Biden based his whole campaign on the idea that white nationalists and neo-Nazis and their supporters were a dangerous threat. He called people who used violence against them “a courageous group of Americans”. See video starting at :40.
According to court documents, Azov trained and radicalized neo-Nazis who were in Charlottesville:
On August 1, 2018, an Instagram user “tagged” Right
Brand Clothing’s account in a post containing a photograph of
RAM members during their trip to Germany, Ukraine, and Italy
meeting with Olena Semenyaka, the leader of the International
Department for the National Corps, which is a political party in
the Ukraine that was founded in 2016 out of a regiment of the
Ukranian military called the Azov Battalion. Based on my
training and experience, I know that the Azov Battalion is a
paramilitary unit of the Ukranian National Guard which is known
for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and use of Nazi
symbolism, and which is believed to have participated in
training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy
organizations. https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/RAM-rioting-Rundo-et-al-COMPLAINT133873.pdf
The US and its NATO allies have been funding and training the Azov Battalion and other white-nationalist paramilitaries on the borders of Russia. They have killed thousands of since 2014 including many Russian civilians.
The Russian invasion is hardly unprovoked by Biden’s own standards. That does not mean that I support the Russian invasion. I believe a negotiated settlement has been the better course.
Is the Azov Battalion a group of very fine people?
I don’t frankly care if the Ukrainians were eating babies, worshipping Satan, and running the Italian mob. In no way does that give Russia the right to invade the place without provocation.
Yes, I agree. No country should be invaded without provocation.
Let’s review what the US has considered provocation for military action in the past:
1999: US and NATO allies launched an air war in support of rebel forces in Yugoslavia. The provocation was ethnic Albanians were dying and being forced out of their homes as a result of the civil war. No one claimed that the war was a threat to Americans or other members of NATO.
2003: US and NATO allies invaded Iraq. The alleged provocation was the possibility that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After the invasion the conclusion was that the actual threat from WMDs was grossly exaggerated.
2011: US and NATO allies bombed Libya. The alleged provocation was humanitarian concerns in a civil war. The bombing killed many civilians and resulted in destruction of the central government. Libya has split into warring factions and the country has been a base for ISIS.
Right now the US is claiming that a possible Chinese naval base in the Solomon Islands is highly provocative, and the Biden administration just sent US troops to Somalia to intervene in a civil war.
The US has had a very low standard for what is a provocation for war on the other side of the world.
Yet the Biden administration is claiming Russian intervention in an ongoing civil war that has killed thousands of ethnic Russians is totally unprovoked. The civil war has included NATO-supported fascist paramilitary units near the Russian border. Clearly there is a huge disconnect between what the US considers provocation for its own military actions and what the US considers a provocation for other countries.
