D-Day abused legacy and the rape of “Moral Clarity”

On June 5, P. Krugman published a piece in the NYT’s opinions section under the inflated title: “The Eyes of the World Are Upon Ukraine”. He uses the anniversary of D-Day to post a claim on the “moral equivalence” of the Allies’ Normandy landing and the “long awaited Ukrainian counterattack against Russian invaders”. To establish his thesis Krugman emphasizes, “I use the term ‘moral equivalent’ advisedly. World War II was one of the few wars that was clearly a fight of good against evil”, and expands his Manichean thesis on “Moral Clarity” (with some timely qualifications, which actually highlight the analogy) to the overall Russian-Ukrainian war — Ukrainians (Allies of Light) Vs. Russians (Nazis of Darkness).

For context, I will begin with a short summation of my writings on the factual foundations: The historical record is that WWII in Europe was fought between Nazi Germany (forces of darkness) and the Soviet Union (force of light, in this World War), with a supporting cast of the U.S., Great Britain and few others. If not for the Red Army winning the Great Patriotic War- which fascist-bound Putin has no justified ground to appropriate its heritage — then the Third Reich would have achieved a Global Hegemony for what would have horribly felt by most of the human race as a thousand years of doom and European Jewry would have been exterminated.

Now, let us start with the Moral-Historical deliberation. In my work, I pointed out that ethical analysis indeed should recognize unique cases of “Moral Clarity”. The war against the Nazi Axis is the “Ideal Type” of such case and the American Civil War is a possible, though weaker, case. [see mine, “The Moral Foundations of Just War Fighting — the Ukrainian Case”, MEDIUM, Sep. 19, 2022]. These cases are qualified by two necessary conditions: first, the war is being fought for fundamentally Just Reasons against evil forces, motivated only by a value-system that is diametrically opposed to universal morality (such as promoting genocide). Second, politically and strategically these forces possess an inexorable resolve and proven capabilities for dominion over extensive sections of humanity. In moral-historical analysis, these kind of forces of darkness should be considered as “Enemies of Humanity”. The struggle to defeat them, a-priori, is labeled as Just War (Jus ad Bellum) founded on “Moral-Clarity” (a term which was unbearably abused in the case of the Iraq invasion, for example).

I will explain: even if one is deeply convinced that the Ukrainian side is the victimized defender and the Russian side the malevolent aggressor, it still takes two necessary steps to proclaim it a war of Moral Clarity. First, a proven historical evidence that the aggressor was not provoked in any way which can found rational motivation (though not moral justification) for the invasion and war. This condition is definitely not established, unless with the twisted reasoning of the pseudo-Liberal jingoistic neo-Cons (See mine, “Critique of the Ukraine War — Flagrantly Provoked; Essentially Unjustified; Strategic Fiasco; Humanity-Endangering”, MEDIUM, March 8, 2023]. Second, Putin’s Russia should be recognized as bound not only on an anti-Liberal anti-Western agenda (which it is, though NATO’s abuse of Gorbachev’s humanity-saving resolution with its hegemonic triumphalism was a major contributing factor), but as ideologically devoted to the subjection and extermination of its Western (not only Ukraine) perceived enemies. Moreover, as marshalling and possessing the strategic capabilities and geopolitical mastery to execute a NAZI-like global dominion mission (which will put also its partially committed ally China and economical refuge India, on the side of an axis of darkness).

As it happens, the only power in the international arena still possessing the capabilities to start on a world dominion campaign is the U.S. (with NATO). Thus, the only scenario in which Russia could be termed as an enemy of humanity is when it will deploy nuclear weapons to subjugate Ukraine (mascaraing as protecting existential Russian interests). It has not done so yet, at some points under conditions that not unlikely would have provoked the U.S. to consider and even use “nuclear exchange”. An aggressor? Mostly yes, but not the only one in the three decades of this historical affair. Whatsoever, definitely not a moral clarity case for total war.

Back to Krugman’s Moral Equivalence thesis. To expunge the hordes of Ukrainians Nazi-collaborators mass-murderers, and to lend credence to his perverse depiction of Ukraine as the Allies moral equivalent and Russia as the Nazis reincarnate, Krugman emphasizes that the death of millions of Ukrainians in the famine, intensified indeed by Stalin’s dictatorial schemes, was “deliberately engineered”, namely, that the “Holodomor” was a real genocidal Soviet operation. Doing so, he advisably replicates Goebbels’ message to the Ukrainians on the Bolshevik Jews (and Communist Jewish leaders were indeed influential in planning and executing Stalin’s program of shrinking Ukraine agriculture for the sake of the growth of Soviet industry). Thus, he walks in the despicable path of T. Snyder and his followers that pontificate the perverse moral-historical assertion of Hitler and Nazism as suffering from “selective judgement” vs. a. vs. Stalin and Communism. An exceptionally repulsive example of the metastasizing effect of Krugman’s twisted message can be found here on MEDIUM in a piece posted yesterday by Wes O’Donnell “Today is Ukraine’s D-Day…”, in which he starts by virtually employing copy and paste from Krugman’s article, without even mentioning the source (check it out). He continues by performing plagiarism on Krugman’s arguments and anecdotes, and carries the despicably derisory torch of a “Moral Crusade”.

Among the ghastly scenes from the present Ukrainian Crisis is one in which, on the background of the Crimean annexation, a mob at a square in a western Ukrainian city is enthusiastically toppling down a statue of a Soviet soldier holding up a saved Ukrainian baby. I used to imagine T. Snyder’s face among the Azov-spirited crowd, could be Krugman’s as well. [See mine, “Facing the Gobbles-like propaganda — Moral-Historical observations”, MEDIUM, Dec. 4, 2022]. And as anecdotes go, It looks like that in the headline photo of Krugman’s article (I failed to copy it here) the Ukrainian soldier (on the right), which seems to be the group leader, is proudly wearing the patch of the Totenkopf. This was the insignia of an elite S.S. panzer division, which fought the Soviets at Kursk (and was defeated) a year before the Allies were beaching at Normandy. Does not take a fabulous strategic reasoning to delineate what could have been the fate of the famed landing if the Allies forces would have to battle the Totenkopf tanks and not the mostly rear-guard divisions they faced.

In summation, to use the term “moral equivalent”, and “advisably” so, when juxtaposing the Russian-Ukraine war with the Western anti-Nazi campaign in Europe (without even mentioning the Red Army), is among the lowest of moral-historical travesties and an abuse of the historical record.