More Ukraine

[János Széky]

" the “Maidan revolution,” really a U.S.-backed coup" -- ask the
Ukrainians, who sacrificed their lives.

J

Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> ezt írta (időpont: 2022. jan. 27., Cs,
9:50):

> Taibbi is now a full blown caricature of himself if not an asshole fully
> revealed. That line about Biden, which is all I have read, is a stupid
> irreal non-insight and insult if read straight, of course,
> and as satire carries its own out-of-touch cruelty......he thinks he's
> Hunter Thompson but he's only
> a juvenile Tom Wolfe...Thompson KNEW the core of the people he scored
> satirically......Taibbi only shows the core of himself....
>
> On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 11:10 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > Fun exerpts from Matt Taibbi on Ukraine.   He was a correspondent in
> > Russia and may well have defected,  but since Moscow started paying me
> the
> > big bucks I’m with hima all the Way. Taibbi starts off mentiong Biden's
> > recent wavering on the war talk, after which he assumes electodes were
> > attached to Biden’s testicles to keep him more alert and on message.  He
> > does look extra wary since then. Anyway...
> >
> > …….Obama looked at the big, muddy stretch of land atop the Black Sea
> > called Ukraine and asked if its strategic importance was worth war.
> > Meaning, real war, with an enemy that can fight back, not third-world
> > pushovers in Iraq or Libya who offer as much resistance as the British
> > colonial enemies Blackadder’s officers once described as being “two feet
> > tall and armed with dried grass.” His answer was an obvious no. Ukraine
> has
> > less strategic importance to the United States than Iraq, Afghanistan,
> even
> > Kuwait for that matter.
> >    No one will say it out loud, but the greatest argument against U.S.
> > support for military action of any kind in Ukraine is the inerrant
> > incompetence of our missions and the consistent record of destabilizing
> > areas of strategic interest through our involvement, including in these
> two
> > specific countries. At the moment the Berlin Wall fell the United States
> > had almost limitless political capital with these soon-to-be ex-Soviet
> > territories. We blew it all within a few years. Now that we’re really in
> > trouble in Ukraine, why would we keep to the same playbook that got us
> > here?……
> >
> > ….We started selling drones to “allies” under Obama <
> >
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cracks-open-door-to-the-export-of-armed-drones-to-allied-nations/2015/02/17/c5595988-b6b2-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
> >
> > and escalated the practice under Trump with billions in sales to peaceful
> > democratic havens like the UAE <
> >
> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-emirates-drones-exclusive/exclusive-trump-administration-advances-2-9-billion-drone-sale-to-uae-sources-idUSKBN27M06L
> >,
> > who had already used them to massacre civilian populations, children
> > included, in Yemen. We continued escalating such sales under Biden,
> adding
> > countries like Qatar <
> >
> https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-favors-u-s-sale-more-500-million-worth-armed-n1282413
> >
> > to our list of excellent customers in part with the idea of using the
> > country as a base for “over-the-horizon” strikes in an Afghanistan bereft
> > of “boots on the ground.” Even after our disastrous wars finish, we find
> > ways to continue them.
> >
> > This is relevant to Russia and Ukraine because we’ve cycled through at
> > least half of the usual failure process with both countries. Just a
> couple
> > of decades ago we essentially controlled the Kremlin, but so completely
> > mismanaged that situation with aggressive backing of a notoriously
> corrupt
> > Yeltsin regime that Vladimir Putin was able to consolidate power with
> > widespread backing of a public initially much disposed to us. Ukraine we
> > treated as a pawn nation from the start, backing a series of leaders who
> > shamelessly looted the country before forcing them into a miserable
> > Sophie’s Choice, about which the American public still knows little.
> >
> > In 2013, Ukraine was proceeding down a path of integration into the E.U.
> > Paul Manafort client Viktor Yanukovich, always described in America as an
> > outright puppet of Moscow, was actually a proponent of Euro-integration
> at
> > this point. “Yanukovich cajoled and bullied anyone who pushed for Ukraine
> > to have closer ties to Russia <
> >
> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-russia-deal-special-report/special-report-why-ukraine-spurned-the-eu-and-embraced-russia-idUSBRE9BI0DZ20131219
> >”
> > is how Reuters correspondent Liz Piper described his attitude, quoting
> him
> > as saying to those wanting to go back to Russia’s arms, “Forget about
> it..
> > forever!” But Putin’s ferocious tactics, including intense economic and
> > military threats, pushed Yanukovich to back out of the EU deal, and take
> > instead an economic trade package with Russia that included $15 billion
> and
> > the lowering by a third the price the country paid for natural gas from
> > Russia.
> >
> > This, in turn, spurred a Western response via the “Maidan revolution,”
> > really a U.S.-backed coup, in which Yanukovich was replaced with someone
> > more suitable to our foreign policy geniuses. “Yats is our guy <
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2XNN0Yt6D8>” is how our current
> > undersecretary for political affairs Victoria Nuland put it, insisting
> that
> > Arseniy Yatsenuk be Ukraine’s next leader, even though Ukrainians might
> > have preferred former boxer Vitaly Klitschko. When apprised some of the
> > E.U. countries were uncomfortable with a coup, Nuland famously said,
> “Fuck
> > the E.U.” Forget gunboats, here was F-bomb diplomacy!……
> >
> > …..There are people who will read this and cry, “Where’s your outrage
> > against Vladimir Putin? Why don’t you denounce him?” To which I say,
> fine,
> > I denounce him. Then what? When you’re done wailing, you’re still faced
> > with deciding whether or not to go to war with Russia, which is not a
> real
> > choice, unless you’re an idiot or General Jack Ripper-insane.
> > Unfortunately, the Nulands and Blinkens who’ll be making this call just
> may
> > fit those descriptions.
> >
> > The ostentatious incompetence of the foreign policy establishment, which
> > America got to examine in technicolor during the War on Terror, was one
> of
> > the first triggers for the revolt against “experts” that led to the
> > election of Donald Trump. Once, these were drawling Republican golfers
> who
> > got hot reading Francis Fukuyama, thought they could turn Baghdad into
> > Geneva, and instead squandered trillions and hundreds of thousands of
> lives
> > pushing Iraq back to the eighth century……
> >
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>