Thread: KIEV CHAOS UKRAINE'S CRISIS, NOT OURS Pat Buchanan: 'If the Cold War is over, why are

KIEV CHAOS

UKRAINE'S CRISIS, NOT OURS

Pat Buchanan: 'If the Cold War is over, why are we playing these Cold War games?'

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

Published: 2 hours ago

Richard Engel of NBC, reporting from Maidan Square in Kiev, described what he witnessed as the Feb. 19 truce collapsed.
Police began to back away from their positions in the square, said Engel. And the protesters attacked. Gunfire was exchanged, and the death toll, believed to be in the dozens, is not known.

In short, the reality in Kiev is more complex than the black-and-white cartoon of Vladimir Putin vs. the freedom fighters drawn by our resident Russophobic elite. Perspective is in order.
First, though portrayed as a tyrannical thug, Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency of Ukraine in 2010 in what international observers called a free and fair election. He may not be Marcus Aurelius, but his remains the legitimate government.
Second, high among the reasons Yanukovych chose Russia’s offer to join its custom union over the EU is that Putin put a better deal on the table.
Moscow put up $15 billion in loans and cut-rate oil and gas. The EU offered some piddling loans and credits, plus a demand for reforms in the Ukrainian economy monitored by the IMF, but no commitment to full membership in the EU.
As for the “protesters” who came to Maidan Square in November, not all came simply to protest. Many set up tents and shacks, threw up barricades, seized government buildings, burned the headquarters of the ruling party, battled police and demanded the overthrow of the regime.
How many Western countries would permit a planned putsch in their capital city?
Still, after weeks of protest, Yanukovych offered to negotiate.
He fired his prime minister and tendered the post to the leader of the opposition Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He offered to make Vitali Klitschko, the ex-heavyweight champion and the head of another opposition party, the deputy prime minister. His offer was rejected.
Yanukovych then had parliament repeal the tough laws against protests he had had enacted and delivered a full amnesty to those arrested during the months of occupation. In effect, Yanukovych offered peace and a coalition government with his opponents until new presidential elections next year.
Does that sound like an unyielding tyrant?
Why was this unacceptable? Because the protesters want Yanukovych out, new elections now, and Ukraine reoriented toward Europe.
Order Pat Buchanan’s brilliant and prescient books at WND’s Superstore.
While the opposition has every right to urge this course, is not next year’s presidential election the place to decide the future of the country? What kind of democracy is it where a democratically elected president can be forced out of office by mobs?
When Mohamed Morsi, the elected president of Egypt, was ousted in a military coup last summer, backed by huge crowds in Tahrir Square, John Kerry said the army was “restoring democracy.”
Is this the new American concept of democracy, that when an elected government makes a major decision many dislike, the people should take to the streets and shut down the capital until the president reverses course or resigns?
President Obama is telling the Yanukovych government to respect the protesters. No violence. But how would Obama react if thousands of tea-party members established an encampment on the Mall, burned down the DNC, occupied the Capitol and demanded he either repeal Obamacare or resign?
Would Barack Obama negotiate?
Russia has accused us of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs.
And when we see the State Department’s Victoria Nuland in Maidan Square egging on the protesters, and hear tape of Nuland discussing with the U.S. ambassador whom we want in the next Ukrainian government, do not the Russians have a point?
Under George W. Bush, our National Endowment for Democracy helped to engineer color-coded revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, but it failed in Belarus. We have a long track record of meddling.
And was it not interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine for John McCain to fly to Kiev, go down to Maidan Square and do his best imitation of Mario Savio in Sproul Plaza?
If the Cold War is over, why are we playing these Cold War games?
Imagine where America would be today had the neocons gotten their way and brought Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.
We would have been eyeball-to-eyeball with Russia in the South Ossetian war of 2008 and eyeball-to-eyeball today over Kiev. Yet, in neither country is there any vital U.S. interest worth risking war with Russia.
What is coming in Ukraine, however, is likely to be far worse than what we have seen up to now. For this political crisis has deepened the divide between a western Ukraine that looks to Europe, and an east whose historic, linguistic, cultural and ethnic bonds are with Mother Russia.
With reports of police and soldiers in western Ukraine defecting from the government to join the rebellion, Ukraine could be a country sliding into civil war. If so, the spillover effects could be ominous.
But, to be candid, what happens in Ukraine has always been more critical to Moscow than it has ever been to us.
As Barack Obama said of Syria, this is “somebody else’s civil war.”

http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/ukraines-crisis-not-ours/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/exposed-ukr...8/#post1396147

I like Pat Buchanan, but sometimes he says really stupid things that piss me of. Is he kidding? We have the Ukrainian people who have been screaming since November that they do not want to be drawn back into a recreation of the old Russian dominated Soviet Union. They clearly want to be aligned with the West,with Europe. We know Vladimir Putin is an old Soviet secret police (KGB) thug and a tyrant. The Ukrainians remember the hell they lived under in the Russian dominated “Soviet Union.”And now they clearly do not want to be pushed back into that sewer. The “rebels” burning tires and debris in the streets are desperately attempting TO BE FREE. I personally do not like the European Union but at least it is not controlled by Putin and his murderous thugs.

Come on Pat, what the hell is the matter with you? Are you such a hardcore isolationists that you are indifferent to a Eastern European country's cry for independence and freedom? The Ukrainian people have know tyranny and want no more of it. Pat, what the hell is the matter with you?

http://www.alipac.us/f19/dr-paul-cra...kraine-297910/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/exposed-ukr...oduced-297918/

This country COMPLETELY FAILED to build bridges with Russia right after the Soviet Union fell. Which was, the ONLY WINDOW the USA ever had of building strong ties with that country.

Why? 2 words: Bill Clinton.

Clinton rode the peace dividend straight into Monica Lewinsky's crotch, which was the only thing on his mind during both of his tenures.

No looking back now ..

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TERRIBLY TRAGIC LIVING CONDITIONS FOR UKRAINE'S CHILDREN ..

I believe the European Union threatens the independence and national sovereignty of the different countries in Europe. I do not doubt that Europe is being overrun by Muslims because of the progressive ideas that dominate the EU. But to be indifferent to Putin’s obvious efforts to reestablish the old Russian (Soviet Union) empire is incredibly foolish. In case anyone has not noticed PUTIN IS A FORMER KGB THUG, AND HE RUNS RUSSIA ACCORDINGLY. There has been huge protest (that Putin’s thugs brutally suppressed) against Paten’s tyranny in Russia itself. The Ukrainians know Putin for what he is and they know his plans for them and the other formerly, Soviet dominated countries and IT SCARES THE HELL OUT OF THEM.

Although it gets complicated, ultimately Obama controls the CIA. The idea that Obama’s CIA would ever do anything to increase US influence in any country on planet Earth is preposterous. Obama obviously wants to diminish American global power not increase it. Conspiracy theories are always dubious because there are many people and groups that interact in the course of a nation’s activities. One can always construct a plausible conspiracy with a selective picking and spinning of people and events.

What is happening in the Ukraine is a direct result of the power vacuum created by US disengagement from foreign affairs. The attack on our consulate in Benghazi and our failure to respond has sent a clear message to the whole world that you can kill Americans, important Americans, without consequences. Can any nation be weaker than that? And now we are supposed to believe that some CIA conspiracy is influencing events in a foreign nation?

The USA can not and should not try to play “policeman to the world.” But total indifference to all foreign eventsis a sure route to disaster. In the 1930’s US politics was dominated by isolationism until the attack on Pearl Harbor and WWII forced us to pay attention to foreign events.