BALTIMORE, Maryland February 28, 2014 - Oleksandr Turchynov is a politician who has been around the block more than once. He knows exactly what Russian Strong Man Vladimir Putin is up to. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. In an address to the Ukrainian people tonight, the acting Ukrainian leader said "they (the Russians) are trying to provoke a military conflict and are creating a scenario identical to the Abkhaz one, when, having provoked a conflict, they annexed territory." Abkhaz is a small area in Georgia. I say, "in Georgia," and technically, I am correct. But back in 2008, immediately after obama took over in the USA, Putin had his forces invade Abkhaz and South Ossetia. They have never left.
What Turchynov is referring to is the reason Russia gave for their invasion of Georgia back in 2008. Putin said he was going across a legitimate internationaal border that separated Russia and the country of Georgia because ethnic Russians lived in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhaz. Putin said that these ethnic Russians were being harassed and endangered by native Georgians and the Georgian government. It should be noted that Putin never brought the problem to the United Nations. (Much has been made about Georgia's preemptive strike against the town of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia. Some countries, fearful of tangling with Putin, have justified Russia's overbearing attacks by pointing to the preemptive Georgian shelling of Tskhinali. obama, incredibly, was one such leader. In truth, Putin had already decided to invade and the Georgian preemptive strike only served to show the Russians were not the unbeatable force they sought to portray. In fact, the Georgians, fighting to protect themselves from an invader, fought valiantly. The same was not uniformly true for the Russian army.)
Now, Russia is occupying the autonomous Crimean republic, which is part of Ukraine, and justifying it because it is the one of the few Ukrainian districts where ethnic Russians are the majority population. Putin got away with it in 2008 and expects to get away with it now. He probably will. It is certain that the Crimean Peninsula is a strategic location. Russia's only warm weather port is located there. But it was in no danger. Not a bit. Nor were the airports. The Ukrainian military, such as it is, has no intention of challenging Russia on anything. Putin hasn't even tried to lie about that it is so obvious. In short, there was no actual reason for his stunt. It was all for show. It scared the new Ukraine government, and they wonder if it will break out of Crimea to Ukraine-proper. Putin has promised it won't. But don't bet the house on it. In fact, don't bet anything on it. Look for the possibility of Ukraine's eastern border - it separates Ukraine from Russia - to get pushed westward. Some say that for a hundred or so miles of Ukraine's eastern edge the majority population is also Russian. That's where Viktor Yankovych ran when he abdicated last week. Then he skipped over the border and ended up in Moscow. Putin sent him back to a town near the border for his press conference.
If you are one of the countries bordering Russia, especially if your country at one time had "S.S.R." after its name during the days of the Soviet Union, you better take a census of all area near your border with Russia to make sure there are no significant numbers of ethnic Russians living there. If there are, they are flares for Putin to aim his next invasion. In Crimea now, and in South Ossetia and before that in Abkhaz, Russia distributed passports to ethnic Russians to aid in identifying them for the invading army and further muddying the host nation's actions.
Sadly for Western nations, they have followed the military and political lead of the United States since the early part of the twentieth century when the USA intervened in the First World War and rescued the Allies (mainly France and Britain) from the awful stalemate the war had become. Again, in the Second World War, the United States intervened against the fearful Axis led by Adolph Hitler and after years of bloody war, led the Allies to victory. In the Second World War, the role of the British cannot be minimized and final victory would have been impossible without the English victory in the Battle of Britain, in North Africa, and their essential participation in the D-Day invasion).
There are many reasons why Putin has bullied his way into Crimea. Protecting native Russians is hardly one of them since they were in no danger at all from the Ukrainians. Ask yourself this: would a fledgling government trying to gain international recognition after bloody pro-West demonstrations take the time to endanger their own citizens, when doing that very thing has served as a pretext for the bully next door to come waltzing across the line? I don't think so. Back in Stalin's day - not that long ago in the big scheme of things - Crimea was purged of its native Tatar population. Just about every single Tatar, natives to Crimea since the Middle Ages, was booted out by the Russians. They have started to trickle back in and now comprise only a minority of the population. Wikipedia has a thumbnail sketch of the history of Crimea that, in situations where the reader knows nothing about it, will suffice to help understand what is going on now.
What is going on now is Putin doing his damnedest to return Russia to a position of International Leadership and, more importantly for him, International Influence. During the Cold War the Communists were dedicated to World Conquest. They were patient and ferocious. Only dogged determination and relentless pursuit of military superiority, especially technical superiority, won the day for the West. Well, actually, it was those things and the fact that one Western Leader, Ronald Reagan, managed to parlay all of that effort into a shrewd squashing of the Communist power.
Crimea's history is one of the most complicated, sordid and sad of any geographical location on Earth. It has been the scene of some of the most fighting ever seen on Earth. Whole populations have been displaced. Outsiders have come in, taken over, and only left when their military could no longer resist the next intended occupier. Many have heard of the Crimean War. It is not a legend. Western nations such as England and France joined with the Ottoman (Muslim) empire to thwart Russian expansion. During World War II the Nazi's invaded and had lots of trouble gaining control. They used some of the most awful techniques ever heard of, even for Nazis. Then, Stalin used alleged complicity by the native population; i.e. the Tatars, who had fought tooth and nail with the Nazis, as a pretext for removing every last one of them. They were shipped to Central Asia, at least the ones who survived the transport were. Losses were nearly 50% of the Tatar population.
Putin claims that the darkest day in Russian history was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He actually says that. A federal system with a long history of human degradation and unimaginable evil (tell me that describing Stalin as evil is going overboard), of trampling on the hopes and dreams of all of Eastern Europe, and that is the worst day in Russian history. Egads! Putin was a willing part of the Soviet Union. He was part of the dreaded KGB, the Communist Secret Police. And now he wants to get that kind of power and mindset back. I, for one, am celebrating its potential return.
Lsst night on his way to Happy Hour - literally (he actually said so), obama took five minutes to tell Putin publicly how wrong he was to invade Ukraine. He said there would be "costs." He accomplished two things in those five minutes. First, he assured Putin that the United States would take no meaningful step to slow or stop the Russian aggression. He did that when he listed the nations whose national interests were affected by Putin's aggressive imperialistic actions. Conspicuous by its absence on obama's list was his own country. Second, after the "stern" warning he did not return to the oval office to consult with worried allies, not even for a little while. Instead, just like he did on the night Benghazi burned, he trundled off to a political get together where he literally said, looking at his watch, "it's after five o'clock. It's Happy Hour for Democrats." I was so proud, at that moment, to be an American. Then, as any great world leader would do on a day such as this, he took up the mantle of the thug politician and started threatening, not Russia, not Putin, but the GOP and those very evil people who had their health insurance policies canceled by obama, and who had the audacity to speak out about it. The whole idea that obama would postpone, or even delay yet another of his endless political bashes for the country's business - as if being at another one was necessary for a lame duck like him - is more foreign to him then his non-existent foreign policy. Is it too much trouble for obama to at least look like he cares about our standing in the world? Instead, as our enemies and almost-certain-future enemies (I'm not 100% sure which category Russia is in right this minute) ramp up their military might, obama gleefully announces yet another gutting of the United States' proud Armed Forces. Remember, the ultra far left, including obama, think the USA has no right to lead on foreign policy because we are immoral and always have been. Better to let moral nations like Putin's Russia show the right way to do things. President Kennedy, FDR, if your spirits are there in the White House, would you please pay obama a visit. Maybe the White House staff could set out some chairs, because that meeting will last way too long to stand through.
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