In a few days [Ukraine] will hold parliamentary elections. The outcome is crucial to Russia's plans for a comeback.
But good Lord, were these words uttered as recently as today??
"Russia will fight for Ukraine even more than it fought for the Baltic States or even Eastern Europe to retain its dominant position," said the Heritage Foundation's Ariel Cohen. ...
Cohen said, "Without Ukraine [Russia] won't be able to rebuild its empire... So control of Ukraine - domination of Ukraine - is very important for Moscow." Full article here.
Wow. Talk about nostalgia for the empire's glory days. (May they forever remain in the past.)
2 comments:
Ukraine remained practically another terra incognita, insofar as the "civilized world" was concerned (although Kyivan Rus' existed long before Muscovy was established with its cumbersome government machine and rampant corruption (e.g. Ivan the Terrible purging his boyars, followed by Peter I who loathed them as totally corrupt lazy nincompoops). There is written proof of the fact: centuries ago an ambassador of the then doges of Venice, while traveling across Rus' expanses, stumbled on what he would later describe in his message to his superiors as a "Sparta-like Cossack republic where ALL people can read and write and where all decisions are made by a popular assembly; where men are capable warriors and women make beautiful wives who bear many healthy children..." How do you like this for starters?
What I'm driving at is Moscow mentality: 99.9% inferiority complex that the Kremlin rulers (btw very many of them of Ukrainian parentage) tried to make up for by suppressing and physically destroying Ukraine. At this point you might tag me as a nationalist. But "nationalist" means a selfless patriot of his home country (of course, this notion does not extend to those Arab kamikaze cranks; in fact, any Arab versed in the Koran will tell you that what they're doing is against what their religion holds forth). It's just that our politicians have learned to juggle terms and meanings. We have to be on a watchout for political fraud that's spreading on an epidemic scale. This epidemic is especially evident in post-Soviet countries, particularly in Ukraine and Russia where all those political upstarts, past and present alike, are trying to appear as hollier-than-thous, while pulling off their dirty stunts. I pity them because they know not what they are doing. They have no God in their hearts...
Well, I'd say you have a pretty good read on things.
However, the self-serving shenanigans of your politicians are not a lot different from ours. They're just a little less obvious here because we didn't have communism with its soviet intimidation mentality. The western kind of intimidation is more subtle and perhaps more insidious because of it. At least you can see it a mile off and know what you're dealing with from the get-go. (Not that that's any great consolation!)
Anyway, it's why I am what's called a "swing voter" with no permanent party affiliation. The way I figure it, the more of us there are, the more we can keep the politicos on their toes. ;-)
Post a Comment