h/t Gates of Vienna
I have been trying to figure out why from the start I have balked at the mainstream narrative framing the struggle in the Ukraine as that of a classic, black-hat, white-hat struggle -- Tyranny versus Freedom.
First, there are the players. It's just hard for me to see a white hat on the European Union, which in no way stands for preserving the liberty of the citizen. The EU stands for central control -- "soft" tyranny -- "soft" empire, too, and for the end of national sovereignty. A few weeks ago, in fact, I hailed Switzerland's successful, anti-EU referendum to wrest more control of its borders and immigration policy from Brussels, the EU "capital." Could the EU possibly be suporting the sovereignty of Ukraine, or of any other country for that matter? Certainly, that's what we are to believe, but the evidence is not convincing. Worth remembering also is that the EU is helmed by a bevy of erstwhile Communist, Marxist, Maoist and nuclear freezenik ministers who rule by means of an unelected, non-accountable governing structure that Vladimir Bukovsky has likened to that of the old Soviet Politburo. (I discuss the EU in American Betrayal in the context of who really won the Cold War.)
Another player is the John Kerry State Department, whose public face in Ukraine has been Victoria Nuland's. It is amazing to me that the "intercepted" phone call in which Nuland (recently of Benghazi talking points notoriety) sets forth her roster for the post-Yanukovych government hasn't flowered into full-blooming scandal. Nobody in the media seems to care a fig. Is it really a good and Constitutional thing that American bureacrats seem to be secretly determining the makeup of foreign governments? Isn't this a question worth some attention from, I don't know, Congress?
Then there's the nature of the former Ukrainian president's powers. Was Yanukovych a duly elected leader? By all accounts, it does seem that his presidential election was legitimate. So, then, what are we talking about? The democratic process in action, or mobocracy -- and a coup?
Then there are the origins of said democracy in action (read: coup). Geert Wilders, speaking this month in the Dutch parliament in opposition to sending Dutch money to Ukraine in the EU's multi-billion-Euro package, denouced the EU's role in Ukraine in vivid terms.
From Renew America's translation of Wilders' remarks:
Mr Verhofstadt and Van Baalen [Members of European Parliament] went to Kiev. They wanted to make history. There they stood in a square full of people, including National Socialists, Jew-haters and other anti-democrats. People with helmets and baseball bats. They went where the revolutionaries hang out. On stage they tried to stir up the mob even more.
Mr Verhofstadt spoke in no uncertain terms. He talked about a fight, a fight. That is what Brussels supports. And with money. The leader of the VVD [Party for Freedom and Progress], Mr Van Baalen, stood beside him cheering, clenched fists held high.
Shame on them. These shameless Europhiles and their dreams of empire.
Now we have always been told that the EU stands for peace. But now that these two characters have appeared on stage, we know better. The EU stands for war provocation.
Another point to mull: Roughly 25 years ago, when the Soviet Union was coming apart, the heads of these same Western states sanctioning Dictator Putin were all about shoring up Dictator Gorbachev and the keeping the Soviet Union glued together -- even as Red forces killed protestors in various places. Maybe the biggest change in the balance of powers since then is the rise of the EU and its "dreams of empire."
Another point that seems somehow related is that four years ago Dictator Putin may well have brought down the airplane carrying almost the entire Polish government to memorial services for the Katyn Massacre -- certainly, if true, a gigantic interference in national sovereignty, not to mention mass assassination. These same Western elites, however, were silent then, and never sought to investigate.
Now, they, also the US -- the brave, new West -- are all about freedom, sovereignty, rule of law -- or, rather, what the EU calls "European values."
In EU-speak, it's not the same thing.
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