What Color is Ukraine’s ‘Color Revolution’?
Washington whitewashes Ukraine’s brownshirts
As the real nature of Ukraine’s "democratic" and allegedly "pro-Western" opposition becomes all too apparent, the pushback from the regime-change crowd borders on the comic. The War Party is stumbling all over itself in a frantic effort to cover up and deny the frightening provenance of the neo-fascist gang they’ve helped to seize power in Kiev.
First up to bat is Amelia M. Glaser, associate professor of Russian literature at the University of California, San Diego, who avers in the New York Times that the Ukrainian opposition couldn’t possibly be anti-Semitic because, "despite an anguished history":
"The past decade has been a time of significant rapprochement between Ukrainian Jews and their countrymen, particularly among cultural and intellectual figures. The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy has partnered with the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine to create a Jewish Studies degree program. Outside Ukraine, organizations like the Canada-based Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter Initiative have encouraged dialogue. Scholars of Ukrainian literature, like Myroslav Shkandrij of the University of Manitoba, and of Jewish history like Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern of Northwestern University, have helped to complicate the narrative of animosity, recalling Ukrainian writers’ varied portrayals of Jews as well as Jews who wrote in Ukrainian."
Well, that’s a relief: I was afraid all those white power symbols – including Confederate flags – adorning Kiev city hall and anti-Semitic rhetoric from Svoboda and Right Sector, was a sign of a neo-Nazi resurgence. I wondered whether Svoboda – which idolizes Stepan Bandera, leader of an armed gang that collaborated with the Nazis – and its torchlight parades signaled trouble. Luckily, a bunch of Westernized professors are having a "dialogue" with their Jewish counterparts: in the face of this scholarly group hug, there’s no need to worry about tens of thousands of protesters cheering Oleh Tyahnybok in the Maiden.
Tyahnybok, you’ll recall, was expelled from the Rada, or parliament, for making a speech denouncing the "Jewish Muscovite" conspiracy against Ukraine. According to Glaser, because a bunch of high-toned intellectuals are sitting around talking about Ukrainian literature, there’s no need to even acknowledge this shocking report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the openly anti-Semitic rhetoric routinely voiced by all the major parties of the opposition, not just Svoboda and Right Sector.
If it’s easy to laugh at Glaser’s nearsightedness – she doesn’t mention the eight top-level positions held by Svoboda and Right Sector in the new government – it’s downright painful to contemplate Timothy Snyder’s two-part apologia for the ultra-nationalist coup leaders in the New York Review of Books. Part I emphasized the supposedly "moderate" tenor of the opposition, but recent developments – such as the composition of the new "interim" government – demanded an update. Now he is forced to acknowledge a severely edited version of the truth:
"The Ukrainian far right did play an important part in the revolution. What it did, in going to the barricades, was to liberate itself from the regime of which it had been one of the bulwarks. One of the moral atrocities of the Yanukovych regime was to crush opposition from the center-right, and support opposition from the far right. By imprisoning his major opponents from the legal political parties, most famously Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych was able to make of democracy a game in which he and the far right were the only players."
That Yanukovich secretly plotted the resurgence of Ukrainian fascism has got to be one of the silliest conspiracy theories ever devised. Tymoshenko was crushed by her own corruption, i.e. outright thievery and worse. Snyder’s whitewashing of Svoboda, however, is particularly noteworthy in its forthright defense of a party with undeniably fascist roots and organizational links. "In fact," he confides:
"Svoboda was a house opposition that, during the revolution, rebelled against its own leadership. Against the wishes of their leaders, the radical youth of Svoboda fought in considerable numbers, alongside of course people of completely different views. They fought and they took risks and they died, sometimes while trying to save others. In the post-revolutionary situation these young men will likely seek new leadership. The leader of Svoboda, according to opinion polls, has little popular support; if he chooses to run for president, which is unlikely, he will lose."
As Svoboda’s prominence and growing power draws increased scrutiny to its origins and ideology, Western cheerleaders for the coup leaders must resort to desperate measures, and I have to admit this is an ingenious one – although perhaps only in the NYRB could one get away with such a word-cloud of obfuscating rhetoric. Svoboda is reborn in the purifying flames of the Revolution, its history, including recent history erased. In a variant of the "look-over-here" strategy, Snyder says "Right Sector is the group to watch," oh but don’t worry because:
"For the time being, its leaders have been very careful, in conversations with both Jews and Russians, to stress that their goal is political and not ethnic or racial. In the days after the revolution they have not caused violence or disorder. On the contrary, the subway runs in Kiev."
Yes, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. One has to wonder about Snyder’s choice of metaphors. He fails to mention that Right Sector Fuehrer Dymtro Yorash has been named deputy head of security, i.e. the police. Nor does he mention the eight prominent positions held by Svoboda and Right Sector in the new government.
Outside the "we are all Ukrainians now" bubble, however, people are sitting up and taking notice. A Reuters piece spotlights the general uneasiness about the exact color of this latest US-sponsored "color revolution":
"When protest leaders in Ukraine helped oust a president widely seen as corrupt, they became heroes of the barricades. But as they take places in the country’s new government, some are facing uncomfortable questions about their own values and associations, not least alleged links to neo-fascist extremists."
Citing Svoboda and Right Sector, the piece reports in some detail the long history of Svoboda as the inheritor of the Banderist tradition, which extols the World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. However, "experts" are supposedly "divided" over Svoboda, with one condemning it as "neo-fascist" and the other explaining the party is "not now" fascist and anti-Semitic. US government officials echo this latter line:
"A U.S. official said one of the main reasons that McCain and other Americans met Tyahnybok, who does not have a position in the new Ukrainian government, was because he headed one of the three principal opposition factions leading the Ukrainian protests. The US government says Svoboda is moving away from extremism and trying to become a more conventional political party.
“’Since entering the Ukrainian Parliament in October 2012, the Svoboda leadership has been working to take their party in a more moderate direction and to become a modern, European mainstream political party,’ a senior US official told Reuters. ‘The leadership has been much more vigilant about expelling or otherwise punishing individual members who engage in xenophobic behavior or rhetoric.’”
The idea that Svoboda is "moving away from extremism" wasn’t demonstrated when the first act of the newly reconstituted Rada passed a Svoboda-supported bill banning the use of Russian as a second official language throughout Ukraine (including Crimea). The legislation was later vetoed by the executive branch. I’m not surprised these US officials won’t talk on the record: it’s a sorry day indeed when defending the entrance of "reformed" neo-Nazis into a US-supported government is all in a day’s work for this administration.
Reuters reports practically everything first reported here, but they get the number of Svoboda members slightly skewed:
"Two of the groups under most scrutiny are Svoboda, whose members hold five senior roles in Ukraine’s new government including the post of deputy prime minister, and Pravyi Sector (Right Sector), whose leader Dmytro Yarosh is now the country’s Deputy Secretary of National Security."
Depending on what you mean by "senior," this downplays the extremists’ strength: the correct number is actually eight, as I pointed out here. In any case, I don’t know which is more alarming: the entrance into government of a party that traces its origins back to a fighting battalion affiliated with Hitler’s SS, or the sight of US officials whitewashing it. They’re flying the Confederate flag and the Celtic cross in Kiev, and the first African American President is hailing them as liberators. That’s one for the history books!
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- Israel and the Conservative Movement in America – March 9th, 2014
- A Monster Reawakens: The Rise of Ukrainian Fascism – March 4th, 2014
- Crimea for the Crimeans – March 2nd, 2014
- The Worst Snowden Revelation of Them All – February 27th, 2014
- A World of Trouble – February 25th, 2014
AndrewHavryliv
March 11th, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Again,
Justin can't see that the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Tatars, and other minorities protesting at the Maidan was, and remains, a popular uprising against corruption in the Ukrainian government and its authoritarianism.
Just like Putin and his propagandists, Justin portrays them as fascists.
The reality is presented by Timothy Snyder in a soon to be published article in the New York Review of Books.
It’s at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar…
Andrew Havryliv
Sydney, Australia
sherban
March 11th, 2014 at 11:06 pm
Israel and the Jews are not afraid by the extremist from the right,by the super nationalist from France Italy,England,US Republicans,US Christian fundamentalists they are their brothers and for sure not one from them could reach the extremist rightist parameters of Israel and of Jews in their great majority.And in Ukraine,how Putin ironically observed "democrats"are put in good jobs:a crook Kolomoisky,about whom Putin told,managed to cheat even at Abramovitch ,is now the head of Dniepropetrovsk Regional Administration.Wait a little to see how the unseen hand of democrat capitalism will work.
mmckinl
March 11th, 2014 at 11:07 pm
It will be interesting to see what happens after the IMF austerity program goes into full swing. Millions of Ukrainians unemployed, social programs cut and public services privatized for higher fees.
The triumphant parties in the Ukraine will be searching for a scapegoat and what better target than the Jewish Prime Minister bankster Arseny Yatseniuk.
RICinOR
March 11th, 2014 at 11:16 pm
There were similar reassurances that the US wasn't really supporting al-Qaeda in Syria, but "moderates" whose links to al-Qaeda were not confirmed, despite the al-Qaeda banners that were openly displayed. Then the truth became too obvious to continue the denial, and we began to hear about "good" al-Qaeda and "bad" al-Qaeda. In six months we'll begin to see reports on "good" fascists and "bad" fascists in Ukraine, but US support will continue regardless, as it has in Syria.
Mark Hall
March 12th, 2014 at 12:17 am
When Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal were they not promised that Russia would respect its borders? Water under the bridge..The usually level headed Raimondo sweeps this under the rug as he rushes to condemn the revolution as the work of Nazis ignoring the throngs of democratic Ukrainians who filled Majdan Square because they were sick to death of Putin's Kleptocrat puppet…. Or maybe Raimondo missed clips of the palace Yanko had built for himself with money stolen from his people… To be sure there people who sympatized with the Nazis during WW2..But of course Raimondo ignores the fact that this might have been the case because STALIN STARVED 7 million Ukrainians TO DEATH while his thugs stole their land and set up the collective farm system.. These memories die hard …I lived in Kiev for 2 years..To see the people of the city bashed while Putin is presented as rational actor baffles me… Putin lover of democracy? laugh… Give me a break….You can have him…
Mark Hall
March 12th, 2014 at 12:19 am
Why were the words " N A Z I S" censored from my post above when Raimondo can use them in his article???
oddie
March 12th, 2014 at 12:37 am
where's historian antony sutton when you need him. dead, but not forgotten:
setting aside the israeli field hospital in occupied Golan, which has treated more than 700 syrian rebels, netanyahu's visit to said hospital, & the medical treatment provided 80-plus rebels inside israel, it is fun watching the israeli PR machine at work. the saudi story is too cute by half, given the israel/saudi alliance to overthrow Assad. "let me take you down cause i'm going to"…
Reuters: Syrian in Israeli hospital: ‘Most fighters know they will get good care here’
IDF mum on how the steady flow of wounded from the Syria civil war enter Israel, looking for treatment. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Syrian-in-Israel…
14 Feb – Saudi prince explains why he was in contact with Israelis http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-prince-exp…
AndrewHavryliv
March 12th, 2014 at 12:38 am
The so-called "collaboration" with the Germans lasted less than a week!
The whole of the newly-formed government in Ukraine that had hoped Germany would support its desire for independence from Russia, was arrested within a week of its creation on June 30, 1941.
After the arrest of that government, Ukrainians realised that Germany had not come, on June 22, 1941, to liberate Ukraine from Russia. It came as the new oppressor.
From that time on, Ukrainian partisans fought against both Hitler and Stalin.
Collaborators, indeed!
Andrew Havryliv
Sydney, Australia
Claus Eric Hamle
March 12th, 2014 at 12:46 am
The US is deploying missiles in Romania and Poland on the border to Russia-and on 32 ships in the Mediterranean Sea to defend us from Iran, Washington claims. Of course, only the stupid Europeans believe that fairy tale. The Russians will probably deploy Launch On Warning by 2017=ADIÓS!!!
Rusty
March 12th, 2014 at 12:53 am
Stepan Bandera, leader of an armed gang that collaborated with the Nazis
Will the people who are condemning Ukrainians for fighting with the Germans please tell me what you would have done in similar circumstances. You are an oppressed people, occupied by a hostile regime. Nine years earlier this regime starved to death around 5 million of your countrymen. Now an army shows up wanting to wage war against that hostile regime. Mind you this is the only army within hundreds or even thousands of miles that can match up against the evil regime. There are no Americans or British or French to help you. It's the Wehrmacht or nothing. What do you do? Do you not join with them because of their crimes? Did we not join in alliance with Stalin?
Rusty
March 12th, 2014 at 1:10 am
You lived in Kiev for 2 years. Are the Ukrainians crazy enough to join the EU and accept, among other things, open borders? And it's not just third worlders potentially coming in. How would they react to the inevitable brain drain that will occur if their citizens are allowed to travel freely to Western Europe? Won't that exacerbate their economic troubles?
Prinzowhales
March 12th, 2014 at 3:26 am
Thankfully, I don't read the NYT…
The sons and grandsons of the Jewish leaders who betrayed their people by financing Adolf Hitler… who backed fascists in the Spanish Civil War for UK, the Rothschilds and their Rio Tinto holdings… the same kind of Morgan partners who had pictures of Mussolini adorning their offices…these are the backers of Fascist Ukraine…
And along comes Rand Paul, the obedient dog of British Petroleum…the libertarian poseur who wants us to be tougher with President Putin…the good friend of Israel…who supports, with the Jewish leadership, the interests of War Street. It is fitting that the N*zi collaborator–George Soros– has financed all of these little color-coded banker revolutions…Does one really have to guess why there was so little hue and cry when he made a bundle on Pound speculation through the rigged FOREX?…the first thing these creatures of the IMF did was load up Ukraine's gold and ship it to their vaults. The only thing more reprehensible than the Jewish leaders supporting these Ukrainian reptiles is the government of Poland backing the fascists.
Long live the Republic of Crimea! Down with the bankers and their servile dogs in Kiev…and in Washington!
reggietcs
March 12th, 2014 at 4:41 am
^^^^^^^Talk about "Whitewash."
Gary Leupp Professor of History at Tufts University writes:
Some commentators are saying that, depending on one’s perspective, Bandera was a fascist or a national hero—as though there were some real moral ambiguity here. Bandera’s career was in fact complex, and he was actually detained by the ****s between July 1941 and September 1944. But before that he solicited and received **** money and support for two battalions to be deployed against the Soviet Red Army. (One of these was the Nachtigall battalion, which according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, rounded up around 4000 Ukrainian Jews for the ****s in Lviv in July 1941.) And in 1944 he was allowed to set up an office in Berlin to coordinate sabotage of Red Army operations in Ukraine and encourage the Ukrainians to fight against the Soviets.
The faction of the OUN headed by Bandera held a conference in German-occupied Krakow in May 1941, where it declared: “The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine…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. . . Jews are hostile to us must be exterminated in this struggle, especially those who would resist our regime: deport them to their own lands, importantly: destroy their intelligentsia that may be in the positions of power … Jews must be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage, those who are deemed necessary may only work with an overseer… Jewish assimilation is not possible.”
richard vajs
March 12th, 2014 at 4:53 am
Fascism in Ukraine – what a lot of nonsense. The breakaway Ukraine movement was financed and directed by the USA neocons. And Tymoshenko will emerge at the top – she has the right stuff – she is willing to cut the average Ukrainian pension by 50% to effect the Western policy of austerity. The fascists are just a stalking horse for the neo-cons and oligarchs, and the London banks to get in and get the last dime out of Ukraine. The international oil companies want some new fracking grounds and Uncle Sam needs another missile site and another dungeon to hide people in. When there is a buck to be made, the silly nationalists will need to step aside. Poor Ukrainians – about to get shoved into poverty like Greece – wait a year and Kiev will be begging Crimea to take them in too.
What Color is Ukraine’s ‘Color Revolution’?Not Just The News | Not Just The News
March 12th, 2014 at 5:05 am
[…] Antiwar.com Original 0 likesIn WarColorUkraine’s‘Color Revolution’ […]
richard vajs
March 12th, 2014 at 6:17 am
And if Ukranian nationalists are bad-mouthing the dual citizen oligarchs and the Israeli mafia that want to rip off Ukraine again as they did under the "Orange Revolution", that doesn't equate to "anti-Semitism" so much as having been burnt once and not wanting to repeat the experience.
The guy I feel sorry for is the ex-boxer, Klitschko. He might be a super-heavyweight but he is in way over his weight limit. After a few rounds with the western crooks, he'll know that he's got a half-inch coating of Vaseline on his legs
Winston Smith
March 12th, 2014 at 6:55 am
No.
An SS Galicien Division was formed.
This was brought out in1945 by friend Allan Dullers no less.
There was a major row over the bringing out of the Eastern European Nazis between Churchill, Macmilian and Eden and FDR's Council on Foreign Relations advisors on the way to Yalta, with FDR present. He turned down the scheme but was dead in a couple of months, so it went ahead.
One of my friend's father had fought as a tank commander in this division.
I recommend the article "Tickets for the Titanic" to readers of Justin's entirely correct article. This says anyone wanting to join the EEC is the equivalent of winning a lottery ticket for the Titanic's maiden voyage. Three EEC economies, Spain, Italy and especially Greece are in collapse because of the Adjustment Programme being imposed by the EEC as part of the membership deal. It is identical to that of Greece.
Here's another jolly one;-
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2014/02/27/…
Will the Color Revolutionaries assemble on the Maiden to play "Nearer My God to Thee" on a string orchestra as the Ukrainian economy goes down?
We can imagine the sound of the singing coming out of our television screens.
This is Color Revolution – Orange Revolution II after the2004 one.
Mark Thomason
March 12th, 2014 at 7:15 am
I read that article.
It makes no mention of the role of Western NGO's and diplomats in orchestrating events. There is no doubt they did, because they were caught bragging of it, and because they have published detailed accounts of how they did the same thing the last time.
It deals with the fascist idea by saying "how dare they say that." Well, they ARE fascist, and that does not change no matter who says so. Yes, the elected, overthrown government was bad. The imposed government still includes fascists, rather a lot of them, 8 in all of leaders at Cabinet level, including heads of the military, police, and prosecutors.
When you turn over the organs of state power to fascists, you're fascist, no matter how bad those who point it out.
bozhidar balkas
March 12th, 2014 at 7:28 am
first off, at least for me, it's not what protesters/turned/rebels/usurpers/putschists and the opposition are but what they did and still do.
so, they may be deemed/called fascist, nazilike, democratic, well-intentioned, never meaning to nor have harmed, jailed, beaten, killed, maimed even one person opposing the coup, they have, nevertheless, done the worst action possible– save waging a civil war.
rendering a country without its elected government—and after it accedes [according to putin] to all of the opposition's demands on feb 22, proves that yanukovyc behaved very weekly, naively, or seeing the writing on the wall.
did he see that he'd not get EU/US onside; that he cannot stop the usurpation; thus didn't do
what perhaps any statesman would have done in similar situation: call in the army to stop the lawbreaking by any means whatever after it asks or demands the law breakers to go home or hold peaceful and orderly protests only.
no pitching tents, no firebombs/paving stones, setting fires, barricades, occupying government
buildings, etc.
Clarence
March 12th, 2014 at 7:43 am
Your post is an example of how prejudice results in wildly inaccurate, wrong-headed analysis.
Generalissimo X
March 12th, 2014 at 7:51 am
what color is the revolution? like every, illegal U.S. backed coup it's sh*t brown and stinks to high heaven. some "revolution", foreign backed and run by a bunch of right wing thugs….i'm sure america would be fine with a bunch of tea party imbeciles with 5 billion in chinese money running obama out of office. cause that's democracy right? ben franklin had it right: democracy is two wolves and a sheep and the wolves decide what is for dinner. has the ukraine talked about the rule of law? drafting a constitution? i guess pulling some hair braided crook out of prison is their version of george washington now? and putin talks about the rule of law and maintaining social order and he's the "crazy invading lunatic"!??! excuse me a second while i just jump out the window.
of course the neocons scumbags who literally call any critic an anti-semite seem to be perfectly fine with real anti-semites running the ukraine…as long as they can bleed the moronic people of the ukraine dry with imf loans etc. etc. of course these disgusting pieces of excrement have no shame at their hypocrisy. nahh….they're making their own reality and the world is such a better place for it.
bozhidar balkas
March 12th, 2014 at 7:51 am
anarchy, usurpation, illegal protests, breakaways, frights [justified/reasonable/necessary or not] begat anarchy, etc.
what we see [EU/US would not ever admit it] in ukraine is western ukrainians turning against s.eastern ukrainians; the latter not having participated in the [seemingly] violent and illegal protests nor wanting to be left without their elected government.
so, what to do? take every precaution one can; includes calling in a foreign army to come and guard them.
in addition to that, yanukovyc is still a president and is morally and legally obligated to protect all of the ukrainians.
we now await what the UN would say about all this. will it declare the legal president illegal and the illegal legal?
outsider
March 12th, 2014 at 8:04 am
Yes, I've noticed the double standard in other articles as well.
richard vajs
March 12th, 2014 at 8:04 am
As a 12 year old boy collecting coins, I accumulated some 1920s German "notgeld". These were little colored banknotes (about the size of Monopoly money) in ridiculous denominations of millions and billions of Marks. I also had a 1935 5 Mark silver coin dated 1935; it was about the size of a US half dollar. The banknotes of the Weimar Republic were worthless paper but the silver coin was worth something. Of course, it was coined under the Fascist (nationalist socialist) regime of Adolph Hitler. It occurred to this kid that while you didn't want fascists running your military, it might be a good thing to having them running your central bank.
Generalissimo X
March 12th, 2014 at 8:05 am
gave you a double thumbs on those comments. nice to see others seeing what's really in play here. and even if the fascists do seize control, what does anyone (including the neocons) care as long as the country is plundered by the vampire like int'l banksters bleeding the world dry like the unholy corporate ghouls that they truly are. good luck with your EU aspirations little ukrainians. it's worked out SO well for the PIG nations of which you will soon be like.
Michael Kenny
March 12th, 2014 at 8:18 am
It is precisely the American symbols which prove that the whole "fascist" them is an American (neocon?) scam. Practically nobody anywhere in Europe would even recognise a Confederate flag, let alone be aware of the political significance of it in modern America. Equally expressions like "white power" or "white supremacy" are not used in Europe, for the very simple reason that they are meaningless here. Non-white people are the children of recent immigrants and hostility towards them manifests itself as anti-foreigner sentiment. In the precise case of Ukraine, which has no non-white immigrants at all, white power is total nonsense. Ther is no power in Ukraine other than white power and that shows no sign of changing in the forseeable future. Thus, the "fascist" scam has been concocted for consumption in the American cloudcuckooland.
guest
March 12th, 2014 at 8:20 am
Justin, your links for Parts 1 and 2 of Snyder in NYRB are reversed. You might want to fix that.
guest
March 12th, 2014 at 8:39 am
No, the links are right … my bad.
oswaldwasaleftist
March 12th, 2014 at 8:42 am
Show me a Western economist who would recommend the tough progressive taxation that is required as the basis of the reforms that are needed for Ukraine and all the rest of the former Soviet Republics. The leaders of the former Soviet Republics are only doing what American economists recommended a generation ago, which was to dismantle the state and loot, much in the same way the Vandals who just took Kiev did. Change leaders all you want, but the "corruption" won't go away unless the generation destroying economic policies of the '90's are undone. Outside of Michael Hudson and the Economics Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, you're not going to find economists who were and are opposed to the economic "reforms" that the Harvard Boys recommended for the former Soviet Union.
oswaldwasaleftist
March 12th, 2014 at 9:02 am
The color of money is what this "revolution" is about. What precipitated the destabilization of Ukrainian is the financial crisis, which is the inevitable consequence of a generation of looting by the country's leadership. Now Ukraine can't pay its debts and the Western backers of the current regime in Kiev will see to it that the Ukrainian people will pay off the banks Euro-austerity style. They'll go after the ill gotten gains of the previous government, no doubt, as a way to proclaim as the end of "corruption" in Ukrainian government. Meanwhile, the current gang in charge will loot on like all Ukrainian politicians have for the past generation.
It is very telling that among the first policy proposals pushed by the new regime was a Russian language ban. Meanwhile, the Crimean Parliament has passed a resolution guaranteeing broader rights to the Tartar minority:
http://rt.com/news/crimea-tatar-rights-guarantee-…
So much for the fairy tales of a more cosmopolitan European oriented Ukraine under the control of coup regime in Kiev being spun by the Obamacrats and Eurocrats. They've midwifed a far right coup in Kiev and no amount propaganda will change that fact. There can be no doubt that the proposed Russian language ban is the basis of the Crimean independence referendum, that all the "democracy" loving Obamacrats and Eurocrats are opposing.
John V. Walsh
March 12th, 2014 at 9:09 am
Very courageous stance by Justin to call a spade a spade. Ron Paul was falsely dubbed a racist not so long ago on the flimsiest of grounds. And when the Maidan movement was besotted with neo-Nazism, it was dismissed by the same press as a "smattering" of fascists!
The telling feature is the many portfolios held by the fascists in the "interim government," which Justin has noted carefully.
The Empire ain't fussy. It created Al Qaeda in the first place under Carter and consorts with every sort of jihadist group in Syria and Iran to achieve its aims. The European fascists are the equivalent of Al Qaeda, only in Europe. And it is no secret that Western Ukraine and Poland have historically been hotbeds of fascism.
RockyRococo
March 12th, 2014 at 10:35 am
You can try to spin your fairy tales … somewhere else. The mother of my best friend as a kid had the misfortune of being Polish in your "liberated Ukraine" during WWII. She spent her teen years in a concentration camp, run by Ukrainians on behalf of the Nazis. Fighting Hitler, my dupa. Collaborators, indeed.