On responsibility of the Western politicians
Context: The outburst was caused by the Secretary Blinken’s interview with claims like “the idea was never been to exclude Russia or Mr. Putin. […] if [their] policy changes, we don’t rule anything out.” Though, in all honesty, there were many causes for such a text over the last years.
What seriously bothers me sometimes—though it is the least of our current problems—is that any of the current US politicians and the likes of them would never be properly judged—not by the court, not by colleagues and compatriots, not by international peers, not by historians/publicists.
Never by their own consciousness, for sure.
Even in the “best” possible outcome of the war: the ultimate defeat of Russia, Putin and all of his generals and propagandists in Hague, every last Russian war criminal found and their crimes weighted— Even then.
I can try and imagine Orban or Lukashenka eventually being swept away by their own people, and their dirty secrets exposed. I can even imagine a (fictional?) world in which war crime enablers under the disguise of humanitarian organizations like ICRC/Amnesty meet deep scrutiny.
But all the “allied” politicians?
Those who planned for “Kyiv falls in 3 days” as the most probable outcome; who kept arms deliveries at a bare minimum under pretenses of “escalation management”; those before them who shrugged off the annexation of Crimea and Russian army on Donbas?
Oh, for the sake of peace and diplomacy, they will never be called off by their peers—domestic or international. There is no world where some high-level officials of Ukraine or Europe can just say, “We refuse to speak a word with this smug mf anymore, appoint somebody else.”
There is no international body of justice powerful enough to honestly judge how many people were killed by this cowardice, indecisiveness, and realpolitik of Blinken or Biden himself, or Scholtz—and properly convict those responsible.
Oh no.
The worst they’ll have is to frown at the occasional history book in a few years/decades—compensated by a smirk at some another one that judges them as peacekeepers and saviors.
I know Ukraine will win. And then, probably— Those “saviors” will want to tour the lands they “saved” and receive their deserved praise. And everybody will need to play along—for the sake of peace and diplomacy.
And never any Blinken would find himself standing in the middle of liberated and rebuilt Mariupol or Avdiivka, surrounded by dead and alive Ukrainians, who don’t praise and thank him but spit at him and point fingers at him, as coward and war crime enabler like him deserves.
This will never happen, but it should.