Dear Uncle Sam,
You care about your country. You care about denuclearizing everyone but yourself and your allies. You made it happen in Ukraine.
When my country gave up its nukes — the world’s third-largest arsenal — it didn’t happen in a referendum. It didn’t happen in a classroom. It happened in Kuchma’s bedroom.
You treasured my country’s ability to trade its national interests for nothing but IMF loans and some aid.
As you know, the loans did us no good and the aid fell short of delivering the results it did in Eastern Europe. After all, from your Moscowcentric point of view, Ukraine’s “fledgling democracy” didn’t belong in Europe. The State Department pigeonholed us into “Eurasia” (Non-West/Little Russia), a class from which we never really graduated.
Bottom line, you took advantage of Ukraine at a tender age. 
Any idea what this map depicts?
In an ideal world, you should have kept your IMF loans/aid, and we should have kept some of our nukes. We should have developed in a different way politically, economically and militarily.
Hindsight is always 20/20. Now what about foresight?
By continuing to take advantage of Ukraine whenever you can, you’re turning friends of America into a scarce commodity here.
The more Ukraine gets raped at home and abroad, the more we Ukrainians will remember it. The more you support our corrupt leaders, the more we’ll resist it. And once the pendulum swings in our favor — in the Ukraine-first favor — we’ll try to do it right. We’ll try not to repeat the mistakes of the Orange era.
And you guys will try to defuse a stockpile of enriched anti-Western sentiment.
Photos:
http://durdom.in.ua/public/main/photos/photo_14753.jpg
http://durdom.in.ua/public/main/photos/photo_14743.jpg
http://durdom.in.ua/public/main/photos/photo_14746.jpg
http://durdom.in.ua/public/main/photos/photo_14786.jpg
http://durdom.in.ua/public/main/photos/photo_23589.jpg
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Citizen Diplomacy: A Ukrainian Citizen’s Look at U.S.-Ukrainian Relations
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Hey, where's the Ukrainian on that T-shirt?
:-)
The map may be some economic stuff like GDP.
Well, it is the US. I would like to say I am surprised but I am not. The US-Hungarian relations worsened in the past years. For example our President denied to go there, because he would have been handled as a terrorist and he refused to build military radars and launching pads in Hungary
And what was Ukraine supposed to do with the weapons grade uranium? Wait until some greedy politician decided to steal some for himself and sell it on the open market so that it can be used against the free world? The risks associated with holding on to the uranium far outweighed the benefits of giving them up.
Blair,
They probably dropped it for fear of exposing their pro-Ukrainian agenda. Here’s the full version:)
Ropi,
Yep, that’s what the map shows. And, ironically, Ukraine sticks out like a sore thumb compared both to its democratic and non-democratic neighbors.
Hey, don’t you have any enriched uranium at your Paksi Atomerőmű?:)
Anonymous,
By keeping its uranium, Ukraine has done no harm done to the free world.
And neither has Belarus, which doesn’t plan to give away its uranium.
A dictator runs Belarus and a traitor runs Ukraine. That’s the difference (plus the GDP per capita gap).
As a citizen of Ukraine, I support neither terrorism nor dictatorships. I do, however, support a legitimate program of renuclearization for my country. This can only be achieved by a responsible government and a modernized economy.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that neither Yanukovych nor Tymoshenko fits into this vision. But when the opposition says Yanukovych sold out Ukraine’s national interests, I fully agree.
Stripped of its enriched uranium, Ukraine will still keep its nuclear power stations, its rich uranium deposits and its right to withdraw from the NPT.
As Yanukovych trades away Ukraine’s national interests, the U.S. trades in Trident missiles, turns a blind eye to Israel’s arsenal and aids Pakistan.
Specifically, the U.S. has aided Pakistan (a “failed state”) in expanding and safeguarding its nuclear arsenal.
The gift made by Yanukovych will hardly compensate for the proliferation effect of these double-standard policies.
Yes, we have. :P We may build an other nuclear power station soon as well.
Wow. I had no idea Ukraine temporarily held the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
As an American it's horribly annoying to have my government preach denuclearization throughout the world yet cling to its own. If the US can hang on to its deterrence, so should other countries, right? Or, if other countries dump their nuclear arsenals, the US should do exactly the same, right? But then it all goes back to the origins and critical points of the Cold War, and nothing gets solved. I give up! :-P
Ropi,
Two nuclear power stations per 10 million Hungarians?
You might want to skip the next Nuclear Servility Summit:)
Agent Muu,
You hit the nail on the head:)!
In the ideal world, denuclearization would mean every state/terrorist organization giving up its nukes/nuclear ambitions.
In the real world, different states defend themselves as they see fit.
Ukraine got a bad deal with its denuclearization. We received security guaranties that look good on paper but don’t amount to anything.
If a conventionally superior/nuclear state attacks Ukraine, nobody will come to our rescue.
We only have ourselves to rely on.
Post a Comment