Comments on: Ukrainian Protesters’ Backers

By: Toddy Cat

Toddy Cat — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 16:28:13 +0000

For what it’s worth, I agree, Paul Craig Roberts went off the deep end several years ago.

By: Tschafer

Tschafer — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 14:54:55 +0000

The above exchange pretty much proves my point. We don’t understand the realities of that part of the world enough to start messing around with it, intelligent people like Bob and Candide can’t even agree what the facts are, let alone what should be done about them.

If I were a Ukranian, I would hope that I would have the guts to be one of those heroes battling the riot police in Kiev. But I’m an American, and as such, it’s none of my, or my country’s business. We’re not the world’s 911, and pretending that we can be is bankrupting us, killing our young men, and earning us precisely nothing.

By: Candide III

Candide III — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 14:23:27 +0000

Bob: you are too used to reasonably fair elections and to a reasonably apolitical judiciary. In Ukraine, judges are not elected, they are appointed from the center. Yanukovich’s party had packed the Constitutional Court (that’s how he got back the extensive presidential powers, he just had the court restore the 1996 Constitution after he was elected) monopolized the Supreme Court and apellate courts, and predominated in lower courts as well. Ukrainians had ample experience of elections in such an environment. Even if local election committees could be prevailed upon to submit unfalsified data (in the face of bandits and special forces carrying out ballot boxes etc.), the Central election committee could (and did) simply ‘correct’ the data as it wishes, and any judicial challenges fall flat. There just wasn’t any readily visible democratic mechanism for the opposition to use.

As for outside meddling: sure, there was and is some outside meddling. Visa sanctions and asset freezes, and threats of same, are clearly meddling. Trade restrictions, gas price hikes and high-handed debt collection are also meddling. Statements of concern from EU structures and the USA (Ukrainians treat these with derision now) are meddling. Glaziev’s and other senior Putin’s advisors’ and newsmen’s statements on the Russian media are meddling. But Putin is far less scrupulous in applying pressure than Obama or, heaven forfend, the Eurocommission.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:53:24 +0000

If the ethnic Ukrainian demonstrators had majority support and were in fact democrats, they would wait until the next election and vote Yanukovych and his party out of power. The fact they have opted for a coup d’etat indicates they are a radical, violent minority. As to US and EU involvement, after Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran — all Russian allies — the suspicion that there is outside meddling is hard to set aside.

By: Candide III

Candide III — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 09:24:21 +0000

Uprisings and revolutions cannot occur without the money, means, and education of a dissatisfied elite faction.

The only correction, or rather elaboration, of this point is that the elite faction in question need not be in power. This was the case in Ukraine. Mid-level businessmen, STEM professors, IT professionals, artists, that was who both participated in and supported the Ukrainian uprising with money and education, as you put it.

By: T. Greer

T. Greer — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 03:17:10 +0000

Watson’s narrative — that the protestors are astroturfed crowds assembled by American funds — is just as false, and probably more so. Most of the MSM pieces on the story at least mention Ukraine’s ethnic and economic divides. Not Mr Watson, no! Only the CIA and evil billionaire globalist George Soros could motivate Ukrainians to march on armed men!

There are no “organic” revolutions that do not have powerful forces backing them. Uprisings and revolutions cannot occur without the money, means, and education of a dissatisfied elite faction.

But they also cannot occur unless a large percentage of the masses agree with what those with the money and brains have to say.

By: Toddy Cat

Toddy Cat — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 22:34:26 +0000

Given that Stalin and his filthy NKVD minions starved 4-6 million Ukranians to death back in the ’30′s, I can’t blame anyone in Ukraine for not trusting Russia. But the situation over there is complex, and there’s no doubt that it’s more complicated than the narrative being pitched in the Western media. Ukraine has a history of being torn to pieces by Great Power rivalries, let’s hope that doesn’t happen here. Either way, the U.S. should butt out, as should Russia. We don’t understand that part of the world well, and I fear that we’ll only make things worse. And Putin needs to give up the idea of empire, and start trying to build a normal, functional country. We might try that, too, while we’re at it…

By: Candide III

Candide III — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 22:11:38 +0000

I would also like to serve infowars and Paul Craig Roberts a big hearty helping of crow, but if they listen to Glaziev’s accusations they already have their mouths full, and I’m afraid it’s not crow. If these gentlemen know where you could hire people to go with at most a low-grade body armor and surplus army helmet, armed with a stick and a molotov, to go face AK-47s, 12mm pump-action guns and snipers (snipers killed about 70 people since the 18th) for $30 a day, I’d like them to go live there.

I have been noticing infowars’ pro-Russian bias since a while back. I understand they hate USG’s guts, but they shouldn’t embrace any USG’s enemies as bosom friends just to soothe their feelings. It’s apt to backfire badly. I recommend anyone interested to read the comment thread over at Jim’s where this same question was discussed.

By: Candide III

Candide III — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 22:00:23 +0000

In Ukraine, a different video is popular (if you care to call it that, graphic warning).