Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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Introduction: This program continues analysis of the installation in the Ukraine of a government composed largely of political forces evolved from, and manifesting ideological continuity with, the fascist OUN/B.
Having staffed the 14th Waffen SS (Galician) Division and the Einsatzgruppen (mobile execution squads) in the Ukraine, the OUN/B was a pivotal element in the postwar Gehlen spy outfit in its CIA and BND incarnations, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and the GOP ethnic outreach organization.
OUN/B has been deeply involved with covert operations and figures in the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as the de-stabilization of the Soviet Union during the climactic phase of the Cold War. With a profound presence in the GOP’s ethnic division, as well as the contemporary Ukrainian political infrastructure, the OUN/B is anything but an historical relic. The development of the OUN/B in both the U.S. and the Ukraine is explained in great historical depth in AFA #37.
The Orwellian aspects of the Ukrainian crisis could not be exaggerated and are explored at greater length in this program (and will be in upcoming programs as well.) (To date, we have done four programs to date about the Ukrainian crisis: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780.)
We have noted that Victor Yuschenko’s term as president of the Ukraine–realized through the so-called Orange Revolution–featured the former Ykaterina Chumachenko as his wife. Formerly Ronald Reagan’s Deputy Director of Public Liaison, the former Ms. Chumachenko was a prominent member of the UCCA, the top OUN/B front organization in the United States. (For background on the OUN/B, the Ukrainian fascist template organization for Swoboda, see the For The Record programs noted above.)
We suspect that the former Ms. Chumachenko was the real power behind the throne.
While president of the Ukraine, Yuschenko presided over a fundamental makeover of Ukrainian history and, through that, political ideology.
The dramatic and fundamental nature of this revisionism paved the way for the public positioning of the fascist Swoboda party as a viable, democratic entity. Swoboda is a primary element in the new Ukrainian government, dominating the military and judicial processes of that country.
Program Highlights Include:
- Yuschenko literally undertook to create a ministry of truth, in effect, designating the former KGB archives as the focal point to begin a fundamental political makeover of Ukrainian history and ideology.
- Contrasting the OUN/B and its affiliated organizations as truthful and just, contrasted with “everything Soviet” as false and evil, Yuschenko successfully effected a wholesale revisionism of Ukrainian politics and history.
- Yushchenko appointed the young activist Volodymyr V’’iatrovych (b. 1977) director of the SBU archives [the focal point of the successful revisionist effort–D.E.]. V’’iatrovych combined his position as government-appointed memory manager with ultra-nationalist activism; he was simultaneously director of an OUN(b) front organization, the Center for the Study for the Liberation Movement.
- The revisionism cast the OUN/B as having fought the Nazis, a complete historical lie.
- The alleged anti-Nazi activity of the OUN/B co-exists in a remarkable political landscape with adulation of the 14th Waffen SS Division (Galicia) and its allied formations. Even as OUN/B is portrayed as having saved Jews from the Holocaust, its activities in murdering them is celebrated.
- Directly, explicitly and overtly evolved from the OUN/B, Swoboda retains all of the OUN/B’s fascism and bigotry, masked by nationalistic fervor.
- The fundamentals of Swoboda’s politics and character can be gleaned from examining party leader Oleh Tiahnybok’s ideological adviser. “Yurii Mykhal’chyshyn (b. 1982), Tiahnybok’s adviser on ideological matters, Svoboda’s top name in the election to the Lviv city council and its candidate for mayor in 2010, represents a more radical current in the movement. Proudly confessing himself part of the fascist tradition, Mykhal’chyshyn relishes the harshness, extremism and uncompromising radicalism of his idols of the 1930s and 1940s.
- In Canada, Tiahnybok was honored by veterans of the 14th Waffen SS Division. In the Ukraine almost a year later, Swoboda held celebrations of the division, featuring and honoring veterans of the unit, returning the grace and favor deferred upon its leader.
- Tiahnybok ideological adviser Mykhal’chyshyn openly embraces street violence as a fundamental tactic.
- Tiahnybok ideological adviser Mykhal’chyshyn celebrates the Holocaust and supports Hamas.
- Swoboda is affiliated with other European fascist parties, including the Swedish fascist milieu to which Pirate Bay/WikiLeaks benefactor Carl Lundstrom belongs.
- The Swoboda and Pravy Sektor-dominated government’s formation of a national guard, to be comprised of “activists”–the Swoboda and Pravy Sektor fighters, no doubt.
- Pravy Sektor’s moves to recruit fighters to engage the Russians in combat in the Ukraine.
- The UNA-UNSO, a Ukrainian fascist combat unit that has engaged in combat against Russia in Georgia and Chechnya. They were present in Kiev during the demonstrations.
- The presence of a jihadist element among the Crimean Tatars.
- Potential Saudi Arabian participation in an anti-Russian coalition.
1. Most of the program concerns the Yuschenko’s deliberate and fundamental remaking of Ukrainian history and ideology. Having literally created an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth,” Yuschenko’s government paved the way for the political midwifing of the Swoboda party–the heirs to the OUN/B.
Note that this book is in Google Books.
. . . . . Swept to power by the Orange Revolution, the third president of Ukraine,Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010), put in substantial efforts into the production of historical myths. He tasked a set of nationalistically minded historians to produce and disseminate an edifying national history as well as a new set of national heroes. . . . .
. . . . . The OUN wings disagreed on strategy and ideology but shared a commitment to the manufacture of a historical past based on victimization and heroism. The émigrés developed an entire literature that denied the OUN’s fascism, its collaboration with Nazi Germany, and its participation in atrocities, instead presenting the organization as composed of democrats and pluralists who had rescued Jews during the Holocaust. The diaspora narrative was contradictory, combining celebrations of the supposedly anti-Nazi resistance struggle of the OUN-UPA with celebrations of the Waffen SS Galizien, a Ukrainian collaborationist formation established by Heinrich Himmler in 1943 (Rudling, 2011a, 2011c, 2012a). Thus, Ukrainian Waffen SS veterans could celebrate the UPA as “anti-Nazi resistance fighters” while belonging to the same war veterans’ organizations (Bairak, 1978). Unlike their counterparts in some other post-Soviet states, Ukrainian “nationalizing” historians did not have to invent new nationalist myths but re-imported a narrative developed by the émigrés (Dietsch, 2006: 111–146; Rudling, 2011a: 751–753). . . . .
YUSHCHENKOISM
As president, Yushchenko initiated substantial government propaganda initiatives. In July 2005, he established an Institute of National Memory, assigned the archives of the former KGB (now the SBU, Sluzhba Bezpeki Ukrainy, the Ukrainian Security Service) formal propagandistic duties and supported the creation of a “Museum of Soviet Occupation” in Kyiv (Jilge, 2008: 174). Yushchenko appointed the young activist Volodymyr V’’iatrovych (b. 1977) director of the SBU archives. V’’iatrovych combined his position as government-appointed memory manager with ultra-nationalist activism; he was simultaneously director of an OUN(b) front organization, the Center for the Study for the Liberation Movement. State institutions disseminated a sanitized, edifyingly patriotic version of the history of the “Ukrainian national liberation movement,” the leaders of which were presented in iconographic form as heroic and saintly figures, martyrs of the nation (Rasevych, 2010; Rudling, 2011c: 26–33, 2012b).
Yushchenko’s mythmaking had two central components. The first was the presentation of the 1932–1933 famine as “the genocide of the Ukrainian nation,” a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Ukrainians which, his myth-makers claimed, resulted in the death of 10 million people in the republic.
The other component was a heroic cult of the OUN(b), the UPA and their leaders. The “memory managers” juxtaposed the genocidal Soviet rule with the self-sacrificial heroism of the OUN-UPA, producing a teleological narrative of suffering (the famine) and resistance (the OUN-UPA) leading to redemption (independence, 1991). Curiously, Yushchenko’s legitimizing historians presented their instrumentalized use of history as “truth,” which they juxtaposed to “Soviet myths.” Wilfried Jilge, a historian at the University of Leipzig, writes that “[i]t takes place by means of discourse, rituals, and symbols and uses the past to provide legitimization and to mobilize the population for political purposes.
. . . A reconstructed historical memory is created as ‘true memory’ and then contrasted with ‘false Soviet history’ ”(Jilge, 2007:104–105). Thus, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, SBU director under Yushchenko, described the task of his agency as being to disseminate “the historical truth of the past of the Ukrainian people,” to “liberate Ukrainian history from lies and falsifications and to work with truthful documents only” (Jilge, 2008:179). Ignoring the OUN’s antisemitism, denying its participation in anti- Jewish violence, and overlooking its fascist ideology, Nalyvaichenko and his agency presented the OUN as democrats, pluralists, even righteous rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.
The hegemonic nationalist narrative is reflected also in academia, where the line between “legitimate” scholarship and ultra-nationalist propaganda often is blurred. Mainstream bookstores often carry Holocaust denial and antisemitic literature, some of which finds its way into the academic mainstream (Rudling, 2006). So too, for instance, can academic works on World War II by reputable historians integrate the works of Holocaust deniers and cite the former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke as a “expert” on the “Jewish Question.” . . . .
. . . . The culmination of Yushchenko’s Geschichtspolitik was his designation, a few days before leaving office, of Bandera as a hero of Ukraine. Again, there was little protest from intellectuals who identify themselves as liberals. . . . .
. . . . On June 30, 2011, the 70th anniversary of the German invasion and Stetsko’s “renewal of Ukrainian statehood” was re-enacted in Lviv as a popular festival, where parents with small children waved flags to re-enactors in SS uniforms. . . .
. . . . . Ironically, the presentation of the OUN as resistance fighters against Nazi Germany coexists with an elaborate cult of the Waffen SS Galizien (Rudling, 2012a). Lviv streets have been renamed after Nazi collaborators like Roman Shukhevych and Volodymyr Kubijovyc. In the Lviv city hall, Svoboda is currently working to have the Lviv airport renamed after Bandera. Svoboda deputy Iuryi Mykahl’chyshyn stated, “We should have the airport named after Stepan Bandera. I don’t want to point any fingers. . . . But we will have a Bandera airport, a Bandera stadium, and the entire city will be carrying Bandera’s name, because he is its most living symbol”(“U L’vovi budut’ stadion,” 2012). In the fall of 2011, Svoboda deputies in a municipality in the Lviv district renamed a street from the Soviet-era name Peace Street (Vulytsia Myru ) to instead carry the name of the Nachtigall Battalion, a Ukrainian nationalist formation involved in the mass murder of Jews in 1941, arguing that “ ‘Peace’ is a holdover from Soviet stereotypes”(“Vulytsiu myru,” 2011). . . .
. . . . Svoboda’s claims to the OUN legacy are based upon ideological continuity, as well as organization and political culture (Shekhovtsov, 2011b:13–14). Presenting Svoboda as the successor of Dontsov and the OUN, Tiahnybok regards Svoboda as “an Order-party which constitutes the true elite of the nation” (Tiahnybok, 2011). Like those of many other far-right movements, Svoboda’s official policy documents are relatively cautious and differ from its daily activities and internal jargon, which are much more radical and racist (Olszan´ski, 2011). Svoboda subscribes to the OUN tradition of national segregation and demands the re-introduction of the Soviet “nationality” category into Ukrainian passports. “We are not America, a mishmash of all sorts of people,” the Svoboda website states. “The Ukrainian needs to stay Ukrainian, the Pole—Polish, the Gagauz—Gagauz, the Uzbek—Uzbek” (“Hrafa ‘natsional’nost’v pasporti,” 2005). Svoboda’s ultra-nationalism is supplemented with more traditional “white racism” (Shekhovtsov, 2011b: 15). . . . .
. . . . Conspiracy theory is integral to Svoboda Weltanschauung, particularly conspiracies with anti-Semitic undertones. In August 2011, in an apparent attempt to distance themselves from the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, Svoboda claimed that he was a Jewish Mason (Redkolehiia chaso-pysu “Svoboda,” 2011). In September 2011, Svoboda activists mobilized from several parts of Ukraine to organize rallies against Hasidic pilgrims to Uman.
Following violent clashes, the police detained more than 50 Svoboda activists, armed with gas canisters, smoke bombs and catapults. The Cherkasy branch of Svoboda criticized the police for their alleged failure “to stop and avert aggression by Hasidic Jews to Ukrainians” (“Uman: Righ-twing activists detained,” 2011).Svoboda’s anti-Russian and anti-Jewish rhetoric is accompanied by an anti-Polish message. Svoboda maintains that Poland has played a negative historical role in Ukrainian lands. The party demands an official apology from Poland for five hundred years of Polonization, from the 15th to the 20th centuries, and indemnities for “the Polish terror and occupation of Ukrainian lands in the 20th century” (“Zaiava VO ‘Svoboda’ shchodoproiaviv ukrainofobii,” 2010). Focusing on divisive and sensitive issues, Svoboda provocatively denies any involvement of the Waffen SS Galizien in atrocities against the Polish minority in Galicia. For instance, on the site of Huta Pieniacka, Svoboda has placed a huge billboard denying the conclusion of both Polish and Ukrainian historical commissions that the fourth police regiment, which was later adjoined to the Waffen SS Galizien, burnt this Polish village and slaughtered most of its residents on February 28, 1944. . . .
. . . . Svoboda is a member of the so-called Alliance of European National Movements, a network which includes theBritish National Party, Nationaldemokraterna of Sweden, the Front National in France, Fiamma Tricolore in Italy, the Belgian National Front, and the Hungarian Jobbik (Umland, 2011). This seemingly unlikely cooperation is partly facilitated by a joint fascination with ethnic purity, inspired by Alain de Benoit, the ideologue of the French Nouvelle Droit. De Benoit fears the disappearance of pluralism and the reduction of all cultures into a world civilization and argues that each ethnos should be allowed to develop independently on its given territory, without the admixture of other cultures. Nationaldemokraterna, their Swedish sister party, advocates a form of ethnic segregation, which they refer to as “ethnopluralism” (Dahl, 1999: 68, 136).
Svoboda has opened an office in Toronto, which has been visited by several of its leading figures (“Diial’nist Kanads’koho predstavnytstva ‘Svo-body,’ ” 2009). In Canada, in May 2010, Tiahnybok received the golden cross “for his service to Ukraine” from the Brotherhood of the Veterans of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, as the veterans of the Waffen SS Galizien call themselves (“Esesovtsy nagradil lideraukrainskikh natsionalistov,” 2010). Following the conviction and sentencing of the death camp guard John Demjanjuk to five years of jail for his role as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibór death camp,Tiahnybok traveled to Germany and met up with Demjanjuk’s lawyer, Ulrich Busch, presenting the death camp guard as a hero, a victim of persecution, who is “fighting for truth” (“Oleh Tiahnybok iz dvodennym vizytomvidvidav Nimechynu,” 2010). 10
Tiahnybok’s heroization of the Waffen SS Galizien and other Nazi collaborators is accompanied by ideological claims that the OUN-UPA conducted an anti-Nazi resistance struggle against Hitler.
Yurii Mykhal’chyshyn (b. 1982), Tiahnybok’s adviser on ideological matters, Svoboda’s top name in the election to the Lviv city council and its candidate for mayor in 2010, represents a more radical current in the movement. Proudly confessing himself part of the fascist tradition, Mykhal’chyshyn relishes the harshness, extremism and uncompromising radicalism of his idols of the 1930s and 1940s. Constantly reiterating that “We consider tolerance a crime” and that “We value the truth of the spirit and blood over-all success and wealth” (Nasha Vatra , n.d.), Mykhal’chyshyn takes pride in the label “extremist,” which he proudly shares with “Stepan Bandera,who created an underground terrorist-revolutionary army, the shadow of which still stirs up horrible fear in the hearts of the enemies of our Nation”(Mykhal’chyshyn, “Orientyry”, n.d.). Mykhal’chyshyn serves as a link between VO Svoboda and the so-called autonomous nationalists. Mirroring the “autonomous anarchists” of the extreme left, which they resemble in terms of dress code, lifestyle, aesthetics, symbolism and organization, the “autonomous nationalists” attract particularly militant and extremely violent “event-oriented” young fascists. Mykhal’chyshyn has combined the attributes of various stands of the extra-parliamentary extreme right: Doc Martens shoes, buzz cuts and bomber jackets are in the tradition of the skinheads, while the nightly torchlight parades under black banners with SS symbols resemble the political rituals and Aufmärsche in Nazi Germany. The glorification of street violence is a key component of this political subculture: in an extra session with the Lviv regional Rada in front of the Bandera memorial in Lviv, Mykhal’chyshyn boasted that “Our Banderite army will cross the Dnipro and throw that blue-ass gang, which today usurps the power, out of Ukraine. . . . That will make those Asiatic dogs shut their ugly mouths.”
While hardly a typical man of the belles-lettres , Mykhal’chyshyn, is actually a student of fascism. . . . His interest is not exclusively academic; under the pseudonym Nachtigall 88, Mykhal’chyshyn promotes fascist ideology with the purpose of promoting a fascist transformation of society in Web forums linked to Svoboda and “autonomous nationalists.” In 2005, he organized a political think tank, originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center” but later re-named after the German conservative revolutionary Ernst Jünger. (Olszan´ski, 2011).
Explicitly endorsing Hamas, Mykhal’chyshyn regards the Holocaust as “a bright episode in European civilization” which “strongly warms the hearts of the Palestinian population. . . . They hope it will be all repeated” (“Mikhal’chyshyn schitaet Kholokost,” 2011; “Ukrainskii natsist,” 2011).
We recognize the heavy emphasis on heroes and heroism from the narrative of the émigré OUN and from Yushchenko’s legitimizing historians. The difference is that, unlike these two influences, Mykhal’chyshyn does not deny Bandera and Stets’ko’s fascism. On the contrary, their fascist ideology constitutes the basis for his admiration. . . .
. . . . While he is no longer a serious political player, Yushchenko left behind a legacy of myths which helped legitimized Svoboda’s ideology. Svoboda’s appropriation of many rituals in honour of “national heroes” from more moderate nationalists is but one expression of its increased political strength in post-Yushchenko Western Ukraine. . . .
. . . . On April 28, 2011, Svoboda celebrated the 68th anniversary of the establishment of the Waffen SS Galizien. Octogenarian Waffen SS veterans were treated as heroes in a mass rally, organized by Svoboda and the “autonomous nationalists.” Nearly 700 participants (the organizers claimed 2,000) marched down the streets of Lviv, from the massive socialist–realist style Bandera monument, to Prospekt Svobody, the main street, shouting slogans like “One race, one nation, one fatherland!,” . . . .
. . . . The procession was led by Mykhal’chyshyn . . . .
2. Next, the program notes the formation of a 60,000 strong national guard in Ukraine, to be commanded and staffed by the OUN/B successor organizations Swoboda and Pravy Sektor.
“Ukraine Creates National Guard Ahead of Crimea Vote”; BBC News; 3/13/2014.
Ukraine’s parliament has voted to create a 60,000-strong National Guard to bolster the country’s defences.
The vote came ahead of Sunday’s referendum in Crimea, now controlled by pro-Moscow forces, on whether citizens want to join Russia.
President Vladimir Putin insists Russia is not to blame for the crisis. . . .
. . . . The new National Guard is expected to be recruited from activists involved in the recent pro-Western protests as well as from military academies.
Ukraine’s national security chief Andriy Parubiy [from Swoboda–D.E.] said the Guard would be deployed to “ensure state security, defend the borders, and eliminate terrorist groups”. . . .
3.We conclude with another very important article from German-Foreign-Policy.com, which feeds along the lower right-hand side of the front page of this website. We note a number of important points in this article, including:
Pravy Sektor’s moves to recruit fighters to engage the Russians in combat in the Ukraine; the UNA-UNSO, a Pravy Sektor combat unit that has engaged in combat against Russia in Georgia and Chechnya (they were present in Kiev during the demonstrations against the Yanukovich government); the presence of a jihadist element among the Crimean Tatars; potential Saudi Arabian participation in an anti-Russian military coalition.
“Cold War Images”;” German-Foreign-Policy.com; 3/12/2014.
. . . . The fascist “Pravi Sektor” (“Rightwing Sector”) has announced that it has opened recruiting offices throughout the Ukraine, to recruit volunteers to reconquer the Crimea. They want to mobilize for the case that Russia continues its “aggression” there.[5] “The other side of the coin is war,” according to a quote from one of the leaders of the organization: “We do not rule out this option. Accordingly, we are conducting mobilization and are preparing to repel foreign aggression. If the Kremlin tramples on us further, we will fight and defend our native state until the end.”[6] According to Ukrainian media, the leader of the “Pravi Sektor,” Dmytro Yarosh, announced that his paramilitary association would coordinate its activities with Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. Yarosch officiates as Vice Secretary of this council under the personal direction of the Ukrainian President. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[7])
Experienced Militias
The “Pravi Sektor’s” threats of force must be taken all the more seriously, given the fact that, in the past, one of its member organizations, the extremist rightwing UNA-UNSO — founded in 1990 — not only had already intervened in the Crimea but has combat experience. In the spring of 1992, that association staged a demonstration in the Crimea, which dominated headlines throughout the country. This was perceived at the time — shortly following the disintegration of the Soviet Union — as a response to the topical debate, as to whether the allocation of the Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 should be reversed and the Crimea be reattached to Russia. The Crimea remained with Ukraine. UNA-UNSO activists also joined the combat in Georgia in 1993. In 1994, according to one report, the association had a constant exchange with Chechen separatists, at war with Moscow. UNA-UNSO members also practically “participated in Chechnya’s war against Russia.”[8] One of these former UNA-UNSO militiamen was recently spotted at the Western Ukraine protests, when he threatened regional parliamentarians with a kalashnikov. Today he claims he will “fight communists, Jews and Russians for as long as blood flows in my veins.”[9]
“We are Ready”
Alongside the “Pravi Sektor,” whose ranks have been dramatically reinforced in the course of those protests supported by Berlin, another group drawing attention in the Crimean context are the Crimean Tatars. This 280,000-member Islamic minority also has a Salafist wing, some of whose activists have combat experience from the Syrian conflict. One of the Crimean Tartar leaders was quoted with a prognosis that it should be expected that, at least, a few of those with combat experience will attack the Russian troops in the Crimea in the future. “They say: ‘an enemy has entered our land and we are ready’,” he is quoted saying.[10] Observers point out that, on the one hand, Salafists fighting in Syria, often have the best links to Saudi Arabia and that, on the other, massive protests are now taking place in Saudi Arabia against Russian measures in the Crimea — based on the bogus allegation, Moscow wants to kill the Crimean Tartars. Saudi media propagates that in the Crimean War of the 19th Century, Arab Muslims had also fought the Russians.[11] Riyadh, which is participating in this anti-Moscow media agitation, is one of the West’s — Germany’s as well — closest allies in the Arab world. This dictatorship has already joined forces with Western powers against Moscow — in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Maidan is becoming a military recruitment center and it’s not just the military doing the recruiting:
As the article points out, one of the characteristics of the revolution in Ukraine is that the protestors haven’t really had a chance to celebrate and psychologically unwind. The very act that catalyzed the protest, the mystery sniper massacre on the Maidan, was also a horrible tragedy for for the protestors that took the brunt of the volience. And any euphoria in the victory that followed — President Yanukovich fleeing Kiev — was almost immediately swept away by the immiment conflicts in the East and Crimea. It’s one reason why the depression settling into the Maidan is so depressing: it’s self-reinforcing depression. The less hope there is for a Ukrainian society that’s moved past that sad state of ethnic division the greater the incentive to embrace the far right and create ethnically divided states.
It’s increasingly looking like we once again are seeing a revolution that was initially rooted in the spirit of “a pox on all houses, end the corruption” successfully get hijacked by the far right. Fortunately, the bulk of the populace still appears to largely reject the horrible worldviews of groups like Svoboda and Right Sektor. But insecurity has always been one of the best of friends of the far right. So the formation of far right militias in Kiev combined with the situation in Crimea and the separatism in the East (that one would expect in response to the sudden rise of Svoboda and Right Sektor), it’s looking like the far right in Ukraine has fewer and fewer reasons to be feeling down. And that’s pretty depressing.
An OUN‑B/OSI blast from the past (via Mark Ames)
It’s always interesting to see which types of expenditures induce elite sticker shock:
Given how miniscule $15 billion (or even $50 billion) is when you’re looking at the combined budgets of the NATO allies, it’s pretty hard to hard argue that the West can’t actually afford to offer Ukraine more. No. It’s about doing the right thing.