Former President Lula has made politically incorrect and clumsy statements, but his speech about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is absolutely correct. Only the mutt complex explains the critique of an expression that sees shades of gray in a complex geopolitical issue.
False symmetry idiots and pandemic democrats hastened to condemn the former president for giving Caesar his due. The Russian invasion of Ukraine should be condemned. Only historical exceptions can justify the use of force in international relations. In this context, Russian President Vladimir Putin is wrong.
But there are political actors who contributed to the Russian occupation. Zelensky is definitely the main one.
Let’s come to Lula’s statements in an interview with “Time” magazine.
I watch the Ukrainian president on TV as if he’s having a party, standing ovation by all parliaments, you know? This man is as responsible as Putin. Because a war does not have a single culprit. (…) Putin should not have invaded Ukraine. However, the culprit is not only Putin, but also the USA and the European Union. What was the reason for the invasion of Ukraine? Is it NATO? The United States and Europe could have said, ‘Ukraine will not join NATO.
Lula referred to NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe, a US move that contradicted a tacit agreement with Russia when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. In thirty years, Europe and the United States added 13 countries to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a Western military alliance.
Zelensky knew he was playing with fire. The European Union and the United States were fully aware of Russia’s national interests and sensitivities regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership.
What did the president of Ukraine do? He thought that American and European support would be enough to suppress Putin’s desire to join NATO. He urged the United States and NATO members to engage in direct confrontation with a nuclear power, to seek irresponsible escalation with the inhabitants of his country and planet.
Asking untrained civilians to face a powerful regular army, this irresponsible president is celebrated internationally as the hero of the resistance against a “new Hitler” with simple arguments.
Meanwhile, the masters of fake equivalence compare Putin to Hitler and the current attack on Ukraine after World War II. Putin should now be compared to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to the invaders of Iraq, Libya and Syria. It is the USA that acts as the world’s policeman. Putin is copying his fellow men.
In an interview with Time, Lula also made a pertinent criticism of US President Joe Biden while talking about Zelensky.
If he (Zelenksy) didn’t want war, he would have negotiated some more. And so. I criticized Putin saying it was wrong to invade while he was in Mexico City. But I don’t think anyone wants to contribute to peace. People hate Putin. This won’t fix it! An agreement needs to be promoted. (…) The United States of America has a great weight and [Biden] it can avoid it, it cannot encourage it. He could have said more, joined more, Biden could have gotten on a plane and landed in Moscow to talk to Putin. This is the attitude expected of a leader. Let him intervene so that things are not messy. And I don’t think he did.”
Once again, Lula logically analyzed Zelensky and Biden’s role in the current conflict. The United States is helping Ukraine with artificial resistance against the Russians. In this rising mood, there is a humanitarian crisis, the destruction of infrastructure, and deaths that could have been prevented. Asked by an international magazine that was absolutely not interested in Jair Bolsonaro’s view on his lies about the electronic voting machine, the PT gave a description of how a statesman should act in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A presidential candidate is expected to take bold and clear stances on public policy in general, including international relations. Comparing Lula’s analysis of Zelensky with Lula’s recent clumsy statements is part of the “bipartisanship” plaguing the Brazilian press.
There are many more reasons to criticize a president who threatens to strike a blow to democracy, it is necessary to find something that will create a false equivalence between Lula and Bolsonaro. It seems that there are many people who did not learn from the mistakes of 2018, when a fascist was naturalized and equated with a respected professor at the USP.
Check out the coverage on the topic at UOL News:
source: Noticias
