On February 15, 1898, the American ship Maine exploded in the port of Havana early in the morning. A day that seemed normal, within the normality of the 90 years of constant loss of Spanish sovereignty in America, became the casus belli for the United States to declare war on Spain, from which it had been trying to buy the island since 1854. The objective was to incorporate a new slave state into the Union so that the debate for and against slavery would be tilted in favor of the former.
Immediately the de facto powers interested in the war against a power like Spain, which had been in decline since 1796 and subordinated its interests to those of France, with the tragic result of the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, set out to prevent the clarification of the facts and indicate war as the only solution. The New York Journal and the New York World, owned by Hearst and Pulitzer respectively, began an anti-Spanish propaganda campaign under the slogan Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!, with media falsehood tactics that obfuscated the investigations. Both the American and Spanish companies concluded that the explosion occurred from the inside out. It mattered little: on April 25, the United States declared war on Spain. In 1912 the US Navy refloated it, towed it and sank it in the middle of the ocean, which was the same as hiding a corpse.
On the 22nd, the tension over the Russian invasion of Ukraine took a new turn with the attack on Crocus City Hall, in which 143 people died at the hands of the Islamic State of Greater Khorasan. As we live in a world of immediacy, few people remember the Afghanistan War of 1978, the Vietnam of the USSR, because the great communist power bled itself trying to defend the socialist revolution of the Afghan country that they had promoted against the mujahideen, supported by the United States. Although they had to withdraw their troops in 1989, the war has remained in the memory of Afghans, who have encouraged anti-Soviet and anti-Russian sentiment. All that was missing was the Chechen wars of 1990 and the Crusade aspect with which Putin has approached Russia's intervention in Syria since 2015, with some indiscriminate bombings, to reinvigorate revenge.
However, as in the Maine, all this matters little. The networks have already been filled with confusing data, manipulated images and biased interpretations. The important thing is not the truth but the appearance of truth. And, in a Russian population stressed by the conflict, the impact of a massacre like that claimed by the Islamic State of Greater Khorasan makes it especially vulnerable to acting from emotions rather than reasons. And, evidently, the Russian president has not missed the opportunity to accuse Ukraine of the massacre. Putin already has the Maine to try to finish off a country that resists him. He is making a virtue of necessity, because he needs more weapons and troops to continue the invasion. But he also knows that he does not have sufficient means to maintain a war in the east and another in the south. He also knows that he will not count on the support of China, which takes extreme care of its relations with Muslim countries. Expanding the war front would simply mean the collapse of his regime due to asphyxiation of means, support and money.
That is why we are going to see how Russia rejects Western help to clarify the facts, to perform autopsies, to recreate the crime scene. The victims will be buried quickly, the accused will be quickly prosecuted, Crocus City Hall will be transformed into a monument to the victims and the event will become a national anniversary. It is urgent to put the facts to rest and move quickly to responsibilities. And blame those who interest the Russian regime. However, as reality is stubborn, the attack is almost identical to that of the Dubrovka theater in Moscow in 2002, which caused 170 deaths, almost the same as now in a similar scenario. If events repeat themselves, the true cause of the massacre will be revealed and Russia will have no choice but to reorient its strategy. It cannot sustain two wars.
Since there is nothing new under the sun, in the midst of so much confusion we have the certainty of the wisdom of the classics, who, faced with a disruptive phenomenon like the one we have just witnessed, asked themselves cui bono or cui prodest. The attack benefits Russia in the short term, which now has an excuse to revive a war that was not progressing as planned; In the medium term, however, it benefits those who want Ukraine to win the war, who are not necessarily Ukrainians. That does not take away even an iota of responsibility for radical Islamists. I leave it there.
