Have you actually listened to the tape? The scandal on that tape is the hostility of the US officials towards the EU [nad, possibly, the fact that Russia bugged the call]. The rest is about them facilitating meetings between various Ukranian officials to try to put together that deal with the President (the one that Russia refused to sign and that fell apart anyway, with the President fleeing the country).
It is known as “diplomacy”. No doubt this is a strange concept.
Sure, they have their impressions of who they would like to see. In fact, though, none of it occurred like they thought it would. It is obvious that they are not driving events - they are reacting to them.
There is not a hint in their call that the deal was never going to be implemented, for starters …
Perhaps by responding to the question laid out to you? You could, you know, “react” to them as opposed to try to bury them as deep as you can with…utter-nonsense.
There’s been a brutal right-wing fascist movement in the Ukraine for a long time, many of the current Svoboda and Right Sector thugs and organisations being descended from the CIA-backed OUM-B and -M of the 40s and 50s, who committed numerous atrocities in the name of anti-communism.
The US didn’t have to create them. It did have the fund and organise them.
What is the good reason to support a gang of murderous thugs seizing power for themselves?
No-one was disappeared. No-one was murdered, other than by the fascists. The “impeachment” was undertaken after the parliament had been violently purged of members representing the party of the government and the Communist party, whose Russophile leanings made them primary targets for the murder gang currently sitting on Kiev.
Obviously there was theft. Yanukovich is a crook. Timoschuk was a crook. Yuschenko was a crook. The current triumvirate are worse than crooks.
There is a long and unhappy history of Ukrainian support for fascistic nationalists - which, given the equally long and unhappy history of massacre of Ukrainians by communists, particualrly the Stalinist terrorism of the 30s and various massacres since, and forced Russification, is understandable, if not forgivable.
However, they are in absolute terms a small minority. They were not the prime movers behind the Euromadain protests.
Recent efforts by Russian propaganda to label the lot of them as “fascists” harks back to the Stalinist use of terminology.
You classify them as “murderous thugs”. Interesting.
This is simply false.
This, too, is simply false.
Ukraine has problems with corruption it is true. Is there any reason you are claiming the current people are “worse”?
How on earth does the existence of these CNN iReporters back up your claim that “there is little genuine appetite for succession”?
See above. Your “site” [sic] didn’t back up your claim.
Anecdotal evidence, then? This doesn’t prove that “there is little genuine appetite for succession,” any more than the existence of these CNN iReporters does.
Is is evidence, alright: Evidence of the fact that a non-zero amount of Ukrainians claim that “there is little genuine appetite for succession.” They might be right, and they might be wrong. We do not know.
For God’s sake, man: Why can’t it be both? An authentic expression of popular will, supported and assisted and, in some part - quite possibly a large part - organized by Russia?
Please be consistent. Either consider anecdotal evidence as “evidence” - or don’t.
In my opinion it is “evidence”, albeit not the strongest; it is not like poll data created by a disinterested scientific pollster. But then, you can hardly have strong evidence of that sort under such circumstances.
What you can do, is make some reasonable assumptions based on the evidence you do know.
It can be, it is possible - but it is not likely, when you add all the evidence together. To wit:
Anecdotally - not much actual popular previous support for succession (yes, yes I know you do not accept this as “evidence” and so have not bothered to refute it);
It is in Russia’s interests for there to be counter-demonstrations;
Russia busses demonstrators in from Russia;
Demonstrations break out, clearly armed with flags and signs made in Russia;
… which just happen to co-incide (amazing co-incidence) with a Russian invasion of Crimea.
Add all of this together, and the smart money is on these demonstrations not being a genuine expression of popular will.
Yes, it cannot be proved like one would prove something in a court of law. However, the actual evidence, based on what we do know, is persuasive.
There seems to be a lot of dreamy thinking, from the likes of Malthus, people who prefer to believe the pleasant but implausible, like the fascist-led coup is really the embodiment of democracy.
That sounds like democracy to me. Seize power in a brutal coup. Do things you know people don’t support and would never vote for. Policies that would wreck ukrainian industry:
This is beginning to annoy me. It’s secession. The Crimea seeks to secede. If the Ukraine cedes it that will be the cession of the Crimea to Russia, or some independent government. True, Russia may succeed the Ukraine as the hegemons of the Crimea, but the putative popular previous support would be for secession, not succession.
