Why we should pay close attention to Russia, Crimea, and
Ukraine.
Readers, This is
based on what I know and what I have put together. I am far from an authority or expert but this
is more so a long buildup of thoughts committed to print mainly so I could make
sense out of them. Anyone who really wants to go beyond the headline, really does need to make a chart or
list to figure out all that’s been happening.
Maybe if you have the stamina to get through this, you’ll see some
things you previously have not heard or read and you are a little more
informed. This was the first political
based writing I have done in a very long time so I’m a little more than
rusty. By all means, if you have
corrections, let me know because I’m finding out new stuff on this sad subject
hourly. (update: I wrote this piece about 6 days ago and since then, Ukraine's troubles have been buried due to a wayward jetliner and the "blade-runner's" murder trial that has dominated the news ever since but this by no means accounts to any fact that Ukraine's situation has gotten better. On the contrary, lack of press coverage has only emboldened Russia's illegal military and political actions against a sovereign nation.) Good reading and God bless.
I have long
advocated that Russia above all other entities including China, the so-called “Axis
of Evil” and radicalized Islam was our biggest potential threat in the
geopolitical world. This was due to the Soviet empire’s anticlimactic deflation, loss
of satellite states and lack of political unity. This loss only left a gap and
thirst which still breeds in Russia today to retake what they still see as
their lost empire consisting of what would be the liberated Eastern European
and Central Asian Republics of the Warsaw Pact. A thing that perhaps makes them even more of
threat than ever before is that they no longer have an arbitrary ethos of
Stalinized Communism to hold them back thus eliminating them as an ideological
threat. On the surface, they are
capitalists just like us except they prescribe to a brand of capitalism that
even some of our biggest advocates for the uninterrupted free-market might
hesitate to endorse. How “free” is a
free market in the hands of a blatant dictator?
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| Certainly looks like you're maintaining a sense of peace and normalcy in Crimea |
The United
States in its all-too-regular sense of overconfidence and complacency was quick
to assume the Russia was hobbled indefinitely following the fall of
the iron curtain. For us, it was easy to
declare a war over, especially since we won it, “without firing a shot,” we say
with a straight face to Central America and Southeast Asia. But how easy is it for a nation to admit
defeat who was yet to fight a battle? To
put in perspective, one can look to America where, nearly 150 years after the
Civil War, we still have great-grandchildren lamenting the “lost cause” of
state’s rights who still actively pursue the confederate agenda. Would we be so obtuse to think Russia’s loss
of empire and influence would go over smoothly, if at all? We quickly dismissed any concern or worry of
an ex-Soviet threat as deluded war cries from a misguided and obsolete
political sector still sour over never getting one more “Good war” against the
Red Menace they wanted to physically destroy since V.J. day. Assuming every Russia suddenly embraced democracy
after the fall of the Soviet Union is as unrealistic as assuming every racist
in America joined the Rainbow Coalition after Obama’s election.
However even
basic economic assessments have stated the mass buildup of Russian wealth and
the absolute boom of energy industry and production has left Mother Russia with
insurmountable capital flow which is only growing. They are a country completely autonomous for
energy dependence and possess such an overabundance that they supply a quarter
of Europe’s energy (1/3 which goes through Ukraine) and are the leading
provider of natural gas. The capital
lost under communism was projected to take a century to regain within the
Russian economy. This was arrogantly miscalculated
by, well, a century as Russia refilled its treasury and then some in a matter
of twenty years after the economic shock therapy approach enacted by Boris
Yeltsin who in 1991 literally shelled the same Russian parliament building he
owed his career to when he “saved” it during the failed coup d'état against
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989. We
erroneously assumed they would try to rebuild their economy in a broken and
defunct quasi-Soviet model. Our
“experts” never imagined Russia would use a no-holds-barred model created by free-market
warrior, Milton Freidman whose very students were on jets to Russia to advise
the new government on how to conquer an economy along the same lines of “Shock
and Awe.”
Yeltsin was
ruthlessly shrewd and scaled back all of his predecessor’s policies of Glasnost
and Perestroika and make Russia into a closed-door sector of super rich
oligarchy that made their ill-gotten fortunes buying out all of Russia’s
national utilities and infrastructure for literally pennies on the thousand
dollar. The best part was they used
Russian tax revenue to buy out the previously nationalized state companies so
the Russian poor and middle class literally paid for the mass-privatization of
their new command-capitalist state so they then could pay now skyrocketing energy
costs with the ceilings and price controls lifted. All while unions, state jobs and desperately
needed relief programs were being eliminated to add insult to injury as
divorce, drug-abuse, suicide and murder rates jumped to double digit rates. This was all deemed “absolutely necessary”
steps for the economy to recover which seemed contrary when it included selling
off the only solvent sources of revenue in the country to private investors who
would decrease service, terminate employment and raise prices. Who, in fact, was this necessary for? This was all done with Western support,
particularly from economic interests in the U.S. because this, to us, looked
like nails in the coffin for any semblance of a pro-union, Leninist,
nationalized state and spelling a death knell for our greatest ideological foe.
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| A "not-Russian" grenade launcher-equipped soldier protecting a free press in Crimea. |
At all costs, we
did not want a Russian equivalent to Poland’s “Solidarity” movement rearing its
ugly head. The bottom line appeared to
be good and stable markets were all we needed.
Clinton was too busy outflanking the right and gutting American social
programs to notice or care about what was going on in the former “evil
empire”. To the multinationals, Russia
was a warning for their goals of mass corporatization in newly liberated countries. The goal was to make absolutely sure any
future economic “liberations” would take place where U.S. and European led multinationals
would grab the chokers of any new open markets unlike Russia who defiantly transferred
internally control of their vast assets from the state politburo to private
billionaires greatly keeping outside hands away from the profits. It was a simple exercise in semantics as KGB
now called themselves CEO. The goal
would be to stick to the Poland, South Africa or Chilean model of “rebuilding”
(by selling off national assets as irrecoverable collateral to interested
parties as cheaply as possible in exchange for impossibly high interest loans)
as opposed to Russia (who did the same thing except they transferred their
assets from the hands of individuals from the state). The Poland model has applied to every
liberated country since who ever considered asking for a loan from the I.M.F.
The loans would come through but under brutal conditions, heavy interest and
major strings attached to keep these countries as indebted as the sharecroppers
of the Jim Crow south.
For any American
who complains about “aid” we are perceived to give out, they need to realize
this aid comes under impossible conditions that usually includes the recipient
being placed in our deep pocket indefinitely.
If history serves as an indicator, the only thing Ukraine needs less
than money from Russia is “aid” from America.
This explains why there was such contention in Ukraine over needing the
economic deal, bailout or trade agreement they were asking for (Western Ukraine
from the EU and the Eastern Ukraine from Russia) Call it what you will, they
were in the economic boat they were in much more due to actions on our side of
the fence as opposed to the Soviet side from a post-Cold War perspective. Keep in mind, this Cold War destabilization
had nobody but Russia to thank which left Ukraine pillaged, plundered and with
7 million dead from terror, torture, famine and intentional systematic starvation.
Now the thing to
watch with all of this amassed wealth was where it was going and the political
leadership in charge. Vladimir Putin was
a man of the “old guard” who would have been front and center during the coup
launched by the apparatchiks in 1989. “Gorby”
was certainly not Putin’s cup of tea and the liberation of East Germany was the
first step to collapse of the Soviet Union which was what he considers the
greatest tragedy in his lifetime.
Gorbachev has openly criticized Putin as turning Russia into an authoritarian
shell, leading it down a ruinous pathway and for undermining his goal of
transparency and restructuring. Putin’s people dismissively answered, “We
restructured enough.”
In his early
years Putin rose through the ranks of the ghoulish KGB until being handpicked
by Yeltsin to run the country. He runs
it riding, and often crossing, the line between president and dictator and
often works unilaterally on an air of machismo, brutality and strongman arrogance
he wholeheartedly admits while still proclaiming a longing for the days of the
Soviet Union. Those who disagree are
quickly and quietly dealt with, unless you are to be made an example out of
like the band “Pussy Riot” or if you are audacious enough to be caught being
gay in public. The society is anything
but free and that’s how he likes it. He
surpassed the limit of a two term president? No problem, he named Medvedev his successor who altered the
constitution which allowed him to run and preside for a third non-consecutive
term using his vast fortune to secure an ironclad victory and commanding
Medvedev to hand the presidency directly back to him while consolidating
presidential power even further.
Meanwhile,
where is all of this amassed wealth flowing?
The answer is simple; a vast military buildup at a tune of 90 billion a
year. Multiply to the ladder of a decade
and you are talking a 900 billion dollar military! (To put in needed perspective, they are the
third biggest spender behind us and China and we outspend them seven-fold…honestly,
we spend 1.5 trillion every two years, yikes) The Russian Federation has
rapidly been expanding its influence and power counting on the U.S.
preoccupation with two unnecessary wars and our declaration to fight the very
concept of terrorism, which Russia (along with Turkey, Egypt, Columbia and a
host of other unabashed human rights violators) jumped right on board to
receive our enthusiastic support and “aid” in pounding the rebel factions like
that of Chechnya, the Muslim Brotherhood or FARC into dust. Not so amazingly, a
decade later, Chechen terrorism still exists as two pre-Olympic bombs rocked
Russia this year alone. Parallel to
that, our country still lives under constant threat of attacks ranging to those
on military bases to the Boston Marathon from loner Youtube-inspired radicals
operating completely outside any predictable terror network. Homeland Security is a proven oxymoron as we
slowly prod closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.
On a regional
scale, Russia has solidified supply, energy and defense alliances with Finland
their biggest Nordic compatriot to the North.
Meanwhile we are seeing live-fire exercises from the Baltic Fleet
to show they mean business to any ex-Soviet republics like Latvia, Lithuania
and Estonia as well as an evident flexing of their ICBM muscle. They have been vying for equal influence and domination
in energy markets in the Arabian Peninsula lending support to Iran and Syria
and are eyeing the much destabilized region as American forces pull out their
foothold. In 2008, they marched into
South Ossetia to “protect their interests and of ethnic Russian speakers”
completely unopposed and had the country locked down in hours. Well, G.W. Bush, at Dick Cheney's insistence, allegedly pushed for harsh
sanctions however the paper tigers of Europe greatly balked at the idea while halfheatedly
condemning the action while not a single American policy maker would commit to any show of force against Russia in Georgia. Sound familiar? This at least discounts the current GOP
rhetoric how the Ukrainian invasion could have been prevented with McCain or
Romney in office since the Georgian invasion occurred under one of our most
bellicose and cavalier Republican presidents who most certainly did not
hesitate to unilaterally use military force to get what he wanted…(against
countries with minimal armies, weak governments and no infrastructures but
still)
This criticism
of Obama comes from the same people in Congress who groused when we lent limited
air support to the rebels who killed Moammar “Mad Dog” Gadhafi (a known enemy of the US for decades linked
to numerous attacks against American military personnel and civilians) but
called Obama weak when the American people and congress directly refused his
wishes to topple another Russian supported dictator Bashir Al-Assad, a man who
not only gasses, poisons and uses illegal WMD’s
against women and children but also directly lends support to weapons
production in Iran. So which is it? Should we have let Gadhafi live and kill
Al-Assad or neither or both? Obama is a
bloodthirsty tyrant when he helps eliminate a key terrorist leader everyone
since Reagan has been gunning for but he is a weakling when Congress refuses to
allow him to stop a terror state more powerful than Iraq or Afghanistan because
the American people are “tired of war.” … the logic sounds a little dicey to
me. A note of history repeating itself regarding
our military being pulled out too soon due to the demands of a partisan
congress and uneducated electorate occurred when U.S. Special Forces were
pulled from Somalia because of the published photographs of U.S. casualties in
Mogadishu when that very city became a hotbed for Al-Qaeda recruitment and
training even possibly being the location that perfected the method of shooting
down American attack helicopters which happened 16 times between 2006/07 in
Iraq. Our embarrassment over this
tactical and public relations gaff was a major reason why we greatly held up international
peacekeeping operations in Rwanda shortly after and the bloodiest war in the
history of the world occurred and is still happening now.
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| Russian "Peacekeeping Efforts" in South Ossetia |
Russian troops
still occupy portions of Georgia to this day and it demonstrated that with
exception to England and possibly Germany, at the speed and size of Russian
mobilization and organization, they could lock down the European continent in a
matter of days while the E.U. was still vacillating over not making
hypothetical sanctions they would never pass too tough. Apparently, Europe cannot have Russia raising
the cost of Natural Gas any more than they do.
Gazprom already hyper-inflates the price to their customers at a rate of
40% across Europe while 15% domestically and they need to make back the revenue
lost from the 2008/09 recession and competition from U.S. Shale. Germany, the biggest potential voice to curb
Russian action, itself is 1/3 dependent on Russian energy however there is
currently talks among German lawmakers regarding transferring to American oil
and gas exports but this is a long way from happening and would be a logistical nightmare. As of now Russia’s gas and oil exports charge
roughly 4 times the price they pay at home to all of Europe.
Any analysis of cost projections can
tell that Russia’s foreign energy prices are only on their way up and that is
without Ukraine on the table.
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| Uzbek soldiers rescuing a baby. |
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| Kyrgyz mobs seizing a RPG from a soldier. |
Prior to 2010
and beyond, Russia has been directly linked from multiple directions to the
inciting of race riots in Kyrgyzstan against Muslim Uzbeks through key players
in direct contact with the Kremlin during the riots as well as allegedly paying unidentified gangs *possibly
of Tajik origin* to shoot indiscriminately from moving vehicles at both Kyrgyz
and Uzbek civilians sparking what Amnesty International dubbed, “gross crimes
against humanity” through the burning alive and mass rape of potentially
thousands (hundreds were the official number because only those with proper
burials were counted so cases where multiple bodies in a single torched home
were counted as one if at all…the numbers are very skewed because entire
Mahallas “Uzbek neighborhoods” were torched) in while the Northern Kyrgyz paramilitary
and military watched or directly participated through looting or murdering any
local police who tried to uphold order. Russia then refused to send in any aid or
assistance to the southern Kyrgyz and Uzbek governments desperately calling for
intervention to restore order, after all, destabilized regions are so much
easier to take advantage of especially when two neighboring countries now have an
enflamed hostile mistrust bred between them.
This isn’t anything new as
nearly every neighbor be it Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Moldavia was all cited
Russian antagonizing ethnic tensions and encouraging violence and turmoil at
every turn including the Tartar minority in Crimea.
In another turn
for the bizarre in 2010, the cloak and dagger plot was even more deep on the
apparent involvement of the murder of Poland’s president, the chief of staff of
the Polish military and 18 members of parliament among 76 others in 2010 when
the plane carrying them to Russia for a memorial service ironically for the Poles
massacred by Stalin during WWII suddenly crashed on the Russian side of the
border. Russian soldiers and
investigators arrived to secure the scene…after stealing at least three credit
cards from the bodies of the dead on board. Russia tried to head up the investigation
however Polish authorities eventually detected evident amounts of TNT and
nitroglycerin in the wreckage on the plane to which the cause of crash was
officially dubbed, “Malfunction on part of pilot error.” I’ll add the pilots were ordered by Russian
control towers to circle in dense fog until a point of no return and then
ordered to make a landing attempt in conditions with zero visibility. No matter what, the people on that plane were
not living to see another day. The
discovery of the explosive powder was explained as trace materials from
unexploded WWII bombs in the area….convenient how it jumped all over the wings,
engines and 30 seats within cabin. Russia still is withholding information from
their side of the investigation that Poland is still pressing for. A large number of Poles hardly believe that story.
Add the fact that the military
prosecutor in the case shot himself in the head and Poles rioted at the Russian
embassy in Warsaw in 2013 during an Independence Day celebration over the
tragic and hazy end to their leadership.
You can’t make this stuff up!
Media pundits
have since argued that Obama and much of our State department was taken by
surprise by this and how unexpected this course of action is on Russia’s part. Surprised? Yes. Unexpected? No. Secretary of State Kerry said, “[Putin] was using
19th century policies in a 21st century world” According
to him we haven’t seen military takeovers or invasions since 1899? Since
when? Where do we get the disillusion to
think dictators do not exist or territory is not to be coveted or people subjected
against their will? If he’s saying
landgrabs only existed pre-1900, he need not look further than the very history
of the U.S. as our armed forces were in a direct illegal occupation of the
Philippines that very year! This
egalitarian la-la land is what emboldens dictators to take such audacious
actions. I’m sure in the world of
Post-Versailles Europe no one would have ever imagined the rapid growth and
conquest of Hitler and his Third Reich after the closure of an erroneously
dubbed “war to end all wars” or the empires of Europe would have ever taken
Napoleon and the rabble of post-revolutionary France seriously as a force to
dominate all of Europe. I should rephrase…the U.S. Assumes land takeovers and subjection of
populations do not take place unless we deem it necessary to our national
interest. That or the U.S.-supported dictator
behaves in terms we deem acceptable such as Manuel Noriega or, more
specifically, Saddam Hussein’s acceptable gassing of the Kurds (a people with
little strategic, political or economic importance to our interests) prior to
his unacceptable invasion of Kuwait (an oil-rich close ally of the Saudi’s who
carry major weight in Washington). The
former action we overlooked (even taking him off our list of terrorist nations)
while the latter landed Operation Desert Storm at his doorstep.
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| According to Russia, "Helluva guy!" |
Our state
department views this in a perplexingly contradictory manner. That being it is
unfathomable when another world power does such a thing like physically invade
another country for the purpose of annexation such as Russia or kills women and
children in Syria or criminalize the entire homosexual population in
Uganda. Meanwhile we apathetically watched
by while millions were slaughtered in the Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leonne, Tibet
and Indonesia, continue to stand by while North Korea carries on with its explosive
rhetoric and test launches tactical missiles on a monthly basis, and are
somehow satisfied with a deal that still allows Iran to pursue nuclear energy
pathways. (a deal the Iranian government steered as a political victory at home
and a U.S. defeat abroad) How is it we
condemn some while permitting the same actions elsewhere? Putin along with Hong Kong has directly
supported and granted asylum to wanted fugitive Edward Snowden regardless of
the perceived heroism or villainy of his actions in a concentrated effort to disgrace
the American intelligence system and its political leadership among its people
as well as made direct efforts to tap our diplomatic communications and leak
them to further discredit our reputation.
Putin wrote a defiant Op-Ed piece for our New York Times outright
challenging and criticizing our president’s desired actions to stop the crimes
against humanity in Syria and accuses the West of interfering in his affairs??? All the while, he is being granted the title
of “most powerful man on Earth” by Forbes Magazine while the IOC, in their
normal history of rewarding brutal, awful countries, granted the honor of
hosting the Winter Olympics in an imaginary Potemkin-village rightly fitting as
a real-life vacation locale for Josef Stalin.
Maybe we can have the summer Olympics at the Berchtesgaden or Jonestown next.
Russia’s
unilateral move into Ukraine should raise more than an eyebrow. Considering there were multiple diplomatic
pathways they could have pursued and leaded to “ensure safety” of ethnic
Russians or “Protect Russian interests” as were the official excuses from the
Kremlin. As a permanent member of the
UN Security council with veto power, Russia would have great flexibility to
bend a diplomatic situation to their favor. They could have worked with Tymoshenko and
Yatsenyuk to ease Ukrainian authority of the Crimean Peninsula to Russian
governance undoing the 1954 deal while protecting the 1994 agreement of
Ukrainian sovereignty. With Russia’s
wealth they could have justified the aid package they supplied prior to the
EuroMaidan crackdown as a purchase of some effect to the Crimean region instead
of just taking it off the table. Russian
control isn’t unheard of and Ukraine’s new government, in the spirit of open
democracy, might be reluctantly open to a fair referendum. Even if they weren’t, elections were coming
up in 8 months and with limitless Russian money and stirred up anti-Kiev
sentiment, this could have been easily put on the ballot as a referendum. Crimea still wouldn’t normally be a shoe-in
to join Russia as it already approved remaining within Ukraine’s borders in
1991. The fact that Russia need an
illegally appointed government in Crimea, closed door elections and a 30,000
strong military occupation clearly shows how unlikely a fair referendum would
have went. As a leading member of the
OSCE, Russia could have gone in with monitors to ensure ethnic Russian rights
were being protected and there was no destabilization or “anarchy” as they put
it within the Ukrainian government. Instead armed paramilitary are attacking and
firing at monitors sent do exactly what Putin’s excuse was; to guarantee safety
of citizens of Crimea. When that isn’t
happening mobs are threatening and beating members of the media for attempting
to cover the clear hostile actions of such peaceful, downtrodden Ethnic
Russians. Strange how during all of
EuroMaidan, no members of the media, Eastern or Western were attacked or
stopped by the protestors.
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| I know when I want to keep the peace, I allow a convicted terrorist to control the local government and violent demonstrators to intimidate 40 percent of the territory. |
So far, the only
anarchy after the EuroMaidan protests have been violence directed at civilian
governments of Eastern Ukraine under attack by “pro-Russian” Ukrainians. “Pro-Russia” is loosely referenced since numerous
reports out of Ukraine have alleged many “Pro-Russian” protesters in fact are
Russians and members of their military who crossed into Ukraine to start
trouble, incite violence and attack government buildings. These “Pro-Russians” are not advocating for a
Ukraine aligned with Russia…they are advocating for Ukraine to cease existing
and to be agglomerated into Russia directly not just in Crimea but within all
of Eastern Territorial Ukraine. What we
are witnessing is the literal theft of a country at the hands of terrorists and
strong-armed goons of the Soviet era.
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| The "Goblin King" of Crimea, Askimov. |
All the while,
Russia is flatly denying that any Russian troops are actually on the ground and
that the thousands of armed men storming state buildings and seizing military
bases are Ukrainian self-defense groups autonomous of Russian command. This is a head scratcher that such large
numbers of well armed and supplied men operating with absolute disregard for
the rule of law and completely opposed to a Ukrainian lead Ukraine would have
stood by since November and allowed the events of EuroMaidan to take place…all
with weapons impossible to get within Ukraine’s borders…driving army vehicles
with Russian tags on them. Crimea’s
actual government was dispossessed and overthrown and convicted terrorist
Sergei Askimov is ruling as a dictator.
He is a leader member of a separatist group called “Other Russia” allied
with similar “Russian Front” advocating for the overthrow of Ukraine and was
jailed on charges of terrorism in 2001.
As a “popular Russian” candidate this man (along with his “Russian
Front” Party) only received 4% of the regional vote in Crimea among an ethnic
Russian majority when he and separatist allies ran for office legitimately last
time but now the man also known as “Goblin” in criminal circles is calling the
official political shots for this hotly contested region. The Ukrainian Communist Party gets more of a
vote than they do! On Thursday,
regarding Crimea’s “vote” to secede, a widely quoted “member of Crimean
Parliament” named Sergei Shuvainikov was the sole voice of this in the
worldwide news media. He has long
advocated violent separation and is a direct ally to Askimov yet these are men
who are now the global voice of Crimea. These Russian
nationalist groups have long advocated violence and instability in the name of
creating a reborn Soviet state. Their
homes resemble bunkers adorned with World War II imagery and anti-Ukrainian
messages of hate and are constantly screaming how Ukraine is trampling their
culture, language and rights as Russians while nearly everyone in the Ukrainian
parliament openly speaks Russian and many key office holders are from the south
and east and still are there after Maidan.
While they speak of their
birthrights to posses Crimean, they are actively and hypocritically against the
ethnic Tartars who are the true cultural hosts of the peninsula accusing them
of lying about their origins and use anti-Muslim racism openly.
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| Common sights in Crimea for the Separatists funded by Moscow |
Yet in
“Separatist” Kiev, the Moscow-dubbed, “Nazi, Nationalist and criminal force”
running the country actually is a mix of dual Russian and Ukrainian-speaking,
Tartar, Eastern, Western and Jewish individuals. The acting president is a Baptist Pastor! Hard to believe an anti-Russia, Nazi state
being run by Baptists, Jews, Roma and people of mixed Russian and Armenian
descent. Ever since Maidan began in 2013,
in Crimea there have been hundreds of mystery billboards, fliers and “grass
roots” political mobilization against the Kiev protests financed by discreet
donors and a lot of unannounced backdoor visits from Russian political figures
to and from the area. Russia has over
100 million dollars invested in over 60 political projects in the region even
before the multibillion dollar bailout.
This alone gave Yanukovych all the motivation he needed to use deadly
force. Yet, according to the Kremlin,
the minimally funded International Endowment for Democracy was somehow superseding
decades of Russian influence, a clear strong-arm military and paramilitary
presence and countless millions of dollars. This goes on and on and on.
Rewind to the
previous election of Yanukovych which was majorly financed by Moscow. He takes power and the previous Prime
Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko was unjustly jailed for a dozen trumped up charges
ranging from corruption, to abuse of power to murder while the free man was
well known to be one the most abusive and corrupt leaders in post Soviet
Europe. With his leading opponent out
of the way, he pretty much was free to stay in power indefinitely and by no
means was she what we would call “liberal.”
On the contrary, she followed an economic policy in step with the
conservatives of this country. He ran
the country under Russia’s demands and was to instill Ukraine as part of the
Eurasian Union, effectively a Kremlin controlled dictator’s club. His crackdown of the EuroMaidan protests only
demonstrated why he was unfit to rule as he operated with gross, criminal
capacity. He did this with full support
of Moscow and this was evident by the fact immediately after his fleeing the
country he is seen in Moscow and issues a broadcast from southern Russia
dismissing and now calling illegitimate the very government (the same that
existed while he was president) who legally impeached him for fleeing his
position. While Ukrainians demanded the
rule of law and a true transition to a democratic country, Russia’s invasion
was for so much beyond a land grab. Ukraine
represented absolute defiance to the will of their superpower neighbor and the
threat of a free society opening political, economic and social avenues to
all. Any victory for something like this
is an absolute threat to a regime which brutalizes and represses at will like
those who control Russia. This could be
directly mirrored to the case of Cuba and America’s fanatical desire to destroy
such a visible case of defiance to our political will to dominate the Western
Hemisphere. This is why the nations of
Europe unanimously invaded France following their revolution and the likes of
Voltaire was expelled and the works of Mozart were banned in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire for potentially inspiring similar egalitarian thinking. In Russia at all costs, any revolt in Ukraine
must be portrayed from start to finish as evil, illegal and doomed to fail lest
any of the mass portion of repressed, impoverished Russians get the same
idea. A sad lesson was Ukraine until 1994
was the world’s third biggest nuclear power and as part of the 1994 agreement
between the US UK and Russia completely disarmed and ceased proliferation. This sets a terrible reverse incentive from
any nuclear nation considering disarmament and a major justification for any
country pursing a nuclear program to work faster in achieving their goals because
apparently lack of nuclear armaments will only lead to a foreign invasion. Ukraine literally filled its silos with dirt
and planted daisies on top and have a Russian occupation to thank.
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| Lithuanian anti-Russian Protestors |
Should Putin’s
excuse as a humanitarian crisis hold up, what would this mean of any other
country host to an ethnic Russian population? We saw Germany use these reasons for the
Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, Anschluss in Austria and their incursion into
Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland under the guise of protecting ethnic Germans
German interests. With this potential
precedent being set, what of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Kazakhstan or Moldavia
which are countries Putin doesn’t consider “real” but more so wards to the
Pax-Russiana he covets. All host ethic
Russians and have populations where 75 percent or more speak Russian. What is being reported is an armed takeover
with upwards of 30,000 Russian troops and armor completely locking down the
Crimean peninsula and amassed on the border of East Ukraine while the Ukrainian
army is on high alert and awaiting orders.
What our popular media has yet to report are the witnesses from the
ground surfacing information of why the Russians were so hard up to confiscate
Ukrainian ordinance and weaponry and continuously are pressing the issue on
Russian newsmedia outlets. Within
Ukraine, there are reports of Russian Special Forces planning to instigate a
false flag operation attacking ethnic Russians with Ukrainian military
equipment giving justified reasoning to invasion and use of lethal force. The “ethnic Russian” population has been incessantly
inciting violence against the interim Eastern government this whole time while
police and pro-democracy forces have demonstrated nothing short of superhuman
restraint. All of this is very
reminiscent of the Gleiwitz incident Hitler used to rationalize the invasion of
Poland if not a carbon copy, it seems the tsar is taking many lessons from the fuehrer
in conquest. Russian state television
has long been demonizing the Euromaidan protests for nearly half a year and
have been portraying images of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian military into
Poland as Russians fleeing the Ukrainian demonstrators into Russia. At the tune of 20,000 state workers, many
under threat of termination from their jobs, marching “freely” in Moscow to
support invasion, the few courageous enough to demonstrate for peace at the
Kremlin were quickly rounded up, detained and whisked off to who knows where. There are also reports of Moscow bussing in
thousands of Russians from Russia to pretend to be ethnic Russian Ukrainians to
incite violence and cast their phony ballots in the referendum to liberate
Crimea…a referendum Crimea already had…in 1991…and they chose to stay in
Ukraine. Even among the allegedly “oppressed”
Russian Crimeans who talk to the press (the press they don’t attack) refuse to
give proper identifications of surnames.
Maybe because that would be a dead giveaway that they, in fact, aren’t
citizens of Ukraine???
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| It's really easy to save people who are in no danger whatsoever. |
With lack of any
action from the international community besides pulling ambassadors from Moscow
and threatening sanctions and visa revocations, all of which Putin has
preemptively weighed, this has only emboldened Russia further. They have not been given a single real reason
to stop their actions. Once can only
wonder what his aim is? A military takeover
of that magnitude seems like a buildup to something much bigger and a literal
testing of the water to see what the NATO response would be which as of now has
been nothing. If Russia possibly could
have legally annexed or at least landed major political control over Crimea
without a single soldier under justifiable reasons for monitoring a
transitional shaky government with potential hostilities to them, why do all of
this without intent to use it? This like
the dropping of the two nuclear bombs on a crippled Japan is not really for the
apparent stated reason of “humanitarian reasons” or “preventing an invasion of
Tokyo” but for the underlying reasons to send a more than direct message to
much bigger players in the world of possession of might and absolute
willingness to use it. We speak of
Russia being isolated but what of China, the second largest economy in the
world who has derided our condemnation of the invasion and has lent support to
Russia’s actions? Russia and China,
even as a combined economic force is far too powerful to ignore and from a
tactical or security standpoint neither is the very unstable baggage they bring
with them in Iran, North Korea and Syria.
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| A bunch of "not-Russian soldiers" acting like Russian soldiers. |
My magic eight
ball prognosticates some bad times in our near future. America and Obama, whether we or he want to
or not, are being looked to again as leaders of the “free world” to take the
lead against the body of Soviet Imperialism which had been not dead but, in
fact, dormant all these years. However
we have an extenuating set of impossible limitations and circumstances to fight
a military strongman who acknowledges only the force of your bludgeon and the
size of your weapon with nothing more than empty threats and unorganized
squabbling on how quietly we should yell.
Hitler later admitted, he would have stopped right in his tracks had
anyone even demonstrated a remote show of force…If you do not think Putin will
be saying the same thing a years from now on his seat on the empire of the
Russian Eurasian Federation, you may want to think again.
