Dear Reader: People ask why I blog. What good can I possibly be
doing? Sharing of information is my usual response, simply because I feel it
imperative that people receive input from many sides of a situation. In any
complex situation, like that in the Ukraine, it is important to look at things
from a variety of perspectives. As usual, the cartoon-like Western narrative is
horrendously over-represented, but the Russian narrative is not entirely
neglected, not least through Russia Today, a host of sympathetic nationalist
websites and Facebook pages. I can only hope that my constant chiming is picked
up by even a few people who then begin to question the official narrative.
Maybe, if they begin to look at what is happening in Russia today, some day
they might notice what has been done to their own nation in comparison and wake
themselves up!
By Phil
Giraldi
March 20
2014
.
On March
6th President Barack Obama signed an executive order ”Blocking Property of
Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine” which permits
Washington to seize the assets of any “United States person” who opposes
current US policies vis-à-vis that country.
The
order claims absurdly that the status quo in Ukraine and the
Crimean referendum constitute a “national emergency” for the United States.
.
Anyone
who directly or indirectly is involved in “actions or policies that threaten
the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of
Ukraine” can have his or her assets seized.
That means
if you think a referendum by Crimeans that might result in union with Russia is
not necessarily a bad idea and you write a letter to the local paper saying so,
it could be good-bye bank account. There is no appeal mechanism in the executive
order.
.
Obama’s
transition to the tin hat brigade is eerily similar to an order signed by George W. Bush in
2007, the “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization
Efforts in Iraq.” Taking both orders together, it is a clear indication of how
low we have sunk so as to penalize any dissent over policies that have never
been openly debated or voted on by the American public, but I suppose Bush
would explain proudly that he “brought democracy” to Iraq while Obama would
change the subject by noting that he killed Usama bin-Laden.
Either
way, the criminalizing of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights
ends up making the rest of what happens relatively unimportant, nothing more
than what our war masters refer to as collateral damage.
I am no
expert on what is going on in Ukraine, apart from speaking a little Russian, an
ability which many Ukrainian citizens reportedly also have. But it is clear
that some unfortunate patterns relating to the past twenty years or so appear
to be resurfacing in spite of the fact that most observers would likely agree
that Washington has made a complete hash of the post-bipolar world that has
prevailed since 1991.
.
.
We are
already seeing Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, demonized for years in the
mainstream media, compared to Hitler by no less than Hillary Clinton and a
supporting chorus of neocons. We are back in the bunkers and it
is 1938 in Munich. Again we are being called on to oppose evil, the same
clarion call sounded over every overseas crisis for the past twenty years.
But
the evil is us.
We started the Ukraine problem by meddling with a democratically elected Ukrainian government
which was admittedly corrupt and autocratic, but legal nonetheless. We openly
provided the type of support that enabled a diverse group of demonstrators to
bring President Viktor Yanukovich down and US diplomats spoke on a phone about
who might head an alternative government that would be to Washington’s taste.
.
And the
seeds of the conflict, one of a series that have roiled Eastern Europe for the
past twenty years, were actually planted earlier when the United States
violated an understanding with Moscow not to take advantage of the fall of the
Soviet empire by advancing its zone of influence. Nearly all Eastern Europe
states now have a relationship with the western dominated European Union, some
as full members, and most are also in NATO, a defensive alliance aimed at
Russia. If Moscow is alarmed, it has a right to be so.
.
Ukraine,
once referred to as “little Russia” because of its cultural similarity to its
larger neighbour is the birthplace of the Russian Orthodox faith, and sits
squarely on Russia’s border.
Putin, a Russian nationalist, could not ignore a threat to Moscow’s
national security, just as the United States would never look the other way in
the event of a takeover in Mexico by a mob aligned with either Russia or China,
so how this crisis has been playing out should not surprise anyone.
The Crimea,
part of Ukraine only since 1954, was a Tartar Khanate under the protection of
the Ottoman Empire until it was annexed by Catherine the Great in 1783. It
became part of Russia, its capital Sebastopol the only Russian ice free naval
base, operating on the Black Sea.
Most Crimeans identify ethnically as Russians rather than as Ukrainians
and Russia continues to operate its major naval base, complete with a large
garrison, under a long term bilateral agreement with the Ukrainian government.
Russia sees
its ability to use the Crimea as a vital national security interest and it is
hard to deny that Moscow has a legitimate stake regarding what occurs in
Ukraine.
.
In
post-Soviet Europe there were indeed good practical reasons to encourage the
transition to popular government of some kind for nations that had suffered
under totalitarianism for forty-five years, but the process has both gotten out
of hand and has focused too much on introducing western democratic norms
without any regard for local ability to absorb such an development.
.
This has
meant that aspiring politicians who are good at talking democracy (and often
speak English) generally get Washington’s support in their pastel revolutions
and then out to be either completely corrupt or hopelessly incompetent leaders.
.
This process
is currently playing out in Ukraine, as it played out earlier in places like
Georgia. As in the case of Georgia, which was the aggressor in a war with
Russia, we Americans are being told that we must stand by Ukraine
with military support, a short hand way to suggest that the US must stop Russia
now even if it does mean starting World War III.
.
.
Senator John
McCain is, as usual, leading the charge, claiming that Russia is a “gas
station masquerading as a country.” If I were Putin I might well respond that
McCain is a psychopath pretending to be a statesman.
.
All of the
above would seem to indicate that Washington would be wise to pause and consider
its actual interests in Ukraine. I would suggest that there are no actual
American interests, not even the good old Obama tried-and-true universal excuse
to intervene “Responsibility to protect” or R2P, as there are no massacres
taking place.
So
here is the simple truth about Ukraine
~
we have no genuine national interests there
and
we are needlessly provoking Russia
which
does have legitimate interests.
Putin might
not be Adlai Stevenson, but he is a reliable actor on the world stage who will
do what he thinks is best for his country and will do it regardless of what
Europeans or Americans think. He also, not irrelevantly, has enough nuclear
weapons and delivery systems to destroy both the United States and the rest of
the world.
.
Washington,
meanwhile, has little leverage over what is happening anyway and it has to be a
complete mystery why there is a passion to “do something,” particularly when
doing something will no doubt make most things worse, just as it has almost
everywhere since 1991.
.
Slapping on
sanctions and pouring billions of dollars we don’t have into a bottomless pit
is not rational. Risking bringing back the Cold War just because we can in
support of a group of Ukrainian new “leaders” that we understand as poorly as
we do the leaders in the Syrian insurgency is folly.
.
A Washington
crafted foreign policy should be designed to better the lot of the American
people, not to remake the rest of the world at great expense in both lives and
dollars.
.
It is past
time that Barack Obama and John Kerry figured out that provoking Russia and
financing a rabble of would-be “democrats” while intervening in Ukraine’s
internal politics is not a very good idea.
.
It will not
turn out any better than Georgia, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan or Iraq.
.
It is, in
fact, a very bad idea.
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