Reports from Ukraine are the government is handing out rifles to civilians to fight invading Russians.
At the same time, Facebook is reversing its ban on posts praising the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian far-right ultra-nationalist group with links to the CIA and NATO.
Yet, I thought that militia groups and far-right extremists were precisely the greatest terrorist threats to American freedom and democracy.
If that is true, then why would the US be supporting these “terrorist groups” overseas?
In the case of a Russian takeover, members of these groups are likely to leave Ukraine for the US. Why would the US government be preparing to bring “terrorists” to the US?
Domestic terrorist are usually domestic to their home country. Ukraine domestic terrorists don’t become US domestic terrorists logically or otherwise just because they move.
In the US the narrative has been that the FBI needs to have broad powers to go after political opponents because the threat from far-right white-nationalist groups.
Meanwhile in Ukraine the US government has been funding a far-right white-nationalist group that is actively recruiting and training members from western Europe in the US.
Is the government creating a threat from these groups in order to provide pretext for broader powers against political opponents?
Or is the support of these groups just a byproduct of the US efforts counter Russian influence in Ukraine?
See the Time video above starting at 4:45 about their recruiting in western Europe and the US. Here is a similar report from NBC:
From what I see, the strategy of funding the white-supremacist ultra-nationalist Azov Battalion in Ukraine makes sense from the perspective of the FBI/CIA:
They have committed anti-Russian fighters in Ukraine who attract volunteers from different parts of the world.
They foster the development of white-supremacist groups elsewhere in North America and Europe, which provides a pretext for greater powers for the state to protect society from “Nazis and racists”.
So why not use this as the basis of the argument to try to prove the point trying to be made here rather than the current conflict? It would have at least made a bit more sense.
From what I see, the Azov group represents a tiny fraction of Ukrainian society, but they are paramilitaries that are funded and trained by the US government. It appears that they report to the CIA, not the Ukrainian government.
Putin’s comments about Russia removing “Nazis” from Ukraine have been widely ridiculed in US media. For example, see the NBC article below. Ironically NBC recently ran the story about training Ukrainian civilians to use guns but failed to mention that the Azov Battalion was doing the training.