia for invading Ukraine btw but this is basically what the article is doing.
Slightly less rape-y and we use less WMD’s (now a days), but the US is far more likely to invade your country and is equally willing to bomb hospitals and schools.
Half of why the US is so hesitant to condemn Russia is because the first question everyone will ask is “then why did you bomb funerals and reclassify battlefield rapes as suicides?”
Well first off we need a definition of bad. Let’s not look into civilian deaths though, it’s not in western favour.
Let’s be clear here: This is the oldest trick in the Soviet playbook and it’s called whataboutism. The US is not as bad as Russia. Even if you look at it from a purely objective and not western lense, Russian imperialism is way worse in so many ways.
That being said, get ready for a shit ton of people trying to deny American (or European) human rights violations in the future by accusing you of being a Russian bot. Both things are happening already.
I mean it kind of is, we’re just being hypocrites if we don’t recognize that. But I guess economic imperialism is kind of preferable to military imperialism
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A favoured Kremlin disinformation tactic is not simply to [deny clear evidence](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/kremlin-reverts-to-type-in-response-to-alleged-war-crimes-in-ukraine) of Russian or Soviet crimes, but to distract attention from them by claiming that the democratic world is no better. As [Peter Pomerantsev](https://unherd.com/author/peter-pomerantsev/) has documented, the purpose of Russian propaganda is both to spread falsehoods and to sow a pervasive, postmodern doubt as to the very possibility of truth or objectivity. A corrosive cynicism about our own history and political values suits the Russian state’s purposes very well.
As I was walking to a [rally in support of Ukraine ](https://ukrainianoxford.org/)held outside the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford on 27 February, three days after the Russian invasion began, I overheard a student say, “well, we invaded Iraq, so we’re not in a position to criticise”. This was a (hopefully unconscious) echo of one of the many specious justifications offered for Russian aggression by Vladimir Putin in his strange, rambling [address to the Russian people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQDrFG5Ynf0) three days before the invasion.
One callow student opinion, casually expressed, doesn’t count for much, but very similar sentiments can be found in a [spectacularly ill-judged emission](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n06/on-ukraine/day-5-day-9-day-16) by Pankaj Mishra in the London Review of Books. The eminent author and critic appeared to suggest that Putin had received his lessons in aggression from a succession of American Presidents, beginning with Bill Clinton and culminating with — well, you can probably guess. In Mishra’s world nothing can Trump the evil of American imperialism, so the real danger posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that “an ageing centrist establishment … seems suddenly galvanised by the prospect of defining themselves through a new cold war”. In other words, the united western response to Russian aggression is a bad thing. To borrow Leila Al-Shami’s term, which she coined in reference to atrocities committed by the Assad regime and the Russians in Syria, it is a perfect example of “[the ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots](https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/)”, a product of ignorance and narcissism:
>[….] blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners — only White men have the power to make history.
Al-Shami’s argument has been extended by [Taras Bilous](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/a-letter-to-the-western-left-from-kyiv/), Jan Smolenski and Jan Dutkiewicz into a powerful critique of “[Westsplaining](https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato)” the Russian invasion of Ukraine — referring to the widespread tendency in some parts of the [Left](https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/with-putins-ukraine-incursion-hawks-in-washington-got-exactly-what-they-wanted) (and indeed the [Right](https://unherd.com/2021/12/the-west-must-stay-out-of-ukraine/)) to [blame it on NATO](https://fpif.org/russia-ukraine-nato-and-the-left/) rather than Russian aggression. None other than the Guardian’s George Monbiot has [taken up](https://twitter.com/georgemonbiot/status/1503758826461409287) this critique and apparently understood it, which makes his own contribution to the genre all the more baffling. In his article “[Putin exploits the lie machine but didn’t invent it. British history is also full of untruths](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/30/putin-lie-machine-history-untruths)”, he writes:
>We should contest and expose the Kremlin’s lying. But to suggest that the public assault on truth is new, or peculiarly Russian, is also disinformation. For generations, in countries such as the UK there was no epistemic crisis — but this was not because we shared a commitment to truth. It was because we shared a commitment to outrageous lies.
Seems like the usual neoliberal/neocon look “No It’s ok when we overthrow/bomb countries, not them!”, fuck Russia for invading Ukraine btw but this is basically what the article is doing.
Slightly less rape-y and we use less WMD’s (now a days), but the US is far more likely to invade your country and is equally willing to bomb hospitals and schools.
Half of why the US is so hesitant to condemn Russia is because the first question everyone will ask is “then why did you bomb funerals and reclassify battlefield rapes as suicides?”
Well first off we need a definition of bad. Let’s not look into civilian deaths though, it’s not in western favour.
Let’s be clear here: This is the oldest trick in the Soviet playbook and it’s called whataboutism. The US is not as bad as Russia. Even if you look at it from a purely objective and not western lense, Russian imperialism is way worse in so many ways.
That being said, get ready for a shit ton of people trying to deny American (or European) human rights violations in the future by accusing you of being a Russian bot. Both things are happening already.
I mean it kind of is, we’re just being hypocrites if we don’t recognize that. But I guess economic imperialism is kind of preferable to military imperialism