Western imperialist hypocrisy on Crimea
March 18, 2014 <http://www.herald.co.zw/author/mgwaunza/> Musah Gwaunza
<http://www.herald.co.zw/category/articles/opinion-a-analysis/> Opinion &
Analysis
Joseph Kishore
Sundays referendum in Crimea has been accompanied by a torrent of
denunciations from the Obama administration and the American media. It is
being seized upon to escalate the imperialist offensive in Ukraine and
Eastern Europe, whose ultimate aim is regime change or war against Russia.
In the conduct of its foreign policy, the United States operates on the
principle spelled out by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels that if a lie is
big enough and repeated often enough, it will be accepted.
Anticipating that the vote would favour secession from Ukraine and
incorporation into the Russian Federation, the US and the European Union
declared beforehand that it was illegitimate and illegal.
A statement released by the White House said the vote was administered
under threats of violence and intimidation from a Russian military
intervention that violates international law.
What hypocrisy! The United States has staged elections in countries it
blasted into submission and militarily occupied, with tens of thousands of
American guns, tanks, war planes and missiles pointed at the local
population eg, Iraq and Afghanistan and hailed the votes as models of
democracy.
Following a vote at the UN Security Council on Saturday on a resolution
condemning the referendum, which was vetoed by Russia, US Ambassador to the
UN Samantha Power declared, The reason only one country (Russia) voted no
today is that the world believes that international borders are more than
mere suggestions.
There is no country that so brazenly violates international borders as the
United States. In dealing with regimes it deems a hindrance to its global
geostrategic and economic aims, US imperialism treats the principles of
national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of nations which it is
presently invoking against Russia not as suggestions, but as
irrelevancies.
More than a decade ago, Washington officially adopted the policy of
pre-emptive war banned under international law as a form of aggression
and maintains as a matter of state policy that it has the right to launch
drones and kill people in any country without the permission of the
government a position that a top UN official declared illegal in 2013.
Under Obama, assassinations and mass killings by such means have been vastly
expanded, taking thousands of lives, including those of American citizens,
in a number of countries.
US Secretary of State John Kerry declared in a phone conversation over the
weekend with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that disturbances in
eastern Ukrainian cities had been encouraged by Russia, even guided by
Russian intelligence officers . . . as a way to undermine the new Ukrainian
government and possibly create a pretext for further Russian military
intervention.
American imperialism has written the book on stoking internal conflicts to
create the pretext for human rights interventions for the purpose of
toppling governments and installing client regimes a policy it has pursued
most recently in Syria and Libya. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991, Washington set about dismantling Yugoslavia as part of its strategy
of bringing the former Eastern Bloc countries and former Soviet republics
into the US sphere of influence.
It backed wars in Bosnia and Croatia in the mid-1990s and led a 78-day air
war against Serbia in 1999 that killed thousands in order to separate Kosovo
from Serbia, subsequently recognising the long time Serb province as an
independent state.
Kerry accuses Moscow of encouraging disturbances and undermining the
government in Ukraine, having overseen the manipulation of protests in Kiev
and their takeover by fascistic forces in order to bring down the elected,
pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and install a pro-US regime
stocked with neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic ministers.
In the Ukraine crisis, it is the US and its European allies that are the
aggressors. They have intervened in order to dramatically alter the balance
of forces in the region to the disadvantage of Russia.
They seek to turn Ukraine into a forward staging post for US and NATO
military forces and endless provocations aimed at weakening and ultimately
dismembering Russia.
US warships have been transferred to the region. Countries in the region
allied to the US and Europe including Lithuania and Poland, which Vice
President Joseph Biden will be visiting this week are receiving increased
aid. Those more closely aligned with Russia, such as Belarus and Kazakhstan,
are targeted next for regime change.
Acknowledging these facts does not imply any political support for the Putin
regime or its actions in response to Western provocations. The Russian
government represents criminal oligarchs who enriched themselves from the
dissolution of the Soviet Union by stealing former state property.
It is deeply hostile to the working class. In advancing its interests, it
relies on the promotion of Russian chauvinism both in Ukraine and Russia. It
is incapable of making an appeal to the broad and deep antiwar sentiment in
the working class of Russia, Ukraine, Europe, the US and the rest of the
world.
As the crisis in Ukraine proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear that the
aim of the US is to deliver Russia a humiliating defeat and permanently
alter the relationship of forces between it and American imperialism.
In an editorial published on Sunday, the Washington Post declared that the
West must also embrace the goals of punishing and, over time, weakening Mr
Putins regime.
US Senator John McCain, currently part of a bipartisan delegation of
senators visiting Kiev, outlined the basic strategy of dominant sections of
the American ruling class in a comment published Saturday by the New York
Times. (Putins) regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside,
McCain wrote.
Eventually, Russians will come for Mr Putin in the same way and for the
same reasons that Ukrainians came for Viktor F. Yanukovych. He went on to
call for more and harsher sanctions against Russia not simply for its
actions in Crimea, but for abusing the human rights of Russian citizens
an open-ended call for an Iran-style quarantine. He further called for
Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to be admitted to NATO.
McCain and other senators, including Democratic Party Whip Dick Durbin, have
called for the immediate provision of arms to the new Ukrainian government.
The Ukrainian revolution was aimed at eliminating Russian influence in a
country on its border.
Either the American ruling class expected that Russia would not react and
has responded with fury at the Putin regimes attempt to preserve control of
Crimea, or the Crimean action was anticipated and has been used as an
opportunity for escalating threats and intimidation.
How far is the United States prepared to go? Whatever its immediate
intentions in relation to Ukraine, the actions of imperialism have a
definite logic.
In Ukraine, the US and the European Union have promoted ultra-right and
fascistic paramilitary forces who are now in positions of state power. They
are bent on provoking a Western war against Russia and repressing all
opposition within the country.
A National Guard established by the new government is set to transform the
shock troops of the revolution into state-sanctioned forces. wsws
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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