UKraine: Lies, Propaganda And The West's Agenda
Is the Western narrative obscuring what's really going on in Ukraine?
Last updated: 04 May 2014 08:38
Washington and Brussels are the heroes of the Ukrainian saga, if you believe the Western media. Russian President Vladimir Putin is cast as the Big Bad Russian Bear, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are the Democratic A-Team. Russia is supposedly using dirty KGB-inspired tactics: secret agitators backed by masked paratroopers. The West makes the same tired claims to back democracy and freedom and denounces Putin's foul play.
The hyperbole is extraordinary. Is it really appropriate to invoke the memory of Anschluss, or compare Putin to Saddam Hussein? Kerry has called Ukraine an "incredible act of aggression", conveniently ignoring drone strikes, the Iraq War, and the numerous illegal coups the US has pulled off since World War II.
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the argument in March that Putin is "trying to re-establish Russian influence and a measure of control over the former states of the Soviet Union". All this deceitful moralising, as well as attempts to classify Putin's putsch in Crimea as some grandiose geopolitical strategy, ignores two crucial realities about this crisis.
The first is that Putin is acting out of political desperation. The second is that the West has been no saint in this crisis, and it may even have caused it.
Putin's first two terms saw widespread political support built primarily on healthy economic growth, mainly thanks to booming oil prices. An avalanche of foreign investment allowed businesses and infrastructure to grow at pace. Everyone was employed, the middle class was growing and Putin of course claimed the credit.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/ukraine-lies-propaganda-west-age-20145384527678726.html
