What are we up to ... in Ukraine?

WorldNetDaily ^ | 12/06/04 | Pat Buchanan

[Pikamax]

In the 1940s, as Stalinists were seizing Czechoslovakia, ex-OSS agents were running bags of money to Italy and France to ensure the communists were defeated in national elections.

In the 1950s, using a rent-a-mob, the CIA effected the ouster of an anti-American regime in Iran and the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala. In the 1980s, after Solidarity was crushed by Gen. Jaruzelski, Ronald Reagan secretly aided the Polish resistance.

Many of us applauded these Cold War means, as we believed that the ends – security of the West and survival of freedom – justified them.

But when news broke that South Africa was maneuvering to buy the Washington Star in the 1980s, this city was ablaze with indignation. How dare they seek to corrupt American media! In the 1990s, when China was caught using cutouts to funnel cash to the Clinton campaign, we were full of righteous rage.

Given this history, several question arise. Are we today using Cold War tactics in a post-Cold War era? Are we guilty of the same gross interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, trying to fix their election, we would consider outrageous and criminal if done to us?

Are we Americans hypocrites of global democracy?

Consider what we have apparently been up to in Ukraine.

According to the Guardian and other sources, NED – the National Endowment for Democracy – and USAid, Freedom House, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and George Soros' Open Society Institute all pumped money or sent agents into Kiev to defeat the government-backed Viktor Yanukovich and elect Viktor Yushchenko as president. Allegedly in on the scheme is the supposedly objective and neutral Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Guardian's Jonathan Steele describes how we put the fix in:

Yushchenko got the Western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organization, Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the U.S. and other Western embassies paid for exit polls ...

Those polls showed Yushchenko winning by 11, demoralizing the opposition and convincing most Ukrainians he was the next president.

But, on election day, Yushchenko, like Kerry, lost by three, as the populous eastern Ukraine delivered the same huge margins for favorite son Yanukovich as did western Ukraine for Yushchenko.

Into the streets came scores of thousands of demonstrators, howling fraud and demanding that Yushchenko be inaugurated. Engaging in civil disobedience, and backed by the West, the crowds intimidated parliament, President Kuchma and the judiciary into declaring the election invalid.

John Laughland writes in the Guardian of the double standard our media employ:

Enormous rallies have been held in Kiev in support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown on our TV screen ... Yanukovich supporters are denigrated as having been "bussed in." The demonstrators in favor of Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are spontaneous.

Laughland is saying the Yushchenko demonstrations may be as phony as that U.S-Albanian war in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert DeNiro film "Wag the Dog." He calls Pora "an organization created and financed by Washington," like Otpor and Kmara, which were used in Serbia and Georgia to oust leaders Washington wished to be rid of. Pora's symbol, writes Laughland, depicts "a jackboot crushing a beetle."

If the United States has indeed been interfering in Ukraine to swing the election of a president who will tilt to NATO, against Moscow, we are, as Steele writes, "playing with fire."

Not only is [Ukraine] geographically and culturally divided – a recipe for partition or even civil war – it is also an important neighbor of Russia ... Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow, but by the U.S., which refuses to abandon the Cold War policy of encircling Moscow and seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side.

Our most critical relationship on earth is with the world's other great nuclear power, Russia, a nation suffering depopulation, loss of empire, breakup of its country and a terror war. That relationship is far more important to us than who rules in Kiev.

For us to imperil it by using our perfected technique of the "post-modern coup" – as we did in Serbia and Georgia and failed to do in Belarus – to elect American vassals in Russia's backyard, even in former Soviet republics, seems an act of imperial arrogance and blind stupidity.

Congress should investigate NED and any organization that used clandestine cash or agents to fix the Ukrainian election, as the U.S. media appear to have gone into the tank for global democracy, as they did for war in Iraq.

[Pikamax]

Pat is using the wingnuts at the Guardian???? sheesh.

[Tern]

Andrew Sullivan:

BUCHANAN ON UKRAINE: Buchanan cannot, I think, be described as a conservative. He's an economic leftist with social fascist tendencies. Hence his preference for Putin's power-grab over Yushchenko's electoral victory. This column is as fascinating as it is revealing.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

ping

[Cicero]

A lot of Freepers have already pointed out that many of Yushchenko's backers smell, especially Soros. Nevertheless the alternative is a good deal worse. If Soros gains influence, it will disappear when he dies. If Russia grabs Ukraine, they will hold onto it.

Soros is not exactly a friend of Bush. I doubt whether the administration is meddling in the Ukraine, although I suppose it's always possible that some of the left wing nuts in the CIA might be talking to Soros & Co. Bush isn't going to confront Putin in his backyard. That was the kind of think clinton and Wesley Clark did.

[GarySpFc]

Look at this.

[Southack]

"What are we up to ... in Ukraine?"

It's not us, it's the Germans. Germany, led by former Beider Meinhoff "ex" terrorist Fischer and current avowed Nationalistic German socialist Schroeder is hell-bent on forming a viable EU-only military that *specifically* excludes the U.S. and Russia.

Furthermore, Germany is currently dependent upon Russia for 75% of its imported energy (e.g. natural gas, oil)...but those energy imports flow through the Ukraine.

Should the Ukraine break away from Russia to join Germany in the new EU military, then Germany is freed from its Russian energy contracts. Moreover, the alliance of Germany and France with the Ukraine would form a powerful axis in the center of Europe that would be strikingly analogous to the Central Powers of 1914-1918.

Thus, what we've got here is a historical repeat of a German powerplay for dominance of Europe.

...Hardly something that would incent the U.S. to meddle in internal Russian affairs...

It's Germany, not the U.S. that is interfering in the Ukraine. Only Germany stands to gain, after all.

[guitarist]

There's a lot to question about Pat Buchanan. But if you offer us up Sullivan as an alternative, I will be a Buchanan fan forever!

I think it's pretty hard to judge the Ukraine situation from a distance, only reading a few media reports. I read Pat's column with interest, but take it with a very big grain of salt...

[Torie]

Pat is fond of the would be tyrant and Putin vassal of the Ukraine, who apparently is headed to the ash heap of history. Shocking.

Here's hoping you will be back soon Sink. Merry Christmas.

[Torie]

Do you suffer from Kruat phobia? You normally are a sensible guy. What came over you?

[lawgirl]

I asked my Ukranian friend today if he thought the CIA could be involved and he thought that was an unlikely possibility. I want freedom to win out in the Ukraine, but I don't like the thought of us messing around over there.

[FairOpinion]

"Nevertheless the alternative is a good deal worse. "

Why?

The current government has been improving the economy, things were going fine. so what's so terrible about having it continue?

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post; Interesting.

[Torie]

The US is messing around to the extent it observes the obvious truth. The election was a massive and crude fraud. It didn't work for Slobo, and it isn't going to work with the the Putin vassal. Freedom is on the march.

[Southack]

"The US is messing around to the extent it observes the obvious truth."

The U.S. is completely uninvolved in the Ukraine. We have no national interest in irritating the Russians (a thermo-nuclear causi belli to meddle thusly). We are fighting the same Radical Islamic enemy as is Russia in Chechnya, in fact. Nor do we get any oil or natural gas from the Ukraine, but we do get some oil from Russia (and we're on the table for more).

But the precise opposite is the case for Germany. Germany gets more than 3/4 of its energy via the Ukraine. Germany is decidely *not* fighting Radical Islamism. The Ukraine also offers a large physical buffer between Germany and the Bear, if only the Ukraine breaks with Russia to join the new EU-military.

[Arkie2]

Pat's gone completely around the bend. Is he criticizing this because Bush is supporting Yushenko? Damn, even Jimmy Carter thinks this election was rigged. Pat needs to sober up.

[Tern]

Guitarist-

There was a time when I had a lot of respect for Buchanan. There was a time when I had a lot of respect for Sullivan. For different reasons, my respect for each has diminished markedly; but they are both bright guys and I still read both with interest.

[blackminorcapullets]

"Thus, what we've got here is a historical repeat of a German powerplay for dominance of Europe."

How does alignment of Ukraine w/ Europe repeat a German powerplay?

More Ukrainians died defeating Germany than any other Country in WWII.

I can't imagine any attraction for Germany at all.

[blackminorcapullets]

"Thus, what we've got here is a historical repeat of a German powerplay for dominance of Europe."

How does alignment of Ukraine w/ Europe repeat a German powerplay?

More Ukrainians died defeating Germany than any other Country in WWII.

I can't imagine any attraction for Germany at all.