Fool Once, Fair Enough, But Fool Us Twice Is Too Much

Why Ukraine might look eastwards for friendship as well as to the West

I don’t know what got into me in the 1980s, but it culminated in my young version marching down a winding path to the Nicaraguan border, where I was greeted like an old friend. I was there to stand beside the Sandinista government. Even to fight on their behalf.

Those days are gone now, as the old song says. That Socialist dream, of shared milk and shared blood and toil, has long since gone sour. Or I should admit was always toxic. And I ought to know. I gave my heart and soul to Nicaragua. Others gave lives. At that time it was that or murderous, Fascistic regimes. But the world has moved on, and I did too. I had to. The dream had become a nightmare. In Colombia the Farc guerillas, socialists or communists or whatever were kidnapping and murdering. Cuba was had moved on also, to banning mobiles and the internet, and meanwhile Qaddafi’s brand of socialism was fucking up Libya in Libya, while Sadam Hussein’s claimed Baathist Socialism was also too revealing. And over those same years Nicaragua just ripped itself apart. The Sandinistas splintered and fell, and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega took over as dictator, installing his wife as vice président and turning into a fine example of Repugnancy, a natural and…