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?
Wow, just like McCain-Feingold.
Wow, Chancellor Palpatine. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while.
People who use the word "cabal" tend to come off as paranoid.
And when have I ever defended Putin?
They do? Really? (c8
Yeah, you and your #!#! out of context quote. Zzzzzzzzzz......
RE: And when have I ever defended Putin?
You haven't which is why I am surprised you decided to respond to that post. That was between me and others besides you. So, maybe you ought to mind your own business.
All your discrediting operations are berong to us.
Umm.... You're posting on a public message board.....
Your post #149 is a good description of the situation there.
The general tone of remarks in this thread is to make the events in Ukraine into a Putin-Soros battle; if you side against one you must obviously be in league with the other. If you side with Yushchenko, you must obviously want Soros to rule the world, and you have sold your soul to the antiChrist; and if you favor Yanukovich, you must want a communist takeover.
Since I, as far as I know, am neither in league with the devil nor a secret Bolshevik (unless I'm such a secret member even I don't know it), and since I have no personal knowledge of the situation on the ground, I have to make my decision on something less than complete knowledge.
For me, its fairly simple; Russian troops have no business in the Ukraine. Thats the litmus test. After that, its up to the Ukrainians themselves to battle it out. I understand its complex, a good part of the country is evidently pro-Russia and would seek union with Moscow if they could; the other part is nationalist Ukrainian, westward-leaning,and would seek union with the EU if they could.
Since the two halves of the country are fairly evenly divided, it may be tempting for one or the other to steal the election, and that may have to be decided in the streets. But except for perhaps providing security for Russian installations in the country, Russian troops have no business in those streets.
The presence of Russian troops suggests they are there to enforce a stolen election. If it were an honest election, and the Yushchenko crowd were trying to steal it by steet violence, Uk troops could put down the rebellion. If Kuchma isn't putting his own troops into the streets, it must be that he doesn't trust them to remain neutral, or even to back the government. The presence of foreign troops is a red-flag to me.
RE: The presence of foreign troops is a red-flag to me.
Rodger that, 10-4.
Actually the insertion of the few Russian troops at the exact point at which the Sorosian otpor coup d'etat takes place, would make the key difference.
The Sorosian method is following:
1. question the election result
2. bring thousands of demonstrators and gather them around the main government buildings
3. intimidate police with future prosecution and barge inside
4. push out government officials and replace them with your own.
5. Western governments and media proclaim the victory of "democracy" and legitimize the coup.
So the solution was to insert a small unit of highly trained paratroopers from abroad at the points 3 and 4. After that Sorosians can whine and beg for the new elections (to try the 1-5 rutine again).
Yep Stalin murdered a lot of Ukrainians but he was not a Russian. He was a Georgian.
He made me laugh so many times. I miss old CP.
Take a better look at the Hildebeeste of New York.
PUtin's a distant 2nd.
"There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be."
--New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1
"Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda."
--New York Times, August 23, 1933
"Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin's program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding."
--New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
--New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 18
"There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition."
--New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13
And what did the Russian Bolshevik intelligencia who supported Stalin think of such genocide? Did they not view it as retribution for the events of 1918 - 1921? And what might have been the precursors of such genocide? Earlier pogroms? Persecution of non Russian nationalities in the old Empire? Just some food for thought ...
No, not in Russia - in Washington state.
The folks sticking up for Yushchenko are all the usual suspects who we also saw cheering on the blood lust in Serbia/Kosovo - Ziggy Brezinski, Soros, Mad Halfbright, Colin Powell, etc., etc.
At least those folks are open about their agenda of cracking the nut of Orthodoxy, even if their "rah, rah" crowd in the US is not!
I find it especially distasteful, given the circumstances the Democrats created around Bush's two Presidential elections, for the Administration to go over to some foreign country and say because Yushchenko is playing Sore-Loserman, we reject your election results unless you declare the Sore-Loserman the winner. Rather like Putin or Chirac saying to us "we reject your election results unless you declare Gore/Kerry the winner".
Are you Uki friends Catholic or Orthodox? The Catholic Uki's are very much like the Poles, because Poland dominated Ukraine for centuries.
Good point. Smells like old times.
Any Mafia barons in jail is an improvement over the situation under Clinton and Halfbright's darling drunk Yeltsin.
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