Craig Murray on inconvenient truths

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, who has paid a price in his own life for inconvenient truth-telling, published a list of true statements about Russia, Ukraine and the West.

a) The Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal: Putin is a war criminal
b) The US led invasion of Iraq was illegal: Blair and Bush are war criminals

a) Russian troops are looting, raping and shelling civilian areas
b) Ukraine has Nazis entrenched in the military and in government and commits atrocities against Russians

Craig Murray

a) Zelensky is an excellent war leader
b) Zelensky is corrupt and an oligarch puppet

a) Russian subjugation of Chechnya was brutal and a disproportionate response to an independence movement
b) Russian intervention in Syria saved the Middle East from an ISIS controlled jihadist state

a) Russia is extremely corrupt with a very poor human rights record
b) Western security service narratives such as “Russiagate” and “Skripals” are highly suspect, politically motivated and unevidenced.

a) NATO expansion is unnecessary, threatening to Russia and benefits nobody but the military industrial complex
b) The Russian military industrial complex is equally powerful in its own polity as is Russian nationalism

I agree with all these statements.  I don’t question your good faith if you happen to disagree with any of them or all of them.  I just think it is highly unlikely, with nations as with individuals, that one side is completely good and the other completely bad.  It is hard to stand aside from propaganda and judge for yourself.  

More from Murray:

One final thought on the tone of the coverage of the war both of the media and of supporters of the official western line on social media.  Though affecting to be sickened by the atrocities of war, their tone is not of sorrow or devastation, it is triumphalist and jubilant.  The amount of war porn and glorying in war is worrying.  The mood of the British nation is atavistic.  Russians living here are forced on a daily basis to declare antagonism to their own people and homeland.

I have had great difficulty in writing this piece – I have worked on it some three weeks, and the reason is a deep sadness which this unnecessary war has caused me.  In the course of my typing any paragraph, somebody has probably been killed or seriously injured in Ukraine, of whatever background.  They had a mother and others who loved them.  There is no triumph in violent death.

[Afterthought 04/09/2022].  On thinking things over, I have some reservations about some of the things on Murray’s list.  But I agree with the spirit of what he wrote.  The fact that one side in a conflict may be bad does not make the other side good.

LINK

Striving to Make Sense of the War in Ukraine by Craig Murray.  A long post, but worth reading the whole way through.

Tags: Craig Murray, truth tellers, Ukraine and Russia