Opinion | The allegations at Bucha and western foreign policy

By Tom Fowdy

Over the past few days, much has been made by western media and governments of which they and Ukraine describe as a "massacre" in the town of Bucha, Northwest to Kyiv. Footage has circulated around the Internet showing a number of corpses which are professed to be civilians, the total number of which is unknown. This has led to accusations that Moscow has in occupying the area, committed war crimes or even genocide. The western public reaction has been that of an outcry. Russia has denied the allegations, claiming they are fake or staged.

It would of course, be morally wrong and deeply inappropriate to write off these allegations at face value. It is true that such claims should be taken seriously, investigated properly and be treated with the sensitivity they deserve especially in respect to the victims. However, at the same time the scenes of shock, outrage and repulsion in the western political discourse make a proper assessment of these events of course impossible at least in the short term. Undeniably so, the insight cannot be dismissed that such allegations are being politicized on a grand scale and even if not unfounded, are being utilized as a means of war propaganda. What has seemingly happened cannot be condoned if true, but one should always be mindful of the tactics which the West uses.

Manufacturing Consent

The western public, especially the English-speaking public, believe themselves to be a morally exceptional civilization who has won hegemony over global politics not because of centuries of Imperialism, war and exploitation, but because of their sheer righteousness and altruistic duty to others. In western philosophy, the essence of politics is bound with that of morality and "truth", which are assumed can be made distinct from raw "human interest" as per. This is also intertwined with the theological legacy of Christianity, which preached that Christian principles amounted to "good intent" and "enlightenment".

This has led to a rendering of the world which has led the western public to believe that their foreign policy doctrine is committed not in the name of "self-interest" through the notions of power and economic gain, but that it is conducted purely out of moral sentiment, a rendering of geopolitics and history through the lens of "good vs. evil" and mere ideological principles. The British Empire was not a legacy of death, destruction and capitalist dominion, but a so-called "white man's burden" in bringing "civilization" to others.

This worldview has been further entrenched through the trajectory of history itself. For example, the western allies (of course with the help of the Soviet Union) defeated Nazi Germany, which legitimated their narratives of moral exceptionalism, and this was also fortified by the outcome of the cold war. These countries have been effectively "on the right side of history" which has not only made it impossible for them to be held accountable for the crimes they have committed, but also in turn to present their rendering of the world as an objective truth when it is in fact not so, which has been especially the case in the Post-Cold War world.

As a result, western governments and their media surrogates are aware that in seeking to legitimate what is their foreign policy interests, all they need to do is frame it in "moral" terms and play to this aspect of "western good will". This is a process which Noam Chomsky describes as "manufacturing consent". Western governments place emphasis on target countries and populations and emphasize claims of perceived atrocities or ills with the goal of producing moralistic and emotional sentiment from their population, in turn making a case for "intervention" by various means. The process is always selective, for example the slaughter of civilians in Yemen is ignored.

In framing this debate, the West successfully disguises its practical and materialistic foreign policy interests under the guise of "good intentions" and in turn, every single person who objects or disputes such allegations are branded as being "apologists" or "morally complicit". Moral socialized stigma in turn becomes a political weapon to curb opposition to foreign policy goals. This was utilized in the Iraq, Syria and Libya wars, whereby claims of wholesale killing of civilians were weaponized as a "moral crisis" as opposed to the reality of a politically motivated regime change. Likewise, every single person who questions the prevailing narrative about China in Xinjiang is also branded a "genocide denier"- the logic of such statements reflects the western ontology that which is deemed to be "morally true" must come before that which is "empirically true" and therefore it is "blasphemy" to question the prevailing orthodoxy even if you can make a plausible argument based on reason that it may be wrong.

Given this, as the horror stories pour out of Ukraine, one must keep an open mind. We must be honest of course that this is a war, and history shows undeniably that such atrocities have happened in wars, which is of course why they should always be prevented. If Bucha is true as it is claimed, then it is indefensible, but in addition to that one must always be mindful of how the West has a longstanding history of misrendering such allegations in furtherance of their own political objectives. On this topic, don't defend Russia, but also be wary of the West too and their primary mode of political communication.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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