Todays editorial comment: So, what is the giant rush to go to war against Russia over control of the Crimean Peninsula over? The Crimean Peninsula was a part of Russia and the Soviet Union for 208 of the last 231 years. The Crimean Peninsula was only part of a Ukraine independent of the Soviet Union from 1991 to 1999. From 1999 to 2014 the Crimean Peninsula was an autonomous republic largely independent from the Ukraine. In World War II Russia and the Nazis fought over the Crimean Peninsula for two years and the Russians lost several hundred thousand troops and civilians fighting over historic Russian territory. More than 60% of the population of the Crimean Peninsula is Russian, and more than 70% of the private land there is Russian-owned. Russia has had a major naval base there since the late 1700s and also has 71 other military land holdings on the Crimean Peninsula, including numerous military shrines. By treaty with Ukraine, Russia was allowed to have 25,000 military personnel on the Crimean Peninsula, so that fact complicates any claim that Russia flooded Crimea with troops. The Crimean Peninsula has major Russian cargo port facilities, as the Black Sea is western Russias only year-round sea access. The adjacent Sea of Azov is too shallow for large cargo ships. Anyone who says that the Crimean Peninsula is part of an independent Ukraine is fooling you. It isnt and has not been since 1999, and was only a part of a Ukrainian nation independent from the Soviet Union for 8 years out of the last 231 years. The Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted to rejoin Russian influence, and there was an election that saw over 80% voter turnout that went 95.5% in-favor of rejoining Russia. Even if there had been 100% voter turnout and the remaining voters had voted 100% opposed, the majority opinion on rejoining Russia would have been over 75%, which is a filibuster-proof majority. If anyone tells you that the Crimean secession vote was against the Ukrainian constitution remind them that taking power by coup and overthrowing the elected leadership is also against the Ukrainian constitution. What has been going-on in the Ukraine is that Chevron signed a huge contract worth over $10 billion with the former Ukrainian government to frack for natural gas in the Ukrainian gas fields in the northeastern part of the country, That contract was signed in early November, 2013. Those gas fields had previously been developed by the Soviet Union and most of the existing infrastructure there is owned by Gazprom, the Russian State natural gas company. After the contract was signed the Ukrainian President, facing a critical national fiscal deficit, chose to move toward closer ties with Russia. We overthrew him over it, using surrogate power. We orchestrated the massive demonstrations in Kiev that eventually got hundreds of people killed, and we backed the group that overthrew their elected President. And the Crimean leadership, also in a desperate fiscal position, thanks in-part to 23 years worth of political and economic corruption in an independent Ukraine, took advantage of the temporary power vacuum in the Ukraine following the coup that we instigated and backed there, and chose to rapidly move back toward Russian influence. Worse yet, if the population of the eastern Ukraine east of metropolitan Kiev and east of the Denieper River ever get to vote on secession from the western part of the Ukraine, most likely they will choose to move toward Russian influence if not rejoin Russia too. This whole thing in the Ukraine isnt about freedom for the people there, nor is it about democracy either, it is about whether or not Chevron will get to try to steal control of the Ukraines Russian-owned natural gas infrastructure there. That is why we keep hearing calls from various US politicians to scrap our current natural gas export restrictions, so that we can free western Europe from dependence on Russian and Ukrainian natural gas. Even though doing so would likely delay Europes development toward the 80% renewable energy standard necessary to mute further climate change, a standard that we too need to move toward as rapidly as is possible if we want our grandchildren to continue to have a viable planet to live out their natural lives on. Are you willing to go to war with Russia over whether the people of the Crimean Peninsula are allowed to vote to determine their own economic and political future, in order to try to make the Ukraine safe from Chevron, a war that would be ruinous for our economy, and might even bankrupt us? Are you that blinded by short-term profit for Chevron that you could care less if millions of your children die fighting over Russian soil, and you could care less if our dollar is driven into the ground or worse yet we default on our debt or possibly even lose? If the people of the Crimean Peninsula or even of the eastern Ukraine want to rejoin Russia it is no business of ours. Has the population of the Ukraine yet voted on the legitimacy of our coup leadership there? No they havent. In essence the coup ;leadership in the Ukraine is a military dictatorship, one that we would rather have in-power than the democratically-elected government that the Ukraine used to have, and they last thing that we and they want is for the people of the Ukraine to get to vote on the legitimacy of the dictatorship in-power in Kiev, and whether to remain under their control. Why demonize and then penalize Russia just because some of the Ukraine and Crimea dont want to be forced to live under the control of our military dictatorship in Kiev, especially when we are scheduled to pull out of Afghanistan and not be involved in a major war this year? You dont suppose this whole thing is a ploy by our military-industrial complex to maintain a wartime level of defense readiness and spending now that our war in Afghanistan is winding down, do you, as we have to have enemies to justify a continued level of defense spending? Did you know that numerous studies show that every dollar spent on defense subtracts a benefit of between $2.25 and $3.00 from our civilian economy? So you are willing to destroy our civilian economic recovery just to create another enemy in order to make Chevron rich and guarantee our defense contractors a continuing wartime profit stream, thereby delaying critical progress toward renewable energy, climate change mitigation, and a livable future for our own children and grandchildren? You people are sick.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:49:41 +0000
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