Ukraine: James Byron Bissett (former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria) hits the nail on the head: I think they (the events in Ukraine) are very tragic but, almost inevitable. I think that you have to go back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I think that the West made a fatal mistake there, a historic mistake: instead of offering help to the Russians, as we had done with the Germans during the Marshall Plan (we won the war and did everything to help the Germans recover), we didnt do that. On the contrary, we had NATO do everything it could to threaten the Russians. We expanded eastward and broke our promises to Gorbachev, who said that if he allows a united Germany entering into NATO, NATO would never advance eastward. But, of course, they did do that and they did it in 1999 by [inaudible] the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland enter NATO. Since then, they have, in effect, encircled Russia with NATO countries, some of who had missiles. In 2003 the Americans unilaterally pulled out of the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, so I mean if you look at it, youll see that NATO has played a very aggressive and, from a Russian point of view, a very threatening position and it is inevitable that at some point they were going to go over the line and Im afraid theyve done it in Ukraine. Putin was given the opportunity to act because, in effect, what the Americans have done - and I blame the Americans here because the fact of the matter is that when Yanukovich rejected the European Trade Association Agreement, Putin came in and said Look, wouldnt it be more sensible to have the three of us involved (the EU, Ukraine, and Russia)?, the European Union dismissed Putin and told him Mind your own business. Regarding the demonstrations that took place in Kiev, theres very serious evidence to show that many of the protesters were being paid to protest. In addition to that, you had John McCain, who only met only with opposition leaders. Also, Victoria Nuland (the head of the State Department, European Division) made a speech before the Press Club in Washington that she had made three visits to Kiev in the last five weeks. In a period of 15 or so years, the Americans have spent 5 billion dollars urging opposition parties to have a pro-European stand. I mean, this is meddling in the affairs of Ukraine and encouraging Ukraine to break away from Russia. What does Putin want to achieve? He is basically saying, Hands off. From a geopolitical point of view, this is my backyard and youve been meddling in our affairs for a long time and you threaten our national interest. So, whats happened really is that the Europeans and the Americans, in combination, have handed Putin the Crimea, because the inevitable referendum will clearly choose to go back to Russia. What a lot of people dont mention is that when Khrushchev did give Crimea to Ukraine, it didnt necessarily mean anything because it was a decision made within the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine retained Crimea but under certain conditions. One of the conditions was that it would be an autonomous region and secondly, that it would have 25,000 Russian troops located there. Putin didnt invade Crimea, it already had been invaded. I dont think he (Putin) lives in another world (a reference to the comment made by Merkel), I think he is in a very real world and he is a hardcore realist whos popular in Russia because the Russians see him as protecting their interests. He didnt start the protest in Kiev. Those protests were extremely violent. If they had occurred in any American city or Canadian city, the protesters would have been immediately arrested. They were throwing fire bombs, some of them were armed, they seized government buildings, I mean, this is an engineered protest designed to destabilize Ukraine and invite parts of it, at least, into NATO. I think they (the West and especially, the White House) are in real jam. Theyve overextended their position and they are in a mess at the moment, Ukraine is in a mess. Putin can sit back, he can get Crimea and he can say to Ukraine, who totally relies on Russia for economic reasons, well let the European Union and Americans resolve the Ukrainians economic problems and well sit back and watch it. Sanctions never have worked and wont work with Russia and stopping a few senior Russian officials from travelling is not going to do any good. The problem is that there is a good part of the government of the new regime, which the Russians are quite right is illegitimate, that are extremists and are armed and could cause violence to erupt at any point, and that could spread and we could have a tremendously dangerous, if not catastrophic situation in Ukraine. A lot of double standards are being applied and a lot of vehement anti-Russian positions in the western media, in particular the United States, is almost adolescent in its fever. A lot of the facts are not coming out and I think thats part of the problem. People in Ukraine are being encouraged that all they have to do is call for help and the United States is going to come in and provide them with the arms and the materials to take on Russia. Thats a very dangerous position. One more point, the double standard is so blatant: I mean, here we have the NATO countries led by the United States taking a big chunk of territory away from Serbia, bombing Serbia, encouraging the Kosovars to declare independence without any kind of referendum, all of the western countries recognizing it despite Putins warning that doing that is against international law and the United Nations Charter and would open a Pandoras Box for other countries to do it and, frankly, to do it himself in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union, if they continued to recognize Kosovo. So, what goes around, comes around and we all have short memories, it seems, but whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 15:14:54 +0000
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