If anything, the crisis in Ukraine grew hotter this week, and it’s getting kind of scary. Through it all, though, there has been a persistent tendency in the media to support the maximalist position of the U.S. government and our European allies – namely, that the Ukrainian opposition is fully legitimate and essentially beyond any critical scrutiny, that the Russians are engaging in bald aggression of a kind not witnessed in decades (!), and that the violators of human rights in Ukraine are all on the pro-Russian side.
Okay, well … a few points that probably need addressing:
Coup or no coup. Russia calls what happened in Kiev a few weeks ago a coup; Washington does not. In the United States, labeling something a coup triggers legislation designed to impede the delivery of U.S. aid to coup regimes. Our administrations of both 
parties typically do an end-run around this by simply avoiding the word when it’s inconvenient. We’ve done this with Egypt and with Honduras. When it’s someone we don’t like, it’s a coup, plain and simple. In Kiev, the elected leader of the country was ousted without due process, in the midst of a negotiation over rebalancing of political authority and early elections. It’s not outlandish to call that a coup, regardless of how kleptocratic the old regime may have been.
Who killed who? The killing of oppositionists by sniper fire on February 26 has often been cited as a primary rationale for the ouster of the Ukrainian leader. Those killings were chalked up to the regime. However, this past week, The Guardian and others have reported on claims by the Estonian Foreign Minister that the shooters were hired by the opposition. The new Ukrainian government is reluctant to open an investigation into this.
Atypical aggression. Really? This can be reported with a straight face from a country that invaded Iraq ten years ago? In this category, we haven’t a leg to stand on.
My point is, before we rush in to aid this new government, let’s be honest about what our interests are in that region. And let’s not paint one side virtuous and the other evil before we know the facts.
luv u,
jp
be sure. There is a referendum on Crimean secession scheduled for later this month, and the new Ukrainian government is crying foul. So … are we on the brink of a new Crimean War? Charge of the Light Brigade, anyone?
The national corporate media conversation on Ukraine seems to center on what we are going to do about it, but the fact is, we are supporting the opposition in that country – likely not because our government has overriding sympathy for them, but because they are acting against Russia’s interests. This is reminiscent of the “conversation” that was had last year over Syria, in which articulate opinion was broadly in favor of American strikes while the vast majority of Americans were against it. Again – Russia is on the other side. (We are, of course, aligned with groups in Syria that are in a de-facto alliance with Al Qaeda-inspired militants.) In our ongoing economic/political campaign against Iran, Russia is also on the other side. Sense a pattern?
We have, under the banner of American Exceptionalism, invaded any number of third-world countries over the past century and a quarter. The results have not been positive. (Just ask them.) Putin and others are approaching us as if conducting an intervention; trying to keep us from repeating the same bad behavior, over and over again. You know you have a problem when it takes Russia and China to talk you down. One can only hope that they succeed. This Syria intervention is just a crazy, bad idea, and one that the president seems very attached to. It’s a kind of madness, executive power, and it’s long since taken hold of old Barry-O.
Best remind ourselves that the Russia we have today is the one we worked toward building yesterday. Putin is the beneficiary of a strong presidency established by Yeltsin in the 90s with our enthusiastic support (back when we had them privatizing state assets for pennies on the dollar and creating what was then the most dramatic demographic self-implosion in many decades). Remember how he shot the Russian Parliament full of holes? Well, now we’re just staring our own blinkered foreign policy in its beady eyes. The authoritarianism, the anti-gay laws – it’s pretty disgusting. But then, have we broken with Saudi Arabia yet? Their laws are worse.