Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda

Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda

As a result of the current escalation of events in Ukraine, it appears inevitable that the effort to use RIM to paint Russia as a driving force behind “transnational white supremacism” are due to resurface. This effort appears to have as one of its goals the minimization of the role that neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion, the Neo-Nazi paramilitary unit embedded within Ukraine’s National Guard, are actively playing in the current hostilities.

In January of this year, Jacobin published an article about the CIA efforts to seed an insurgency in Ukraine, noting that “everything we know points to the likelihood that [the groups being trained by the CIA] includes Neo-Nazis inspiring far-right terrorists across the world.” It cites a 2020 report from West Point which states that: “A number of prominent individuals among far-right extremist groups in the United States and Europe have actively sought out relationships with representatives of the far-right in Ukraine, specifically the National Corps and its associated militia, the Azov Regiment.” It adds that “US-based individuals have spoken or written about how the training available in Ukraine might assist them and others in their paramilitary-style activities at home.”

Related:

MATTHEW HEIMBACH AND THE LEFT’S VULNERABILITY TO FASCIST INFILTRATION

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: A Certain Kind of Diversity

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: A Certain Kind of Diversity

That’s no small thing to my old tribe. While there’ve been real militarists, monsters, and just plain jerks to come out of West Point’s academic departments – Petraeus and Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster come to mind – in my assessment, most TAC-types were less intellectually curious or inclined to challenge prevailing assumptions (with some exceptions). Don’t take just my word for it. “He just doesn’t knock your socks off,” a former defense official close to the Biden transition team told Politico – “I just don’t see him as an independent thinker.”

None of that bodes well in crisis times – think pandemic, climate catastrophe, and reprised Cold War nuclear madness – that demand system-shaking visionaries, not company men. Unfortunately, the company man’s president may have just nominated the first black one.