Friday, March 14, 2014

Diana West on Ukraine Mess

http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/buzzwords-hide-truth-of-ukraine-coup/ 
Reading as widely on Ukraine as possible, I kept wondering why the story wasn’t making sense. Then I realized the buzzwords used to tell the story weren’t adding up.
Here’s what we hear: Democracy in action drove a corrupt leader, whose snipers had fired on protesters in Kiev, to flee Ukraine. Enter Russian forces into Crimea, Ukraine. The “Free World” must now take its stand against the “Russian Bear” for freedom, sovereignty and rule of law, and reject the outcome of an “unconstitutional” referendum in which Russian-majority-Crimea is expected to vote to join Russia. Meanwhile, please inject billions of Western taxpayer dollars and euros into Ukraine. 
Mute the rhetoric, though, and it’s hard not to notice that last month, a violent mob and rump parliament ousted the elected Ukrainian president in another “unconstitutional” process better known as a coup. 
It’s a coup even if Vladimir Putin calls it one, and even if Barack Obama calls it “standing up on behalf of democracy.”
In this way, “democracy,” too, becomes another buzzword. “Democracy,” good; “Putin,” maybe worse than Soviet-era dictators who came before him. (Romanian Communist defector Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa went so far as to write online at The Blaze: “Russia’s gradual conquest of Ukraine has become the most dangerous challenge to peace and stability in the world since the end of World War II.”)
If “democracy” vs. “Putin” is a struggle of the buzzwords, what is it that Washington and Brussels, capital of the European Union, are really supporting in Ukraine? To understand this – and I feel I’m still at the beginning – it’s important to see the players for who they are, not for who they are reputed to be. 
The buzzworded story sticks only if we respond to injections of Cold War rhetoric by seeing Barack Obama as “Leader of the Free World” – not as a president who has brought U.S. foreign policy into closer alignment with jihadist movements worldwide, while further socializing the U.S. at home and seizing non-constitutional powers for the executive branch.
We also have to regard the countries of Europe and NATO as “free” – that is, not “integrated,” and often not freely so (meaning not by national referendum), into the European Union’s one-world-fits-all, socialistic superstate, which is run by unelected, unaccountable ministers, many of whom actually cut their political teeth in Communist parties.
We also have to believe that “freedom,” “sovereignty” and “rule of law” – what Washington and Brussels say are at stake in Ukraine – are not just bursts of propaganda shot off to inspire good people to hand over those billions of taxpayer dollars and euros for Ukraine through the International Monetary Fund.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/buzzwords-hide-truth-of-ukraine-coup/#AFv4crD6YVlVWrwZ.99