Posted on 02/28/2014 5:14:25 PM PST by jimbo123
The argument over foreign intervention has become so radically simplified, so founded on theories and principles and ignorant of facts, that it has lost all grasp of reality. There is no better example of this than the present calamity in Ukraine, where Western internationalists have juxtaposed their narrow conceptions of liberal democracy and human rights onto a conflict that has little to do with either.
What’s really at stake here is a long history of ethnic division. Yet few commentators on the issue mention that Ukraine is not solely populated by Ukrainian nationals. The eastern and southern regions are populated by ethnic Russians, who speak Russian, identify with their co-ethnics in the motherland to the east, and are Orthodox Christians by confession. The ethnic Ukrainians, in contrast, speak the Ukrainian language, identify as a distinct nationality, and adhere mostly to Ukrainian Catholicism, a form of Christianity which observes the rite of Greek Orthodoxy while maintaining full communion with the Holy See.
-snip-
The All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist party, holds 8% of the seats in the parliament for the entire country, and thus represents a much larger minority among the ethnic Ukrainians. The party’s stronghold is the western city of L’viv, which is home to numerous monuments to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during the Second World War, a Nazi collaborator, and a participant in the mass murder of Ukrainian Jews.
The Svoboda claims descent from Bandera, and just last month held a march in his honour. The party’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has announced in the Ukrainian parliament that the country is secretly controlled by a Jewish mafia.
(Excerpt) Read more at fullcomment.nationalpost.com ...
My heart aches for the Ukrainians as much as it aches for us in Texas, under Battleground TX assault.
I simply don’t have enough vacation stored up to go help them fight. There was a common door note posted in the war between the states..’Gone to Texas’. I wish i could give it all up and put a note on the door ‘Gone to the Ukraine, back later’.
My great grandfather was a Jew from eastern Europe and appears to have lived in several countries before he came here at 12 years old.
Between shifting borders and ethnic violence that whole region has had few extended periods of real peace.
You do not want to go to Ukraine to fight on the side of the Bandera Nazis and you don’t want to fight on the side of the Russians either. It’s going to get ugly when the Nationalists start hurling their molotov cocktails at anyone who speaks Russian and looks Jewish. And you definitely don’t want to be caught in the crossfire when the Russians go after the Bandera Nazis.
“The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow.” - Stepan Bandera - a Ukrainian nationalist leader.
Just from a Goebbels book. And anyone surprised why Russians are so suspicious towards Ukrainian ‘freedom fighters’?
When Quebec becomes part of France, maybe I can listen to this idiotic argument.
Russian troops are on the ground in the Ukraine. They took two airports and have been flying in transports of more troops. They are there and Putin has outmaneuvered the weak Obama and the EU. Even as Obama and Kerry continue to drone on about, “You better not do this,” Putin has already done it. So what do we do to keep all of Ukraine from falling in a a domino effect and eastern Europe being dominated by Russia?
1) Immediately have the US and the EU confer with Ukraine and tell them to NOT attack the Russian troops in the Crimea. Have them immediately mobilize their forces to their borders and take up positions and prepare and make any further Russian aggression have to come through their prepared positions. Right now the Crimea is lost, and attacking them there will only invite a much larger invasion and the potential loss of all of the Ukraine.
2) The US should immediately start flying C-17s into Kiev (the Ukraine Capitol) loaded with advisors, provisions, trainers, and a a security force for those people. We cannot get enough people there to stop Putin at this point, but we can show him that the price for taking the Ukraine has now gone up and would be too steep for him.
3) Have the NATO and Euopean countries (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain) do the same thing (Number 2) at other critical points throughout the Ukraine.
4) Immediately move to make the rest of the Ukraine a part of NATO.
5) Hasten the Ukraine’s entry into the EU.
These measures will block Putin now, and hold him where he is with the gains he has made. It is not likely that the Ukraine will get the Crimea back, no more than Georgia will got its two lost provinces back. But we can limit the damage and build a strong coalition of the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary , Slovakia, the Czech Republic and western Europe to stop Russia where it is.
Otherwise we may see the whole of the Ukraine go over...and that would bne the first step in a process for Russia to once again establish a buffer between itself and western Europe.
Folks, when you elect a man who sat with the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev, just before the 2012 Elections, and told him...when he thought he was off microphone...that after the elections, he, Obama, “would be a lot more flexible,” with Putin...this is what you get.
We need to neuter this guy politically in 2014, and then run he and his ilk out of the White House for good in 2016. If we do not, things will get worse...much worse.
When Russia had Ukraine, they forced Russians to move there and Ukrainians were forced to move. Russia did that to other countries they took over, especially Estonia and Latvia. Most of the countries they took over (with the help of FDR and Truman) Russia made the national nationalities (like Estonians) into minorities.
bttt
Jeff, I do not desire our nation to become involved in Ukraine. putin has made his move and it is and was a bold one. obama has rattled his sword and sword rattling has a way of causing people to die. I truly believe that if obama does not watch his step we could be quickly on a very slippery slope. I want NATO to stay on the sidelines and allow our Military to rest and regroup. I would like to see EU do the same. Convince me I'm wrong, please.
Most Ukrainians aren't Nazis.
“Russia ready to help Ukraine’s economy: Kerry”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3128094/posts
BLOODLANDS
“If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today.”
Jeff, your plan of action makes sense. Though, I wonder at its consequences. Once, it would've been certain to cause Putin and Russia to halt in place. Now, though, it's only a probability -- maybe 75-80%.
Because, if Putin continues to impinge on Ukraine, say, in the Donetsk, there's not a damn thing we or NATO can do about it. Only the Ukrainian forces in the field would have any credibility.
The question would still be how far does Putin want to push it?
No sale! Uninformed article presenting the Russian point of view. Yes, Bandera’s organization participated in the murder of Jews. And not only of Jews. 160,000 Poles, Armenians, Hungarians and Romanians as well. They are now a minority on Maidan, and the revolution has support in Poland and Hungary despite the Bandera crimes. These propagandists think that it’s enough to mention “Jews” to turn the supporters of whatever, Ukrainian uprising or New Coke, into enemies!
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