Left-wing groups launch a manifesto against rearmament without a single criticism of Putin

The Spanish left hasn't organized a single demonstration against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but when it comes to rearmament, things change.

Gríma, Ukraine and what the white flag club will do when it's time for Spain
The extreme left reactivates against Ukraine the strategy it used against Poland in 1939

The text includes criticism of Israel but not Russia

Today, the environmental organization Greenpeace announced a manifesto titled "We do not resign ourselves to rearmament and war," which can be read here. The manifesto is signed by individuals and organizations primarily from the left and far left. The text is a compilation of left-wing pacifist clichés, but has curious omissions: It accuses Israel of committing "genocide" for defending itself against Hamas terrorists, but does not criticize Russia or Putin, after three years of large-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Instilling fear that Russia will be angry if Europe prepares to defend itself

The text rejects Europe's rearmament in the face of the threat of Russian imperialism and does so by resorting to the strategy of instilling fear that Russia will be angry if we prepare to defend ourselves against a Russian invasion. This is what the text says:

The rearmament of Europe will not bring peace, it will not contribute to détente, but will bring us even closer to war. (...) We are concerned that this strategy will lead to a long war with Russia, which we know is not to defend International Humanitarian Law, freedom, human rights or to protect the weakest.

That is to say, the text does not make a single criticism of Russia for all its atrocities against the Ukrainian people (including the murders of unarmed men, women, and children in massacres such as those in Bucha and Izyum) and at the same time it does not want us to rearm to defend ourselves against possible Russian aggression. A truly pacifist manifesto would criticize Russia's crimes in Ukraine and Russia's threats against several European countries. This is not a pacifist manifesto, but an attempt to leave us defenseless against an ever-growing threat.

They point the finger at the "warmongering elites" of Europe and the US, but not at the Kremlin.

Furthermore, the text resorts to a demagoguery that is no longer exclusive to the far left, but is also being displayed by the far right. Coincidentally, these are the two points on the political map that Russian propaganda has been targeting for years. Let's look at an example:

We cannot and do not want to accept that the money from our public hospitals, our schools and our public universities, our care system for the dependent, our protection and social coverage policies for times of difficulty, the fight against climate change, gender-based violence, racism, or protection against emergencies, for cooperation, will be used to buy tanks, rifles, fighter jets and missiles for war, because this is what the warmongering elites who currently govern Europe and the USA have decided.

Like many spokesmen of the extreme right, this text calls the rulers of Europe and the United States "warmongering elites" (even now that Trump is pursuing a policy of capitulation to Putin, appealing precisely to the same pacifist demagogy as the authors of that manifesto), but it does not describe those who govern in Russia in this way, who have been invading their neighboring countries for years (Georgia in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the rest of Ukraine in 2022).

Not a single Ukrainian association among the signatory groups

Furthermore, the manifesto states the following:

The massive demonstrations against the Iraq war, illegally promoted by the government of José María Aznar, the movement against our country's continued membership in NATO, which mobilized more than 43% of the vote in that distant referendum, and the movement fighting against compulsory military service until its abolition in 2001, are part of our recent collective memory.

Significantly, they don't mention demonstrations against the Russian invasion of Ukraine because the left didn't want to call them. Reading these things, it's not hard to explain another curious absence among the entities signing the text: not a single Ukrainian association in Spain appears among the signatories. They must have realized who it favors.

Are they trying to stop a Russian attack with firefighters and feminist politicians?

The funniest part of the text comes with this paragraph:

The real security we need is the vital security that our public pensions, our primary care doctors, our free treatment in public hospitals against any ailment or illness that affects us, our guaranteed education in public schools and universities that provide us with equality, our scholarship system, our unemployment benefits in case of need, the Minimum Vital Income, our firemen and firewomen putting out fires in our mountains or rescuing people in our towns and cities when an emergency breaks out, or the development and implementation of feminist public policies that advance the defense and protection of women's rights and the fight to eradicate sexist violence.

Let me get this straight: If Russia launches a new attack against another European country, what these people are proposing is that we call the fire brigade? Perhaps they intend to stop Russian tanks, fighter jets, suicide drones, and missiles through public pensions and feminist policies? Why don't they ask the Ukrainians what the Russians are doing to their hospitals, schools, and universities? If you don't have weapons to defend them, any aggressor can destroy them.

A text that doesn't promote peace, but rather Europe's defenselessness in the face of Russia

Anyway, I suppose many people have signed this ridiculous text out of naiveté or ideology, perhaps believing that a military aggression can be stopped by applying the old ostrich strategy of burying one's head in the sand. What I am clear about is that the Kremlin has reason to be grateful to the authors of this manifesto, because it doesn't contribute to peace, but rather to Europe's defenselessness, which is precisely what Putin wants right now: a fearful, cowardly, and unarmed Europe that will give in to all his blackmail for fear of war.

This is precisely the attitude that led the British and French to cede Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938, allowing Nazi Germany to invade Poland a year later thanks to the military resources obtained from Czechoslovak industry, and it is also the attitude that led many to look the other way when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, perhaps believing that Putin would be satisfied with that part of Ukraine. Some seem determined to make history repeat itself.