The truth, of course, is that means cannot be divorced from ends, and, in Ukraine, those ends are, also, about US imperialism/NATO seeking to encircle Russia, and ultimately China, in pursuit of its own imperialist strategic interests, and includes the stated aim of the US to not only bring about the fall of Putin, but also to bring about the break up of Russia itself, into a series of neutered fiefdoms, much as imperialism did with China, in the 19th and early 20th century. The war in Ukraine cannot be divorced from that imperialist aim, and the ideology of the corrupt Ukrainian state cannot be divorced from it either, just as the ideology of Hamas cannot be divorced from the ideology of Political Islam, and the expansionist aims of its regional allies such as Iran. It is not just that the regime of Zelensky is itself, racist and xenophobic, glorifying the past actions of Ukrainian nationalists like Bandera, or that it contains within it the Nazis of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector. What also cannot be divorced from it, is the fact of its backing by NATO imperialism, and the stated desire of Zelensky's regime to be a part of that imperialist bloc!
In an attempt to square the circle, the AWL have resorted to reprinting a 2002 article by leading AWL member, Clive Bradley, entitled “Why isn’t Hamas the same as the Algerian FLN?” That article, as with its current use, by the AWL, to justify their position, is typical both of the confusion on the national question by the “Left”, but also of the duplicitous nature of the AWL, as it seeks to square past positions with current ones. In that earlier article, the argument is not about the “ends” of Hamas, but about it not being truly a “bourgeois nationalist movement”. In other words, they have shifted the basis of the argument without specifying they have done so. That was necessary, because if you compare the nature of the FLN, as an Islamist national movement, connected to other similar movements and governments in the region, and its intention of establishing a one party, clerical-fascist state, the difference between it and Hamas disappears, along with the AWL's argument.
But, going back to the FLN is a distraction, from the fact that only 12 years ago, the AWL did support a handful of jihadists, backed by the feudal Gulf states, and US imperialism, in Libya. Not only could they, in no sense have been considered to form a "national liberation" movement, but, quite the contrary, were counter-revolutionary, even from a bourgeois-nationalist standpoint, resulting in even the bourgeois national unity of the Libyan disintegrating! Moreover, Marxists clearly should not have been supporting the FLN either, as I have set out elsewhere. The AWL can get away with this kind of duplicitous argument, against others on the “Left”, because of the confused position of that “Left” on these questions too. For example, Moshe Machover, in the Weekly Worker, has an article, I will respond to shortly, that makes, exactly, this false dichotomy, which ends up with Marxists being asked to, unnecessarily, choose between two, anti-working class options.
And, consistent with its ability to close its eyes to reality, and simply lie about history, the AWL tries to avoid the obvious parallel of its opposition to the actions of Hamas, with its support of the actions of the Ukrainian capitalist state. It says, in almost a surreal manner,
“Some have argued those who support Ukraine’s right to militarily resist Russian invasion should support all Palestinian resistance on the same basis. Politics by analogy is always limited, but the relevant parallel here would be to a hypothetical scenario in which a far-right Ukrainian militia was attacking Russian towns, indiscriminately shooting at civilians, and taking Russian civilian hostages, all on the basis of a political programme that advocated the wholesale destruction of Russia. There is no such situation in Ukraine, but if there was, there would be no socialist or anti-imperialist principle that could justify any support for that.”
But, the Azov Battalion and other fascist paramilitaries were indiscriminately shooting at ethnic Russians, in Eastern Ukraine, engaging in raping, kidnapping and murdering ethnic Russians, as part of a process of ethnic cleansing, and they have been launching attacks on neighbouring Russian towns, as well as firing drones, setting off car and café bombs, in Moscow! What is more, not just a right-wing militia, but the Ukrainian capitalist state, with which the AWL/USC is in alliance! When they deny that that has been happening, they are simply lying, for the purpose of their narrative. Moreover, this latter difference, of the fact of attacks conducted by the Ukrainian state, massively backed by NATO, as against the rather pathetic efforts of Hamas, makes the statement by the AWL entirely sickening.
To listen to the AWL version you would imagine that Hamas, with its rather useless rockets, its badly armed fighters, and so on, were about to bring about “the wholesale destruction” of Israel! Is that what is in prospect? Of course, not, and so it is ridiculous and duplicitous for the AWL to present the question in that manner. Hamas has no prospect of achieving any such goal, and even fifty years ago, when surrounding Arab states engaged in war with the Zionist state, they were quickly defeated, and would be as quickly defeated, today. Ukraine, is quite another matter, however. Whilst Ukraine, on its own, despite all of the masses of high-tech weapons provided by NATO, has no chance of even driving Russia out of Eastern Ukraine, let alone of defeating Russia itself, that remains the ambition of US imperialism/NATO, for which Ukraine is acting as merely a human battering ram, whose people the US is prepared to reduce to a bloody pulp, as part of its very long-term strategy against Russia/China.
Last week, Biden spoke in eulogies of John McCain, the inveterate war-monger, who never saw an imperialist war, by the US, he did not like, and who openly talked about the ambition not only to overthrow Putin, but to break apart Russia. That the AWL should back such an approach is, of course, consistent with their own headlong rush into the politics of the neo-cons, as happened with their mentor James Burnham.
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