Showing posts with label Crimea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crimea. Show all posts

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Obama and his Crimean Misadventure: Russian has genuine interests in the region

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Western powers have once more started behaving like cold warriors, provoking Russia and hiding their aggression in a cloak of Democracy and Human Rights, a sanctimonious combination of realpolitik and ideological assertion. Nothing typifies this new conduct of the European Union and USA than the crisis over Russian involvement in the Ukraine and the subsequent merger of Crimea with the Russian Federation. People who rail against Russia seem to have forgotten recent history. It was in the Siege of Sebastipol  that Florence Nightingale earned her name and it was the same Crimean war that provided the occasion for bad poetry as well: we are all familiar with the Charge of the Light Brigade by England's poet laureate, Lord Tennyson. I am only recalling these facts to underscore the historical context of the recent events. Russia has had a presence in the Crimean Peninsula right from the waning years of the Ottoman Empire and the West always tried to thwart the legitimate interests of Russia. Now Vladmir Putin has succeeded and revered the  long imposed isolation of Crimea from Russia. In fact during the Soviet Era, Crimea was handed over to Ukraine for only administrative convenience.

Barack Obama, of course, has stated that the West will not recognize the "annexation" of Crimea.  Russia held a Referendum in which 96% of the people of the region voted for merger with Russia. Further, where was International Law that Obama and his allies talk now, when they bomber Serbia, imposed the UDI on Kossovo, and shat about the armed invasion of Iraq in defiance of the international community as represented by the UN. Russia has now followed the example of USA and her allies. There is yet another serious problem. When the Soviet leader Gorbochev allowed the unification of East and West Germany,he was given a solemn assurance by the US President that NATO will not be expanded to cover Eastern Europe. The collapse of USSR and the rise of USA as an imperial, post-Soviet power meant that the temptation to ring the erstwhile territories of USSR with military bases was too strong to be ignored and the expansion of the NATO into the territories of the Warsaw Pact nations is really at the heart of the problem.

The President of Ukariane, Viktor Yanukovitch who was duly elected and a legitimate ruler was overthrown by street mobs of rampaging neo-nazis armed and encouraged by the European Union. The overthrow of a legitimate government by rioters is always a cause of concern but not for Obama and his Merry men. Snipers who killed nearly 100 people during the course of the anti Yanukovich protests are now hailed as great freedom fighters. Russia should have intervened militarily and stopped the mayhem on the street of Kiev, but Putin held his horses.In all fairness, Russia cannot allow its security to be permanently jeopardised by Ukaraine and the EU. Yet, Vladmir Putin showed remarkable statesmanship and restraint. The fear of Ukraine joining NATO is all to real to be ignored and the European Union is following the the Nazi policy of expansion by invoking the rhetoric of Democracy and Human Rights, rhetoric that hides the war crimes of USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ukraine during world war II set a horrible example of collaboration with the Nazis and the same forces are being harnessed now to legitimize Western intervention. More than one million jews were killed in Ukraine during the War and men like Stepan Bandera were really Nazis not nationalists. The Russian leadership is aware of the potential for Ukraine to divide on its east-west axis with the Russian majority eastern part joining the Russian federation and the western part becoming a rump member of the NATO. Given this volotile scenario, Vladmir Putin took steps to protect the vital national interests of Russia. The merger of Crimea with Russia and the eventualbreakup of the independent state of Ukaraine can be blamed on the misguded policy of the EU of encouraing the neo-nazi natioanlists.

Obama and the European Union has imposed 'sanctions" on Russian leaders. The world should also impose sanctions on American politicians for the crimes that country is comitting in different parts of the world.