However, it's impossible not to notice the tremendous implicit bias in the war's media coverage.
Some pundits have expressed shock and horror that war is occurring in Europe.
The unspoken feeling is that Europeans should be more advanced than this, not like those other "uncivilized" people of the world. For those other people, evidently, life really should be 'nasty, brutish, and short.'
One journalist recently made this explicit. I doubt that he has any special animus against people who aren't white or European. He just takes it for granted that such people aren't as advanced or as civilized as his (presumably white) audience.
“Civilized”
— Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) February 26, 2022
pic.twitter.com/AiU7uVmjMr
There are deadlier wars currently occurring in Ethiopia and Yemen. There are people losing their lands and lives in a slow motion strangulation in Palestine. Western powers drop bombs on people in Syria and Somalia with a disregard for civilian casualties. Boko Haram is still kidnapping and murdering people in Nigeria.
People in those nations also have cellphones and access to social media.
The Western media doesn't care because those people aren't white. A Ukrainian deputy prosecutor said he was emotional because "European people with blue eyes and blonde hair were being killed". Apparently the deaths of people who don't have that heritage or phenotype leaves him unmoved. Hmm.
If starting an unprovoked war against a sovereign nation is a crime then I expect to see the architects of the US war against Iraq in the courthouse along with Putin. But we know that won't happen.
Who can see the future? Maybe Ukraine will bloody Russia's nose so badly that Russia will turn tail and head home.
According to some reports Putin is peeved that his military has been unable to finish the job. There are reports that both sides are putting out feelers about peace talks.
Maybe this conflict will drag on for years. Maybe by the time this post runs Russia will have taken Kiev and installed a puppet government. I don't know.
No one wants to be bombed, shelled, or made to flee their home.
I also think that this war is an example of why it's key to ensure great powers feel that they are included in matters of import.
Putin made a not so veiled threat of nuclear war should any other nation(s) intervene militarily to assist Ukraine.
Speaking from the Kremlin on Thursday morning as he launched the Russian military's invasion of Ukraine, Putin said Russia would respond instantly if any external force tried to interfere.
"Whoever tries to hinder us, and even more so, to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history," the Russian president said.
The eastward expansion of NATO and moving of missiles closer to the Russian border were not moves that many Russian leaders, let alone Putin, would support.
Whether it was done purposely or ineptly, placing a nuclear armed nation in a position where it thinks its back is against the wall was not a wise strategy.
