Evil Empire

Speaking plainly about Russia

Russia is the country that we refuse to defeat. It is corrupt, penniless and rotten to the core. It has a GDP lower than Italy and a morality lower than Hannibal. Its pathetic military was routed by the losers of World War I. Today it is ground to a standstill by the second poorest country in Europe. Yet we are led to believe that Europe is about to be overrun by the Slavic horde. If Ukraine could bravely hold the winded beast at bay - with the half-hearted support of an America unwilling to land the final (easy) blow - then what do you think that Poland could do, let alone the combined might of Western Europe?

Now of course the British, French and Germans have denuded their militaries to almost complete extinction. It was the same for us prior to World War II. Britain then had a smaller army than Belgium. But if Russia were actually likely to invade us, then what do you think would happen? We would rearm. The combined GDPs - indeed the individual GDPs - of Western Europe dwarf that of Russia, so our victory would be assured.

Russia’s half-drunk army has nothing to fight for. It has whittled away almost an entire generation of young men in Ukraine. Where exactly is it going to source the cannon fodder to invade Paris?The leaders of that godforsaken country have killed their own with staggering efficiency over the years. It has starved its farmers, murdered its top brass, annihilated vast swathes of those who have a brain. There are plenty of decent Russians: they all live in California, Berlin and Tel Aviv. They fled like the author’s ancestors years ago or were sent cruelly into exile. It is a wonder that Russia actually has any people left.

It has only had 1 decent ruler in its entire history and its neighbours submit to its dictates under pure fear. No-one with a vision stays. If they stay, they go to jail. Those figures that would make a Russophile proud - Kasparov, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn - became famous for lambasting the Russian State, not admiring it. The Russians we love see little to love in Russia.

We never defeat Russia, but we could easily do so. Occupying it would be folly as Hitler and Napoleon can attest, but defeating it mortally is easy. Japan crushed it in 1905. The Kaiser overwhelmed it in the Great War. Even the losers can beat Russia. If China chose, it could cross over the Russian border right now and take its vulnerable resources with impunity. Do you think the Russian military would stop them? Do you think that the Russian border is actually defensible? Charity saves Russia from complete collapse.

Or perhaps we don’t defeat Russia because of nuclear weapons? But think for a moment. Iran rained missiles on Israel: her nuclears weapons no deterrence. Britain has nuclear weapons: it didn’t stop the Argentine. Even autocratic China seems to have a sane government. Only with Russia and North Korea does the bomb deter us from inflicting defeat. Why? Because those countries are nuts. Not just Putin, the whole of influential Russian society. If Putin faced a coup, who do you think would take his place? Someone equally or more autocratic. History tells us that Russia is a byword for vile government and the people there get the government they deserve.

Russians and Palestinians are birds of a feather. No matter how many times they cause carnage and elevate murderers to office, we forgive them. We blame ourselves. If only we had offered two states more vigorously, if only we were nicer to Russia in the 90s, then peace and prosperity would have been the result. Nonsense. We are dreaming. Some nations are made to bring hell on their neighbours and they alone are to blame.

We are willing to sell Poland, Georgia and Ukraine down the river to save a country that is long past its sell by date. Russia’s population is dying out, alcohol drenched and ignorant. It the country that is so antisemitic that its policies horrified even the British Edwardian ruling class. It is the Empire that never decolonised. It is the dragon we refuse to slay.

I stand with Ukraine. And if America disagrees I stand with Ukraine in spite of her. Ukraine is far from perfect, but Russia is the Evil Empire. It always has been and as such it will always remain. We will gladly leave our borders open for the Russians that want to leave and contribute to the economy of a decent country. My ancestors left for Britain and we are never, ever going back. In the immortal words of Reagen:

“If history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. ,... I urge you to beware the temptation of pride–the temptation of blithely...declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”

He was speaking of the Soviet Union. But what was the Soviet Union if not Russia? Russia of the Tsars, Russia of the communists, Russia of Putin…all repositories of total evil. Russia would imprison a Ukrainian poet for speaking of swans. And why? Because those swans spoke of hope.

So let me leave you now with the words of Mykhailo Draj-Khmara, the man who defied an evil empire with his words. Listen. Remember what Russia stood for then. Remember what Russia stands for now. The worst of humanity. But those swans; those innocent swans that led this Ukrainian to his death; should inspire us once more. There are some things we should fight for and fight against. Russia is the pestilence that refuses to die. But opposite and more powerful than their hate is the hope for freedom that no Slavic tyranny can deny forever:

On the lake where willows dream
The swans splash and paddle across
The waters in spring and autumn.
Their necks bend like reeds.

When the frost arrives and echoes
Over things like plate glass
And the surface slowly glazes
With mesmerised whiteness,

They destroy cynicism and despair
With their unconquered song.
Each indefatigable singer

Lets the constellations guide them
From the absence of being and freedom
Above oceans of music and symphonic foam.