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Did anyone of you had Waffen SS fighter getting standing ovation in Canadian parliament for their 2023 bingo card?
Congratulations - you will be rich.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66908958
Now I doubt that the svastika will be on the Canadian flag anytime soon. But the fact that the ideology blinded the people to make even a basic background check on the so called hero is troubling. And there seems to be some kind of full blown damage control operation going on.
Anyway a lot of Canadian politicians will have to figure out how to unsuck this dick. ADL seems to be silent as of now. Media try to bury the waffen ss part in the bottom of the articles, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more fanatical ex blue checkmarks try to write opinion piece explaining how this unit were somewhat different than the rest of the Waffen SS.
I caught the daughter's Facebook page before she deleted. She and her father were so incredibly proud and excited about this, and her father was over the moon at the chance to meet Zelensky. (there is a lot of boring stupidity around "but Zelensky's jewish!", but I think this is sufficient disproof of at least "currently a joins-the-SS-to-cleanse-Ukraine-of-jews-level nazi")
I think it's worth giving a hearing to his own account of his experience with the war (auto-translated). This obviously could be heavily sanitized in retrospect, but with the historical literacy to understand the circumstances of growing up in a village in eastern interwar-Poland through 1939, I don't think it necessarily has to be. This whole situation is just profoundly sad.
I imagine the daughter gave the staffers of Speaker Rota, who is also their personal MP in North Bay, the little lie-by-omission of "First Ukrainian Divsion" as part of trying to arrange for her father to be able to come see Zelensky speak (I didn't see any indication that the expectation was for him to be presented before parliament), and it snowballed all the way through all the staffers necessary for this to have happened without a second thought. It's fun to imagine those staffers, and the circumstances that lead the Liberal Party and Parliament to have nobody in the entire chain equipped to realize that "fought against the Russians in WWII" needs a second look. What an unbelievable unforced error.
I think there may be some meaningful distinction to be made between Eastern European and Baltic people who had first been conquered by the Soviets and who subsequently lived under NKVD terror and had friends and family disappeared forever in the middle of the night, and who were later under the direct physical threat of the Soviets' return, for whom these Waffen-SS units were the only organized option available for them to fight that with; and German SS who had other options and for whom joining the SS was something very particular. Indeed a Canadian government commission found something like this in the 1980s (pretty explicitly laid out in part 2), specifically regarding this division.
Of course there's no conceivable way you would expect the general public to have enough historical literacy to process this with any more finely-grained nuance than how they are. Boy did they ever fuck up.
Other things:
The SS Galician's specific accusation of atrocities was against not-specifically-jewish Poles. File this too under "there's no conceivable way you could expect, historical literacy, etc". (also I can't find any mention of this atrocity in the commission report ...)
The Daughter's facebook was absolutely plastered, multiple posts per day interspersed with their giddy anticipation of this event going back as far as I looked, with "Good People Don't Spend Their Time Harassing Marginalized Communities" (Progress Pride Flag), "No Space For Hate" (Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag-coloured map of Canada), Orange Shirt Day profile pics, etc. What an impossible nightmare this attempt to do a nice thing for her incredibly elderly father must have turned out to be.
This is a cheque the current regime [and the fragment of the public that supports them] is inherently unable to cash. If you want to pretend the evil Nazi menace is everywhere, fine, but that approach has inherent costs, one of which is that you now have to be unimpeachable about not bringing things literally called "Nazis" in.
The public is not going to care (their faction has in large part seen to that) that "he's one of the good ones", even though that's obviously true, and so that faction has no other option but to cancel a military ally from a country they're trying to help because to do otherwise is just writing your own attack ads. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
Personally, I'm rooting for the father; a Communist foreign empire trying to unjustly impose its will on territory that empire considered a western province is not entirely irrelevant to recent Canadian history. Sadly, I don't think there's a Canadian political party willing/representing a public that would be receptive enough to actually pointing that out, but it would be absolutely hilarious if there was.
How is it "obviously true"?
Also, Eastern European SS sympathizers just looked to act out ethnic revenge fantasies on civilian populations. This is what Hunka's group did, mostly focusing on killing Polish civilians. Same thing in Croatia and doubtless other places too, where it was an excuse for killing local Serbs and Jews and stealing their property. What about that makes them "the good ones"?
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I'm glad someone pointed this out. That he was introduced to the parliament as the veteran of the "First Ukrainian Division" was a calculated and blatant lie. The 14th Waffen-SS division was named Galizien specifically to avoid any official mention of "Ukraine", as the Nazis did not view it as a legitimate nation, and certainly not as a polity worthy of sovereignty. Then in the last stage of the war when defeat was imminent, the Ukrainian collaborators in Germany started to self-organize as control over them collapsed, and one of their actions was apparently renaming the 14th, which was at that point stationed on Austrian soil, to the "First Ukrainian Division". The Waffen-SS headquarters never sanctioned this, so the change was never official, and thus does not appear in official documents.
Another calculated lie that at least some members of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada committed was erecting monuments to their military veterans which carry the insignia of the 14th on them, but are nominally dedicated to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which is a completely different organization and was not founded by the Germans.
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Pardon? I'm supposed to feel sympathy for someone willingly participating in slanderous attack against parents concerned with the gender affirmation scandal?
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The racism that ought to be focused upon when it comes to these old fighters being praised is obviously Anti-Russian racism. That is the stronger continuity. I don't think it is an accident that Ukrainian nazis are being promoted. Rather the point is to allow a continuity of ultranationalism against Russians, including of warcriminal type.
But of course not to allow dissent from the other agendas that said grandaughter was all too happy to promote. So nationalism including of the more extreme sort but only so far leads to Ukrainians dying to kill Russians. And including putting no pressure on groups and a mentality that has proven willingness to commit attrocities towards civilians as well.
Which is immoral of course. Especially if you examine things from a more long term outlook, not just last two years and consider whether the meat grinder had to happen. Those who supported it happening because they don't mind Ukrainians dying and Russians dying for they value the weakening of Russia as more important, could very well be more bloodthirsty characters than this 90 year old in his youth.
Certainly I find the obsession with 80 years old WW2 insane when it is far greater moral affront to be arming people willing to commit attrocities than giving awards to someone who might have commited them in the past. We have people who have bloodied their hands with warcrimes enough in our timeline to not concern us too much with those who did so 80 years ago. It is current warmongering imperialists who we should be more concerned with.
Another thing to consider is maybe her grandfather was not the most evil to ever evil, but in addition to any atrocities he might have participated or not participated in, even more importantly today like in his youth he is betting on the wrong horse. He is betting on a foreign power establishment which sees his own nation's and its people and sovereignity as a threat and has no intention to let them be.
There is a repetition of the same mistake of joining with the devil you don't know how oppressive it is to oppose the devil you have a more direct experience of screwing you over. I believe this is a factor in the establishment supporting these "nazis". Already proven to be useful idiots for a foreign western power and are following the same playbook.
The better path for Ukraine to have followed would had been to try to resist being captured by either sphere of influence and to play the threat of each against each other. If that had happened, the future would be much brighter for the Ukrainian nation. It would be better for the world as well. The real shitshow, this incredible unnecessary loss of life would not have happened.
Jews supporting something does not sanctify evil since plenty of Jews has supported all sorts of evil in modernity especially as well. There are the obvious far left movements but even certain movements less associated with the left.
I have even seen the arguement that Italian fascists were not racist because they were rather friendly with Italian Jews who were well integrated and overepresented per their population in Italian fascism which is actually a hidden fact. One should not take the wrong conclusion from this however. The Italian fascists changed their attitude due to the influence of nazi Germany but even then they were much more protective of Italian Jews than various other nazi allies.
At the same time that the Italian fascists (including Jewish Italian fascists) were friendly to Jewish Italians (or less hostile later on) they were genocidal imperialists demonizing and justifying brutal murderous conquest against other ethnic groups including european ones. Even well within WW2, Italian fascists obviously treated Jewish Italians far better than Greeks, Slavs and other groups they conquered.
Jews or some Jews being at the center of something does not mean that something is good. That prejudice is racist stupid nonsense and it is promoted by people who want to excuse evil by using it.
Someone with nazi symbols who isn't an antisemite but willing to commit attrocities against other groups should be condemned for what they are. Jews should not lie at the center of our moral universe, although their welfare should be considered too along other groups but never as a prioritization at expense of others.
Sounds nice, pre-2014. Once one of your neighbors invades you, this isn't an option anymore. I know you know this. Help me understand what I'm missing.
You are missing the fact that it is immoral not to blame people who make crisis inevitable and it is short sighted to look at things only after things have escalated. So no, we need to blame those who made 2014 reality, both in Ukraine, Russia and in the USA.
After 2014, escalating to the current level has proven a worse option. Not shelling civilian areas for the Ukrainians. Or the USA not having their hands in this proxy war while their apologists lying their asses off. Or the Russians not supporting the rebels.
After the more hardcore invasion of 2022 there isn't really a good endpoint after the invasion. Ending the gruelling meat grinder sooner is better for an Ukrainian and Russian point of view. Unless you want Ukrainians to die so they can kill Russians for a long war, a peace agreement is not going to make people happy but is better than the alternative.
Of course if the Ukrainians could have won easier, it would be a better alternative for them not to go to the negotiating table. But that isn't the case.
The Ukrainians aren't the only ones needed for a peace agreement, but the better end point would have been a ceasefire peace. And crimea should had been the one area the Ukrainians should had been willing to make more direct concessions.
Actually it appeared that Ukraine and Russia were close to make an agreement but Britain torpedoed the agreement.
American imperialists both in terms of the USA itself and in terms of random indivudals who are American imperialists are not the only big power, and the only group of chauvinists willing to screw over others but they are not a good force for the world and they are very willing to destroy whole countries to expand their sphere of influence or harm rival powers like Russia while promoting propaganda about freedom and other nonsense. Meanwhile they try to put their own preffered people in charge who will go along with it. Maybe even advocate with greater zealotry for the American empire to remain engaged.
So I don't have a grand solution of the biggest powers bringing international justice because they are not lead by moral people with moral goals. I can still condemn the ruinous paths being followed. And pressure immoral actors who are hypocrites into behaving better, and condemning them for failing to live up to their propaganda. Obviously this forum has an over-abudance of American imperialists who cheerlead destruction and act with unparalled arrogance, having learned nothing from the Iraq, Libya, Syria debacles but even doubling down in acting as if they are moderates for doing so. A fraud.
Ideally we have a multi polar world where great powers use the concept of international justice to dissuade each other from warmongering would work better.
And while the world never had that, it could have it to a greater or lesser extend. The worst trajectory possible is American imperialists dreaming of world conquest and consolidating an authoritarian alliance that oppresses their vasals and is very hostile towards Russia/China and others while BRIC alliance also consolidates, and things heat up for a WW3.
For what is worth, I believe we need more gatekeeping against authoritarian american imperialists who deplatform and shame dissent while promoting both war outside and authoritarianism at home.
The escalatory potential of Ukraine/Russian war and how it helped lead Europe away from Russia and threatens to do so with China, is another facet to it.
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