From URA Observer's Facebook post on July 13, 2015.
Is IMF's help to Ukraine different than that to Greece and won't bail out past investors at expense of Ukrainians?
Please read: IMF Violates IMF Rules, to Continue Ukraine Bailouts
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Monday, July 6, 2015
Public debt, Greeks bearing gifts and Trojan horses from your international "friends"
Here are Greg Krasovsky's comments on
"The IMF Has Made €2.5 Billion Profit Out of Greece Loans."
Tim Jones, economist at the Jubilee Debt Campaign, said:
“The IMF’s loans to Greece have not only bailed out
banks which lent recklessly in the first place, they have actively taken even
more money out of the country. This usurious interest adds to the unjust debt
forced on the people of Greece .”
This story isn’t just about Greece
and its creditors, but very relevant today for pre-default Ukraine and debt laden United States ($18
trillion dollars of federal debt).
There is a good reason why charging of interest on loans -
usury - was prohibited in the Old Testament (The Hebrew Bible, The Torah) and the
Koran.
Making money on other people's misery and temporary weakness
-- by charging interest on loans made to
people, companies and governments who are in financial trouble (temporary or
permanent) -- is just wrong, especially
when perpetrated by an international financial institution that's supposed to
help countries not for the profit motive, The International Monetary Fund
As a former investment banker, I believe that Greece
accumulated its large debt thanks in part to
1. Greedy investment bankers who were more interested in
getting bonuses for making loans and underwriting Greek government bonds than
in the country's future ability to repay -- bankers, unlike destitute debtors,
don't pay back their bonuses -- and the consequences for the country's
population, including its financially vulnerable segments.
2. Greedy and corrupt politicians (and so called civil
"servants") who irresponsibly organized, received and distributed
loans.
Although I am a staunch believer in the principle of
innocent until proven guilty, I don't deny the occasional accuracy of
"where's smoke, there's fire."
So when it comes to bankers, politicians, civil servants and
public debt finance, especially in the developing world, one always need to be
on the lookout for
a. Bankers who ply politicians with favors (i.e. bribes) to
accept financing, sometimes on unfavorable or non-competitive terms.
b. Politicians and civil servants who take bribes from
bankers to burden their government and electorate with loans.
As you probably know, these bribes range from cash in
envelopes, anonymous bank accounts, subsidized real estate, written-off loans,
jobs (for the politician and/or his family in the present or future),
subsidized stock offerings and generous (often through anonymous and illegal)
campaign contributions.
c. Politicians and civil servants who then spend borrowed
money on pet projects and affiliated government contractors, where overspending
and non-competitive bids can be the norm to the detriment of the constituents.
This is where we see overpriced public works projects,
excessive military spending (always justified by a hyped-up military threat)
and no meaningful measures to curb government spending so that you could have
budget proficits (instead of permanent deficits) to start paying down massive
debt.
Even if the electorate is astute enough to be on the
lookout, bankers and financial institutions love lending money to governments
-- after all, there's no better collateral than public wealth as well as, if
necessary, the ability to raise taxes and reduce social spending &
benefits.
Moreover, there's no better negotiating partner when it
comes accepting and repaying loans than a politician or a civil servant. These
folks bear no personal responsibility and can be influenced to do the bankers'
bidding through all sorts of corrupt incentive schemes.
All of this results in towns, cities, counties, states
and/or countries owing a lot of money with relatively steep interest rates and
very little, if any, ability to repay both the principal and the interest out
often declining or permanently depressed tax revenues.
Now, I'm not saying that any or all of this took place in Greece , but I'm
inclined to suspect that probably a lot of what I've listed above happened.
So when a country like Greece can no longer afford to pay
what you could call sophisticated and fully legalized loan-sharks -- because
paying means cutting pensions, unemployment benefits, public medical care and
education sometimes by more that 20% to people who can barely survive on what
they're receiving now -- I'm not going to be rooting for the wealthy banks and
financial institutions.
The prudent way out of this public debt quagmire -- and not
just for Greece , but for any
country laden with unsustainable levels of public debt, including the United States
-- is for
A. The financial hit to be taken by the party that can
handle it the most, the institutional creditors.
After all, even if these creditors wrote off 50% of the debt
and had to accept a 10-20 year repayment plan on the rest after a several year
moratorium on debt payments, I'm sure no one (on their Boards of Directors or
among their wealthy shareholders) is going to be putting up for sale their
summer homes in Southern France, yachts, private jets or golf/country club
memberships.
But if these creditors and the politicians & political
regimes that advocate and defend their interests, have their way, then poor
Greeks may have to forfeit souvlaki and feta cheese for cheap pasta and
potatoes for a while, not to mention health care, education and acceptable
levels of public services.
This way, in the future, creditors will not be inclined to
offer additional financing at immoral rates or irresponsible terms, knowing
that they can lose not just their expected profits (interest) but principal as
well.
B. Prosecution, firing and kicking out of office corrupt and
reckless politicians and civil servants who created this mess, including
confiscation of all ill-gotten gains.
C. Enactment of laws, creation of independent, competent
government agencies with broad regulatory powers and permanent public oversight
of public finance and public spending to prevent the future accumulation of
public debt on bad terms or at irresponsible levels.
But the first step is the toughest -- an ultimatum for debt
restructuring (that's made, if necessary, by default in payments) through a
public refusal to abide by the draconian terms imposed by the international
public finance vampires and their government cronies.
If you think that I'm sounding too socialist and
anti-capitalist/globalist, then please read John Perkins' "Confessions of
an Economic Hit Man" for comparison
The second step, is as tough on the population as a heroin
addict's withdrawal symptoms the first week -- having to live within a government
budget that may not be augmented by additional public finance for a while.
Yes, it's hard to have an economic recovery without extra
government spending fueled by additional government debt, but sometimes there
is no other choice.
But you’re always better off suffering through painful withdrawal
than agreeing to the drug dealer’s terms for another dose at the expense of selling
your children and homestead.
You just have to make sure that the drug dealer is put in
his place and doesn’t take your home while you’re on your knees in withdrawal.
So here we need to put another spin on “Beware of Greeks
bearing gifts” – Greece, Ukraine and anyone else, beware of the IMF, The World
Bank, other international organizations and bank & creditor cartels/consortia
that bring you a “Trojan” horse – in the form of emergency loans (“bailout” packages)
– to “rescue” you from debt that they helped you accumulate in the first place.
Are there any other options?
You can leave your comments on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/URA.Observer/posts/1143842275629910
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Philadelphia Transit Police Arrest and Handcuff a Man Holding his Baby.
Commentary on
SEPTA Investigating Arrest and Handcuffing of Man Holding Baby
PHILLYMAG.COM
BY VICTOR FIORILLO
As a former Philadelphia Police Officer and a father I can't believe that so many SEPTA Police Officers would endanger the health and safety of a baby girl by trying to detain and/or arrest her apparent father over a $2.25 fare evasion dispute.
The police officer that placed a handcuff on the father's hand while he was holding this baby girl should be disciplined, if not fired & arrested for reckless endangerment.
It's just not right to endanger the life of such a small and vulnerable tender-aged child while trying to arrest her guardian -- even if he had committed a retail theft of a diamond ring that's worth $10K.
Here, we have a measly $2 (two!) dollar fare dispute based on a SEPTA cashier's report that the father didn't pay his own fare.
What's sad is that there were several other police officers involved and none of them considered backing down -- even if just to protect the small child's safety -- when the alleged suspect refused to leave the subway train car.
This episode and other episodes of excessive use of force over the last couple of years -- especially the ones resulting in the suspect's death -- indicate (at least to me) that we now seem to have developed a police culture of zero tolerance to resistance and very little hesitation to use force (hands, feet, batons, CS & pepper spray, TASERs and firearms) to ensure compliance and/or "neutralize" suspects.
If true, then such use of excessive force by police will not give us a safer democracy, but could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by creating a police state where the police and the population, including suspects, look at each other with fear & hate and act accordingly -- with hostility and force during their unfortunate encounters by hitting/shooting first as a seemingly justified preemptive measure against an adversary that's surely going to attack to hurt or kill you -- only to escalate the never-ending cycle of violence.
We need to de-escalate and exit this vicious cycle before more children, teenagers and adults (including police officers) get hurt and lose their lives needlessly just because they're wrongfully perceived as as threat and/or the enemy.
“I’m concerned about the entire episode,” SEPTA Transit Police Chief Thomas Nestel said Friday. “We can’t endanger the lives of little kids over a fare evasion. That’s unacceptable.
...
Nestel said the officers tried to talk the rider off the train so they could peacefully cite him, but Smith refused. But that doesn’t excuse how officers behaved, especially with a child in the equation, Nestel said.
“It’s not about him. This is about us,” Nestel said. “I’m not going to change how someone in the public deals with the police. I have to change how the police deal with the public.”
See "What’s behind the arrest of a man holding his young daughter on SEPTA’s Market Frankford Line on Thursday?" at http://billypenn.com/2015/06/26/whats-behind-the-arrest-of-a-man-holding-a-young-child-on-septas-market-frankford-line-on-thursday/
What do you think?
Contributor: Greg Krasovsky
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gkrasovsky/posts/10153110733218742
What borders mean for democracy, Europe, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
What borders mean for democracy, Europe, Russia, Ukraine and the United States,
a commentary on
What Borders Mean to Europe
By George Friedman, founder of Stratfor
Geopolitical Weekly
June 23, 2015
https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/what-borders-mean-europe
********
When it comes to the age-old argument of a state (a country's) right to territorial integrity vs. a local people's right to self-determination, I've always been a supporter of genuine democracy, that is a local population's inalienable right to determine -- through a local democratic election or referendum -- what state (country) they want to join, stay in or leave.
So if the local people of Scotland or Northern Ireland hold a referendum and decide to leave the UK, then we should respect their right and the rest of the UK's population should be able to prevent them from leaving, even on the typical grounds of territorial integrity and national security.
The same democratic standard should be applicable to
- Quebec in Canada,
- Basque country in Spain,
- Kurdistan in Turkey, Iraq & Iran,
- Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon & Egypt,
- Tyroleans in Italy,
- Darfur in Sudan,
- Igboland in Nigeria,
and countless other populations world-wide who'd like their own state (country) or genuine autonomy based on ethnicity, race, religion, language or other local cultural traits.
Holding a local population hostage in a country where they perceive discrimination, persecution or any other form of second-class citizen status is not democratic, but a vestige of past imperial and colonialist traditions.
When politicians and/or people from other parts of a country in question believe that they're entitled to dictate to a local population where it belongs, that's a perversion, if not an outright denial, of true democracy.
Such a litmus test can have scary repercussions.
What if Alaskans decided in a genuine democratic people's referendum that the government in Washington didn't represent their interests and they wanted to leave the Union?
What if a majority of Texans, residents of an independent republic (country) before it joined the U.S.A. decided to leave the U.S., should the residents of California, Vermont or Florida have the right to prevent them from leaving?
What if residents of a conservative state like Utah, decide that they don't want to accept gay marriage and leave the Union?
Sound familiar? It should, because I bet that any state which tries to leave the U.S. will find out (even at the receiving end of a gun barrel) what territorial integrity means and how even the self-proclaimed cradle of democracy just pays lip service to a people's right to self-determination.
Movements for governmental self-determination through autonomy or the creation of a separate independent state usually encounter resistance through the following:
1. Constitutional requirements or other state laws that prohibit any challenges to the country's territorial integrity by
- outlawing separatism or any individual or organized efforts that challenge the current governmental or constitutional regime through demands for autonomy or independence.
- demanding that any autonomy or independence be decided not just by the local population (true democracy) but by the majority of an entire country's electorate and parliament.
2. Prohibitions against local referendums on autonomy or independence.
- these can be constitutional or based on other laws. Regardless, even if the local population, through local political parties or acts of local (municipal) legislatures, decides overwhelmingly to hold a referendum, it will be prohibited by law.
As a result, the only alternative is to hold an unofficial people's referendum with all ensuing consequences -- legal invalidity, criminal prosecution of organizers & participants and, if necessary, military (national guard) intervention to prevent or stop the vote.
- some past movements for autonomy or independence, when confronted with a prohibition against a referendum and the bigger country's ability to enforce it, elected to first secure their local territory's borders with insurgents and then hold a referendum to affirm the local population's democratic choice for autonomy.
While this practical approach ensured the holding of a referendum unfettered, it also provided the bigger country's government and its allies with justification to fight the local separatist movement since the local separatists first staged an armed revolt, any subsequent local referendum should be considered null and void.
3. Refusal to recognize and deal with the results of a local referendum.
- if the referendum takes place anyway (even a verifiable democratic people's referendum with more than sufficient voter turnout), the the country's government, media and its foreign allies will refuse to recognize it, not only from a formal legal perspective, but also as a valid democratic expression of a people's will.
4. Police, military and economic crackdown on separatists
If, based on the results of a local referendum, the local population decides to declare autonomy or independence and refuse to accept the bigger country's government authority in the local -- now autonomous or independent -- territory, then the state will enforce its territorial integrity through the use of police and military power, no matter how brutal its application or consequences for the local civilian population.
Police and military measures are supplanted by an economic blockade of the insurgent territory, even it results in civilian deaths from starvation, disease, loss of shelter and utilities.
The above measures are always justified by a country's sovereign (almost holy) right to territorial integrity and self-defense on national security grounds, true or not, as the separatists could collude with the bigger country's enemies.
Now add economics into the mix. As they say, always follow the money trail, since money don't lie. What if the region that wants autonomy is wealthier than the rest of the country due to industry or valuable natural resources?
What are the chances that the bigger country would allow its population to have genuine economic & political autonomy or independence and take away the contributions to the country's economy -- often so substantial or irreplaceable that their loss could cripple the bigger country's economy or result in default before its foreign creditors?
So what does this all mean in the 21st century for countries (not just in Europe), their borders and a people's right to democratic self determination?
If you're a people living in a small and poor region without any strategic value (political, economic, military or cultural), then you may have a chance at securing greater autonomy or outright independence from your country, since it's probably tired of supporting your population without any clear returns in the present or future.
If you're a people living in a strategically important or wealthy region and you insist on autonomy or independence, then get ready to learn the true value of democracy in a brutal civil war -- a war that you're likely to lose militarily without substantial foreign military, economic and political assistance.
And that type of assistance, given its political and economic costs for the sponsor country, will only come from your former country's competitors (enemies) and/or countries where the local population will support you (and, if necessary, fight for you) as one of their own on ethnic, religious and/or political ideological grounds.
Now take the the above premises and apply them to any current civil conflict and movement for greater autonomy or independence.
So what do you think the future holds for those movements?
Do you think
- Iraq will just give up oil-rich Kurdistan in the name of democracy and historical justice for the Kurds?
- Nigeria will give up oil-rich Igboland?
- Ukraine will give up industrial & coal-rich Donestk Coal basin?
- The United States will ever give up Alaska or Texas if the residents of those states chose to leave?
Now, if you're a true supported of democracy and, consequently, a people's right to political and governmental self-determination, what do you think is the right thing to do, regardless of the economic consequences for you or the bigger country in question?
Will you act and vote with or democratic hearts & souls for self-determination or with our wallets and/or pride (committed to ethnic, religious or cultural allegiances) for territorial integrity?
Actually, many ordinary folks, especially those who know the horrors of war, will support the status quo and forfeit democracy just to avoid the prospect of bloodshed in a civil war.
Regardless of your position, the Strafor article is food for thought, including its discussion of Ukraine.
Contributor: Greg Krasovsky
See The Ukrainian-Russian-American Observer's Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/URA.Observer/posts/1143739658973505
******
Selected quotes from "What Borders Mean to Europe"
"The right of national self-determination has created many distinct nations in Europe. And, as nations do, they sometimes distrust and fear one other, which occasionally leads to wars. They also have memories of betrayals and victimizations that stretch back for centuries before the nations became states. Some viewed the borders as unjust, because they placed their compatriots under foreign rule, or as insufficient to national need. The right of self-determination led inevitably to borders, and the question of borders inevitably led to disputes among states.
...
Since the end of the Cold War, the principle of the inviolability of borders has been violated repeatedly — through the creation of new borders, through the creation of newly freed nation-states, through peaceful divisions and through violent war. The principle of stable borders held for the most part until 1991 before undergoing a series of radical shifts that sometimes settled the issue and sometimes left it unresolved. The Europeans welcomed most of these border adjustments, and in one case — Kosovo — Europeans themselves engineered the change.
It is in this context that the Ukrainian war must be considered.
...
The idea of borders being archaic is meaningful only if the nation-state is archaic. There is no evidence that this is true in Europe. On the contrary, all of the pressures we see culturally and economically point to not only the persistence of the idea of nationality, but also to its dramatic increase in Europe. At the same time, there is no evidence that the challenge to borders is abating. In fact, during the past quarter of a century, the number of shifts and changes, freely or under pressure, has only increased. And each challenge of a national border, such as the one occurring in Ukraine, is a challenge to a nation's reality and sense of self."
a commentary on
What Borders Mean to Europe
By George Friedman, founder of Stratfor
Geopolitical Weekly
June 23, 2015
https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/what-borders-mean-europe
********
When it comes to the age-old argument of a state (a country's) right to territorial integrity vs. a local people's right to self-determination, I've always been a supporter of genuine democracy, that is a local population's inalienable right to determine -- through a local democratic election or referendum -- what state (country) they want to join, stay in or leave.
So if the local people of Scotland or Northern Ireland hold a referendum and decide to leave the UK, then we should respect their right and the rest of the UK's population should be able to prevent them from leaving, even on the typical grounds of territorial integrity and national security.
The same democratic standard should be applicable to
- Quebec in Canada,
- Basque country in Spain,
- Kurdistan in Turkey, Iraq & Iran,
- Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon & Egypt,
- Tyroleans in Italy,
- Darfur in Sudan,
- Igboland in Nigeria,
and countless other populations world-wide who'd like their own state (country) or genuine autonomy based on ethnicity, race, religion, language or other local cultural traits.
Holding a local population hostage in a country where they perceive discrimination, persecution or any other form of second-class citizen status is not democratic, but a vestige of past imperial and colonialist traditions.
When politicians and/or people from other parts of a country in question believe that they're entitled to dictate to a local population where it belongs, that's a perversion, if not an outright denial, of true democracy.
Such a litmus test can have scary repercussions.
What if Alaskans decided in a genuine democratic people's referendum that the government in Washington didn't represent their interests and they wanted to leave the Union?
What if a majority of Texans, residents of an independent republic (country) before it joined the U.S.A. decided to leave the U.S., should the residents of California, Vermont or Florida have the right to prevent them from leaving?
What if residents of a conservative state like Utah, decide that they don't want to accept gay marriage and leave the Union?
Sound familiar? It should, because I bet that any state which tries to leave the U.S. will find out (even at the receiving end of a gun barrel) what territorial integrity means and how even the self-proclaimed cradle of democracy just pays lip service to a people's right to self-determination.
Movements for governmental self-determination through autonomy or the creation of a separate independent state usually encounter resistance through the following:
1. Constitutional requirements or other state laws that prohibit any challenges to the country's territorial integrity by
- outlawing separatism or any individual or organized efforts that challenge the current governmental or constitutional regime through demands for autonomy or independence.
- demanding that any autonomy or independence be decided not just by the local population (true democracy) but by the majority of an entire country's electorate and parliament.
2. Prohibitions against local referendums on autonomy or independence.
- these can be constitutional or based on other laws. Regardless, even if the local population, through local political parties or acts of local (municipal) legislatures, decides overwhelmingly to hold a referendum, it will be prohibited by law.
As a result, the only alternative is to hold an unofficial people's referendum with all ensuing consequences -- legal invalidity, criminal prosecution of organizers & participants and, if necessary, military (national guard) intervention to prevent or stop the vote.
- some past movements for autonomy or independence, when confronted with a prohibition against a referendum and the bigger country's ability to enforce it, elected to first secure their local territory's borders with insurgents and then hold a referendum to affirm the local population's democratic choice for autonomy.
While this practical approach ensured the holding of a referendum unfettered, it also provided the bigger country's government and its allies with justification to fight the local separatist movement since the local separatists first staged an armed revolt, any subsequent local referendum should be considered null and void.
3. Refusal to recognize and deal with the results of a local referendum.
- if the referendum takes place anyway (even a verifiable democratic people's referendum with more than sufficient voter turnout), the the country's government, media and its foreign allies will refuse to recognize it, not only from a formal legal perspective, but also as a valid democratic expression of a people's will.
4. Police, military and economic crackdown on separatists
If, based on the results of a local referendum, the local population decides to declare autonomy or independence and refuse to accept the bigger country's government authority in the local -- now autonomous or independent -- territory, then the state will enforce its territorial integrity through the use of police and military power, no matter how brutal its application or consequences for the local civilian population.
Police and military measures are supplanted by an economic blockade of the insurgent territory, even it results in civilian deaths from starvation, disease, loss of shelter and utilities.
The above measures are always justified by a country's sovereign (almost holy) right to territorial integrity and self-defense on national security grounds, true or not, as the separatists could collude with the bigger country's enemies.
Now add economics into the mix. As they say, always follow the money trail, since money don't lie. What if the region that wants autonomy is wealthier than the rest of the country due to industry or valuable natural resources?
What are the chances that the bigger country would allow its population to have genuine economic & political autonomy or independence and take away the contributions to the country's economy -- often so substantial or irreplaceable that their loss could cripple the bigger country's economy or result in default before its foreign creditors?
So what does this all mean in the 21st century for countries (not just in Europe), their borders and a people's right to democratic self determination?
If you're a people living in a small and poor region without any strategic value (political, economic, military or cultural), then you may have a chance at securing greater autonomy or outright independence from your country, since it's probably tired of supporting your population without any clear returns in the present or future.
If you're a people living in a strategically important or wealthy region and you insist on autonomy or independence, then get ready to learn the true value of democracy in a brutal civil war -- a war that you're likely to lose militarily without substantial foreign military, economic and political assistance.
And that type of assistance, given its political and economic costs for the sponsor country, will only come from your former country's competitors (enemies) and/or countries where the local population will support you (and, if necessary, fight for you) as one of their own on ethnic, religious and/or political ideological grounds.
Now take the the above premises and apply them to any current civil conflict and movement for greater autonomy or independence.
So what do you think the future holds for those movements?
Do you think
- Iraq will just give up oil-rich Kurdistan in the name of democracy and historical justice for the Kurds?
- Nigeria will give up oil-rich Igboland?
- Ukraine will give up industrial & coal-rich Donestk Coal basin?
- The United States will ever give up Alaska or Texas if the residents of those states chose to leave?
Now, if you're a true supported of democracy and, consequently, a people's right to political and governmental self-determination, what do you think is the right thing to do, regardless of the economic consequences for you or the bigger country in question?
Will you act and vote with or democratic hearts & souls for self-determination or with our wallets and/or pride (committed to ethnic, religious or cultural allegiances) for territorial integrity?
Actually, many ordinary folks, especially those who know the horrors of war, will support the status quo and forfeit democracy just to avoid the prospect of bloodshed in a civil war.
Regardless of your position, the Strafor article is food for thought, including its discussion of Ukraine.
Contributor: Greg Krasovsky
See The Ukrainian-Russian-American Observer's Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/URA.Observer/posts/1143739658973505
******
Selected quotes from "What Borders Mean to Europe"
"The right of national self-determination has created many distinct nations in Europe. And, as nations do, they sometimes distrust and fear one other, which occasionally leads to wars. They also have memories of betrayals and victimizations that stretch back for centuries before the nations became states. Some viewed the borders as unjust, because they placed their compatriots under foreign rule, or as insufficient to national need. The right of self-determination led inevitably to borders, and the question of borders inevitably led to disputes among states.
...
Since the end of the Cold War, the principle of the inviolability of borders has been violated repeatedly — through the creation of new borders, through the creation of newly freed nation-states, through peaceful divisions and through violent war. The principle of stable borders held for the most part until 1991 before undergoing a series of radical shifts that sometimes settled the issue and sometimes left it unresolved. The Europeans welcomed most of these border adjustments, and in one case — Kosovo — Europeans themselves engineered the change.
It is in this context that the Ukrainian war must be considered.
...
The idea of borders being archaic is meaningful only if the nation-state is archaic. There is no evidence that this is true in Europe. On the contrary, all of the pressures we see culturally and economically point to not only the persistence of the idea of nationality, but also to its dramatic increase in Europe. At the same time, there is no evidence that the challenge to borders is abating. In fact, during the past quarter of a century, the number of shifts and changes, freely or under pressure, has only increased. And each challenge of a national border, such as the one occurring in Ukraine, is a challenge to a nation's reality and sense of self."
Monday, June 22, 2015
Let's always remember and pray for all the innocent victims of Operation Barbarossa.
Let's always remember and pray for all the innocent victims of Operation Barbarossa.
Let's not forget to condemn those who fought on behalf of or collaborated with the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa -- including Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and others -- because they became war criminals themselves just like their Nazi masters.
Let's make sure that the type of false racial superiority, real religious hatred, ethnic bigotry and butcherous ethnic cleansing espoused by Nazis and their allies -- and the unchecked militarism and ultra-nationalism that made it all happen -- never happen again either in Europe or anywhere else in this world.
Hitler and his Nazis blamed Jews, communists, Stalin & his Bolsheviks and sub-human Slavic peoples for Germany's ills and for preventing "true" Germans from reaching their Divine Aryan Destiny.
Who could the next 21st century Hitler, Nazis and their Axis with Weapons of Mass Destruction (Nuclear or Biological) blame?
In alphabetical order:
Americans?
Arabs?
Chinese?
Indians?
Koreans?
Pakistanis?
Persians?
Russians?
Ukrainians?
Atheists?
Buddhists?
Christians?
Hindus?
Jews?
Muslims -- Sunnis or Shii'tes?
Pagans and other Idolaters?
Anarchists & Anti-Globalists?
Capitalists & Globalists?
Communists or Socialists?
The guessing game can go on and on.
Regardless, let's try to do everything in our power to make sure that we won't allow the next Hitler or Nazi party to mesmerize any nation like they hypnotized Germans during the 1930s -- by learning how to recognize how such war-mongering hate begins to take over countries, install its domestic police state and build its war machine for foreign attack.
Most wars have been started over land and the political regime that will control it -- especially when the states involved and/or the people in the land did not want to or were afraid of the land being controlled (and them being ruled) by their ethnic, racial, religious, political or economic adversaries.
Starting a war was justified by perceived or invented threats (pre-emptive strikes), attacks (defensive strikes), ethnic discrimination & cleansings (occupations to protect a persecuted group) and etc.
Alleged human rights violations have been used to justify external interference in a country's internal affairs, a country's right to sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Being a perceived external threat (such as a being sponsor of or a haven for terrorists) has also been used to justify foreign invasion.
The potential of allying with a hostile foreign power has also been used to ignore a people's right to self-determination and justify brutal domestic campaigns to eradicate the opposition or a movement seeking local autonomy.
History shows that the most brutal wars fought by mankind in known history have been conflicts where larger states and military powers trampled a people's right to self-determination in the pursuit of territory, resources, political, ethnic and religious power.
So perhaps the best way to prevent future Operation Barbarossas is by
- avoiding like the plague any domestic or foreign policy (economic or political and, especially, military) that's based on even a thread of ethnic, cultural, racial, religious or political superiority,
- making sure that such ethnic, religious and cultural elitism -- along with militarism, authoritarianism or totalitarianism and the accompanying police state -- does not take hold on ANY continent and grow by blaming, fearing or hating of another group of people,
- respecting a people's right to self-determination (both locally and nationally) on political, religious and economic issues,
- foregoing foreign policy that actively and destructively interferes in other countries and people's affairs, and
- instead of using military force, committing to using political tools (referendums, elections, negotiations and compromise) to resolve local conflicts abroad.
- Using international organizations (global like the UN and regional organizations like the EU, OAS and etc.) to condemn -- consistently and without double standards -- militarism, authoritarianism, human rights violations and foreign hegemony.
****
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded Soviet Russia along a 2,900 kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare.
The failure of Operation Barbarossa was a turning point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviets and Germans alike, all of which influenced the course of both World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century. The German forces captured millions of Soviet prisoners who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. Most of them never returned alive. Germany deliberately starved the prisoners to death as part of a "Hunger Plan" that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe and then re-populate it with ethnic Germans.
As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") that he would invade the Soviet Union, asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ("living space") to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come.[15] Nazism viewed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ("sub-humans"), ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik conspirators".[15] Mein Kampf said Germany's destiny was to "turn to the East" as it did "six hundred years ago".[16] Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples.[15] The Germans' belief in their ethnic superiority is discernible in official German records and by pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals at the time, which covered topics such as "how to deal with alien populations".[17]
...
The Nazi leadership aimed to conquer Eastern European territories, subjugate and exterminate the native populations and finally replace them with ethnic German settlers.
Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were heavily indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books and leaflets.[18] Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast".[19] Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as both an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and a racial war between the Germans and the Jewish, Gypsies and Slavic Untermenschen.[20] German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the "partisan struggle".[21] The main guideline policy for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan."[22] Many German troops did view the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemy as sub-human.[23]
The Soviet Union had not participated in the Geneva Conventions and therefore their troops could not rely on the protection the Conventions guaranteed soldiers during times of war.[141] Hitler called for the battle against Russia to be a "struggle for existence" and accordingly authorized crimes against Soviet prisoners of war. A Nazi memorandum from 16 July 1941 recorded by Martin Bormann quotes Hitler saying, "The giant area must naturally be pacified as quickly as possible; this will happen at best if anyone who just looks funny should be shot".[142]
...
Hitler issued the notorious Commissar Order, which called for all Soviet political commissars taken prisoner at the front to be shot immediately without trial.[141] German soldiers both willingly and unwillingly participated in these mass killings.[141] An estimated two million Soviet POWs died of starvation during Barbarossa alone; nothing was done for their survival.[141] The famished POWs were hardly able to walk by themselves.[143] By the end of the war, 58 percent of all Soviet POWs died in German captivity.[144][145]
Organized crimes against civilians, including women and children, were also carried out on a huge scale by the Germans and local supporters.[141] Under the command of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ("Reich Security Head Office"), the Einsatzgruppen killing squads conducted large-scale massacres of Jews and communists in conquered Soviet territories. Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg puts the number of Jews murdered by "mobile killing operations" at 1,400,000.[146] The original instructions to kill "Jews in party and state positions" was broadened to include "all male Jews of military age" and was expanded once more to "all male Jews regardless of age." By the end of July, the Germans were regularly killing women and children.[143]
Burning houses suspected of being partisan meeting places and poisoning water wells became common practice for soldiers of the German 9th Army.[75] At Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union, the Germans were instructed to only give food to the small number of people who worked for them, with the rest designated to slowly starve.[75] Thousands of Soviets were shipped to Germany to be used as slave labor.[141]
The citizens of Leningrad were subjected to heavy bombardment and a siege that would last 872 days and starve more than a million people to death, of whom approximately 400,000 were children below the age of 14.[147]
Let's not forget to condemn those who fought on behalf of or collaborated with the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa -- including Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and others -- because they became war criminals themselves just like their Nazi masters.
Let's make sure that the type of false racial superiority, real religious hatred, ethnic bigotry and butcherous ethnic cleansing espoused by Nazis and their allies -- and the unchecked militarism and ultra-nationalism that made it all happen -- never happen again either in Europe or anywhere else in this world.
Hitler and his Nazis blamed Jews, communists, Stalin & his Bolsheviks and sub-human Slavic peoples for Germany's ills and for preventing "true" Germans from reaching their Divine Aryan Destiny.
Who could the next 21st century Hitler, Nazis and their Axis with Weapons of Mass Destruction (Nuclear or Biological) blame?
In alphabetical order:
Americans?
Arabs?
Chinese?
Indians?
Koreans?
Pakistanis?
Persians?
Russians?
Ukrainians?
Atheists?
Buddhists?
Christians?
Hindus?
Jews?
Muslims -- Sunnis or Shii'tes?
Pagans and other Idolaters?
Anarchists & Anti-Globalists?
Capitalists & Globalists?
Communists or Socialists?
The guessing game can go on and on.
Regardless, let's try to do everything in our power to make sure that we won't allow the next Hitler or Nazi party to mesmerize any nation like they hypnotized Germans during the 1930s -- by learning how to recognize how such war-mongering hate begins to take over countries, install its domestic police state and build its war machine for foreign attack.
Most wars have been started over land and the political regime that will control it -- especially when the states involved and/or the people in the land did not want to or were afraid of the land being controlled (and them being ruled) by their ethnic, racial, religious, political or economic adversaries.
Starting a war was justified by perceived or invented threats (pre-emptive strikes), attacks (defensive strikes), ethnic discrimination & cleansings (occupations to protect a persecuted group) and etc.
Alleged human rights violations have been used to justify external interference in a country's internal affairs, a country's right to sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Being a perceived external threat (such as a being sponsor of or a haven for terrorists) has also been used to justify foreign invasion.
The potential of allying with a hostile foreign power has also been used to ignore a people's right to self-determination and justify brutal domestic campaigns to eradicate the opposition or a movement seeking local autonomy.
History shows that the most brutal wars fought by mankind in known history have been conflicts where larger states and military powers trampled a people's right to self-determination in the pursuit of territory, resources, political, ethnic and religious power.
So perhaps the best way to prevent future Operation Barbarossas is by
- avoiding like the plague any domestic or foreign policy (economic or political and, especially, military) that's based on even a thread of ethnic, cultural, racial, religious or political superiority,
- making sure that such ethnic, religious and cultural elitism -- along with militarism, authoritarianism or totalitarianism and the accompanying police state -- does not take hold on ANY continent and grow by blaming, fearing or hating of another group of people,
- respecting a people's right to self-determination (both locally and nationally) on political, religious and economic issues,
- foregoing foreign policy that actively and destructively interferes in other countries and people's affairs, and
- instead of using military force, committing to using political tools (referendums, elections, negotiations and compromise) to resolve local conflicts abroad.
- Using international organizations (global like the UN and regional organizations like the EU, OAS and etc.) to condemn -- consistently and without double standards -- militarism, authoritarianism, human rights violations and foreign hegemony.
****
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded Soviet Russia along a 2,900 kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare.
The failure of Operation Barbarossa was a turning point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviets and Germans alike, all of which influenced the course of both World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century. The German forces captured millions of Soviet prisoners who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. Most of them never returned alive. Germany deliberately starved the prisoners to death as part of a "Hunger Plan" that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe and then re-populate it with ethnic Germans.
As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") that he would invade the Soviet Union, asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ("living space") to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come.[15] Nazism viewed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ("sub-humans"), ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik conspirators".[15] Mein Kampf said Germany's destiny was to "turn to the East" as it did "six hundred years ago".[16] Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples.[15] The Germans' belief in their ethnic superiority is discernible in official German records and by pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals at the time, which covered topics such as "how to deal with alien populations".[17]
...
The Nazi leadership aimed to conquer Eastern European territories, subjugate and exterminate the native populations and finally replace them with ethnic German settlers.
Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were heavily indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books and leaflets.[18] Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast".[19] Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as both an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and a racial war between the Germans and the Jewish, Gypsies and Slavic Untermenschen.[20] German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the "partisan struggle".[21] The main guideline policy for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan."[22] Many German troops did view the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemy as sub-human.[23]
The Soviet Union had not participated in the Geneva Conventions and therefore their troops could not rely on the protection the Conventions guaranteed soldiers during times of war.[141] Hitler called for the battle against Russia to be a "struggle for existence" and accordingly authorized crimes against Soviet prisoners of war. A Nazi memorandum from 16 July 1941 recorded by Martin Bormann quotes Hitler saying, "The giant area must naturally be pacified as quickly as possible; this will happen at best if anyone who just looks funny should be shot".[142]
...
Hitler issued the notorious Commissar Order, which called for all Soviet political commissars taken prisoner at the front to be shot immediately without trial.[141] German soldiers both willingly and unwillingly participated in these mass killings.[141] An estimated two million Soviet POWs died of starvation during Barbarossa alone; nothing was done for their survival.[141] The famished POWs were hardly able to walk by themselves.[143] By the end of the war, 58 percent of all Soviet POWs died in German captivity.[144][145]
Organized crimes against civilians, including women and children, were also carried out on a huge scale by the Germans and local supporters.[141] Under the command of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ("Reich Security Head Office"), the Einsatzgruppen killing squads conducted large-scale massacres of Jews and communists in conquered Soviet territories. Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg puts the number of Jews murdered by "mobile killing operations" at 1,400,000.[146] The original instructions to kill "Jews in party and state positions" was broadened to include "all male Jews of military age" and was expanded once more to "all male Jews regardless of age." By the end of July, the Germans were regularly killing women and children.[143]
Burning houses suspected of being partisan meeting places and poisoning water wells became common practice for soldiers of the German 9th Army.[75] At Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union, the Germans were instructed to only give food to the small number of people who worked for them, with the rest designated to slowly starve.[75] Thousands of Soviets were shipped to Germany to be used as slave labor.[141]
The citizens of Leningrad were subjected to heavy bombardment and a siege that would last 872 days and starve more than a million people to death, of whom approximately 400,000 were children below the age of 14.[147]
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Who Owns Agricultural Land in Ukraine?
Who Owns Agricultural Land in Ukraine?
Transnational agribusinesses, including Monsanto, Cargill and DuPont, are increasingly investing and are taking over all aspects Ukraine’s agricultural system.
Insightful quotes quote: "The quest for Ukraine’s legendary black earth is almost complete. To the dismay of French, Polish, German farmers, the multinational agricultural corporation Monsanto, as well as DuPont Pioneer and John Deere, have all lobbied for access to the largest agricultural market in Eastern Europe. This will soon reshape the market for agricultural products in the EU and spell ruin for Europe’s farmers."
“We must ask ourselves: what impact will these investments have on the 7 million local farmers, especially with the expected lifting of the moratorium on land sales in 2016? And how will these deals affect Ukraine’s ability to control its own food supply and manage its economy in a way that will benefit the Ukrainian people?”
************
I've always been a supporter of a democratic and independent Ukraine -- a country where agricultural land and other important strategic natural resources (coal, shale oil & gas) belong to Ukranian citizens and Ukrainian-owned companies.
Today, I see a Ukrainian government that's more beholden to its foreign sponsors, including transnational carpetbaggers & vulture investors, than to Ukrainian citizens.
Once Ukraine's precious black earth -- a gift from G-d -- is tranferred into foreign hands or polluted with foreign-ownedGMOs, then the prospects for an independent and prosperous Ukraine will wither.
As they say, once you control a people's land, food supply, energy supplies and banking system, then there's no need for a military occupation, legal annexation or former colonization.
So while the current Ukrainian government is busy pumping up patriotism, shelling Eastern Ukrainian separatists & civilians and whipping up more anti-Russian war hysteria, the real war for Ukraine's economic independence is being lost -- on purpose -- in the battle for Ukraine's land and crops.
And that could do more long-term economic damage to Ukraine (its citizenry and not its transnational oligarchs) than the loss of pro-Russian regions like Crimea and the Donetsk Coal Basin.
******************
Some useful articles on what's been happening to Ukrainian agriculture:
US Agribusiness, GMOs and the Plundering of the Planet
April 7, 2015
April 7, 2015
The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture
December 2014
New Fact Sheet Details Western Agribusiness Interests in Ukraine
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Land grab in Ukraine is Monsanto’s backdoor to the EU
Mon, Apr 6, 2015
Monsanto's Land Grab in Ukraine
February 06, 2015
More Evidence For Monsanto’s Role In The Ukrainian Coup?
January 13, 2015 by Sophie McAdam
What They're Not Telling You About Monsanto's Role In Ukraine!
Paul Craig Roberts on Russia, Ukraine, Monsanto, GMOs and more
Agenda-21, Globalist “Darling” Monsanto Finding a Backdoor into Ukraine and the E.U.
September 1, 2014
Monsanto in Ukraine - IMF loan for Ukraine may give GMO giant a backdoor into EU
Published time: August 30, 2014 15:33
Land Grabs in the Black Earth: Ukrainian Oligarchs and International Investors
30. Okt. 2013
Whose Victory Did Ukrainians Celebrate on May 9th?
Whose Victory Will Ukrainians Celebrate on May 9?
Since WW II could have ended pretty much only in two ways in Europe --
(a) Nazi Germany's victory over the Soviet Union (the last European power that was able to defeat Hitler) and then probably over the United Kingdom (even with U.S. assistance) or
(b) The Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany with British, French and American (incl. Canada) assistance,
on May 8th and 9th the residents of the former Soviet Union can do several things:
Choice #1. Celebrate the defeat of Hitler's Nazi Germany by a lesser evil, Stalin's Soviet Union, and be grateful that from 1945 to 1991 they lived in the Soviet Union and not Nazi Germany's Lebensraum for Aryans and their sub-human non-Aryan servants & vassals.
Unfortunately, in human politics over the last 4 thousand years, when it comes to the goodness of political regimes, there is no black and white, just shades of grey, gradations of good and evil. So in our choices as citizens, tax-payers, voters, employees and even consumers, we are faced (and forced by lack of meaningful choice) with supporting the lesser evil.
Even when the modern self-professed cradle of democracy (the United States) was founded in 1776, the rights and privileges of democracy were denied to African-American slaves and the Native Americans.
So with all that in mind, the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was a victory of relative good against clear evil.
Choice #2. Celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union and all its ethnicities (Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Kazakhs, Tatars and etc.) who fought and died side-by-side to destroy the Nazi Fascist menace while acknowledging that the Soviet victory in May of 1945 deprived many nationalities & countries in central and Eastern Europe of democracy and full political & economic independence.
Yes, the celebrations must be tempered by a remembrance that Stalin's victory brought with it another 45 years of Soviet socialist communism, a system which, although it gave Soviet peasants and the working poor free education, medical care and the opportunity to rise to the very top of its political, academic, social and industrial sectors, dealt with authoritarian and totalitarian ruthlessness with its political opponents.
Here we must note that Post-Stalin Soviet Union (1952 -1991) was matched, if not surpassed, by other non-communist regimes in imprisoning, kidnapping, torturing and disappearing political opponents -- including regimes that were supported by the United States (a country which incarcerates the highest percentage of its population today than any other country in the world!) such as Shah's Iran (’41-’79), Hussein’s Iraq (’79-’91), Pinochet's Chile (’73-’90), Argentina during its Dirty War (’69-’83), Franco's Spain (’39-’75) and etc.
Choice #3. Commiserate the defeat of Nazi Germany along with those Nazi collaborators who are still alive and/or their progeny.
After all, had Nazi Germany won, those non-Aryan collaborators (especially the non-Jewish and the "western" Slavic ones), could may have enjoyed a short-lived cozy place as the local overseers of Hitler's Final Solution and local laborers in Lebensraum.
The folks opting for #3 do need to understand that Nazi Germany never intended to give Eastern European non-Aryan nations any real independence, but only dangled it fraudulently in front of them to get their assistance in fighting the Soviet Union and those pesky Bolshevik sub-human Jews.
They must also understand that collaboration with the Nazis, no matter what their intentions (desire for independence, hate for Communist-Bolsheviks, hate for Jews, Gypsies and etc.), cannot be justified morally or excused, especially the collaboration in the Holocaust, the intentional ethnic/religious extermination of the Jews.
The vast majority of Germans – and Germany as a country in its state policies --have already gone through this necessary healing and rehabilitative process of acknowledging the evil of Nazism and their responsibility in supporting it and the horrors of war and death that it inflicted upon millions of people.
The vast majority of Soviet citizens – and Russia as a country in its policies of rehabilitating the victims of Soviet communist persecutions – has also understood the evil and wrongness of Soviet Stalinist-Bolshevik terror against all perceived political opponents.
So Choice #3, no matter how glibly it’s spun or presented – such as in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and now in Ukraine, where local SS veterans and other Nazi collaborators are now being promoted and glorified as freedom fighters whose Nazi collaboration is excused and justified by their hate and struggle against Soviet Communism – is a long-term moral and spiritual dead end, which will do nothing but bring more xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, authoritarianism, militarism and eventually the horrors of war.
We only advance as humanity when we acknowledge our mistakes and those of our ancestors (even the generations of our parents & grandparents who are still alive!), repent, make amends and commit to making sure that such wrongs stop and are never repeated again.
[As side note, despite living in greater Washington DC for 5+ years, I could never root for the Washington Redskins – an American Football team whose name is a living perpetual insult to all the Native Americans that were killed, displaced and disenfranchised by the seizure of their land by colonists and the U.S.]
Otherwise, the cancer of ethnic, racial, gender, religious, linguistic or cultural superiority will slowly and surreptitiously reappear, grow and spread -- leading inevitably to more conflicts, wars and human death & suffering.
Personally, as you may have guessed, I’m opting for #1 and #2 – so on May 9th I’ll be at the Victory Parade in Moscow, Russia, where I can pay respects to the memories of my maternal grandfather, who went MIA and maternal great uncle who fought since 1941, was captured by the Nazis, escaped a POW camp, rejoined the fight and eventually died only two weeks before the end of the war from shrapnel near Koenigsberg in Eastern Prussia (now Kaliningrad in Russia).
I’m not going to boycott Russia’s 70th anniversary victory celebrations because of the current Civil War in Eastern Ukraine. Why? Because I spent last May and June in Lugansk in Eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Coal Basin.
There, I saw with my own eyes how the residents of Lugansk voted freely and overwhelmingly on May 11, 2014 in a referendum for governmental autonomy from the new U.S.-backed Turchinov-Yatsenyuk regime.
For better or for worse, despite what you hear from Western Media, the residents of Lugansk voted freely and somewhat naively without Putin Russia’s secret meddling for autonomy from a new government that they believed was headed by extreme Ukrainian Nationalists, including supporters and progeny of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, who would discriminate against ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Eastern Orthodox Christians loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The residents of Lugansk were also afraid that the new Kyiv government, which illegitimately overthrew Ukrainian President Yanukovich, a corrupt, but democratically elected president, would eventually pit Ukraine against Russia at the behest of their American and NATO backers (their words & logic).
So they voted for governmental autonomy, many naively believing that Lugansk would be absorbed (annexed) by Russia just like Crimea, another region (formally part of Ukraine since 1954) and they preferred to live in Russia that in Ukraine run by Yatsenyuk, Turchinov, Tyagnybok (head of Svoboda Party), Yarosh (head of Right Sector) and Poroshenko.
BTW, the residents of Crimea also voted overwhelmingly and freely for independence and joining Russia pretty much for the same reasons – and today do not regret their choice despite Western and Ukrainian sanctions against Crimea. It’s an inconvenient truth, but a valid example where a people’s right to self-determination trumped (with “neighborly” Russian assistance) the territorial integrity argument that every state likes to use to prevent loss of territory to separatist movements of aggrieved local populations.
Afterwards, instead of negotiating with these regions over autonomy and/or federalization, the Poroshenko government decided to restore its control over Donetsk and Lugansk just like the North over the South in the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Russia over Chechnya in 1995 by trying to take over the separatist regions with brute military force and punitive military and economic measures against the civilian population.
Here, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko did what corrupt President Yanukovich did not dare – began to use military force against civilians and local militias, including aerial bombardments, cluster bombs, incendiary white phosphor munitions and surface-to-surface missiles against military and civilian targets in civilian residential areas.
We – Americans, Ukrainians and Russians -- are lucky that Putin’s Russia has not responded to the installation of a pro-US/EU/NATO regime in Ukraine on February 22, 2014 the same way the U.S. has responded to “similar challenges” (a) over the last 70 years in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, and now Syria or (b) enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Instead, Russia’s support of the Donetsk Separatists (military and financial) has been minimal in comparison to the U.S. doctrine and interventions in the above conflicts.
Despite what you may hear from pro-Poroshenko Ukrainian and Western corporate media, the vast majority (>= 95%) of the separatist forces are composed of local men who took up arms to defend their region against what they perceived to be an illegitimate regime that would not respect their region’s right to self-determination and would discriminate against them. But that’s how civil wars generally start.
Based on these factors, I could not apply double-standards to Russia and boycott the 70th anniversary Victory Day celebrations because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea support for the Donetsk and Lugansk.
What do you think?
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