by Glauco D’Agostino
US Army military tanks for sale on the Afghan black market in 2020 (Source: Times of Islamabad)
The situation in Ukraine is worrisome. The entire international community, notoriously pacifist, is calling for a fair solution. If there are internal political disputes in Ukraine, someone might make the first move to pacify that unfortunate land.
Beyond any people’s feelings, diplomacies are looking for a solution. There are precedents that the whole world, including the UN, has accepted and endorsed for 20 years. The solution is the one adopted in Afghanistan in 2001. The causes are very different, there is no doubt about it, and historians have no doubts. However, there are similarities in the internal situation of those countries, yesterday in Afghanistan, today in Ukraine: a civil war between armed factions, different ethnicities and linguistic groups confronting each other, apparently irreducible political options, tendencies towards opposing international alliances. A difficult and thorny situation. And yet, for Afghanistan, the solution was swift and universally accepted. The invasion of the country, the declaration of the government as a terrorist movement, the regime-change, the establishment of a puppet government, new elections under military occupation, the establishment of a government legitimately expressed by the popular vote, any protests of electoral fraud resolved at the occupier’s table, indefinite mobilisation against a restoration danger, diplomatic mobilisation for international recognition of the new de facto situation.
Indeed, to complement the military invasion of Afghanistan, occupiers have been established or enabled many war installations in very reluctant neighbouring countries, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. But this could be a detail, which the autocrat Putin has not yet implemented by emulating the wisdom of democratic Western rulers. As well as, so far, he has not unleashed a manhunt on the outgoing leader as a terrorist. However, apart from these details, the picture in Ukraine looks similar to that of Afghanistan in 2001. After all, an acceptable framework to determine the country’s stability and, above all, avoid a gruelling useless attrition war hurting the innocent people who suffer it.
All available information, which is that provided by Western intelligence, seems to go in this direction. The invasion is underway, the infiltration of neo-Nazi groups likened to terrorism, Putin addressed the Ukrainian army to implement a regime change and eventually induce a legitimate government. The right direction, the one all approved for Afghanistan, is that of new elections under military occupation, the establishment of a government legitimately expressing the popular vote, possible protests of electoral fraud resolved by the occupiers, indefinite mobilisation against a restoration danger, diplomatic mobilisation for the international recognition of the new de facto situation.
It seems Biden disagrees. Yet, the current Administration, and above all the American public opinion, should acknowledge the failure of the artful Euromaidan happening (a suggestive and very effective name) and the worldwide square turmoil. Someone call it populism. But did not populists be Biden’s opponents? It looks like an ideological and irrational behaviour. Mystery of the Faith!
Today the European Union, countering the Neo-Tsarist Empire and in line with Washington, asked for mediation from the People’s Republic of China. Until yesterday, it was the malicious champion of the Dragon Celestial Empire. To think the E.U., and in particular, Mario Draghi’s Italy, has posed a thousand obstacles to the Silk Road implementation, deemed as a fifth column for the expansion of the Chinese interests. Be careful, Brussels! If you ask today for Beijing mediation, Washington might get upset. On the other hand, if you don’t, some might consider your member countries’ governments like puppets, a bit like the one of 2001 in Afghanistan and the one Putin will reportedly establish in Kyiv.
It is a dilemma to European governments and diplomacies but also rulers and diplomacies of NATO currently run by the former Communist-Leninist Stoltenberg. Let’s think of inconsistencies: the People’s Republic of China, a country ruled by the Communist one-party, relies on international free trade to enforce its power; Western countries of liberal democracy base their will to power on sanctions, which are a tool of economic blackmail limiting trade freedom.
Well! That will be right. Accordingly and consistently, we have a civil duty today to accept Ukraine of the 2022 self-determination just as we accepted Afghanistan of 2001. We’ll talk about it again in 2042. The liberal democracy built on weapons requires us!
