We haven’t heard the term “loony left” in a while but there’s no other way to describe Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.
These MEPs are an embarrassment to those of us on the left who see Russia under Putin for what it is – a fascist state hellbent on recreating the old Soviet empire.
It certainly was incredible to hear a supposed socialist express a worldview little different from that of Putin.
Did we ever think we’d see the day when a pair of Irish lefties would be on the side of Russian oligarchs?
As well as defending the genocidal monster that is Vladimir Putin, Daly spouted complete nonsense about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Listening to RTE’s This Week last Sunday I found it hard to believe what I was hearing when she as good as blamed the EU and NATO for Russia waging war on its neighbour.
She claimed NATO goaded the Russian dictator in the years before he invaded Ukraine as if this in some way legitimised sending an army into a sovereign state.
She spoke as if Russia was a poor defenceless nation when the reality is it is a massive military power with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and is targeting civilians with cluster bombs.
And it went from bad to worse when she insisted arms should not be sent to the Ukrainian people to allow them to defend themselves.
What Putin is doing today is no different to what Adolf Hitler did in 1939. Russia was not being threatened. This is all about recreating a lost empire.
Going on Daly’s logic the world should have allowed Hitler to take over Europe then when he had achieved his aims, have sat down and negotiated with him.
The people of Ukraine have as much right to fight for their freedom as had those who battled against Franco’s fascists in 1936.
Like in the Spanish Civil War, there is now an international brigade of volunteers, similar to the legendary Quinta Brigada, fighting alongside Ukrainian regular forces and volunteers. Indeed, I’d be inclined to go myself if I was a few years younger.
Clare Daly has defended her disgraceful decision to vote against an overall European Parliament resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and demanding Vladimir Putin pull his troops out immediately.
Her idea that the EU can sit down and negotiate a peaceful solution is complete nonsense.
She chooses to ignore the fact the French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders had been imploring Putin not to start a war for weeks before the invasion.
The reality is this illegal war had been planned months, if not years, in advance.
Russia is not a peace-loving country. The facts speak for themselves. In the 30 years of independence Ukraine has not waged war on another while Russia has been involved in at least eight conflicts.
The people of Ukraine do not want to be part of Russia and suffer the Orwellian rule imposed on the ordinary people of what is now a police state.
Far from being socialist, Russia has regressed to a despotic kleptocracy or mafia state ruled by an elite hierarchy of billionaires.
Seeing ordinary people being stopped on the streets of Moscow and having their phones checked by police to see if they are reporting the truth about the war will surely spur on the Ukrainians.
They know that if they fail, their country will become a satellite state of Russia ruled by a puppet government where lies pass for truth.
In a statement that could have been straight out of George Orwell’s 1984, Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed: “The goal of Russia’s special military operation is to stop any war that could take place on Ukrainian territory or that could start from there.”
Is it any wonder Ukraine looks west and not east and is desperate for their country to become part of the EU?
Everything possible must be done to help them achieve that aim.
Russia must be completely isolated from the rest of the world.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy must have shocked Putin and his cronies, as has the humiliation of his army in Ukraine.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has pointed out that Russia might not be able to depend on China to make up this
shortfall in trade.
He highlights the huge imbalance between the national economies of the two countries.
He also points out Russia is far less powerful relative to China than Mussolini’s Italy was relative to Germany.
And he adds that it would be so ironic if Putin’s attempt to re-establish the Russian empire ends up turning Russia into a Chinese vassal state.
