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Author : Armen Oganesyan
Editor-in-Chief of International Affairs
MAY 6. Opened a fresh issue of American
Thinker to look for wise and well-balanced com-
ments on the storms raging in Ukraine, a bird's
eye view, so to speak and was badly disappointed:
a certain Kim Zigfeld in an article "Putin at Bay"
praises "the milquetoast Obama administration"
which has risen "to heights of virtual confronta-
tion worthy of Ronald Reagan."
Carried away by her own enthusiasm the author
wallows in unbridled bellicosity. She has out-
played Reagan to come close to McCarthy: "There remain among us certain Putin collaborators
who still strive to undermine our resolve"; she means Professor Stephen Cohen "who ritualisti-
cally propagandizes for Putin" and "former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.... who was
engaging in 'provocation' by allowing Putin to host a lavish birthday party for him in Putin's
hometown of St. Petersburg." Polish politician Slawomir Sierakowski calls them and their ilk
"Putin's'useful idiots'."
"East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." This is very true! In Russia,
"idiot" is not always derogatory: there is Prince Myshkin of Dostoevsky's The Idiot and the holy
fool from Pushkin's Boris Godunov. Not infrequently it is only idiots who dare to tell the truth
to "wise" guys. "Useful idiots" are much better than "useful" scoundrels of the Right Sector and
their ilk.
Today, it is much more important to say that Ukraine might lose its information war: hatred is
fanned in the country where the Russian TV channels were switched off and the opposition
Ukrainian media closed.
The guilt for everything which is going on in the country is heaped on Russians; hatred is mount-
ing in the minds of Ukrainians. No wonder, a phone call from Crimea, Moscow or Ekaterinburg
to relatives in Ukraine draws harsh accusations of the "You, Russians" type borrowed from the
local media; not infrequently, Ukrainian relatives are too frightened to accept the call.
This brings to mind the information wars for Ukraine waged in the not so distant past.
Today, the main enemy of the nationalist Ukrainians is beyond the eastern borders; very soon,
however, non-Ukrainians, now held responsible, might become outcasts or even hostages in their
own country. Very much as usual, the international institutions and Europe, invariably indifferent
to atrocities, will habitually acknowledge their impotence.
From the Editor's Diary