I am not opposed to self determination for the people of Crimea; I am opposed to this referendum. Nobody can seriously argue there has been a chance for a campaign in which different viewpoints can be freely argued, with some equality of media access and freedom from fear and intimidation.
Hitler invaded Austria on 12 March 1938. The Anschluss was confirmed in a plebiscite on 10 April, just 28 days later, by a majority of 99.7%. Putin has done it in less than half of the time, and I have no doubt will produce a similar result in the vote. The point is not whether or not the vote reflects the will of the people – the point is whether the will of the people has been affected by military demonstration, fear, hysterically induced national psychosis and above all an absence of space for debate or alternative viewpoints.
There is no reasonable claim that Putin’s swift plebiscite is necessary because of an imminent threat of violence against Russians in Crimea. There is absolutely no reason that a referendum could not have been held at the end of this year, in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, after everybody had a chance to campaign and express their position. Putin has proved that force majeure is powerful in international politics, and there is every reason to believe that he could have finessed international acceptance of such a referendum in due course. Germany, in particular, is much more interested in its own energy supplies than in the rights of Ukraine. In twenty years in diplomacy, I never saw a single instance of Germany having any interest in rights other than its own national self-interest. It is very likely such a genuine referendum would have gone in Russia’s favour. But the disadvantages of open debate about the merits and demerits of Putin’s Russia, and his own self-image as the man of military prowess, led Putin to take the more violent course.
The vote yesterday in the Security Council should give every Putinista pause. Not even China voted with Russia. The Africans and South Americans voted solidly against. That is not because they are prisoners or puppets of the United States – they are not. Neither did they take the easy road of abstention. The truth is that what Putin is doing in Crimea is outrageous.
What happens now is going to be interesting. I greatly fear that Putin is looking to stir up as much disorder in Ukraine’s Eastern provinces as possible, perhaps with the aim of promoting civil war in which Russia can covertly intervene, rather than open invasion, but I do not put the latter past him. Against that, I am quite sure Russia did not expect the extreme diplomatic isolation, in fact humiliation, it suffered at the UN yesterday. I am hopeful Russia may step back from the brink.
The EU I expect to do nothing. Sanctions will target a few individuals who are not too close to Putin and don’t keep too many of their interests in the West. I don’t think Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovic need lose too much sleep, that Harrods need worry or that we will see any flats seized at One Hyde Park. (It is among my dearest wishes one day to see One Hyde Park given out for council housing.) Neither do I expect to see the United States do anything effective; its levers are limited. I doubt we have seen the last of Mr Putin’s adventurism.
Human society is not perfectible, which does not mean we should not try. I believe western democracy, particularly in its social democratic European manifestation from approximately 1945 to 2000, achieved a high level of happiness for its ordinary people and an encouraging level of equality. For approximately 20 years unfortunately we have witnessed a capitalism more raw and unabated than ever before, and massively growing levels of wealth inequality, a reduction in state provision for the needy, a distortion of state activity further to line the pockets of the rich, ever increasing corruption among the elite and growing levels of social immobility and exclusion, a narrowing of the options presented by major political parties until there is not a cigarette paper between them and their neo-conservative agendas, and a related narrowing by the mainstream media of the accepted bounds of public debate, with orchestrated ridicule of opinions outside those bounds. Democracy, as a system offering real choice to informed electors, has ceased to function in the West leading to enormous political alienation. On the international scene the West has retreated from the concept of international law and, heady with the temporary unipolar US military dominance, adopted aggressive might is right polices and a return of the practices of both formal and informal imperialism.
But every single one of those things is true of Putin’s Russia, and in fact it is much worse. Wealth inequality is even more extreme. Toleration of dissent and of different lifestyles even less evident, the space for debate even more constricted, the contempt for international law still more pronounced. Putin’s own desire for imperialist sphere of influence politics leads him into conflict with aggressive designs of the west, as for example in Syria and Iran. The consequence can be an accidental good, in that Putin has thwarted western military plans. But that is not in any sense from a desire for public good, and if Putin can himself get away with military force he does. His conflicts of interest with the west have deluded a surprising number of people here into believing that Putin in some ways represents an ideological alternative. He does not. He represents a capitalism still more raw, an oligarchy still more corrupt, a wealth gap still greater and growing still quicker, a debate still more circumscribed. It speaks to the extreme political failure of the western political system, and the degree of the alienation of which I spoke, that so many strive to see something beautiful in the ugly features of Putinism.
I wonder did anyone hear bother to read what Craig said regarding the OSCE’s report on Yanukovich’s last election (we could of course point to his serial rigging of elections) before they start parroting their master’s voice on the subject.
For a longer time-line on austerity; Japan. They, along with US and UK can print their own money, so it’s even worse for dependent economies.
http://www.social-europe.eu/2013/01/japan-abandons-austerity/
I just had a look at your second link Resident Dissident. Timothy Snyder’s second article is much better informed than the first you posted. In the second he demonstrates that the fascists were the previous Yushenko government (that of Timoshenko who has westernised the spelling to Tymoshenko in case she gets associated with Stalin) while he mentions in the first that Yanukovich had made reforms against this fascism. However he also writes:
“Although Yanukovych rescinded most of the dictatorship laws, lawless violence by the regime, which started in November, continued into February. Members of the opposition were shot and killed, or hosed down in freezing temperatures to die of hypothermia. Others were tortured and left in the woods to die.”
Of those deaths we know about according to the Paet/Ashton recorded call, were most likely caused by the Fascists who fired on both sides, and not “the regime”. In not making that clear he certainly knows less on that particular item than I do. Now would you kindly criticise the StormCloudsGathering video. They are the same Fascists from the Yushenko,Timoshenko government – which would then make everything understandable to all.
“In the second he demonstrates that the fascists were the previous Yushenko government”
No he doesn’t. This is typical lickspittle trick – whereby you think you can label someone’s whole political philosophy by reference to a single action – the equivalent would be me calling you a KGB thug and Mafioso for your support of Putting.
“Of those deaths we know about according to the Paet/Ashton recorded call, were most likely caused by the Fascists who fired on both sides, and not “the regime”. In not making that clear he certainly knows less on that particular item than I do.”
They are not the same deaths as referred to in the Paet/Ashton recorded call which was about snipers towards the ned of the Maidan protest. I very much doubt that Snyder knows less than you do – might I suggest you do a little more research on the protest rather than relying on your rather narrow sources of information.
China’s abstention makes Obama ‘clever’ by one-half. 4 days before the UNSC vote.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-obama-china-agree-ukraine-sovereignty-22847822
“The Obama administration is stepping up its attempts to court China’s support for isolating Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine.
With official comments from China appearing studiously neutral since the Ukraine crisis began, President Barack Obama spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping late Sunday in a bid to get Beijing off the fence.
The call was their first known conversation since Russian forces took control of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow Crimea region. It came amid signals that Russian President Vladimir Putin was hardening his position on Crimea, which is due to vote on joining Russia in a referendum this weekend that the U.S. and its allies have vowed not to recognize.
In making his case, Obama appealed to China’s well-known and vehement opposition to outside intervention in other nations’ domestic affairs, according to a White House statement.”
Uh, that last sentence…..huh?
Nearby, Turkey heating up.
http://www.vice.com/read/live-from-the-streets-of-istanbul
John Goss
Resident Dissident, argue against the video (did you watch it?)
Syria-UN-Putin-Cameron
“..it has become increasingly difficult for us to source and analyze the casualty figures in order to update them,” Rupert Colville, U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Last count 9,052 Syrian children killed – Human Rights Data Analysis Group
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/death-toll-syrian-conflict-93000
Putin-to-Cameron
“Who has the blood of children and peaceful citizens of Syria…one hardly should back those that kills the enemies and eat their organs and all that is filmed and shot – do you want to support these people…who wants to supply arms to these people?..”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFJ0fdvKlQQ
Who needs a pyschiatrist[SIC]?!!
It’s called ‘projection’ mark.. 🙂
Why is no one discussing the Tartarus/Sevastapol connection?
Too many ‘clever’ people for us to count.
John Goss,
I am in agreement with you:-
“To make the blog-post reasonable it is necessary to go back to primary causes of the referendum, that is, a load of thugs (this is not a popular rising but a western-funded coup) have taken over the legitimate government of the Ukraine.”
It is a bit naïve, to say the least, not to recall in the post-World War 11 era the long list of state sponsored terrorist interventions, and many destroying democracy and/or nationalist leadership which placed more emphasis on policies that sought to assist the masses and/or opposed the “banana republic” supplicant relationships. If I am to be doubted, just a few references:-
Iran – 1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh – a nationalist leader with respect for Western style democracy, ousted in the first CIA sponsored coup. A direct link can be drawn between the overthrow and installation of the Shah all the way through to the 1979 revolution and the current US/Iranian tensions today. As a side note, it was the US that led the Shah to nuclear. He at first could not understand why nuclear when Iran was oil rich; the US convinced him that with nuclear more oil would be available for Iran to sell on the world market, thus providing the Iranian economy with more income. The training of nuclear scientists and sales of nuclear technology actually pre-dates the 1979 revolution and is not a post-1979 phenomenon just thought up by the Islamic revolution.
Guatemala – 1954 – there was a democratically elected leader called, Jacob Arbenz who was overthrown in a CIA sponsored military coup. The point here, as with Mossadegh before him, being that as Mossadegh was aware of the undervalue of the oil Iran was selling on the international market and had determined to nationalize oil, and pay the Western companies fair market price for the acquisition process of nationalisation, so too Arbenz wanted to address the not dissimilar problem of foreign exploitation relative to lands and Guatemalan bananas. The CIA overthrow here – gave us the name “banana republic” for that is exactly what transpired post coup.
There is a very long list that one can insert hereafter of similar acts of destruction of nationalist leaders or fledgling democracies, coming from the same source.
…..Chile?
Venezuela – 2002 – there was an attempted coup ( i.e. the vote and polls was not the route to power). Washington immediately recognised the coup leaders, but promptly reversed itself when it realised that the Latin American nations and the OAS would not sanction and/or permit recognition of the coup.
All of this ( well not all – just a very, very truncated history) to suggest to all the analysts on this thread that the historical factual record runs counter to the declared formal narrative of “democracy”, “freedom”, and “equal rights for all”.
Ukraine – 2014 – the “government” in Kiev is the product of a coup. Moving forward, the issue for the West is not one of democracy or the absence thereof. For, how can one have embraced the likes of the
Svoboda Party? We are talking here about a political grouping that is as close as any could be to the actual original Nazi party and fascism – not any nationalism – nationalist socialist – of any decency.
Again John:-
“To make the blog-post reasonable it is necessary to go back to primary causes of the referendum, that is, a load of thugs (this is not a popular rising but a western-funded coup) have taken over the legitimate government of the Ukraine.”
And – you are correct.
What Herbie said also embraces reality and speaks to historical truths:-
“The West has thrown international law out the window and we now live in a world of trial by combat and cunning. The more observant Westerners will have noticed that increasingly we are forced to live in this manner in our own individual states.”
It has done so for a very long time, as I have here argued ( e.g. consider, if you will, the horrors of the Belgian Congo – human rights abuses in the millions – and the ouster ( CIA coup) of Patrice Lumumba).
The point being not so much that the will of the people and/or any decent form of democracy is a bad thing. True democracy, if the leader does not toe certain Western and/or US lines, is not really given a chance. Even the EU finds itself supplicant to US foreign policy. Post the Soviet collapse, would it not have made sense to have disbanded NATO, then seek a negotiated global peace by decommission through treaty much of the surplus armaments and nuclear arms in the world. To the contrary the neo-cons immediately saw, with the absence of the Soviet Union opportunities for war, war, war and more war. If I am to be doubted, then please listen to this:-
On youtube : Wesley Clark ( US 4 Star General ) US will attack 7 countries in 5 years.
In the face of this type of evidence one cannot sensibly deny the willful militarism as it marches around the globe. But, who is the prime mover and who then is compelled to respond in the “great game”?
So far as the pursuit of democracy in Ukraine is concerned, as one American President observed about their chosen installed leader – that he may be a “son of a bitch” but he was the United States son of a bitch.
As it was yesterday in so many other countries – so too it is in Ukraine – unless we choose to ignore the history of what has actually transpired throughout the world.
Craig: As a footnote: Where you state, “I believe western democracy, particularly in its social democratic European manifestation from approximately 1945 to 2000*, achieved a high level of happiness for its ordinary people….” I would take licence and complete the sentence with, “ accompanied by related levels of economic exploitation globally and a denial of rights in numerous countries around the world.”
*So 1945 to 2000 ( to which you refer Craig), if we are to maintain a global perspective, I guess then we cannot remove and/or ignore the reasons for, the consequences of and the continued trajectory of “full spectrum dominance” projected into and around the world.
CB
Yes John I watched the video which I’m afraid was the usual one sided argument that you prefer – in particular there was no reference to the violence against the Maidan protestors pre Feb 20 (there are films of the Berkun firing on protestors and numberous accounts of their torture of those they captured) , no reference to what their grievances were, no reference to the fact that the vast majority were not supporters of Svoboda, no reference to the fact that nearly all the senior positions in the Govt have gone to those who are not supporters of Svoboda, no reference to what the Russian govt was doing why all this was going on, no reference to the corruption of the Yanukovych regime. I could go on – but I suspect I am wasting my time, given I expect that you would be just a craven in supporting whatever provocation the Putin regime may draw up to justify it invading another bit of the Ukraine.
Yes there were facists on the side of the protestors – but I think you forget that the same can be said of many of Putin’s supporters – Zhrinovsky was one of the first to visit the Crimea after its invasion of the Crimea.
Golding
Most of the blood of innocents in Syria has been spilt by your “lion” Assad often with Russian weapons provided by your other hero. That your backward Islamist friends have joined in is inevitable as flies being attracted to shit.
Of course Putin is not above asking a few of his European “fascist” friends to come and rubber stamp his rigged referendum in the Crimea
http://euobserver.com/news/123453#.UyL2MnERZfw.facebook
Some interesting thoughts on the neocon backed fascist coup in Kiev, and a rare insight into the career of billionaire Ukrainian criminal Julia Hryhyan, better known to her fans as Yulia Tymoshenko.
Before and after pics as well:
http://annaraccoon.com/2014/03/06/uk-raine-terrain/
Utter failure by all contrarians to conflate Putinlove and the Left. Projection into the black-and-white analysis leaves little self-awareness for subtle shades of grey. The lack of ‘heroes’ in this matter makes all arguments of self-congratulatory dicktator hatred shrink like my johnson after a cold dip.
Clear Perspex ballot boxes in the Crimea – now why would that be??
‘Contempt for international law’ is a bit tendentious here. Putin may well take an instrumental view of international law, as the US government does. For the Government of Russia, that would be a rational response to counter US advantages in illegal use of force.
But with his Syria editorial, Putin introduced a hermetic US society to the UN Charter, the officially-suppressed supreme law of the land that almost no one in the USA has read. By informing Americans that peace is the law, Putin has made a unique contribution to jus cogens. Russia has a Commissioner on Human Rights in the Russian Federation – compare that to the US NHRI, a hopeless bureaucratic labyrinth fixated on discrimination to the exclusion of all other rights. Russia cooperates with human rights special procedures to a degree that would be inconceivable in the US:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/ENACARegion/Pages/RUSummary2010.aspx
In progressive implementation of international law, of course Russia sucks. In respect for and compliance with international law, Russia sucks less than the US government. Putin’s not a messiah, that’s a straw man. Putin’s state is the only effective check on a criminal US regime that is the world’s most serious threat to peace.
And of course here’s no option on the ballot paper for people to keep things as they are – democracy Putin style, just imagine if Salmond had thought of that!
“In progressive implementation of international law, of course Russia sucks. In respect for and compliance with international law, Russia sucks less than the US government. Putin’s not a messiah, that’s a straw man. Putin’s state is the only effective check on a criminal US regime that is the world’s most serious threat to peace.”
More moral relativism – and I suppose that makes Putin’s treatment of the Russians all ok? You will find that the same argument was common among Stalin’s fellow travellers and useful idiots – but he got found out eventually.
@RD
“Yes there were facists on the side of the protestors – but I think you forget that the same can be said of many of Putin’s supporters – Zhrinovsky was one of the first to visit the Crimea after its invasion of the Crimea”
The Russians have a long standing deal with Ukraine to base up to 25,000 soldiers in Crimea. There has been no invasion thus far as they were already legally there. Check your facts.
Again, Putin is no angel but in this case he is not the instigator or aggressor
@Ben
“Utter failure by all contrarians to conflate Putinlove and the Left”
The real left don’t love Putin or other autocrats – remember Orwell.
Ah, Res Diss
“Of course Putin is not above asking a few of his European “fascist” friends to come and rubber stamp his rigged referendum in the Crimea”
So soon back and again you’re gleefully posting propaganda as fact in an effort to mislead readers of the blog.
I think you’ll find that many many politicians from Europe and elsewhere, of differing persuasions, have been invited to monitor the referendum, and they’ve been invited by EODE, not by Putin.
Even Israeli observers have been invited.
However, the French fascists FN have not been invited:
“Précisons donc que le FN français n’a pas été invité par EODE.
Nous n’entretenons strictement aucune relation avec le FN et nous ne changerons pas. Et nous ne les invitons pas pour des raisons liées à nos propres positions politiques. Et à l’activité politique de certains de nos administrateurs, radicalement engagés depuis plus de deux décennies contre les FN en Belgique et en France.
Par ailleurs les positions de la majorité des responsables de l’extrême-droite française sont opposées à l’auto-détermination de la Crimée et en faveur des nouvelles autorités ultra-nationalistes de Kiev. Un conseiller de Marine Le Pen, Aymeric Chauprade a reçu une proposition d’invitation à titre personnel, comme géopolitologue, par le Parlement de Crimée et pas par la Direction d’EODE. Nous ne comprenons donc pas (ou trop bien) ses déclarations en ce sens. Ajoutons que 24h plus tard, la présidente du FN a désavoué à la fois le référendum en Crimée et son conseiller.”
http://www.eode.org/
It’d be a good idea if the mods took a closer look at your posting history. You seem only to post here in order to deliberately mislead.
Res Diss the one-sided arguments, as you call them, in the StormCloudsGathering video have not been seen on MSM at all. Now that’s what I call one-sided. It is the same MSM media that supported the Iraq war that has not been reporting the facts. It is the same MSM that speaks on behalf of its extremely wealthy lobbyists (the banksters). I would like to have something favourable to say about news reporting, but apart from a few arts-related topics I am stretched to find anything. Remember I got criticised 24 hours after the Paet/Ashton recording that it had not made the news. Well I have news for you. It has still not made the news. Yet all the lies about Russia invading Crimea (when they are legally entitled to have 25000 troops there). When the referendum is ratified they will be able to station as many troops there as they want. What a cock-up in supporting the Nazis!
“More moral relativism – and I suppose that makes Putin’s treatment of the Russians all ok?”
More B/W simplism. How do you suppose power is achieved in global politics? It’s a cauldron of molten humanity wherein the dross metals rise to the top. Of course, that is true only in systems you have a problem with.
“The Russians have a long standing deal with Ukraine to base up to 25,000 soldiers in Crimea. There has been no invasion thus far as they were already legally there. Check your facts.”
Where in the agreement did it say that they could surround Ukrainian Army bases, go around in uniforms without insignia (I’m sure they will suddenly put them on tomorrow), or put up barricades on roads into the Crimea – don’t be so thick as to believe everything that Putin tells you.
Hurbie
Let me give you a lesson. It’s free.
“No one cares about her using the word “fuck”.”
_____________________
So why do you and your fellow-Eminences keep referring to it? I don’t, Resident Dissident doesn’t, Uzbek-in-the-UK doesn’t – so why do the Eminences?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“That’s just talking point cover to distract from what was really going on.”
____________________
Precisely. The Eminences keep making that talking point to distract from what was really going on, ie, the ousting of the corrupt, Russian puppet by a popular uprising.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The “Fuck the EU” relates directly to the scuppering of the agreement that had already been signed by EU, Russia and Ukraine opposition, from which the US was excluded.”
___________________
Could you – or perhaps your friend Tovarish Goss, who claims to know the conversation so well – please show us, using the verbatim of that phone conversation, the relationship between that expression and the conversation that immediately preceded it. Just to demonstrate, using the verbatim, how that expression represented a desire to “scupper” the agreement.
*************
Hurbie to Resident Dissident:
“It’d be a good idea if the mods took a closer look at your posting history.”
_________________
And at yours, Hurbie. Why do you take such exception to a poster who’s obviously not a parrot and a useful idiot?
In blog terms, a call for censorship and/or banning is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Who is the ‘real Left’? I’ll leave that to RD.
http://www.logosjournal.com/orwell-and-the-british-left.php
The Independent Labour Party
When he did get involved in politics, Orwell chose to join a distinctively British body, the Independent Labour Party, which was towards the left and indeed the revolutionary flank of the British Labour Movement, but which had many distinctive approaches that Orwell shared. He was not as lonely a figure as an American socialist with similar ideas may have been, not least since socialism was in the mainstream in Britain.
The ILP had left the Labour Party earlier in 1932, but still had a wide, albeit shrinking base, members of parliament, and indeed still had many close connections and sympathizers inside the Labour Party itself and the unions. Although the ILP considered itself revolutionary, it was by no means Leninist and was open and non-dogmatic in its beliefs, with a mixture of pragmatic belief in improving the lot of people now and a firm belief that things could and should get much better – without being too specific about the form that future society would take.
It held what it called a “Third Way” position between Leninism and Labour Party right’s reformism, which is, of course, not to be confused with Tony Blair’s and Bill Clinton’s later appropriation of that title.
The ILP believed that socialism could be brought about by an elected Labour Party, which could suppress counter-revolution “by ordinary legal power backed by a Labour organization, and could thus effect the revolutionary change to socialism.”
Herbie
It is the Russian Government that is reported to have invited the fascists not EODE in the link I provided.
John Goss
I think you will find that the MSM media reported all the substantive points in that video as well as all the points being made by the opponents of the Iraq War. You clearly have something of a problem with media that report both sides of a story and allow people the free choice to make up their minds. I note you silence of the Russian govt suppressing bloggers who express alternative views to their own. Re Putin’s lie about the invasion of the Crimea I refer you to my previous response – which has also been made a number of times before by others including Habba and ESLO.
Ben
“It’s a cauldron of molten humanity wherein the dross metals rise to the top. Of course, that is true only in systems you have a problem with.”
Just not true – I have no love whatsoever for the British Conservative Party or its Lib Dem supporters. Fortunately, I live in a political system where I can do something about them.
@Resident Dissident
“Where in the agreement did it say that they could surround Ukrainian Army bases, go around in uniforms without insignia (I’m sure they will suddenly put them on tomorrow), or put up barricades on roads into the Crimea – don’t be so thick as to believe everything that Putin tells you”
So you agree that you were incorrect in your statement that the Crimea has been invaded?