Posted October 22, 2002

Ukraine

I have recently found the article "The Revolution Comes to Ukraine" by Chad Nagle, posted at your website on March 30, 2001.

At first, as I was reading the said article, I thought the author is objective and moderately critical about the actions of the President Kuchma regime, as any person of goodwill should be. Still afterwards, as I passed through the middle of the text, I realized that something was not right about the author's attitude to the situation he described. Later, as I read the closing sections of the article, I clearly understood that the author is either a stupid Western man trying to show how 'smart' he is in terms of the political situation in my country, or just a cynical and abject son of a b*tch downpouring tons of dirt onto the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition forces, that is, acting like a conscious or unconscious supporter of the Kuchma governance, a criminal, corrupt regime stalling any civilized reform in the Ukraine nowadays and damaging our future as well.

Closing up, I wish to say that a decent web-based resource dealing with serious political/social/economic/ethnic issues should be more selective in terms of what kind of materials must be posted within it. Otherwise, such an undertaking is doomed to become an unintentional assistant of the 'bad guys' who do many wrong things to normal, law-obedient people. ...

~ Alexander Rozhkov, Kiev, Ukraine

Chad Nagle replies:

Your recommendation that Antiwar.com – a site that tens of thousands worldwide read every day – should subject itself to censorship raises serious concerns about how the concept of freedom of speech fits in with your idea of “reform.” As for your charges against me, one can only assume you intentionally choose to avoid specifics in calling me a “cynical and abject son of a bitch downpouring tons of dirt onto the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition forces,” and, more importantly, that you are purposefully vague in your reference to “civilized reform in Ukraine.”

During the year I have lived in Ukraine, and the other extended periods I have traveled, lived and worked in the former Soviet Union, I’ve become acquainted with the political dynamic in your republic and the ex-USSR as a whole. In Kiev, the most avid supporters of oppositionist ex-Premier Viktor Yushchenko I’ve encountered have turned out to be the relatively wealthy sons and daughters of former Soviet Communist Party members (often “nomenklatura”), who frequently speak English (as you presumably do), take pride in consorting with Western “friends,” and congregate in bars and restaurants where the average Ukrainian couldn’t afford even a glass of water, never mind a proper meal. It is no exaggeration to say that during the period before the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, among ordinary voters I spoke with on the street, even the oligarchic SDPU(o) leader Viktor Medvedchuk enjoyed more support than Mr. Yushchenko did.

In fact, your pro-Western “opposition” (all ex-allies of President Kuchma) is simply a “new nomenklatura.” Although it may not have affected you, the period of the Yushchenko-Timoshenko government was primarily characterized by an increase in prices, in real terms, along with joblessness. It is hard to believe that this winter – when they are shivering on ice-covered sidewalks selling contraband goods for whatever entrepreneur has stolen them – Ukrainian pensioners will be dreaming about how the greater “reform” promised by the elitist Yushchenko and the oligarch Yulia Timoshenko would rescue them, if it only had another chance.

On September 16th, Mrs. Timoshenko’s right-hand man Alexander Turchinov said all “costs” of anti-Kuchma demonstrations that day, including transportation, had been covered by funds from “special bank accounts.” In other words, your opposition’s “spontaneous” show of force was bought and paid for, as thousands of people were offered bus rides and other goodies to spend the day standing in the street. Amazing what a few grivnas will buy in terms of a political “movement” these days, isn’t it? However, even mass freebies were insufficient to whip up mass support! By the time the Sept. 16th crowd reached the presidential administration on Bankova Street, it was a fraction of its original size. As usual, the “criminal, corrupt regime” proved remarkably restrained with the use of police truncheons, and in fact suffered the only casualty during this day of “popular” protest – a 42-year-old policeman who died of a heart attack after working 24 hours straight.

Somehow, your “opposition” leaders don’t come off as the principled “freedom fighters” you would presumably have Antiwar.com readers believe they are. They look more like "cynical and abject" manipulators for their own financial ends, who would just as soon spit in the faces of common people as offer them any real chance of improving their lives.

North Korea's Nukes Are No Fluke

Regarding "North Korea's Halloween Surprise," by Justin Raimondo:

...We all know no other nation on Earth has a nuclear weapons arsenal comparable to our own. But as French General Pierre Gallois once noted, "When two nations are armed with nuclear weapons, even if they are unequally armed, the status quo is unavoidable." (The Balance of Terror page 137, by P. Gallois, 1961). President Bush has recently threatened to attack 60 nations under "his" (really Perle and Wolfowitz's) preemptive attack policy. However, prior to this threat to the world, the U.S. had previously used these weapons twice and later threatened (which is essentially "using them") over sixteen times. Washington threatened the Soviets and Red China with them when both lacked such weapons in their arsenals but never once since. The lesson is thereby quite clear to the smaller nations of the world: Arm yourself with nukes or else be threatened and intimidated forever by nations, such as the US, which do have them. I am on record saying Saddam would not be attacked or threatened by anyone if he had even one nuke. The fact that he lacks them guarantees Iraq will be forever attacked.

~ Stephen B.

The Clinton Strategic Perspective

Regarding "North Korea's Halloween Surprise," by Justin Raimondo:

Your excoriation of the Rumsfeld Pentagon and simultaneous praise of the Clinton administration's "strategic perspective that guaranteed the ability to fight two and a half wars at once" is rather entertaining.

You're simply wrong about the Clinton 'strategic perspective.'

You do realize, of course, that the United States, under the Aspin/Perry/Cohen Pentagon, didn't actually have the capability to fight 2 1/2 wars (or major regional contingencies). For that matter, it was questionable as to whether we even had the ability to fight just two. Aspin's Bottom-Up review stated that the two MRCs would have to be 'nearly' simultaneous (most definitely not "at once"), and the second conflict would have to be 'held' with airpower, so that we could shift forces after the first was over. Hence, Aspin's infamous 'win-hold-win' or, as many suggested, 'win-hold-oops.' Ignoring Clausewitzian 'friction', Aspin made switching military forces from theater to theater sound as easy as, well, playing Roller Coaster Tycoon or Sim City. It would behoove you to hold your nose and read Chapter 14 of Donald and Frederick Kagan's While America Sleeps.

The Clinton administration might have said it had the ability to fight two MRCs; it didn't maintain (or build up) the capability to do so. We might get the capability under Rumsfeld and GWB Jr.

~ Brian Auten; Ph.D. Candidate, University of Reading, UK; Instructor, National Security Studies, California State San Bernardino

The Koreans Are Realists

Regarding "North Korea's Halloween Surprise," by Justin Raimondo:

Great column on North Korea. The Koreans (who I do not admire) are realists. They understand what Munya Mardoch, director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994: "The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states."

~ GS

New Party

Take any checklist of important issues and cross off the successes in two years of this administration. Apart from the butterfly ballot or the Florida roadblocks. Zilch, zero. Bush is going to war. Math simple enough for even a single-cell schizo as Dubya. Either that, or he'll start an insanely out of control punk band. Bush & the Bookcookers. Cheney on war drums. Let's roll.

They can't even get a lone assassin in DC. Rumors are this is a setup to get the military into law enforcement. Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Constitution means toilet paper in the neocon vocabulary.

Anyway, isn't it about time to start a new political party? The hell with the R's and D's. And we'll call it Constitutionalism.

~ Alex Nagel

Axis of Not So Evil

When I heard the news about North Korean nukes, I couldn't help laughing. Rumsfeld and Cheney have been squealing hysterically all these months that we have to take out Saddam yesterday because he might or might not get nukes in the next year or so. And now it comes out that a much more threatening country, with a "Great Leader" who's crazy as a sh*thouse rat, already has the nukes (and the delivery systems) -- and Bush is trying to make nice. I guess that says something about the value of nuclear deterrence.

Here's what it really boils down to. In all those strategic plans for fighting two wars, one-and-a-half wars, or whatever, a war on the Korean peninsula has generally been assumed to be one of those wars, or at least a major portion of one. The standard scenario is for the maniacal Kim Jong-il to seize the opportunity for an invasion while the US is heavily committed elsewhere, like the Gulf. If he actually did so while the attack on Saddam was underway, the Empire's resources would be strained to the breaking point.

Is it any wonder the Bush regime is furiously backpedalling on that "Axis of Evil" cr*p?

~ Kevin Carson

Better at Gaining Friends

I read your site everyday and breath a sigh of relief that there are responsible intellectuals who are uncomfortable with injustice. I look to and for writers and statesmen and politicians who are out there to do things because they have a sense of ... the inherent value of justice and not for some sort of advantage. I am sure you believe me when I say the leadership platform is infiltrated with men and women who are unable and unwilling to take political charge in order to save their own country.

Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Pearl and their neo-con war hawk gang continue to underestimate the so-called third world nations' ability to stand off against their aggression. ... Our young, naïve and overprotected soldiers outside the great warplanes are just too vulnerable. I believe we are not warriors and will not succeed in urban guerrilla warfare. Vietnam and Blackhawk Down should be reminders to our young what happens in "real" war.

We are better at gaining friends in the world by helping people in need and spreading democracy and freedom rather than shifting our policy to monopolize oil fields located on sovereign lands. This is not our history. This is not the image that the world has of America. This is not the way of our founding fathers. We cannot have a World War III just for oil. ...

Just wanted to share what you already know and thank you [Justin Raimondo] for being an honest writer.

~ A.B.