Why Putin Did It

[lovemydog]

Article Christopher Dickey, Foreign Editor for The Daily Beast:

Why Putin Did It

The Russian president’s speech about annexing Crimea is really about winning back the pride lost when the Berlin Wall fell. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech today announcing the annexation of Crimea and ratcheting up his confrontation with the West sounded to many American ears like the Bizarro rhetoric of a comic book character in a world turned upside down. He accused the West, and especially the United States, of all the sins for which he has been charged in the current crisis. He claimed the Europeans and Americans operate on the principle that “truth is not with us, it’s against us.” He claimed that when dealing with them “what is white is called black, what is black is called white.”

And yet … and yet … in a crisis where the slightest miscalculation could lead to a catastrophic war, we in the West would do well to listen closely to what Putin is saying. The bitterness in his narrative was palpable as he described more than two decades of humiliation at the hands of American and European governments that treated his country like a second- or even third-rate power. For him and for many of his people, whatever their other rationales may be, winning back Crimea is about winning back pride....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/18/why-putin-did-it.html

[Anansi1171]

1. Exactly. so the Hitler and Anschluss comparisons are at...

...least somewhat apropos?

[Cali_Democrat]

4. I think so

Putin may not be Hitler, but the annexation of Crimea is similar to that situation. Similar justification too.

[Ken Burch]

5. "The West" treated post-1991 Russia pretty much like the UK and France treated post-1918 Germany

In both cases, the new democratic system the "vanquished" nation was trying to create, a system in which NONE of those who were responsible for the acts of the Kaiser played important roles(just as few if any Stalinists or Brezhnevites were in leading positions in post-1991 Russia)was punished for the acts its dictatorial predecessors through economic and diplomatic humiliation(including reckless and completely pointless punitive gestures, like the extension of NATO and its troops to the Czech Republic, something NO Russian leader could ever accept without being seen as weak and pathetic by his country)and by the Western imposition of brutal austerity policies(the problems in the old USSR were political repression and excess militarism...NOT the fact that the place had full employment and healthcare for all).

And the West insisted continually(even under Bill Clinton, who SHOULD have known better)on treating post-1991 Russia as the defeated nation, rather than simply saying(as we should have)that the forty years of wasted lives, wasted money and wasted effort known as the Cold War, an effort that never made life better for anyone in Eastern Europe or Russia-those nations freed THEMSELVES from the dictators, we didn't free them and we couldn't have freed them, was finally just plain OVER and Russia and the U.S. would be peaceful and equal partners from then on in).

We are reaping what we sowed in 1991...we insisted on gloating, on humiliating Russia, on "rubbing it in". In doing that, we gave Putin just what he needed to make his way to power...just as England and France gave Hitler what he needed through the Anschluss AND the reparations demands(and the completely unjustified insistence that the Germans agree, at Versailles, to accept language in the peace treaty that gave THEIR nation sole blame for the "Great War"...even though every empire in Europe was just as much to blame for that war, and even though all the other emperors wanted that war just as much as the Kaiser and the Hapsburgs did.

This is what is bound to happen when the winners in a war insist, on saying "we won and YOU lost, and we will never let you forget it.

Yet none of our leaders, and that includes neither of our post-1991 Democratic presidents, have been willing to accept that.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

21. Yeah, the reparations and forced disarmament we imposed was just plain ol' mean of us.

[Ken Burch]

22. The IMF austerity program we imposed on Russia was as bad as both.

In 1991, the Cold War was over, and both sides were equally wrong in what they'd done in the name of it.

The only decent and moral thing to do then would have been to say "it's done. It's over. Nobody won and nobody lost. Now, let's work together as equals and make something better and different out of this".

But instead of that, the West HAD to make a big deal out of calling themselves "the winners&quot even though the Stalinist order was brought down by Gorbachev and the Eastern European people's resistance, and the Western capitalists had nothing to do with it).

It was the insistence we made, for pretty much the next two decades, of rubbing Russia's nose in our "victory" and in constantly putting them as a nation in their place that gave Putin the ability to manipulate the Russian people into letting him get power.

This could all have been avoided if only we hadn't been ugly about it.

Is it asking too much that we learn from that mistake?

Putin is horrible, but it's stupid and pointless to use the kind of rhetoric the Bushes used about Saddam Hussein about him and to reduce this to just being the story of one man's irrational villainy. Yes, Putin is a victim, but that's not the only thing that matters, and if we act if it is, we're just going to have something like this happen with the next invented "enemy" twenty years down the line.

What I'm trying to do here is to get us to break the pattern. Can't you see the importance of that?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. What imposition? Nobody forced Russia to take a dime from the IMF.

If they did it is because the dumb ass communists (who Putin murdered, imprisoned and tortured in service to) left Russia devastated by their graft and incompetence. Don't like the terms? Don't take the money.

And that doesn't justify invading other nations who had nothing to do with the IMF.

But I don't buy that because Russia has also made buckets of money from developing its petroleum industry. They are not the victims in anything.

[joshcryer]

2. Decent read. Good insight regarding the eastern bloc.

The US and west certainly did not want them too break away. But the people did anyway. It's revisionism to act as if the west had a significant part in that.

[FarCenter]

9. You're ignoring all the western-supported NGOs hard at work to stir the pot in Ukraine.

MAKING UKRAINIAN CIVIL SOCIETY MATTER

Dependence on foreign funding, which always characterized
a section of the Ukrainian NGOs, has become more acute recently as
other sources of funding are less readily available. Charitable donations
from Ukrainian enterprises to public organizations in 2010 made up only
15.1%, though in 2009 they made up 20.7% of NGO funds. Particularly
striking is the low level of state funding (at both the central and local
levels), which supplies only eight percent of the general NGO budgets
while constituting a substantial item in European NGO budgets (ranging
from 24% in Poland to 27% in Hungary and 39% in the Czech Republic).
Thus, it comes as no surprise that donations from non-residents (foreign
donors) constitute the top source of funding, particularly outside of the
capital city—standing at 21.5% of the average NGO budget in Kyiv-based
organizations, and at 30.5% elsewhere in the country.

These weaknesses have been partly acknowledged and a new tendency
in the development of the civil society is the creation of associations of
public organizations. A case in point is the actively operating partnership
“New Citizen,” which united over 50 organizations. The civic movement
“Honestly” (mentioned above), fighting for better members to be elected
to the parliament, now includes more than 150 NGOs and more than 400
activists from all over Ukraine. Organizations working in public councils
attached to various Ministries also consolidate their forces, for example
the public council attached to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. All these
initiatives reaffirm the need to unite all the democratic forces of civil
society – think tanks, NGOs, politicians and all citizens who care about
the future of democracy in Ukraine.

The new challenges highlight the importance of properly diagnosing
the internal shortcomings of Ukrainian civil society organizations and
identifying ways in which external funding could be used to strengthen
NGOs’ internal organization. This report collects evidence from fi ve
regions of Ukraine, highlighting problems that civil society organizations
are facing in seeking and managing international assistance and
suggesting ways in which they could be made sustainable. It reveals
insufficient use of institutional support by organizations that are in clear
need of such assistance, and points to several critical areas where such
support could be usefully targeted.

http://www.isp.org.pl/uploads/pdf/1965036503.pdf

[malaise]

11. Most folks are ignoring that

It wasn't and isn't merely humiliation that the West wants - it wants all the fugging resources and valuable assets.

Apparently folks know little of Russian history.
Only stupid neo-cons don't know that Russia must never be confused with those that were invaded and destroyed.
By the way I love the latest rants on Russian nationalism while they ignore the non-stop jingoism known as exceptionalism.

[Why Syzygy]

17. Refreshing

to read some rational discussion at DU. I don't visit often, and the divergence of ideals from the original inception is the reason. We used to oppose war.

[joshcryer]

14. I don't care about NGOs.

Oh scary, funding people who might represent our interests. Countries like Russia who censor media are so afraid of them.

[Demo_Chris]

3. No. It is about securing a VITAL piece of real estate. nt

[Ken Burch]

8. Which is what it's about for "The West", as well.

None of the governments, either of the EU or of our country, that have made sanctimonious speeches about what's going on in Ukraine(and yes, Putin is a total bastard and I hope Russians finally overthrow him, but only they can do that)give a damn about democracy OR about the Ukrainian people.

Russia wants Ukraine to go back to being a colony. The EU wants Ukraine to be a Western colony. Neither wants Ukraine to be free, or to be genuinely democratic, non-repressive, or non-corrupt. The fact that Yulia Timoshenko, who is a right-wing extremist whose views on social and economic issues are indistinguishable from Putin's, is accepted as a legitimate opposition leader(the fact is, she deserved her prison sentence, because she was a megathief just like Yanukovich) proves that this isn't a fight, at least from either "great power"s standpoint, about any ideals at all.

The protesters in Ukraine ARE for democracy and a better life for their country, but no one from the EU government cares about those things. The EU just wants to steal Ukraine's resources before Putin can. That's what privatization and market economics ALWAYS means...nothing but swag for those on top, nothing but misery for the rest of us.

[Demo_Chris]

10. Good post. nt

[dipsydoodle]

12. ditto

.

[geek tragedy]

13. Good post. Neutrality is what Ukraine needs. Nt

[okaawhatever]

15. That is absolute bullcrap. No one in the EU or US wants Yulia back in office. They also didn't claim

she wasn't corrupt. Their objection was to "selective justice" that was "politically motivated:. Fact is, she was charged with misuse of office and exceeding her authority. Not the rampant corruption that comes with Ukraine politics. Yanukovych didn't want to prosecute on those charges because everything she did, he did too.
Yulia was a recognizable figure, but she was terrible in office and couldn't get along with anyone. She is a divider and neither side wants her in their camp. The EU never claimed she wasn't corrupt, only that she be released because of the "selective justice" applied in her case.

"The EU wants to steal Ukraine's resources before Putin can." you said. Actually, neither is true. Everyone in the West wants Ukraine to 1. become energy efficient and 2. develop their own resources so that they can stand on their own. Putin has jerked around Ukraine several times with gas pricing and gas cut-offs. More importantly, the shut off in 2009 made Ukraine's recession much, much worse than everyone else's and has taken the country much longer to get out. Putin wants Ukraine to continue to buy his high priced gas and not develop their own gas. He wants the west to bail them out and when they become financially secure he may make a move then. Putin didn't want to annex Ukraine, he just wanted to control it. He was making too much money off of them with their being independent. The EU deal, coupled with Ukraine trying to develop it's own resources was likely what motivated him to move on Crimea.

[bemildred]

16. +1. nt

[AverageJoe90]

6. Some good stuff here, but more than anything.....

It seems to be a distraction from his nation's own failures(or, more specifically, of the semi-fascist corporatist "United Russia" party to which he belongs) and increasing domestic tensions.

[DFW]

7. I think Paul McCartney might have put it this way:

(Sung to the tune of "Penny Lane&quot

In the Ukraine old Yanukovich bled the country dry
He filled his pockets with most everything they had
It made the starving population mad
Things were getting bad

In the Ukraine the people gathered in the Maidan Square
And Yanukovich thought it might be time to go.
And on the off chance that he didn’t know
Millions made it plain:
“”Time for pain!”

The Ukraine is in the news on my TV
Ominous events are scaring me, I fear and
Meanwhile back….


The Kremlin thought that Mother Russia wasn’t big enough
So Russian-speakers in Crimea should annex
If they will promise not to have gay sex
Or tattoo their necks.

In Moscow Putin said Ukrainians had to settle this
And interference from the outside was a sin
But then he sent the Russian Army in
To the East Ukraine
Very strange!

The Ukraine is in the news on my TV
Ominous events are scaring me, I fear and
Meanwhile back……

Down in Sevastopol a vote was held to separate
To keep things fair they got a Diebold vote machine
They like to keep their referendum clean
With a clean machine.

So now the shrunken Russian Empire starts to grow again
And then Moldova gets cut up to keep the peace
If Putin’s lucky then the sanctions cease
Then he takes Ukraine
So insane!

The Ukraine is in the news on my TV
Ominous events are scaring me!
The Ukraine!

[lovemydog]

18. DUZY

in the sky with diamonds

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. I am late to this thread

but wanted to give you much needed ....

[DFW]

20. Thanks!

I don't the thread had an expiration date