We need to be able to draw a sharp distinction between forces of light and forces of darkness. Setting aside the darker parts of our past, calling ourselves reformed, we could pretty credibly do that, viz Ukraine and Russia or even China and Taiwan. Biden was making real progress rehabilitating “the West” and “democracies”.

Until we started arming the perpetrator of a new mass atrocity. Then, to much of the world and much of our own publics, it all comes to seem like a lot of cant. /fin