Gefira 84: Between buying and selling sin is wedged

Amid the hostilities between the Western world and Russia, only the lazy or the unwilling cannot discern the signs of the impending fall of the former. It looks like the proxy war with its battleground in Ukraine is about to end soon, while the West stands no chance of reporting a victory. The defeat at the hands of the Russians is not merely the West’s military failure: there is more at stake. At stake is an enormous loss of face or prestige, the clear signal to the third parties that both NATO and the European Union are no more than talking heads, that reliance on Western leaders – promises – support is worthless, not to say dangerous, that the power of the West – including that of the United States – is declining and that perhaps it is about time to look to China or Russia for protection and guidance and economic aid.

As is known, in Moscow Russians have just made a display of the various pieces of destroyed Western armament for all to see: tanks, armoured vehicles, guns, you name it. Some of them were reputed to surpass anything Russians had ever had, some of them were sent to Ukraine almost like items of Wunderwaffe with which Ukrainians and the numerous multinational mercenaries in the Western pay were supposed to change the course of war. All the talk from merely two years ago that Russians were not properly equipped and that they dismantled washing machines in a desperate search for electronic parts for military use transpired either as inept propaganda or self-delusion. A bit more than thirty years earlier it was the Russians who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the West when they laid down their arms, thus bringing to an end the four-decade long Cold War. Today it seems to be the other way round.

What does all of this spell for that Western world? Will NATO continue as an alliance? Will the European Union survive this loss of prestige, especially when compounded by progressing de-industrialization, the ongoing massive influx of aliens and the economic weakening of Germany, its powerhouse? Will the United States still remain the world’s only superpower, the world’s policeman, the world’s bank and the world’s leader? These are legitimate questions.

In the meantime Anthony Blinken, the incumbent secretary of state, visited Kiev and – while patting his Ukrainian subordinates on the shoulders and encouraging them to further sacrifice their lives and limbs – having first tasted Kievan pizza, he grabbed the guitar from a member of a band that amused him during his stay in Ukraine’s capital and began strumming the strings, thus revealing his true nature. A disgusting picture.

The West has overreached itself. Its leaders had thought Russia was a weak sparring partner, someone to be swiftly dealt with and made to obey and serve. The endless waves of sanctions and the shameless grabbing of Russian financial assets have only shown the Western leaders’ incompetence and impotence when it turned out that despite all these measures Russia was alive and well. And yet, the Western leaders have been stubbornly taking similar similarly ineffective steps; the Western leaders – like spoilt children denied a toy or something sweet – cannot help throwing temper tantrums. One gets the impression that they are all obsessed with the figure of the Russian president. Listening to the Western leaders you can almost see the nails spat put of their mouths whenever they utter the name Putin. Oftentimes they seem to be ready to give up the whole of Ukraine to Russia if only in return for that they could get hold of Putin! Putin! Putin! and court-martial him. We may be dead certain that that’s the only prize they would request a good fairy to award them. They have invested so much hatred in the Russian leader that it has blinded them to reality, deprived them of common sense and incapacitated their mental faculties. Perhaps – who knows? – we are seeing Providence’s agency. After all, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat or Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first drives into insanity.