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.
Ben
The ILP’s MPs rejoined the Labour Party in 1947 and the ILP rejoined Labour as a pressure group in 1975 where it still exists to the present day
http://www.independentlabour.org.uk/main/
Orwell always made it clear that he was a supported to the post 1945 Labour Government.
So you agree that you were incorrect in your statement that the Crimea has been invaded?
Absolutely not.
Hurby
Thank you for drawing our attention to EODE – the “Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections”.
Taking a break from organising the triumph of Nazi-style fascism in Ukraine, I had a quick look at its website.
It is, apparently, a “non-aligned NGO”.
Leaving aside for a moment the memories which the word “non-aligned” awakens (you are probably too young to remember, Hurby), I noted the following:
“EODE conception is that the EU on the one hand and the CIS – which Russia is the heart – on the other hand, are the two halves of the Greater-Europe from Vladivostok to Rejkjavik. They have a common destiny and are called one day to form a common state unity”.
I’ll let readers draw their own conclusions from that blurb.
CURIOUSLY enough, although the EODE homepage mentions the existence of a “Board of Directors” and a “Scientific Council”, it seemingly prefers not to mention who the members of these two bodies are.
Could any Eminence – it doesn’t have to be you, Hurbee – perhaps enlighten me as to why Russia should be happy to have people from EODE observe the conduct of the referendum but not observers from the OSCE?
“Is NATO a military organisation? Yes.”
“Is it moving towards Russia’s borders. Yes.”
The numerous pro-establishment trolls afflicting this comment facility constitute a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on the site, preventing earnest discussion or meaningful debate and discourages user participation, I don’t for one moment believe these opaque popularity polls indicating the site’s traffic are reliable and not manipulated -that the site is moribund, stagant, toxic to all life, thanks to these sycophants is patently evident. Its effect on us dear readers is negligible, on one of the rare and increasingly more infrequent visits, are found the same tireless champions of privilege, the status quo and promoters nay apologists for unmitigated evils of inequality and abuse of ill-got power strutting their stuff as if they owned the joint, as absent of any significant change – the inception of the ideas and practice of demo-cracy or merito-cracy – which such craven worms would un-naturally abhor, casting them into the oceans of mediocrity which is their true lot, they do infact ‘own’ all of it, all of us are ensnared in their traps and wheels. See the previous topic on Scotland’s Independence Referendum, which has become an incestuous orgy of the usual suspects reinforcing each other’s highly-selective piss-poor pro-union talking points championing a feudalist exploitative hierarchy from which they expect or hope to receive some reward. We are many, they are few, despite the blustering fart-laden cacophony of the now dominant claquers serving the Empire and by deluded wishful-thinking that they can rise, serve themselves, who vie for attention. It may repel us dear readers, it’s effect on this blog’s esteemed and perhaps malleable Emperor is to sway his thought, stay his pen and doubt his instincts which service of the same empire, same rackets, already sought, quite openly to dull and diminish.
New Moderators for Old. Dinner is served in the Long Hall, till later then fellow slaves.
KILL the Messenger Film Release date OCT 10, 2014
Kill the Messenger, Starring Jeremy Renner, is Coming in October
Source: Focus Features
March 5, 2014
Focus Features announced today that Kill the Messenger, starring Jeremy Renner (Marvel’s The Avengers, The Bourne Legacy), will be released on October 10, 2014 in limited theaters. The movie will then expand on October 17 and again on October 24.
The dramatic thriller is based on the remarkable true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb. Webb (Renner) stumbles onto a story which leads to allegations that the CIA was aware of major dealers who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S., and using the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua. Webb keeps digging to uncover a conspiracy with explosive implications – and draws the kind of attention that threatens not just his career, but his family and his life.
Josh Close, Rosemarie DeWitt, Andy Garcia, Lucas Hedges, Tim Blake Nelson, Robert Patrick, Barry Pepper, Oliver Platt, Michael Sheen, Paz Vega, Michael Kenneth Wiliams and Mary Elizabeth Winstead co-star in the Michael Cuesta-directed film.
Read more: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=115609
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/jeremy-renners-kill-the-messenger-set-for-oct-10-release-1201125790/
YouTube Trailer AMC Theaters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPRbl7arMc&feature=youtu.be&a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Messenger_%282014_film%29
IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216491/
http://www.sandiegored.com/noticias/44601/Enrique-Camarena-s-death-is-blamed-on-CIA/
Enrique Camarena’s death is blamed on CIA
War of American agencies in Mexico.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_24343140/ex-dea-officials-make-bombshell-allegations-about-kiki
Oct 26, 2013 02:15:19PM MDT
Ex-DEA officials: CIA operatives involved in ‘Kiki’ Camarena murder
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times El Paso Times
Background on Gary Webb
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022291453
http://whosarat.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=163286
http://www.scribd.com/benharper404040
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111246977/Powderburns-COCAINE-CONTRAS-AND-THE-DRUG-WAR
http://powderburns.org/testimony.html
“There is no question in my mind that people affiliated with, on the payroll of, and carrying the credentials of,the CIA were involved in drug trafficking while involved in support of the contras.”
—Senator John Kerry, The Washington Post (1996).
“Several informed sources have told me that an appendix to this Report was removed at the instruction of the Department of Justice at the last minute. This appendix is reported to have information about a CIA officer, not agent or asset, but officer, based in the Los Angeles Station, who was in charge of Contra related activities.According to these sources, this individual was associated with running drugs to South Central Los Angeles,around 1988. Let me repeat that amazing omission. The recently released CIA Report Volume II contained an appendix, which was pulled by the Department of Justice, that reported a CIA officer in the LA Station was hooked into drug running in South Central Los Angeles.”
–U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters – October 13. 1998, speaking on the floor of the US House of Representatives.
Habby
If you agree with Res Diss posting very obvious propaganda pieces, then I’d suggest you’re both useful idiots.
================================
“Fuck the EU” in that context means that she disagreed with what the EU, the Ukrainian opposition and the Russians were in the process of agreeing, in order to avoid the shambles and further potential violence the neocons were creating. They’d excluded the American neocons from that meeting.
After the EU, the Ukrainian opposition and the Russians had agreed a deal the snipers moved in to scupper it.
That’s clear enough.
The EU organised agreement was fucked.
“Fuck the EU”
You can put your own interpretation on her words as you see it, should you wish, and readers can judge for themselves whether it makes sense or not.
@Resident Dissident
Stick that head in that sand and proceed to stick fingers in ears
” 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.”
How’s that working for you?
“Could any Eminence – it doesn’t have to be you, Hurbee – perhaps enlighten me as to why Russia should be happy to have people from EODE observe the conduct of the referendum but not observers from the OSCE?”
I think you’ll find that OSCE declined.
I think you’ll further find that Merkel and Putin have agreed for OSCE to monitor events in east Ukraine, this very day in fact.
Merkel is having to clean a lot of American diapers these days. They think their bluff, bluster and bullying is grown up politics you see.
She’s the mammie whilst the Americans are still playing cowboys and Indians.
“How’s that working for you?”
We’ll see in 2015 subject to convincing the electorate.
Res Diss, your comments are those of an ignoramus. Come back when you’ve read the prior review proceedings of each country by the charter and treaty bodies.
“We’ll see in 2015 subject to convincing the electorate.”
So far, not so well, then?
@Chris Jones
“Stick that head in that sand and proceed to stick fingers in ears”
I think you will find it works better the other way around but I’ll bow to your greater expertise on such matters. Bet you think that the Russians were invited into Prague and Budapest in 1968 and 1956.
“”Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country,” John McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
pot/kettle
“Come back when you’ve read the prior review proceedings of each country by the charter and treaty bodies.”
Already have – they say more about the UNHCR than anything else – perhaps you should read the reports on each country by Amnesty/HRW/Reporters without Borders/Transparency International/Bloggers that Putin is trying to ban and then we can compare notes.
Vlad be my Dadd
I would also be interested on your views of the working of the Russia Cyprus tax treaty and how often Russian oligarchs and those close to the President have observed the niceties of Russian Law when it comes to getting Central Bank of Russia permission before opening foreign bank accounts and holding investments in foreign companies, or have got the requisite permissions for the sale of those Russian resources that they have liberated from state control.
Putin is corrupt and FUBAR, and less hampered by voter dissatisfaction, but his forked-tongue seems less reptilian than the duplicitous leaders of the West. That’s about all the Putinlove I can muster.
I’ve always thought that a rather effective sanction against Russian’s worst elements would be an amendment to the G20 money laundering regulations that would freeze the bank account and investments of any Russian national until they could demonstrate that they had complied with Russian law by providing the necessary permissions – would be difficult for Vlad to complain about us helping to support Russian law. The Best thing is that Switzerland and all the tax havens would have to comply.
Discussion is academic. Some will not like hearing that 93% voted in favour of union with Russia.
Crimea exit poll: Around 93% back Russia union
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26598832
Yes Mary – but I’m sure with a little bit of encouragement they can get that figure above 100%.
Given that at least 36% of the population are ethnic Ukrainians and Tartars – would you say that a 93% vote – perhaps suggested that this was another Soviet election that didn’t reflect the views of the entire population. Perhaps Mary would like to comment.
And how many voted for the status quo – well that is easy to answer – 0% because there was no such option on the ballot paper!
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-21/news/mn-60465_1_black-sea
“Ukrainian Defense Minister Vitaly Radetsky warned that “Crimea is part of Ukraine and we won’t give it up to anyone, no matter what it may cost us. Everyone should know that.”
Western and Russian observers worried aloud Friday that the fight threatened to turn explosive.
One diplomat in Kiev commented that “the only way Ukraine can stop (the Crimeans) is with the use of police power, and that runs the risk of confrontation.”
Jubilant Crimean deputies applauded and hugged each other after an overwhelming majority of 69 out of 73 present approved the bill restoring a 1992 constitution, which puts Crimea’s relations with Ukraine on a foreign footing.
Toward evening they went a step further by considering an appeal to Moscow and Kiev to allow Crimea to move toward rejoining Russia, the Interfax news agency reported.
A worried group of dissidents in the Crimean Parliament warned that the vote on the constitution would lead to violence.
“I am very afraid,” said Lila Budzhurova, an ethnic Tatar. “This vote has put Crimea on the verge of civil war.”
And Mary – why do you think discussion is now academic?
” perhaps suggested that this was another Soviet election that didn’t reflect the views of the entire population. ”
It never does; not anytime, not anywhere in the World. Oh…that wasn’t your point.
Based upon the reported 80% turnout – a 93% yes vote suggests that 100% of ethnic Russians voted for Union with Russia and 38.5% of ethnic Ukrainians and Tartars – ho hum!
On top of what has already been mentioned that MSM have not been reporting there was a plan through the US attache to Ukraine to cause false flag events and blame it on the Russians. Because Anonymous Ukraine released the emails it never came to fruition. But don’t put it past the Yanks to try something else. The Stars and Stripes, with all its sick history of sticking standards everywhere and claiming a new state, is a false flag itself. What else can we expect from them?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWkfpGCAAuw
“There is no reasonable claim that Putin’s swift plebiscite is necessary because of an imminent threat of violence against Russians in Crimea.”
How do you know?
“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.”
So Putin is stupid? I really don’t think so.
You’re saying he’s wasting money using armed forces when he should have left the job up to his diplomatic service.
“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.”
Spoken like a true British diplomat. Also said by Brits about France. Always makes me laugh! Funny, when you consider that Britain is a dependency of those brash buggers in the US! Shut down Menwith Hill and then say it. Or sanction the US until it shuts down Guantanamo.
Or here’s one – you know how the Brit media have sneered at Russia’s use of its veto on the Security Council? Well how about next time the US vetoes a resolution to help Israel (which for more than 20 years has been the most common reason that any country has vetoed anything at the UNSC) – how about, when it happens again, the ‘Brit’ government and ‘Brit’ media might criticise that? They haven’t got the guts!
You also use the word “interest” in two different meanings in the same sentence.
That’s the rhetorical device that classical scholars will recognise as antanaclasis. Here it confuses things.
Typo. I typed:
“next time the US vetoes a resolution to help Israel (which for more than 20 years has been the most common reason that any country has vetoed anything at the UNSC)”
I should have been clearer by typing:
“next time the US vetoes a resolution which criticises Israel (which for more than 20 years has been the most common reason that any country has vetoed anything at the UNSC)“
John Goss @ 7.34pm “Wrong referendum, wrong saviour” and I gave the wrong link. Apols. This is the correct one.
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_14/Operation-Independence-Continues-Anonymous-exposes-US-invasion-plans-in-Ukraine-7517/
Was Yalta worth it?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/world/europe/crimea-yalta-history/index.html
“Many Ukrainians — including interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyk — think Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to expand Russia to the old borders of the Soviet Union. They say that if Moscow is allowed to annex Crimea, it will look hungrily to eastern Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. They lament what they saw as the West’s indifference when Russian tanks came within 50 miles of the Georgian capital Tbilisi in 2008.
And they fear Putin will continue to do all in his power to stop Ukraine from knocking at the door of that “common European home” by seeking to join the European Union”
@RD “I think you will find it works better the other way around but I’ll bow to your greater expertise on such matters. Bet you think that the Russians were invited into Prague and Budapest in 1968 and 1956”
I’m not a defender of all things Russian. That’s not what this is about.This is 2014 and not the Soviet Union-bringing up 1956 and 1968 is silly.
ps-the extra sand in the ears will help the buffering