Can we talk intelligently about Russia and Ukraine?

[JackRiddler]

Last edited Sun Jul 20, 2014, 05:23 PM - Edit history (1)

I first became aware of the former KGB and FSB commander Vladimir Putin in the summer of 1999, when he was appointed as prime minister under then Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Soon after, apartment buildings in Moscow were subjected to a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in their homes. The evidence available open source at the time and since suggested strongly that this was, itself, the result of an FSB operation designed to terrorize Muscovites and blame Chechen terrorists; with the immediate aim of justifying a revival of the deadly war that Yeltsin had earlier mounted in Chechnya (1995), but had been forced to withdraw due to a popular opposition led by mothers of soldiers. State-led propaganda styled Putin overnight into the-country’s new strongman and savior. Yeltsin resigned prematurely on December 31st, during the global Millennium celebrations. This left the until then relative unknown Putin as interim president and made him a fait accompli to win presidential elections that were moved up by several months. Russian politics at work, and not just Russian: first we’ll have the election, then you all can vote.

Curious that this original crime of the Putin tenure is not mentioned today by those outside Russia who have styled him into a new Hitler and greatest threat to world peace, but I guess giving credence to accusations of false-flag operations anywhere is a sensitive matter. We prefer our politics to appear as the result of things we can see. It’s personally appalling to me that, having followed his essentially criminal rise and autocratic rule for the last 15 years, I am now accused of being a “Putin lover” and fascist sympathizer and the like, simply for not participating in the “New Hitler” narrative that should be the exclusive province of neo-cons, and not a common theme at DU. This recalls for me the situation in 2002-2003, when Saddam Hussein was demonized as the new Hitler and intolerable threat to the world. But at the time, about 2/3 of DU members adamantly opposed the narrative and the Bush regime’s drive toward a U.S. military invasion of Iraq. We did not fall for the false dichotomy. We were able to say that yes, Saddam was very bad, but not that it therefore followed that Bush and his war were good, or in any way acceptable, or anything less than an unprovoked act of aggressive war. Yet there were also those even on DU who took the bait, and suggested that the anti-war majority here was in fact “supporting Saddam.”

This is a plea for the kind of intelligence, nuance, and determination to get at complicated truths, which was in the majority on DU at the time, to be applied now to the present situations in Russia and the Ukraine, and to the response and policies arising in the United States and the West.

The 1990s were a disaster for most of the Russian people. The promise following the successful popular resistance led by Yeltsin against the Communist hardline coup d’etat of August 1991 had turned into the bloody spectacle of Yeltsin ordering the shelling of the Russian parliament in 1993, when legislators refused to grant him the authority to rule by decree in imposing capitalist shock therapy on the nation’s economy. The mafia capitalism and economic decline for the many that followed translated into awesome power and riches for a tight set of neo-billionaire oligarchs around Yeltsin, who were in part celebrated as pioneers among Western elites; and hunger and misery on the Russian streets, as the lifespan of the average Russian male declined by about seven years. The rouble melted down in 1998, while Yeltsin engaged in years of openly drunken displays at international functions and finally resorted to changing prime ministers about as often as his underwear. The FSB’s seizure of power in this situation to establish a new authoritarianism with a democratic face was a criminal response, but under the circumstances it also wasn’t the worst of all possible scenarios. This after all is how many versions of authoritarianism and fascism, overt and covert, have become popular: Putin restored order – the persistence of occasional political assassinations notwithstanding – and reined in the worst excesses of the oligarchs, preventing a sell-off of Russian resources to global capital and in effect establishing a more stable and sustainable kleptocracy that could also allow more growth, more crumbs for the people.

Politics still done by a handful of fixers, an extreme conservative cultural reaction, systematic attacks on the gay population and racial minorities, intermittent and ambiguous campaigns against symbols of Western-style liberalism, and a (continuing) loss of democratic and human rights for dissidents and minorities came with the package. Geopolitically, Putin passed Bush’s test of looking into his “soul” and aligned with the U.S. war on terror: Stealth planes would take off from Missouri and over-fly Russia on their way to bombing Afghanistan.

Then came the 2003 break over Iraq and the formation of the “Old Europe” axis of Russia, Germany and France. Like it or not, through deals with Europe as well as with other authoritarian but nationalist regimes, and through membership in devices like BRICS and SCO, Moscow has participated in creating a loose counterweight to the dominance of Western-based neoliberal capital and U.S. imperial projects – with Russia itself playing a more traditional imperialist power. But there is little evidence this goes beyond the ugliness of realpolitik (or an even understandable self-defense in world context) and extends to a concerted plan motivated by an irrational and “fascist” Russian revanchism to attempt a reconquest of the entire Soviet Union or Eastern Europe that would be doomed to catastrophe. This, however, is the narrative as forged by neocon intellectuals (some of whom sit in the present administration, like Victoria Nuland) and liberal imperialists (like Samantha Powers), and that now finding such purchase on DU.

Which brings us to Ukraine. Another sad case that has seen a succession of kleptocracies in power since its independence following the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that last year, the people there had their say against an authoritarian government on the streets. At the same time, there is also no doubt fascist groupings – explicitly, ideologically fascist, invoking the history of Ukrainian ethnic fascism – participated in that. The people in Kiev rose up, yes, but after Yanukovich fled they got an unelected government, with the backing of a U.S. covert but hardly secret intervention that put in power precisely the personnel named by the State Department. This new Kiev government, under a former central banker sponsored by the Ukrainian oligarch Pinchuk, is led by a larger party of Ukrainian hyper-neoliberals kowtowing to the same kind of EU plan for debt slavery and austerity that destroyed Greece. They also employ ethno-nationalist war talk and, as their junior partner, have allied with a smaller party of fascists, who have coordinated the street enforcement.

It’s wrong to speak of the new Kiev government simply as fascist, but it’s sheer denial to blind ourselves to the fascist party within it. How would you respond, if New Democracy took neo-Nazi Golden Dawn on as a junior partner in its governing coalition in Athens, or if Hollande invited members of the National Front into his cabinet, say “merely” to run the family, education and immigration ministries? Here again, we must avoid the false dichotomy wherein if Putin or the Russian state are bad, their opponents must therefore be good. Still in place today without a parliamentary election following the snap presidential election of Poroshenko in May, the Yatsenyuk government from the start exploited Ukrainian ethnic nationalism as a theme to secure a base, in the process demonizing the Russian-speaking minority. They even passed a law to abolish Russian as an official language of the multi-ethnic Ukrainian state. The law was later annulled by the interim president, but the signal was received. Predictably this, first, caused the 90%+ Russian ethnic population of Crimea to opt out of the country immediately. You’re misguided if you think Putin wouldn’t respond to secure and absorb both this population and the location of some of his state’s most important military assets. Like it or not, the atavism is winning out on both sides, but Crimea went to Russia spontaneously, willingly and with almost no bloodshed, notwithstanding the Tatar minority.

The clumsy “kill-terrorists” anti-Russian rhetoric and repression pursued by Kiev also opened the way for an alternate thuggishness in the Ukrainian east, an armed resistance among the large ethnic Russian population there. To see this as the result of a process driven by largely bad actors and the dynamics of fear and hatred on both sides is not to take either side. I am not “pro-Russian,” or in favor of the “Ukrainian” side, and to adopt these terms uncritically plays into the mechanics by which the citizens of a formerly multi-language secular republic are being turned into ethnically motivated antagonists. This has happened before, in Yugoslavia, where many of the young literally were forced to remember that they were supposed to be not Yugoslavians but Serbians or Croatians at each others’ throats, now fight or die. Our own country’s government, unfortunately, has been relentless in taking Kiev’s side, even dispatching CIA and FBI personnel and private mercenaries to assist Kiev in its pacification campaign.

And here we may disagree about what has followed. You may see a strategy of infiltration and material backing of the “Donetsk Republic” by a Russian state aiming at conquest of eastern Ukraine. You may even think that was Moscow’s master plan since the beginning of the Maidan uprising, or even years ago. Whereas, unlike with Crimea, I see no credible gain for Moscow or Putin in an attempt to absorb a territory with a mixed population and a civil war underway – a territory from which the best economic exploitation for Russia would actually follow simply from stabilizing the situation and making Ukraine pay its Russian gas bills with money borrowed from the EU-IMF (said money then to be owed back to EU-IMF for all eternity, but hey, that’s what a working class is for). By the way, to oppose EU policy and the current dominance of neoliberalism and authoritarian governance within the EU during this period of internal economic crisis and class warfare is not to be “anti-European,” and no more valid than the other false dichotomies I’ve mentioned. I consider my stance to be pro-European, and I also see realpolitik for Moscow in continuing to strengthen its economic dealings with the EU and especially Germany.

The alternative for Moscow, i.e., the aggressive strategy attributed to it by the neocons and others in the West, would be to receive hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Ukraine and to generate an endless new Yugoslavian-type war on its borders, in the process physically separating itself from Europe: a war that can have no winners on the ground, only graveyards in different colors, but one that may, indeed, serve some sick geopolitical aim hatched by schemers in more than one far-away capital. Say what you will of Putin, and he may be even worse than you think, but since his bloody rise he has acted not as a chaos agent – this is not a realpolitik interest of Russia’s, and it certainly wasn’t working under Yeltsin – but as a stabilizer of Moscow’s power and rule. At the same time, his own power though great is hardly without any condition. He depends on the nationalist and conservative currents and tropes he rode to greater power (and that he appears largely to believe in), and he can hardly have his base see him as selling out ethnic Russians being massacred by the upstart Kiev “fascists,” or be too vigorous in preventing help to the Ukrainian Russians from Russian citizens; not to mention Russia’s own bloody mercenary-militarist elements. The best chance for reining the latter in, actually, may be coming right now in the wake of the MH17 shootdown and resultant death of hundreds of completely uninvolved and innocent foreigners, mainly Dutch and Malaysian. This is a time when a Western realpolitik that favors peace and not more war should not be scoring cheap points in demonizing Putin, but encouraging him to seize the opportunity of stopping Russian support for Donetsk, ending the conflict, establishing peaceful conditions. Who doesn’t want that?

With regard to the airliner, a rational person should rule out nothing as the events unfold and the seemingly tainted investigations proceed, and there are legitimate questions to ask (such as why passenger flights were still going over a warzone that had seen multiple downings of aircraft, but I figure the answer lies in corporate fuel costs and not a conspiracy). The fact is that until that moment Kiev militarily controlled the airspace, and the Donetsk militias were the ones trying to shoot down planes. Thus it is near-certain they used one a BuK array captured from the Ukrainian military to mistakenly target MH17. Since then, the Kiev government has broken out into a rabid display of rhetoric about “terrorists” run directly by Putin (sadly echoed here on DU) with the implication of an intentional strike on foreign civilians, as insanely counter-productive as that would have been for Moscow and the rebels. In this behavior, as with earlier moves, Kiev seems to want to stoke hostility between the West and Moscow. Yet it’s the Donetsk side who have shown the actions of a guilty party in the question of who shot down the plane, and it’s been a truly ugly and inhumane display.

The Ukrainian hostilities have also seen willful massacres of civilians, on both sides, and there have been serial and awesome lies as a matter of course, on both sides. To me it’s also clear the decision to escalate this into war originated in Kiev, with a government that has acted illegitimately since its accession, and also clear that the Yatsenyuk government and some of its backers and allies have the most to gain (or also to lose) in the gamble of escalation. Is it possible for me to say that, after all of the above, without promptly having you throw labels of “fascist” and “Putin lover” at me? And can we have a discussion of U.S. policy in all this without the pretense that there isn’t a U.S. policy, that it’s just a series of responses to the barbarism of the irrational grasping Putin and his “terrorists”? Because there was a U.S. policy prior to Yanukovich’s departure, and it was to help see him go and put Yatsenyuk’s group in charge. And since then there has been a clear U.S. policy, backed by material support, to favor the new Kiev government in everything it does. I don’t support the U.S. policy. I’d like to be able to say so here and receive intelligent, thoughtful reponses that agree, disagree, add, or give a different analysis. Thank you.

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[JackRiddler]

1. I await your responses...

Have to go, should be back for the feedback in about 24 hours (Monday evening). Thanks!

[Union Scribe]

2. Bookmarking for later Jack

It looks like a solid good read

[dipsydoodle]

4. ditto

[JackRiddler]

28. Thanks.

Read it yet?

[TwilightGardener]

3. Some fact, some fiction, some acknowledgement that Putin isn't a prince, but much of

the usual tactics we see on DU from Pro-Putins: diversion, deflection, barely-or-unrelated whataboutisms, strawmen, and above all, the notion that US policy ( and the Pentagon or CIA) is the driving force behind almost every country in the world and the root of all that is wrong in it, and Putin and Russia can never match our misdeeds, so we need to take a good hard look at ourselves here in the US and feel bad about how we are ultimately to blame for this airliner incident, on some meta level. Gotcha.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. I just want to know what our game plan is for getting involved in the mess in Ukraine.

'cause I don't think we have any cards worth playing, so other than bluster and outrage, there is basically fuck all we can do. As long as everyone recognizes the reality that we have no real options, it is ok to continue with the bluster and outrage. The problem is that frequently people, even national leaders, get all caught up in the emotional turmoil of the bluster and outrage campaign and they fucking forget that they don't have any real options, that Russia still has 12000 nukes, that the Russian army could occupy all of Ukraine tomorrow and that there is fuck all we can do about it.

[TwilightGardener]

7. I don't think we are going to get further involved militarily, beyond non-lethal aid,

UNLESS Putin really does go full-scale invasion in the east--we pledged to help Ukraine maintain their borders and sovereignty in the Clinton years, and though that agreement wasn't binding, it would be difficult for any administration to look the other way--and even then, we wouldn't send troops, just more military and possibly lethal aid. And increased sanctions, of course, which may happen anyway if Europe is pissed enough over this plane shootdown. There's stuff we can do about it...Putin will have to decide if it's worth the price.

[JackRiddler]

16. Putin is a prince!

In my book, princes are generally bad people.



Unfortunately as a class they've tended to reign. Not only in Russia. Is that a hard concept for you to get? I credited him with many murders and aggressions, but apparently to your binary logic that can only be a barely disguised pro-Putin stance.

Not that you back this in any way. There's no responding to your generic listing of things I supposedly wrote that I didn't.

[kentuck]

5. I'm not sure we should have a dog in this fight?

This is primarily a long-standing dispute between Russia and the Ukraine.

America has become more and more involved in the last couple of years.

Russia has used Crimea as their naval base since the days of the old Soviet Union and before. It would be as if someone threatened our Norfolk Naval Base. We would protect it at all costs. So it is with the Russians. Perhaps Putin's dream is to restore the old Soviet Union?

It's a complicated and complex story with their natural resources. Russia sells a lot of natural gas to Europe. However, most of the pipelines go thru Ukraine. They have possession of the infrastructure but they (Ukraine) also get their gas from Russia. And they have had incidents where their gas was cut off because they owe the Russians about a billion dollars on their gas bill. Russia has increased the prices at will.

But Ukraine supplies Crimea with energy and fast-speed Internet. That is their leverage that they have on the Russians - other than the pipelines - and this is maybe the root of the crisis?

Since Russia is intent on protecting what they perceive as theirs, they have sent all sorts of weaponry to the border of Eastern Ukraine and Russia and they have hired their own rag-tag bunch of mercenaries to fight for them inside the Ukrainian border and are training them to protect their borders and the airspace over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

It would not be surprising if Putin ordered the plane shot down, just to send a message to America and the West. "If you are thinking of bringing in your caterpillar drones, we will shoot them down. And we will shoot down whatever else enters our airspace..."

This is serious business but I don't know if America wants to get too close to either side in this conflict? Maybe they have already made promises that they cannot keep?

[scarletwoman]

8. Thank for the most sensible and in-depth analysis I've seen on this situation, by far.

You've been one of my DU heros for years, your OP just deepens my admiration. I can't argue against anything you wrote, because I believe that your OP is absolutely spot on.

[JackRiddler]

19. Merci!

[joshcryer]

9. It's nuance inter-spread with canned talking points.

For instance, Russian is the official language of Russia, yet I don't see much complaining about that. When they attempted then didn't pass a language law in Ukraine that was much to do about nothing. Nuland and Powers, likewise, weren't on the scene for the vast time Maidan was there, so they're largely irrelevant. Just taking advantage of a situation at its close. Also the whole Nazi analogy falls flat when their numbers are less than 1%. Furthermore, the canned talking point of why the plane was flying over that zone is of course tiresome. The plane was easily distinguishable from a presumed military plane. They were trigger happy and almost 300 people died for it.

Also, there's no evidence the Buk's were picked up in Ukraine as the Ukrainian government denies it and the pictures we have of the Buk indicate that they're from Russia. They have been captured being returned to or taken to Russia, too, which Russia shouldn't allow to happen.

Unfortunately there is too much evidence to implicate Russia in the rebels' actions.

[JackRiddler]

17. The Kiev government includes a fascist party.

There's no getting around that, so you deflect by repeating a lot of fallacies and falsehoods (speaking of a talking points strategy) and assuming there's no refuting them all.

A fascist party is in the Kiev government.

If "their numbers are less than 1%" then there is even less reason to have them in the government. Doesn't sound democratic. And yet there they are, in the cabinet with Yats, making policy, part-running a war. And yet this is the U.S. ally!

A fascist party is in the Kiev government.

Your numbers diversion is based on the May presidential election results, presumably, where Right Sector's guy got 1% and Svoboda's 2 or 3 (which is greater than 1, but anyway). That was a presidential election, winner take all, with large parts of the country at war. In the last parliamentary elections (those that actually show popular support for different parties), Svoboda got about 10%. I hope they get zero, if remotely legit parliamentary elections are ever held in Ukraine again.

So? A fascist party is in the Kiev government.

They're organizing militias with Right Sector cadre and other explicitly fascist elements on the ground, who are involved in the Donetsk fighting.

There's also been a terror campaign in Kiev directly against journalists and prominent political opponents in the West. When they flee to Russia after being beaten, in fear of their lives, this serves to some as some kind of confirmation that they were Russian terror-symps all along.

A fascist party is in the Kiev government.

Your other diversion is to personalize this (again) about Nuland or Powers, as if they had to physically be in Kiev to be part of an operation (which the U.S.G. doesn't even disguise has been happening). Nuland's been a focus because of her meetings with the future Kiev junta prior to the regime change, and because the leak revealing details of this operation was of her yakking. She's just an apparatchik in a larger machine. (Next time don't forget to mention your tasty cookies. Such a good press release, and no BuKs in the chocolate chips!)

And some talk of stuff you can't know about the BuKs. Important thing is to believe all Kiev and DC claims without question and attack all Russian claims with the same consistency. ("Captured being returned"? Where? Inside Ukrainian borders? What does "being returned" look like?)

PS - I did not mention Nazis in my post, so "the whole Nazi analogy" is in your head.

[joshcryer]

21. Yes, the tea party has something like 1% too.

That doesn't mean the Obama administration is full of teabaggers.

They were able to get into the cabinet because dozens of Party of Regions members left to go live in Russia (they were all a bunch of criminals) and the Communist Party completely abstained. If it wasn't for that they would not have even been in the government. The Party of Regions and Communist Party purposefully abstained (rather than voting down) their cabinet appointment because they need this as a talking point.

It's largely irrelevant.

Maidan was a grassroots, largely civilian, largely anti-violent protest movement. The oligarchs in power tried to shut it down by passing an anti-protest law drafted in Moscow. Nuland, Powers, they hopped on board literally after that law was passed, because any analyst worth their salt knew that once you do that, you fall. Mubarak is a classic example of this. So, oh, far be it for the US to send support for a movement that is in our interests. A movement that had been in the streets throughout the winter for months protesting against the oligarchs in power.

It's just mind boggling how easily you can dismiss the movement of those protesters. As if Nuland or Powers has the magic puppet mind wave devices to totally control the entire movement.

I don't have to believe a damn thing out of Kiev or DC. I can make up my mind with the evidence that social media has provided. I can figure out what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. I can sift through lies and truth. It is unquestionable that the rebels shot off a Buk and downed MH17. Anyone telling me to "wait for evidence" is just white washing. Just like on 9/11, I saw the plane hit the building, I didn't have to wait for an investigation to tell me what happened.

[JackRiddler]

22. "Maidan was"

The key words in your post.

Maidan was.

The Yatsenyuk government is.

It has fascists in the cabinet, who run fascist militias committing terror on the ground. It chose to go to war. It has had the backing of the U.S. government since before it took power. No crime of Putin or the ugly separatists can create a false dichotomy wherein the crimes of this government are excused. Simple point.

The main question on a forum such as this one has got to be what the supposedly democratic U.S. government should be doing on behalf of the people who supposedly elect it. Thus, U.S. policy. Should U.S. support Kiev government? Simple point.

I have illusions about none of the sides in this, and I can revise based on what I see. Try it sometime.

[joshcryer]

23. Poroshenko is the head of the government.

And Poroshenko has called for new elections after the terrorist crisis is over. So the trajectory for Ukraine's government is to have a fully elected parliament and cabinet removing any remnants of the intrim government from power. Point of fact, Poroshenko already removed Yatsenyuk's right sector military cabinet because they failed to achieve results (probably because a couple of right sector activists don't have military experience).

I don't think Ukraine has a choice whether or not to combat the separatists. The US did not have a choice when it came to our Civil War. Ukraine allowed Crimea to be annexed in the heat of the crisis but as they formed their new government they saw that, in fact, the separatists are without any muscle, it's all a fascade, they don't have popular support, and any assistance they have from Russia is on the decline thanks to the terrorist act shooting down a plane.

As far as whether or not the US should support the elected Ukraine President and the remnants of the elected parliament? Why shouldn't the US support it? The US should support it and call for new parliament elections to fill the space left by fleeing oligarchs in the Party of Regions and perhaps replacements for the Communists who did not hold their duty and suspiciously allowed right sector fascists to get on the cabinet even though they had the votes to prevent it.

[JackRiddler]

24. "new elections after the terrorist crisis is over"

Hope he's not on Cheney time.

[joshcryer]

25. If Cliven Bundey pulled what Igor is pulling...

...you'd not hesitate to call him a domestic terrorist.

[JackRiddler]

26. Quite possibly.

It would depend in part whether the government was bombing half the country. I might end up calling them both terrorists.

[Dems to Win]

10. I'm not a supporter of Putin, I'm not a supporter of the Kiev regime

The people of Ukraine seem caught between an ugly rock and a nasty hard place. I feel for them.

I don't support US policy toward Ukraine. It appears that Yanukovich was toppled in a fascist putsch. I still want to know who hired the black-hooded snipers that caused death and chaos in Kiev, leading up to the departure of Yanukovich. I'm deeply disappointed in John Kerry and the government of the US for their unquestioning support of the neo-fascists in Kiev.

It's outrageous and disgusting that Joe Biden's son and a John Kerry family friend have joined the board of Ukraine's largest private gas company. There's lots of profit to be made by cozying up to dictators and fascists. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303851804579560542284706288

I don't believe a word said by the Kiev regime. Not that I think RT is a better source.

It's a lousy situation all around, and I'm watching it all in dismay.

The anti-Putin talk does remind me of the fury to "Get Saddam! Get Saddam!" In the run-up to Iraq War I and Iraq War II, there was a frenzy of talk about getting Saddam.

It's scary and depressing to see this "Get Putin" frenzy. The last thing our planet needs is a new war, hot or cold, between the U.S. and Russia.

We should be working together to try to preserve our planet as livable for the human species and our fellow creatures. Humanity has no time or energy to waste on pointless wars.

[JEB]

11. I'm sure we'll get to sell arms to somebody.

[kentuck]

12. kick

Well written and thoughtful. Very informative.

[JackRiddler]

18. Thank you.

[bemildred]

13. I always get annoyed when the MIghty Wurlitzer spins up one of these political witch hunts.

We need to be informed, not inflamed.

Your assessment is much like mine.

[jakeXT]

14. I'm reminded of the Wolfowitz doctrine, PNAC and The Grand Chessboard

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine

“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”
http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0465004342

[TBF]

15. This is excellent -

I hope you don't mind I've taken a few paragraphs with links to Socialist Progressives in case anyone in our little group would like to discuss. It is hard to say anything on this board right now without certain propaganda hounds yelling "Putin lover" if anyone says anything veering off the official line even a little bit. We've even been attacked in our group which is supposed to be protected.

The "secret" intervention in Ukraine is very similar to other transitions the US has supported (whether overtly or covertly to various degrees) in multiple parts of the world when economic interests dictate. While Ukraine is important in terms of resources and location, I'm not sure why this became such a hot spot last year because it appears Exxon and the Russian oil company Rosneft get along pretty well - but perhaps it was just an opportunity that presented itself when,as you say, the ordinary people on the street really were rebelling against their government for other reasons. In any event it is hard to get through the shirtless pictures of Putin long enough to have an adult conversation and I very much appreciate your efforts here.

[JackRiddler]

20. Of course I don't mind, thank you.

[HooptieWagon]

27. What I've said all along...neither side are "good guys",...

... and we should be staying the fuck out.

[JackRiddler]

29. And now the plot turns.

Yatsenyuk's coalition has broken up with the withdrawal of junior partners including Svoboda, and he has resigned. Whether the present parliament can yield a new coalition is an open question. Now this is an opportunity for immediate negotiations and a cease-fire, and it depends largely on Poroshenko, now truly the one man who can take charge. But from his rhetoric (as given by the German report in Rheinische Post, or Rheinische Pest as wags prefer to call it), it seems likelier there will first be a massive intensification of the attempted military solution. What are the odds that U.S. will decide this brink is far enough and rein him in, or that Germany-EU will take a more active role in deescalation? (This is where the demonization of Putin brings things closer to inevitability, since you can't negotiate with Hitler, right?) Fact is, there has been little pacification on the ground, only massacres, and it's very unlikely there will be peace in the east in time for a credible vote there.

The big story otherwise is that before breaking up the coalition passed a law to institute a draft from among all men aged 18-50. This could bring the people back into the equation. If Kiev follows the path of escalation and goes ahead with the draft, there may come sufficient resistance in the western Ukraine for a new squares movement, this time against Poroshenko.

[JackRiddler]

30. Month later: Sadly.

Even with Poroshenko firmly in charge, Yatsenyuk has remained as the interim PM, and Kiev has followed the path of escalation. As of today, Poroshenko has gone ahead with implementing the draft.

Now we can hope for sufficient resistance in the western Ukraine to end this insane and pointless bloodshed.

Ukraine Asserts Russian Invasion and Reinstitutes Draft
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014882630