How much double-think can you handle?

It's impossible to accept establishment media narratives on Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, and Syria without resorting to mind-bending levels of double-think.

The levels of double-think required to accept establishment narratives on world events have become even more absurd than they ever were.

It’s now basically impossible to take a coherent stance on international affairs without noticing how capitalist media and establishment politicians expect us to accept mutually contradictory positions depending entirely on who the protagonists happen to be.

We were told in no uncertain terms that Vlad Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine was an act of diabolical evil, while anyone who even tried to explain why Putin was actually doing it was portrayed as some kind of despicable Kremlin stooge.

Even when analysts had long track records of criticising Putin’s Russia, any commentary that strayed from the establishment’s simplistic "Russia bad - Putin evil" narrative was derided as sickening apologia.

Forget "understand your enemy" and embrace our ultra-simplistic tales of "good vs evil".

Fast forward to the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria and Israel’s opportunistic invasion of even more territory beyond the Golan Heights that they stole and ethnically cleansed in 1967, and it’s a completely different story.

Gone are the concerns over powerful states stealing territory from their neighbours, and on the rare occasions Israel’s invasion of Syrian territory is even mentioned in establishment media, it’s consistently presented alongside the Israeli propaganda line that they’re stealing more territory from their neighbours for "security reasons", just like the similar excuses for Israel’s invasion of territory in Lebanon.

Woe betide Russia for invading Eastern Ukraine because they don’t want hostile NATO forces lining up on their weakest geostrategic border, but hooray for Israel for invading southern Lebanon and swathes of Syrian territory (beyond what they’ve already annexed) for "security reasons"!

But then it takes another layer of double-think to uncritically accept these "security reasons" and "Israel has a right to defend itself" excuses for their invading a neighbouring country and carrying out waves of airstrikes against them, doesn’t it?

Just days ago the commentariat were howling derision at anyone who dared point out that the HTS "rebels" who have taken Damascus are an Al Qaida offshoot led by the former Emir of Al Qaida in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

Forget the actual facts. The narrative was that the fall of Assad was an unequivocally good thing, and that anyone daring to offer any analysis beyond "hooray" was some kind of despicable Assad apologist, all enforced with the emotionally manipulative tactic of presenting any kind of detailed analysis of what was happening as being somehow profoundly insulting to the Syrian people.

But isn’t it impossible to reconcile yesterday’s "hooray for HTS" with the new narrative that Israel must invade more Syrian territory to protect themselves from Syria’s dangerous new rulers?

It’s not just the narratives of the present that are mutually contradictory with each other either.

We were led to believe that the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan and 20-year occupation were necessary because the Taliban were allowing the uniquely dangerous Al Qaida a safe haven to operate there, but now it’s suddenly an unequivocally good thing that unconvincingly rebranded Al Qaida operatives have taken Damascus!

Then there’s the fact that the UK government are already planning to remove HTS from their list of designated terrorist organisations, with the justification being that it’ll be unworkable for the UK to have diplomatic relations with the new Syrian government if they don’t absolve this Al Qaida HTS front of their terrorist atrocities.

This is the exact opposite of Britain’s stance when they designated all of the non-military components of the Hamas government in Gaza (politicians, health and education ministries, housing and sanitation, everything) as proscribed terrorism in 2021.

’We’re going to have to declassify these brutal Islamist fanatics as terrorists because they form part of the new Syrian government’ is bad enough without wider context, but it’s palpably absurd when the UK continues to proscribe the doctors running hospitals in Gaza as terrorist operatives.

Then there’s the staggering hypocrisy of imposing severe economic and cultural sanctions on Russia over their invasion of eastern Ukraine, while Israel still gets to field teams in international sporting events as they continue attacking neighbouring countries with impunity, and committing genocide in Gaza for all the world to see.

Not only are Israel not being subjected to sanctions, they’re being actively supported in their genocide and attacks on their neighbours by countries like the US, UK. and Germany.

It’s impossible to have any kind of coherent position on international law or the rules of war, and accept the establishment position that Russian aggression needs to be punished and sanctioned, whilst genocidal Israeli atrocities in Palestine and their constant violations against neighbouring states are celebrated and subsidised.

The layers upon layers of double-think required to accept establishment narratives on Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, and Syria make it palpably obvious that there’s absolutely no consistency on international law, territorial sovereignty, sanctions, the rules of war, or even who gets designated as terrorists or not.

Whether they’re condemned and criticised, or routinely defended no matter how heinous their crimes depends entirely on where the invaders and atrocity committers stand in relation to Britain and the United States.

And the fact that establishment politicians and media hacks expect us to accept all of these hypocritical and contradictory narratives at face value just goes to show how much utter contempt they hold us in.

As far as they’re concerned, it doesn’t matter that none of it makes any sense from a logical perspective - and that their presentation of the issues depends entirely on how useful the protagonists are to British, American, and Israeli interests - because their assumptions are that most people are too lacking in critical thinking skills to pick up on all of the blatant contradictions, and that those of us who can see that they’re expecting us to believe contradictory nonsense are powerless to actually do anything about it.

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