Too reflective?

I got called a "Putin sympathiser" by someone at work today, purely because I was trying to get them to see The Bigger Picture about the current Ukraine conflict.
Don't misunderstand me (like he did). I'm not excusing what has been done and I'm horrified by what's unfolding, but at the same time I'm rather concerned about the way it is being reported to us and the information/misinformation/disinformation that we're being given. It seems to me that a lot of the stories coming out of the 'war zone' are stories that have been repeated countless times in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 15 years without them being cited as 'war crimes'. So, if we massacre tens of thousands of innocent citizens it's seen as an unfortunate but necessary by-product, but if Russia kills a few hundred they should be charged and put on trial? What's good for the goose, etc.

It also seems to me that a lot of the articles about President Putin and his state of mind and his intentions are scarily similar to the ones written about Saddam Hussein when the West wanted an excuse to get rid of him, and scarily similar to the ones that were written about Castro and Yeltsin and countless other world leaders that the Americans and Western Europeans decided they didn't like. If one was cynical and untrusting of our leadership, one might almost say it is propaganda designed to help them achieve a pre-determined aim.

I remember reading a book about Roman military tactics and one of their tricks when they wanted to expand the Empire was to invent stories about the barbaric horrors being inflicted on the populous by a faraway leader, demonising him in the eyes of the Roman people, who would then agree to fund a conflict in whatever region this was, that most of them had never heard of before. I'm not saying that's what happening here (and I sincerely hope it isn't, or we're being governed by people who are borrowing ideas from over 2,000 years ago) but the way it's being reported does seem very one-dimensional and intended to provoke a particular emotional response; one that will make us supportive of whatever actions may be taken. 

We have a member of staff whose wife is Ukrainian, and her family reside in the area close to the border with Russia, where there have been skirmishes, clashes and deaths repeatedly for almost a decade. A lot of the Ukrainians in that area ARE pro-Russia and anti-NATO. Not all those people are fanatics, terrorists or 'puppets of Moscow', they are free people who have made a free choice, and have since been persecuted for it by those who disagree with them. They say their country's future was taken away from them, and believe their current leadership is only in place because of a US/Europe-led coup in 2014.  Joe Biden saying 'we're defending democracy' is ignoring the fact that the freely elected leaders were ousted. So, maybe we're only defending democracy when the results of that democracy give us leaders that we can deal with?

I'm sorry to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but there seems to be a very unpleasant smell about all this, and it's reminding me of the fiasco about WMDs that led us into Iraq. I'd hate to be watching TV in 10 years-time and learn that, yet again, we had been lied to about motives and scenarios and been brainwashed into supporting something unjust, unnecessary and expensive.

I've already heard it said by our leaders - with regards to the sanctions being inflicted on Russia in some strange attempt to quash them - "Britain is prepared to pay the financial cost." Well, I hate to sound unpatriotic, but I'm not. We've got a half-a-trillion pound pandemic bill to settle in the coming years, I don't want to face austerity cuts due to an economic war with Russia that I haven't agreed to, voted for, or been consulted on. 

I may not have all the facts straight in this posting, but lack of clear facts never stops the BBC from putting stuff on their 'News' website, so I'm not going to let it stop me here. And it may have been a load of old narrow-minded, ill-informed waffle, but so is most of the other stuff being written about this conflict, and I feel better for getting it out of my head and into the blogsphere, so thanks.

RC 3-3-22