Just as the West found ready allies in the Croats of the former Yugoslavia, it now finds allies in Ukrainian rightists with the same goal--the total destruction of any vestige of communist rule. What Poles, Croats and many Ukrainians share is their Catholic faith and their visceral hatred of Communism, particularly when that hatred is embedded in their ancient hatred for Russia. From the perspective of the West, those ancient animosities, combined with the Catholic church's demonization of atheistic communism and a nationalistic fervor vis a vis Russia, provide an ideal ally of opportunity in the effort to bury what is seen as the last bastion against American global hegemony--whether that foe is communist or not. For the United States, with its self-assigned exceptionalism, a world-wide form of manifest destiny, it matters little whether or not the cutting edge of opposition to Russia is nationalism, social philosophy (communism vs. capitalism) or religion; the underlying goal is the same. The truth of this proposition is easily demonstrated for, in fact, Western attempts to "contain" Russia predate the 1917 revolution. Russia has long been "in the way," as the so-called Great Game for control of Central Asia played by the first global empire that once flew the British flag everywhere the sun shined makes clear. Today, the mantle of global empire dropped by Britain has been picked up by the American empire. Today, the sun never sets on any of the over one thousand U.S. military bases that it maintains--even at the cost of nearly bankrupting itself--around the world.
Whether in Yugoslavia or Georgia or Ukraine, we can count on one American "statesman," Arizona senator John McCain, (a former fighter pilot in Vietnam), to spell out for us the U.S. agenda in some utterance akin to that which he loudly proclaimed when Russian troops entered South Ossetia: "Today, we are all Georgians." Completely and blithely ignorant of history, (its own let alone past realities in other parts of the planet), U.S. citizens are easily duped into accepting the enemy of their enemy as their friends. No crimes against their own people are too large for the U.S. to bury in the ash heap of history in exchange for their joining the cause--from Latin American dictators and their adherents even willing to assassinate Catholic priests to despots across the planet's longitudes similarly assigned to preserving the prerogatives of their various "one-percents."
Frightened to their core by the prospect of communism's spread, demoralized by a world-wide depression in the capitalist world, Europe and America tolerated the spread of Fascism, turned a blind eye to the depravities of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. Some no doubt prayed that Fascism would do the dirty work and destroy the Soviet threat. In the end, the Frankenstein monsters proved intolerable, and the West was compelled to join in battle to defeat their creations. That battle cost incalculable suffering and loss of life. Next year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. There are still many alive who remember; many alive who harbor the unthinkable nightmare that it could happen again.
