I posted previously regarding the ‘pitfalls’ of democracy.
This very same freedom allows the United States to clandestinely back candidates of their choice, pouring enough money and power behind their potential puppet nominee to insure his election. This was seen again right next door to Russia in Georgia with the election of U.S. backed now Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. #msg-4207833
There is an obvious plan to subvert true democracies and selected leaders were not being chosen based upon character but upon their loyalty to an economic system run by the elites and dedicated to preserving their power.
"All we have now are pseudo-democracies."
US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Tuesday said it was important to expand NATO to Ukraine, where a pro-Western opposition candidate is tipped to win presidential elections later this month.
But there is another objective NATO is the means by which the United States will attempt to contain Russia and the Ukraine is strategically placed for such a purpose.
Perle, who believes that the White House should contain the Kremlin rather than cooperate with it, has criticized the campaign against Yukos shareholders from the beginning. http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/915/news/n_10814.htm
The plan has always been to contain or imprison Russia allowing her only to ilk out a meager existence in abject poverty void of pride and all hope for the future. We were so damned miffed when Iraq didn’t roll over and now Russia doesn’t particularly want to ‘spread em’. Excerpt: He also notes, quite clearly (p. 53) that any nation that might become predominant in Central Asia would directly threaten the current U.S. control of oil resources in the Persian Gulf. In reading the book it becomes clear why the U.S. had a direct motive for the looting of some $300 billion in Russian assets during the 1990s, destabilizing Russia's currency (1998) and ensuring that a weakened Russia would have to look westwardæ to Europe for economic and political survival, rather than southward to Central Asia. A dependent Russia would lack the military, economic and political clout to exert influence in the region and this weakening of Russia would explain why Russian President Vladimir Putin has been such a willing ally of U.S. efforts to date. (See FTW Vol. IV, No. 1 - March 31, 2001) #msg-1177138
Note, since March 31, 2001 Russia has gathered a little strength and is not such a compliant buddy.
-Am
Eye on Eurasia: Betting on East Ukraine
By Paul Goble UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Tartu, Estonia, Sep. 27 (UPI) -- A Russian nationalist Web site in Moscow has outlined a plan to create an Eastern Ukrainian national identity as part of a broader effort to prevent pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko from winning the Ukrainian presidency and thus turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian beachhead.
That plan is unlikely either to be entirely accepted by the Russian government or to be successful before the election even if it were tried. But the ideas contained in it may point to a potentially significant shift in the way some in Moscow view Ukraine and especially the ethnic Russians living there.
The Russian nationalist Web site, APN.ru, carried an article on Tuesday titled "Nationalism of the Eastern Rite," outlining the site's views of what is going on in Ukraine and what Moscow must do to counter it.
This article suggests that APN and its supporters believe that the United States and especially the American Democratic Party have given so much assistance to Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko that he now appears heading for victory in the upcoming presidential poll.
Yushchenko's victory, the article continues, would threaten Russian interests by bringing to office a pro-Western leader, who just like President Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia but with a greater impact, would oppose Moscow's efforts to organize the former Soviet space and give the West yet another triumph over Russia.
But it is not only the aid that the West is pouring in that makes it likely Yushchenko will win, APN says. It is even more the fact that Yushchenko has been able to exploit Ukrainian identity which the site says that "western Ukraine controls." Yushchenko's ability to do that has deprived his opponent, incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, of the ability to mobilize the population and to gain the support for the economic growth that he, Yanukovich, has overseen.
To deal with that situation, APN argues that it is necessary to create a counterweight to western Ukrainian nationalism. And because Yanukovich has failed to do that, Russia must "create in Ukraine its own version of nationalism, one friendly to Moscow."
How could that be done? APN argues that "in eastern Ukraine, a new political nation has already been formed, which only needs a push in order to become conscious of itself." That nation wants an alliance with Russia, and its creation as a new kind of Ukrainian identity will "seize from the hands of Yushchenko (his current) monopoly on Ukrainian identity."
APN proposes calling this new identity "the young Ukrainians" -- or "nationalism of the Eastern Rite." And the site suggests that Moscow has the ability to create it by playing the hostility of eastern Ukrainians against the western Ukrainians who have dominated much of the Ukrainian national movement for the last generation.
"If the slogan of the 'westerners' is 'Ukraine is not Russia,'" APN suggests, "the slogan of 'the young Ukrainians' is that Ukraine is not Galicia!" Such a slogan, the site continues, will give Yanukovich the chance to portray Yushchenko as a foreign agent, something who will work for and at the direction of outside powers.
The site concludes with a set of slogans it suggests Moscow and its ally Yanukovich should use. Among them are "Ukraine is an independent state not controlled from outside." "Ukraine is not Galicia. The true Ukrainians are the Ukrainians of the East. 'Westerners' are too much under the influence of Poland." And "In Ukraine, there are two political nations -- the Ukrainians and the 'Westerners.'"
This article provides the latest measure of just how frightened some in Moscow are by the prospects of a Yushchenko victory, how disturbed they are by the failure of Yanukovich to be more effective, and how willing they are to recommend pulling out all the stops to try to stop him. Such concerns are clearly more widespread in the Russian political elite than many in the West may suspect.
But more important, it points to some potentially significant shifts in future Russian policy toward Ukraine and across the former Soviet space more generally.
In the past, Moscow has long sought to use ethnic Russian "compatriots" in the former Soviet republics to advance its interests. Sometimes that policy has worked, but more often it has backfired by allowing nationalist groups in these countries to point to such efforts as yet another reflection of "the heavy hand of Moscow."
Such a reaction has been especially true in Ukraine, and so at least some Russian nationalists in Moscow, interested in defending or advancing what they see as Moscow's power position in Ukraine, are recommending a new and more sophisticated approach, one more likely to appeal to supporters of Russia in that country and less likely to mobilize their opponents.
In the run up to the Ukrainian elections, such a policy is unlikely to bear fruit: National identities cannot be ordered up or changed so quickly. Consequently, those in Moscow frightened by the possibility of a Yushchenko victory may turn to more active measures.
But as a longer-term strategy of recognizing the Russian community in Ukraine as part of a new Ukrainian nation, the ideas contained in this APN may matter a great deal more both in Ukraine and across the post-Soviet space.
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(Paul Goble teaches at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)
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