The Ukraine crisis is not what it seems

[bemildred]

In the West, the prevailing interpretation of the Ukraine crisis is that Russia — specifically President Putin — started it and controls most of the military forces fighting the Ukrainian army, often described in the media as “Russian separatists”. Martin Wolf of The Financial Times (11 February 2015) claims Russia started it because its leaders fear having a stable, prosperous and West-leaning democracy on their doorstep; they saw this as a distinct possibility after their ally, President Yanukovich, was ousted in a coup in February 2014. By one means or other, Russia’s leaders will keep destabilizing Ukraine to prevent such a democracy until stopped by western force or sanctions.

The Financial Times wrote in an editorial on 13 February: “The Minsk II agreement will only succeed if Mr Putin has decided to tone down his confrontation with Ukraine and the West. But there is no sign he is willing to do so. The Kremlin leader’s ambitions stretch beyond Ukraine and ... he strives to reassert a Russian sphere of influence in eastern Europe... [T]he West should be contemplating a range of responses — including extending sanctions on Moscow and providing defensive military assistance to Kiev — in anticipation of Mr Putin’s next act of aggression.” The New York Times agreed (14-15 February): “What remains incontrovertible is that Ukraine is Mr. Putin’s war.”

Russia, Nato and Ukraine

It is true that Putin said in 2005: “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. But one cannot infer that righting this so-called catastrophe is an operational objective of Russian foreign policy. Nor can one infer that what drives Russia’s policy is fear of a stable and prosperous democracy in Ukraine, for the Russian leaders have not said anything like this.

What they have said repeatedly since the breakup of the Soviet Union is that they will resist allowing a rival great power to incorporate a state on their doorstep into a military alliance. They are in effect applying the US’s Monroe Doctrine to their own “near-abroad”. The US would not tolerate Mexico or Canada making a military alliance with China or Russia. Russia’s resistance to Ukraine joining Nato follows the same logic.

http://mondediplo.com/blogs/the-ukraine-crisis-is-not-what-it-seems

[840high]

1. Interesting.

[Demeter]

2. My local paper has NO news outside the city.

The big city paper has no news outside the state.

If you want global news, you have the WS Journal, openly biased, the NY Times, sneakily biased, or searching the Internet and dodging propaganda. OR whatever is bleeding on TV.

Nowhere is this total blackout of news and the accompanying ignorance more in play than in regards to Russia and its honored leader, Vladimir Putin, whose people approve of him 88%! And they approve because:

Russians get real news in real time...not pius propaganda. And they have friends and relations in the West, also sending back eye-witness accounts.

We have nothing. The No-Nothing, don't give a damn, United States of Ignorance.

Jefferson is weeping in his tomb.

[bemildred]

3. You have to read abroad.

You have to read enough so that you know the patterns of the various sources, what they dissemble about, what they are trying to do, how much they will lie, etc.

And you need to rid yourself of the idea that people tell you what they think. They do not. Most of the time people in public life are telling you one of two things:

1.) What they want you to think.
2.) What they think you want them to think.

What they really think they think is reserved for more exclusive audiences.

And you must rid yourself of fear and hate, they just make you stupid and reactive.

And you must rid yourself of hero worship and adulation of leaders too, they are men and women just like you, most of them really just talking heads and none too impressive in person, unless you know who they are and they have their status markers on. That is a democratic attitude.

But if you do that, you start to see forms in the murk, some of them pretty ugly.