Posted on 11/23/2004 5:56:02 PM PST by wagglebee
Would-be Czar Vladimir Putin has taken a giant step toward reasserting the regional hegemony of the former Soviet Union by stealing the election in the Ukraine right under our noses.
As an unpaid, volunteer adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, the democratic candidate for president, I have seen, first hand, how Viktor Yanukovich, the Putin candidate backed by a rogue coalition of Russian Mafia, oil barons, former KGB officials and Communists, stole the election and thwarted the obvious will of the voters.
While the former Soviet Union was composed of many smaller nations, now independent, the key was the combination of Russia and the Ukraine. Russia’s 145 million people and the Ukraine’s 45 million are the core of what was the Soviet Empire. Reuniting them has to be the primary goal of any aspiring Russian czar.
But the people of the Ukraine don’t want Russian domination. The election contest pitted Viktor Yushchenko, who got the virtually solid support of the 60 percent of the population that is Ukrainian by ethnicity against Yanukovich, who won equally united backing from the 40 percent that is ethnically Russian.
The result was obvious: Exit polls (more accurate in Ukraine than when our own TV networks do them) showed Yushchenko winning by more than 10 points. But the final results announced by the government, which supported Yanukovich, showed a small margin in favor of the Russian-backed candidate.
Putin regarded the contest as so important that he personally visited the Ukraine in the weeks before the election to campaign for his candidate, a clear violation of the most elementary standards of independence and protocol. His former KGB henchmen – and once and future Communists – combined with Russian organized crime figures and oil barons to pump money into the race and to intimidate voters on the ground.
Yushchenko, a pro-Western former prime minister, survived two assassination attempts to make the race. At the start of the contest, he was run off the road while driving in the Ukraine. When he walked away from the wreck, the opposition poisoned him. Hospitalized in Vienna, his doctors diagnosed the poison, which mimicked a stroke in its symptoms, and nursed him to a full recovery.
If they couldn’t commit murder, Putin’s boys decided to commit larceny and did all they could to stack the election. Their totally controlled print and television media – all the information outlets in the nation – refused to give any favorable coverage to Yushchenko and biased all their news toward Yanukovich. We couldn’t even buy advertising space in any mass media outlet.
But, undaunted, Yushchenko’s supporters got their message out by hand, ditributing leaflets and flyers to every single household in the nation several times each week.
When, finally, the forces of freedom won the election, Putin’s operatives rigged the count and released totally phony results showing their stooge to be the winner.
The stakes could not be higher. If the Ukraine and Russia combine, as Putin clearly wants, the old Soviet Union will be back on the road to regional domination and the old ambitions of global power will return. And 45 million people will be cheated of the right to determine their own future.
We in the West are at best distracted and at worst willing to cede to Putin regional control in return for his assistance in the war on terror. This is a mistake of the same order of magnitude the allies made in the 1930s in dealing with Hitler.
The theft of the Ukrainian election is parallel to Germany’s decision to march into the Rhineland. And our refusal to notice or act is akin to the French and British policy of turning the other way.
Freedom may be on the march in the Middle East, but it is in full retreat in Eastern Europe.
So, again, the echo of the Nixonian question about China: Who lost the Ukraine?
"Many people here have been trying to assert that being anti Putin is to be "pro Al Qaida" etc."
I think those days are just about over. Many FReepers are starting to wake up to the fact that the Putin Parade does not have US interests chiefly in view.
It has been real rough on his Mom, too. She lost a daughter to cancer late last year.
I do hope he can get down here to visit when he is able. We would love to see the guy.
I hope so. But with the Admins and ownership considering some of them golden haired boys, my fear is that Freerepublic itself has been compromised. Certainly the PTB here are not themselves compromised, but some who they apparently hold in esteem here are. If I ask for a ZOT, I probably might not get my wish in all cases, whereas if Poohbah does, he will. Poohbah talks a good game on Iraq and there we agree, he also talks a reasonably good game on certain Conservative principles. But on anything having to do with the PRC or Russia, we clash violently and repeatedly. Maybe he's just stubbornly stuck in the 1991 conventional wisdom, or maybe?.... I guess we'll never know, such is the nature of forums like this.
Soros was against George Bush too. You voted for JOHN KERRY? WOW!
No moron. Soros was against Bush. I'm against Soros. Therefore, one more reason to vote for Bush.
Soros is against Putin. Therefore, I like Putin.
Therefore, Soros controls you.
The Ukraine has MORE accurate exit polls than the USA? How much vodka did did Newsmax give Dick Morris to drink?
I didn't say I liked Putin. But he's better than El'tsin, in my book. He looks out for his own, and maybe Russia's, interests: that makes him largely predictable, maybe a challenge, but a reasonable challenge. I don't think he's necessarily like the French (although the Iraq escapades certainly give me pause), anti-US at all costs. I honestly don't think his Russia would try to destabilize big hunks of the globe; maybe influence people and make friends, but not sponsor revolution. Then again he's KGB, so I could be wrong.
And there's no hint on my part that to be anti-Putin is to be pro-al-Qa'eda. There are good reasons to be anti-Putin. But Putin's Russia isn't the USSR, and can't be.
Russia screwed up its privatization (I like how the Czech Republic did theirs). Maybe in 20 years it'll be a challenge to the US, but that assumes they fix their demographic disaster.
Soros is playing a double game. He knew that in the US, the way he is perceived here by the Left, he would possibly get Kerry in there (by eroding Bush's lead). Thankfully, that did not happen. Using reverse psychology, and knowing he is well hated by Western Conservatives (and Westerners who think they are Conservatives but may not be) he knows that by supporting the anti Putin candidate in Ukraine, he will get all the US Conservatives to support Putin. The overarching goal is to get US Conservatives to support Putin (or to at least be forgiving of him). This is something to ponder.
I am almost 80 and have had some eye treatments in the past week. One eye has to be dilated daily. So Don't call me a moron. I am having trouble reading anything but typing is not as hard since I do not have to look at the keys.
"Maybe he's just stubbornly stuck in the 1991 conventional wisdom, or maybe?.... I guess we'll never know, such is the nature of forums like this."
Just got done telling a fellow FReeper that there is no way we can know these people's motivations...but we can begin to see their intentions as their repeated posts begin to form a pattern. Best response...keep preaching the truth, both in season and out of season. I'm already seeing people come over to our side who were snowed as recently as a week ago.
No, Russia is NO challenge to the USA. I am not writing this cause I like them. In fact, I wish them no ill will but I feel first and foremost, that I am FOR AMERICA, the REPUBLIC.
Russia will not cure their all their ills and I really believe that.
EU is the new threat. Their only population growth will be with transplanted and home grown/born islamics not the moderate-type muslims. They will be our future problem and the problem of Russia as well.
I am old and most likely will not see this happen. But I really think the EU is out to get US.
Agreed about the EU. And I don't think Russia will be a challenge; but if it's going to be, it'll take it at least a couple of decades (my personal hunch is that Russia's demographics and various border conflicts will make it weak and underpopulated, a real temptation for China to move in there ... I'd rather not see that happen).
Soros is pro Saakashvili in Georgia. Saakashvili is pro Putin. Saakashvili was anti Shevardnadze and helped overthrow him in Georgia. Shevardnadze was pro U.S. and anti-Putin while president of Georgia.
Now who do you like?
And Nikita Kruschev was Ukrainian but that didn't stop him from continuing with the murder of Ukrainians.
Maybe Ukraine should be thinking more in terms of independence from both Moscow and the EU.
Mafia barons are famous for whacking other Mafia barons.
Remind me. Don't the Catholic areas of Ukraine have strong ties to Poland?
Yes, CHINA. That is one country I will never trust.
Radical islam is another threat to Russian borders as well. But that is obvious.
After 1945, former Nazi officials were essentially barred from positions of responsibility in Germany. Thousands of men guilty of criminal acts under Hitler were executed or did prison time. Punishment for evildoers among Japanese militarists and Italian fascists was less severe but did occur. After 1991, virtually none of the former Communist officials in either the old Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact satellites were punished for their misdeeds. The Communists never disappeared.
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