With Russia’s attack on Ukraine underway, the corporate media is awash with openly hostile coverage of the conflict, embedded with an implicit premise that the Russian Aggressor has invented an empty pretext for the invasion of its neighbor. Concerns over NATO, it suggests, are merely cover for an expansionist dictator hellbent on conquering Europe. Vladimir Putin’s ongoing incursion into Ukraine is excessive and unjustified. The deaths of innocent civilians are on his hands, and steps short of an assault were likely available to him. (A true peacekeeping mission to defend...