It
was Dr Samuel Johnson who famously declared in 1775 that patriotism
was the last refuge of the scoundrel. The 2017 variant is to make
unsubstantiated claims about the ‘Russian threat’ to Western
democracies.
In
her speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the City of London on
Monday evening, British Prime Minister Theresa May escalated the
anti-Russian rhetoric still further with a deeply paranoid address
that sounded as if it had been penned in 1953 by the late Senator Joe
McCarthy during one of his drunken binges.
Any
psychologists watching Mrs May would have had a field day identifying
plenty of examples of what mind doctors call ‘projection’ –
i.e. attributing to others what you are guilty of yourself. In fact
every one of May’s claims against Russia can be more accurately
applied to the UK and its closest allies.
The
prime minister stated, “It is Russia’s actions which threaten
the international order on which we all depend.”
Really,
Mrs May? Was it Russia who illegally invaded Iraq in 2003, causing
the deaths of up to 1 million people and the rise of Islamic State
(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)? Was it Russia who destroyed Libya in 2011,
turning the country with the highest HDI in Africa into a failed
state and jihadist playground on the shores of the Mediterranean? Was
it Russia who illegally bombed Yugoslavia, without UN approval, in
1999? Or Russia who backed radical jihadists – many of them linked
to Al-Qaeda – to overthrow the Syrian government? In fact it was
the US, the UK and its allies who did all these things. But let’s
not mention them, shall we, prime minister?
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