Without The Tiniest Reservation

He was far from "almost alone among Western journalists" across the entire Left and Old Right, which meant much of the mainstream Right in many parts of Europe. But Peter Hitchens writes:

An armed and angry mob surround the seat of government in the capital of a democracy, claiming the most recent election is invalid.

In ferocious clashes between the crowd and the police, several lie dead and many are wounded. Eventually, armed men force their way into the very debating chamber. And what happens? The mob wins. The government flees for its life.

Nice liberal-minded Western governments, especially the American one, along with nice liberal media, rejoice at the outcome of these events, the overthrow of an elected government by unconstitutional means and mass intimidation.

Some of you may recall these events in Kiev, capital of Ukraine, in February 2014. I certainly do, because I found them repellent and wrong. Almost alone among Western journalists, I argued that this had been a violent putsch.

The toppled government of President Viktor Yanukovych was ugly and corrupt, beyond doubt. But by the standards of Ukraine’s young democracy, it was still legitimate. 

Elections were due within a year, which could have removed those in power lawfully. The mob did not wish to wait, and even shoved aside a deal brokered by several European statesmen to preserve the rules.

Not long before this explosion, many major figures were seen fraternising with the crowds which later became the mob, including the late US Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, then Washington’s Assistant Secretary of State, now tipped for a high place in the Biden administration.

They did not call for the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government. But they were all quite happy to associate with a partisan crowd in the capital of a sovereign nation, and the demonstrators must surely have taken heart from their presence.

Just imagine the outcry if a Russian diplomat or politician had been mingling with the horrible rabble which stormed the US Capitol in Washington. And quite right too. Foreign powers have no business taking sides in the internal matters of independent countries.

So answer me this, all you lofty liberals. I have always despised Donald Trump and the empty-headed movement he created, and I am here quite happy to say that the invasion of the halls of the US Congress by Trump supporters was a grotesque, evil and criminal enterprise, which I utterly condemn without the tiniest reservation.

But will you, even now, say that the violent putsch in Kiev, six years ago, was just as wrong? No, you won’t. Because – as your failure to defend liberty shows – you have no real principles. You put them on as fancy dress when you need to pose. But in reality you will do what you have to, to get the power you want. Your outrage is phoney and selective, and I do not trust it.