“THEY don’t know what they don’t know” is a very accurate description of very much of the electorate and has been for a very long time. Massive online activity is to an extent lessening this situation – but of course it is also allowing easier distribution of “fake news”.
Were you to rely on most of our media, you would never know that US interference in the politics of Ukraine has been constant and is a huge element in the present appalling situation there, in which the ordinary people yet again find themselves the casualties of the continuous US v Russia struggle (which is responsible for much of the trouble the world faces today). I have no time for either of them, or the tiddly little UK which trots behind the Star-Spangled Banner no matter who dies.
As I marched with 100,000 through Glasgow chanting “Don’t attack Iraq” I must have been a “Saddam Hussein apologist”, because as I put into the public domain facts about America’s continuous and damaging interference in Ukraine I am described as a “Putin apologist”.
READ MORE: Solidarity events across Scotland take place to mark one month since Ukraine invasion
I’ve been involved in politics for a very long time. What presently surprises me is that so many Scots who now fully understand the pervasive dishonesty of all our media and broadcasting about Scotland seem compelled to swallow a similar level of dishonesty about everything else.
To be clear, I have contributed (twice) to the appeals for the Ukranian people but I have no intention of shutting up about the US contribution to their suffering.
The US was responsible for the coup that overthrew the left-wing, Russian-supporting Ukraine government and put in place a semi-fascist regime. Significant parts of Eastern Ukraine which are basically Russian Orthodox, Russian-speaking, want to secede but have been subjected to continuous repression. This is primarily about the placing (or not) of Nato bases in these eastern parts of Ukraine.
Anybody who thought that this continuing provocation of Putin wouldn’t eventually lead to something like this isn’t thinking straight. I could go on about the alarming amount of doctored news we are being subjected to, but this in no way changes the basic fact. It is the people who suffer and die. It is always the people who suffer and die. And I realised this a long time ago.
READ MORE: Ukrainians in UK are being let down by Home Office, say Greens and SNP
As secretary of Hamilton SNP CA, I chaired a long time ago a meeting at the formation of a High Blantyre Branch put together by the dynamic Margo MacDonald. The major speaker was Winnie Ewing. She was incensed by the evil behaviour of the UK and the US in Nigeria to the Igbo people of the newly declared Republic of Biafra. And more so by the fact that we were hearing nothing about it. The Biafrans (there are now around 30 million Igbos) had declared themselves a free republic.They are a very able people. They had virtually all the oil. Within months they had their own bank, currency and postage service and stamps. They were not inclined to have their revenues in US petro dollars (where have we heard that before? Iraq? Syria?). So the US/UK axis backed and armed the Federal Nigeria Government’s assault on Biafra.
The Biafrans fought bravely on with knives, broom handles, homemade guns etc. Across other areas of Nigeria, mobs caught and beheaded Biafrans. And then as they were cut off they started to starve. They were eating rats and insects. An estimated two million Igbos starved to death, many of them children. Biafra surrendered. We did it. And Winnie Ewing knew it. Kinda puts Iraq into context. Like so many other utterly disgraceful interventions all around the world by those we choose to lead us. This is just the latest.
So let us do all we can to provide support and safety to the innocent thousands fleeing Ukraine. But let us ignore the sanctimonious claptrap, the fake news and any notion that the behaviour of the evil US axis is not hugely culpable of the provocation that has made the equally savage Putin act.
David McEwan Hill
Dalinlongart, Argyll
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