Tag Archives: Russia

Political Rants

Bad guys.

When I watch news reports about the Ukraine crisis, I’m reminded of that Dave Mason song from back in the seventies, that went something like this:

So let’s leave it alone
Because we can’t see eye to eye
There ain’t no good guys
There ain’t no bad guys
There’s only you and me and
We just disagree

Are you scared? Really scared?Right, well … I was never a big fan of Dave’s, but you get the idea. Part of the problem with our once-over-lightly media culture is that there is an extraordinarily rapid resort to black-and-white, wrong vs. right narratives that are easy to report, easy to digest, easy to repeat again and again. In all that, we lose the sense that it’s possible to have two assholes in a fight – adversaries who are divided by conflicting claims, not by a contrast between absolute good and absolute evil.

I guess what particularly galls me about the current state of play is that when you draw attention to this fact, you are accused of being an apologist for the Putin regime. Fact is, Putin’s regime is the model of governance in Russia that the United States clearly preferred, one we actively encouraged and supported relatively uncritically until the falling out around the Iraq war. What we’re staring in the face right now is the product of two failed American policies: (1) support for a strong executive in Russia from the Yeltsin years forward, and (2) insistence not only on perpetuation of NATO after the end of the Cold War, but expansion of the alliance deep into eastern Europe, over the vehement objections of the Russians.

Russia’s objection to NATO expansion? Well, this is just a guess, but I’m pretty sure they are against any major military alliance on their western flank, probably because they were invaded four times, starting with Napoleon, the last time nearly destroying Russian society. That’s a living memory for some in Russia, and something no doubt written in their DNA at this point. You can say they’re a little sensitive about threats from their west. Just a little.

That doesn’t excuse beastly behavior, but you have to admit … compared to the suppression of Hungary or Czechoslovakia, this invasion and  annexation of Crimea has been pretty tame. I’m just saying, we need to dial it back a little, and remember that we still have thousands of nuclear weapons. Indeed, there can be no military conflict between Russia and the United States that won’t practically guarantee the destruction of all of humankind.

If we fight, no one wins. Take that to the bank.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Taking sides.

If anything, the crisis in Ukraine grew hotter this week, and it’s getting kind of scary. Through it all, though, there has been a persistent tendency in the media to support the maximalist position of the U.S. government and our European allies – namely, that the Ukrainian opposition is fully legitimate and essentially beyond any critical scrutiny, that the Russians are engaging in bald aggression of a kind not witnessed in decades (!), and that the violators of human rights in Ukraine are all on the pro-Russian side.

Okay, well … a few points that probably need addressing:

Coup or no coup. Russia calls what happened in Kiev a few weeks ago a coup; Washington does not. In the United States, labeling something a coup triggers legislation designed to impede the delivery of U.S. aid to coup regimes. Our administrations of both Sensitivity training, American style.parties typically do an end-run around this by simply avoiding the word when it’s inconvenient. We’ve done this with Egypt and with Honduras. When it’s someone we don’t like, it’s a coup, plain and simple. In Kiev, the elected leader of the country was ousted without due process, in the midst of a negotiation over rebalancing of political authority and early elections. It’s not outlandish to call that a coup, regardless of how kleptocratic the old regime may have been.

Who killed who? The killing of oppositionists by sniper fire on February 26 has often been cited as a primary rationale for the ouster of the Ukrainian leader. Those killings were chalked up to the regime. However, this past week, The Guardian and others have reported on claims by the Estonian Foreign Minister that the shooters were hired by the opposition. The new Ukrainian government is reluctant to open an investigation into this.

Atypical aggression. Really? This can be reported with a straight face from a country that invaded Iraq ten years ago? In this category, we haven’t a leg to stand on.

My point is, before we rush in to aid this new government, let’s be honest about what our interests are in that region. And let’s not paint one side virtuous and the other evil before we know the facts.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Persistent truths.

As I write this post, the parliament in Crimea has just voted to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, to which it belonged until the mid 1950s. The Russian parliament, in turn, is considering legislation to enable it to accept new provinces, an ominous turn to Where's America in this picture?be sure. There is a referendum on Crimean secession scheduled for later this month, and the new Ukrainian government is crying foul. So … are we on the brink of a new Crimean War? Charge of the Light Brigade, anyone?

The “Putin is Crazy” narrative is dominating the news cycle here in the United States. I can hear it right now, on the evening news. Even supposed activist liberal shows like Rachel Maddow are playing this as a crisis for which Russia is solely responsible, and strong evidence of Putin’s departure from reality. He’s living in another world, the German premier suggests, and that claim is being hammered home, day after day, on every network, every news channel, every media outlet. One would think no one had ever occupied a square mile of foreign territory before. (Ummm …. Afghanistan? Guam?)

I hate to be the lone dissenting voice on anything, but this thing is obviously spinning out of control, and the potential consequences are enormous. Despite his autocratic tendencies, Putin is not hard to figure out, friends. He doesn’t want another Syria as his next door neighbor. With the ouster of Yanukovych, he sees the potential for civil conflict, possible failure of the central government, etc. Putin sees the United States and Europe as having stoked the opposition, and in all frankness, it’s probably true that we did. We regularly support political movements in other countries to an extent that we would consider unacceptable should another country attempt the same on us. Now we openly support the revolution in Ukraine.

Is is about supporting democracy? Well, that’s certainly not a prerequisite for U.S. support. See Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc., etc. In all honesty, I think it would be a really good idea to work towards a diplomatic solution with greater energy. There is a tendency to fall into old cold war habits – a fact that reveals the bankruptcy of our obsession with communism back in the day. It’s really just about great power competition, and that should be considered illegitimate, particularly when so many lives are at stake.

Between us, we still have thousands of nuclear weapons. This is not something to fool around with.

luv u,

jp