Thursday, February 20, 2014
Note on Ukraine
The Kyiv Post website still is up and running as a write this (11:30 EST).
I expect they'll be taken down at some point.
I've been trying to explain the situation to friends of mine who don't know much about Ukraine, putting it into America terms. Here's what I said to a friend yesterday that I think captures the idea:
The press coverage of Ukraine is terrible in the U.S. It is treated as if it's a political squabble between, say, the Democrats and Republicans that has somehow gotten out of hand. It's not. Here's how it could be translated into American terms: Suppose that in 2016 Hillary runs against, say, Ted Cruz, and wins. Three years later the situation is that Cruz was sent to prison shortly after the election on trumped up charges, we learn that Chelsea Clinton is now the richest person in America, that the Clintons and their friends own over 50% of the American economy, and that Hillary is about to sign a deal that turns U.S. security over to China. When we assemble and begin peacefully demonstrating, there begins a stream of daily abductions and disappearances, with victims turning up tortured or dead or not turning up at all. Then the police suddenly violently attack, killing a number of demonstrators, right after Hillary promises us she will listen to us and resolve this peacefully. Next, an "amnesty" bill is passed by Congress, except only a minority of Congress is in attendance and they are all Hillary supporters. The amnesty supposedly is for demonstrators, but when we read the fine print we realize it covers the security forces almost exclusively. And besides, we demonstrators are not afraid of prosecution, we are now afraid of being abducted by death squads after we go home.
They are now finding bodies on the trails I used to run.
I keep hearing this crap about how this "suddenly" turned violent -- in fact, attacks and disappearances of people opposing Yanukovych have been a daily occurrence. Now the Berkut and Interior Ministry forces are gunning down demonstrators. I'm extremely worried for my former students, some of whom were giving free economics lectures at "Open Maidan University" at Kyiv's Euromaidan. They are likely in mortal danger, and should Yanukovych triumph I expect they'd face violent retaliation.
If you really want to understand what is happening read Rutgers Professor Alexander Motyl's analysis. I hope he is right about the downfall. Yanukovych is Putin's puppet in many respects -- he is taking orders from Putin on this. The Russian FSB and special forces are certainly already at work in Ukraine, and Putin has much to lose here. I suspect Putin is not hesitant about spilling oceans of Ukrainian blood if needed for his scheme of rebuilding Soviet power, his Eurasian Union project.
Needless to say Lew Rockwell's "anarchocapitalists" (a.k.a. apologists for Stalin and Putin) are defending Yanukovych's brutal dictatorship. What a disgusting and evil spectacle -- anarchists for the kleptomaniacal police state. Ugh.
I expect they'll be taken down at some point.
I've been trying to explain the situation to friends of mine who don't know much about Ukraine, putting it into America terms. Here's what I said to a friend yesterday that I think captures the idea:
The press coverage of Ukraine is terrible in the U.S. It is treated as if it's a political squabble between, say, the Democrats and Republicans that has somehow gotten out of hand. It's not. Here's how it could be translated into American terms: Suppose that in 2016 Hillary runs against, say, Ted Cruz, and wins. Three years later the situation is that Cruz was sent to prison shortly after the election on trumped up charges, we learn that Chelsea Clinton is now the richest person in America, that the Clintons and their friends own over 50% of the American economy, and that Hillary is about to sign a deal that turns U.S. security over to China. When we assemble and begin peacefully demonstrating, there begins a stream of daily abductions and disappearances, with victims turning up tortured or dead or not turning up at all. Then the police suddenly violently attack, killing a number of demonstrators, right after Hillary promises us she will listen to us and resolve this peacefully. Next, an "amnesty" bill is passed by Congress, except only a minority of Congress is in attendance and they are all Hillary supporters. The amnesty supposedly is for demonstrators, but when we read the fine print we realize it covers the security forces almost exclusively. And besides, we demonstrators are not afraid of prosecution, we are now afraid of being abducted by death squads after we go home.
They are now finding bodies on the trails I used to run.
I keep hearing this crap about how this "suddenly" turned violent -- in fact, attacks and disappearances of people opposing Yanukovych have been a daily occurrence. Now the Berkut and Interior Ministry forces are gunning down demonstrators. I'm extremely worried for my former students, some of whom were giving free economics lectures at "Open Maidan University" at Kyiv's Euromaidan. They are likely in mortal danger, and should Yanukovych triumph I expect they'd face violent retaliation.
If you really want to understand what is happening read Rutgers Professor Alexander Motyl's analysis. I hope he is right about the downfall. Yanukovych is Putin's puppet in many respects -- he is taking orders from Putin on this. The Russian FSB and special forces are certainly already at work in Ukraine, and Putin has much to lose here. I suspect Putin is not hesitant about spilling oceans of Ukrainian blood if needed for his scheme of rebuilding Soviet power, his Eurasian Union project.
Needless to say Lew Rockwell's "anarchocapitalists" (a.k.a. apologists for Stalin and Putin) are defending Yanukovych's brutal dictatorship. What a disgusting and evil spectacle -- anarchists for the kleptomaniacal police state. Ugh.
