Yanukovych: These people that will be dismissed, they will receib...receive corr...corresponding severance packages upon dismissal, in accordance with the law. [...] The benefits...from the reduction of government officials’ headcount will not transpire until 2012. From then on, every year, undoubtedly, we’ll have quite substantial savings.
You mean, having 16 ministers instead of 24 will save us a fortune? Awesome! But wait... Is that the whole story?
It’s not. I mean look at the State Directorate for Affairs. This funny-name agency acts as the nanny state to Ukraine’s mammoth central government bureaucracy.
In FY 2011, its budget will balloon 27%, or by Hr. 292,856,700 ($36,822,962), to Hr. 1,343,862,300 ($168,973,394).
Now what about the Administration of the President? Wanna see the color of his money?
You’d think that the only Washington spin doctor to promote Yanukovych and his anti-NATO/pro-Kremlin platform would be Paul Manafort. You shouldn’t. Meet the American Institute in Ukraine!
In his recent article, Ukrayinska Pravda’s Serhiy Leshchenko exposes this pseudo-independent organization, whose talent did business with Yanukovych as early as in 2003.
What’s in a name? James George Jatras. The American (read: Appeasement) Institute in Ukraine (AIU) lists him as one of his associates, and so does Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC. (Public advocacy...hmmm...sounds so much sweeter than lobbying, doesn’t it?) Jatras’ profile at Squire Sanders credits him with a wealth of experience:
Serving on the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee and as an American Foreign Service Officer in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs;
Engaging in versatile legislative advocacy and international projects;
Participating in panel discussions at the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the International Strategic Studies Association.
On March 6 and March 24, 2003, Jatras and his partner Patrick O’Donell at Venable, LLP inked two public relations deals with Alex Kiselev, a Yanukovych representative. Under the deals, Yanukovych was supposed get a dose of favorable publicity and networking in Washington, including, possibly, a meeting with then-President Bush. Price tag: $20K+$60K (for the meeting with Bush, if arranged).
Ukrayinska Pravda offers copies of the agreements:
For some reason, Yanukovych rescheduled his visit. A third agreement with Jatras and McDonnell was signed on November 24, 2003.
Cooperation between the Jatras and Yanukovych camps continued well into the fateful year of 2004. In December 2004, amid the Orange Revolution, Spinck put his signature on the addendum to a $23K+$15K Yanukovych-related consulting agreement with db communications, LLC.
What does AIU do? “AIU is a privately funded U.S. nonprofit organization and neither receives, solicits, nor accepts funds from any government,” so they say, without disclosing their donors
“The activities of AIU are strictly informational and educational. AIU does not engage in lobbying, either in the United States or abroad.” But AIU talent has engaged in lobbying in the United States on behalf of Ukrainian clients, and the website fails to mention that, right?
Besides, if their current activities encompass “producing and distributing monographs, commentaries, analyses, news, bulletins, press releases and other informational and educational materials,” then why do they tilt to one side only? Does AIU offer a single monograph, commentary or analysis that explores the benefits of Ukraine’s membership in NATO, both for NATO and Ukraine?
If you click “About Us,” you will find this:
AIU takes no position on NATO per se. But whatever NATO's future may be, AIU questions the wisdom of further expansion without clear and convincing evidence that it would directly enhance U.S. security interests, defined as defense of American territory and the American people; protect the territorial defense of its member states, consistent with the sole mission of the alliance as specified in the North Atlantic Treaty; contribute to the security of countries considered for expansion, beginning with Ukraine; and not injure relations with Russia, which must be an ongoing priority of American foreign and security policy. There is reason to question whether any of these criteria exists now or will exist in the foreseeable future.
So if you “question whether any of these criteria exists” and have some foreign policy credentials to support your skepticism, here’s your chance! According to Ukrayinska Pravda sources, you can make $3K in speaking fees, travel and hotel expenses covered. In other words, Western scholars and policy makers who strongly oppose the idea of Ukraine’s membership in NATO and want make a few bucks would be more than welcome!
Ironically, had AIU been around in 2003-2004, then-PM Yanukovych would have probably sent trainloads of his supporters to rally outside its office. At that time, he firmly stood for NATO membership and his party rubber-stamped pro-NATO legislation. In fact, he even authored a white paper that called for NATO membership by 2008.
Serhiy Leshchenko says his interest in AIU began with an invitation to participate in one of the events held at that organization — front organization, as it turned out. Guess who called him? Dmytro Dzhangirov, a blatant Kuchma-Yanukovych propagandist whose two-minute-hate-style programs had blasted Yushchenko during the dystopian 2004 presidential campaign. Today, Dzhangirov mainly works for Kyiv mayor Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetsky. But...you never know.
Apparently, AIU has found Dzhangirov to be an asset to their ill-concealed “disarm and disown,” “putting Putin first,” “quid pro-Kremlin” campaign.
Bandow’s association with the Cato Institute was supposed to lend credentials to the one and only view promoted by AIU: that Ukraine is bad for NATO and that NATO is bad for Ukraine. The fact that in the mid ‘90s Ukraine had sacrificed the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal on the altar of U.S. security gets the silent treatment.
Back to Bandow: Leshchenko called the Cato Institute and asked whether Bandow represented their official policy views. Chris Kennedy, Director of Media Relations, said Bandow represented his views only.
Last, but definitely not least, Leshchenko notes, the Russian version of the AIU web site spells the organization’s name as Американский Институт на Украине rather than Американский Институт в Украине. What’s the difference? It’s the Russian way of saying the Ukraine (province, territory) as opposed to the Ukraine (independent country).
In this regard, I hope U.S. Vice President Joe Biden gets some polit-savvy toponymical tips before he visits Ukraine at the end of July. But my hope already lacks audacity. The siren calls of appeasement artists are getting stronger day by day. Some of them, such as Anthony T. Salvia of AIU, even couch their propaganda in romantic Reagan-era terms. Apparently, the Appeasement...uh...sorry, the American Institute in Ukraine has a busy work schedule.
President Obama will visit Russia on July 6-8, and all Ukraine will get is Vice President Biden two weeks later. As a Ukrainian, I think my country is being marginalized by this Eurasian pecking order.
Up Close and Personal With Anti-Bush Orthodox Crusaders
Orthodox protesters: We’re against this horny Bush, the horny Bush who came here. He has no place here.
WW II veteran twins, carrying Marshall Zhukov’s portrait: We're fighting. For a thousand years, the wars raged on for the Orthodox faith — for more than a thousand years. There were many martyrs, great martyrs, holy martyrs.
He did not surrender, he did not fork her over to Germany. [referring to Zhukov’s defense of the Motherland]
Protesters sing Orthodox hymns.
Disclaimer: The word рогатый (rohaty horny) refers to the Devil and has no sexual connotation.
The crowd consists of communists, Orthodox fundamentalists, and monarchists.
Strange bedfellows, aren’t they? Keep in mind that the Bolsheviks pillaged churches, selling the gold abroad and converting the churches into warehouses. They massacred Orthodox clergy and the Royal family. They made deals with the Third Reich.
Despite all the misery that communism brought to Ukraine, communist propaganda still works miracles. No wonder so many people’s minds are messed up like that.
Bratstvo “Fucks” Bush for Beer, Kosmos Scraps Anthrax House for Photo Opps
Bush’s arrival inspired Bratstvo activists to stage a “fuck” flash mob in which participants mosaicked their bodies on the sidewalk for a bottle of beer.
It was their way of saying hello to President Bush and the Pentagon.
Over the years, an eye-catching evolution has occurred in the political views of Dmytro Korchynsky, the leader of Bratstvo (Brotherhood) and a former member of UNSO. In the dawn of his career, Korchynsky had hogged the spotlight campaigning against the war in Chechnya.
Male participant: I feel that the earth beneath me is a little cold, but actually, in my life, I’ve experienced lying on the snow a few times, so basically I’m feeling some sort of excitement, that’s how I’d put it.
Female bystander, in an attempt to discipline the youths: Wallowing and swearing — is that what you call a protest? Young man: Who’s swearing? Female bystander: You had the stupidity to write obscenities in the capital of your motherland.
Reporter: Are you feeling a sense of satisfaction from telling “fuck” to bush? Male participant: Yes. Although, of course, I miss the moment of not seeing, with my own eyes, him watching these photographs or something like that. But I think they’ll bring it to him.
Sure, it must have been the top item in Bush’s morning briefs as he woke up in his presidential suite at Hyatt Regency. Don’t miss yourself on Google Earth and don’t forget the beer, pal! With Bratstvo in the sandbox, America's satellite capability certainly runs the risk of being overloaded!
Anthrax house protesters got a powerful ally: early mayoral elections. Both Vice Premier Turchynov and Mayor Chernovetsky rushed to claim credit for convincing the “anthrax house” builders to quit.
Chernovetsky, who is now spinning the hell out of his “servant leadership” on municipal television, tried to claim more.
Kyiv Mayor Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetsky: We've been accused of various machinations involving…uh…well, whatever, right? Let our opponents, let our opponents try to find a single place that either I or my team in Kyiv illegally used against you. But we do find such places. [Good point!] In this particular case, we’re at a site of construction that we won’t let proceed. At the first session [of the City Council], we will revoke this permit, which was issued by former mayor Omelchenko in 2003.
Chernovetsky’s security detail tries to prevent the activists from waving a “Fuck Kosmos, too!” banner.
Voice from the crowd: Chernovetsky’s bodyguards are beating people!
Activist: The thing is, the authorities, until we raised the roof here, did absolutely nothing. And now our beloved Mayor’s spin doctors brought him here to make a statement. Uh…we believe that it’s not right, that the Mayor should be acting in the legal dimension. And it’s lo…long overdue that he should have been acting in the legal dimension, because, to stop this construction because it is simply and apparently outrageous.
If vermicelli voters re-elect Kosmos, I won’t be surprised to see the “anthrax house” off to a brand new start, in a whole new galaxy of kosmic projects. Check out this cool site.
President Bush Monday arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine. It is the first leg of his farewell Eastern European presidential tour, which sees him perform cheerleading and brokering roles.
George W. Bush is not the first U.S. President to visit Ukraine, either in a state visit or in a private one. Richard Nixon did this in 1972, as soon-to-be-impeached President, and in 1994, as a private citizen, shortly prior to his death.
Father Bush came to Kyiv on August 1, 1990 to deliver his infamous “chicken Kiev” speech warning Ukraine against “local despotism” and “suicidal nationalism.”
He tried to sweeten that acid sermon as he revisited Kyiv in May 2004, amid Ukraine’s presidential campaign, as a guest of Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of then-President Leonid Kuchma.
As U.S. President, Bill Clinton traveled to Ukraine three times: in January 1994, May 1995 and June 2000. In June 2007, Clinton, too, couldn’t resist Pinchuk’s hospitality. He attended the annual meeting of YES (Yalta European Strategy), an organization that largely remains Pinchuk’s public relations conduit.
A lot has changed in Ukraine’s political cuisine since father Bush’s fishing trip in August 1990. Luckily, we haven’t experienced “suicidal nationalism.” Not so with “local despotism,” which kind of makes Bush Sr. a semi-prophet.
Ironically, despite living in an independent country with a democratically elected President — who promised to treat Bush Jr. to the real chicken Kyiv and varenyky — we’ve built a country where most people spend their meager incomes on food.
At their meeting, Presidents Bush and Yushchenko discussed trade, investments, NATO, space cooperation and energy, including nuclear energy. (Ukraine, which operates four nuclear power plants, has large uranium deposits but depends on Russia for nuclear fuel cassettes.) They also signed a two-year roadmap agreement to be guided by in bilateral relations.
What followed was an otherwise boring press conference, except for one question that injected intrigue into the canned atmosphere. A Western reporter asked President Bush whether getting Russia to agree to missile defense deployments involved a certain trade-off — the soft-pedaling of Ukraine’s NATO aspirations. Bush replied that he will seek MAP for Ukraine, but the weight of the question did sink in.
The idea of such a trade-off raised quite a few eyebrows. It took the luster off the optimistic theory that Bush might somehow be able to dissuade Merkel from “killing” Ukraine’s MAP application at the Bucharest Summit in exchange for no longer pressing Germany to send troops to Afghanistan.
Support for enlisting Ukraine in MAP, the key prerequisite to joining the Alliance, has been lacking among other NATO members, namely France, Spain, Italy, Norway, and Greece.
As Bush prided himself on using phone call diplomacy to convince these dissenters, France made headlines, refusing to “give its green light to the entry of Ukraine and Georgia.” (So much for the “pro-American” Sarkozy.)
So, unless a miracle happens, it appears that Ukraine’s MAP application will be put on the back burner at least until the America elects a new president.
After the press conference, President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were to meet with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Following the meeting with Tymoshenko, who has every chance of becoming Ukraine’s next President, President Bush was to join current President Yushchenko for dinner, attended by opposition leader Yanukovych, the next big presidential hopeful. (If Yanukovych spoke English, he could make a gastro-political joke about “lame ducks” tasting better than chicken Kyiv.)
Undoubtedly, Bush’s visit raised the temperature of local politics. On Monday, hours before Air Force One landed in Boryspil Airport, a few hundred Communists burned NATO flags and Bush effigies in front of the U.S. Embassy. Some of them broke camp at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the onetime epicenter of the Orange Revolution.
Security was extremely tight in the city center. Police sealed off main streets, warning local residents not to stick their necks out lest they mess with the snipers watching over the presidential motorcade.
As for me, I couldn’t miss the Commie Show. I just wanted to “face the demons” — face the little red men and women who voted Ukraine out of cruel communism and into crony capitalism.
Riot police on standby
Bush, is that what you're dragging us into NATO for?
Aren't you against NATO? NATO is light and warmth!
NATO is a clear sky. Bush, you're responsible for this!
Me, mama and tato (mom and dad) — we're against the bandits of NATO!
Kyiv is a hero! NATO, get out of here! The small aircraft is the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle, mounted on the An-225 Mriya, the world's biggest jumbo jet manufactured in Kyiv.
The People's Opposition. Natalia Vitrenko. Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine.
New world order. Put the bloody dictator Bush in the international tribunal!
Aren’t they the Sovoks who voted for the Communist Party and Leonid Kuchma in spring and summer ‘94 parliamentary and presidential elections, respectively?
Aren’t they the guys who elected a president who traded the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal for IMF loans that bought him the license to make “reforms” that nuked Ukrainians out of their future, making their country unfit for EU membership? Aren’t they the guys who did it?
DemOcracy. Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, pack your bags and go to America! P.S. All surrounded by this sovok agitprop trash, I noticed a stray dog.
And I thought to myself: Damn, doesn’t this dog best represent Ukraine’s voting habits?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
A Walk to the Bankova Wall “People’s President” a No Show at Maidan Second Anniversary amid Low Participation
Orange vets were in for another let-down, as a fraction of them gathered to celebrate the bloodless victory over a regime whose election practices had attracted sympathy only from the governments of Russia, Belarus, and China.
To say that participation levels reflected satisfaction levels would be saying too little.
First of all, it took less than half of Yushchenko’s first term for the regime to partially restore itself, which is why, in all likelihood, there will be no second term for him. To add insult to injury, the guy they had put in charge to prevent the regime’s restoration gave them understand that they were not part of his holiday plan. This unpleasant episode cannot be attributed to Yushchenko‘s insecurities alone. It highlights the self-perpetuating “expectations glacier” evident in Ukrainian society since the Yushchenko>Yanukovych downturn. After a short rally at Maidan, the battleground of the Orange Revolution, a column of approximately a thousand people moved out to the Office of President on Bankova Street. There they serenaded the “People’s President” with Ukraine’s national anthem, but all to no avail. They were refused audience.
The iron security fence separating the people from the president contained a message in itself. They could still recall Yushchenko comparing it to the Berlin Wall and vowing to tear it down. So, two years since the Orange Revolution began it’s the Wall that’s still there while Yushchenko is not. Obviously, he’s got more important things to do. While new to Bankova, Yu said lots of nice things that ring hollow today. People from all over the country would camp outside his office, in hopes of finding a solution to problems they could not solve otherwise. They had exhausted all conventional avenues — having to deal with courts that rule in favor of the well-connected, police that cover up criminals, and social security that doesn’t cover the cost of living. So, they came straight to the “People’s President,” their last line of defense, expecting their voice to be heard.
Such citizen events supplied the inherent drama to the “Our Ukraine” brand. Yushchenko owes his presidency to the idea that if we stood up to the oligarchs, Ukraine could be “ours” as well, and not just “theirs.” Yet the democracy-live honeymoon didn’t last long. For one, the PP soon let the wall issue die quietly, along with the open-air grievance hours. No wonder, the same happened to the brand: The people lost trust in it. That explains Yushchenko’s agoraphobic attack. Like a mischievous child who broke a vase, he wouldn’t show up for dinner in fear of being spanked. What could be more fearsome than having to look them in the eye, them who once looked up to you with hope? He could imagine all the catcalls he would draw for his misguided policy behavior. He feared Maidan’s feedback. But that’s the stage he should go through if he ever plans on reestablishing the communication link he has severed. That’s the barium pill he should swallow to get crony capitalism out of his system. Reinvention starts with repentance. It’s as simple as that. Take the recent diversion scandal that features former Naftogaz top guns Ivchenko (NSNU) and Bolkisev. Just days after Gazprom pushed the button, these stewards of government property reportedly spent quite a fortune on Christmas festivities and a charter flight to western Ukraine (If the thought of going up in flames with the help of Europe’s longest pipeline arouses your public relations G-spot, Ivchenko is your man.)
Word got around that Yu was throwing a reception in Mariyinsky Palace. Shouting “hanba” (Ukrainian for shame) — an exclamation previously reserved only for Kuchma and Yanukovych — Orange vets walked the extra mile to meet with the President. Once they made it to Mariyinsky, it became apparent they were wasting their time.
Later in the evening, Poroshenko, Katerynchuk, and Yekhanurov patronized Maidan. The only problem was, it didn’t feel like Maidan. It certainly didn’t without Tymo, the Lady of Maidan. Out in Brussels to flex her opposition muscles, she predicted the thawing of the Yanukovych Cabinet and politreforma by spring. There is no secret that the temperature buildup she based her forecast on comes from the impending three-and-a-half-fold increase in utility bills, which already reeks of a massive payment crisis. A case in point: Donetsk currently pays only 5 percent of its utility costs. In his evening “anniversary address,” Yushchenko reaffirmed his commitment to the politreforma, at the same time reintroducing the possibility of a referendum. Any recollection of the Orange Revolution would be incomplete without mention of how it became forum fodder for millions of netizens. Regrettably, some saw it as a geopolitical contest — the final showdown — between a hawkish Bush puppet and a dovish Putin favorite, the latter being the lesser evil. Put another way, they felt impelled to take sides between what appeared to be an expansionist Washington consensus and a defensive Moscow consensus.
Particularly, this misperception gained wide acceptance among people suffering from the posttraumatic stress disorder caused by Bush’s re-election. For them — the Western-educated hands-off-Russia crowd — taking revenge on Bush meant heaping scorn on Yushchenko and green-lighting Yanukovych. The Orange Revolution featured not a single incident of vandalism or violence. Well, it could have. With tanks on the move to Kyiv, all bets were off. Thank God, General Popkov had the sanity to call them off. Had his loyalty to Yanukovych taken command of his mind, fratricide would have followed. In that case, the reality gap in Shcherban’s they-would-hang-me-on-Maidan imagery might have shrunk substantially, as we had a fair share of generals on our own side.
Because history hardly offers a wealth of examples of zero-casualty regime change, ours remains a rare phenomenon we should be proud of. They who raise mayhem from Seattle to Seoul may have a hard time reconciling their lifestyle with that of millions of hardworking Ukrainians, some of whom barely make ends meet. The regime Yanukovych was trying to inherit had scattered them from Moscow to Milan in search of a better living. What we’re looking at are two different types of geographic mobility — creed-driven and need-driven. Which one would you prefer?
On the one hand, few of us would wince at the idea of having Yushchenko miraculously replaced with someone of better leadership qualities. But, on the other hand, if we polled Russians or Americans on whether they would welcome a candidate with a criminal record, neither would answer yes by an overwhelming majority.
So, after weighing all the good things and the bad things, we can be sure we did the right thing: 2004 did not become 1984. Yet our work is not finished. Unless we want to face the Bankova Wall, we must dismantle the one that has swelled inside of us — the wall of disenchantment. We do that by restoring the can-do spirit of 2004.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Revisiting Counterpunch's Ukraine 2004 Coverarge
Counterpunch may be right about the right on many counts. But the way these pundits sided with Yanukovych in 2004 just didn't feel right to me. Nor did it feel left enough to me: Under my microscope, Yanukovych clearly represented capitalism's ugliest live-form.
During my Maidan off-duty hours, I nearly choked with the bitchy bias in Chad Nagle's reports. It was my right to freedom and better living standards that got counterpunched. Welcome to the left's symmetrical response to FOX News!
While hundreds of thousands of us were peacefully freezing our asses out on Maidan, my only thought — aside from visions of a Tiananmen-style crackdown — was for Chad Nagle to get the fuck out of my country. And as he kept misleading the world by picturing me and my freedom business through the prism of his knee-jerk anti-Americanism, I fantasized about a Tomahawk missile carefully planting itself in his hotel apartment. (Ditto The Guardian and Antiwar.com.)
Had Bush's re-election depressed him so badly that the only action plan he had for exposing the imperialist in Bush was by pampering one in Putin?
I wonder if Counterpunch has improved its Ukraine coverage. I hope so. Enough time has elapsed for a balanced judgment to be passed on both Yushchenko and Yanukovych. If today somebody told me that Yu and Ya deserve each other, I’d almost have to agree. (That doesn’t mean that, at the end of the day, I feel as fucked up as Ya fancies it.)
What I would not agree with is that self-serving bias, whether right-wing or left-wing, can further a good cause.
So what do we do folks? I’d say it’s time to get rid of this mental straight-jacket we try out with every major depressive episode. It’s time to realize democracy is a full-time job. It's up to us freedom-loving, gutsy folks to put the spark back into the democracy department.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid!
Obviously, the Goldilocks economy is faring much better than the GOP. Dubya has finally got his comeuppance. It took a whole D-Day — the Democrats’ Day — to smoke Rummy out of the Pentagon.
After an almost bloodless takeover of Iraq in 2003 had seemingly opened 1001 opportunities for making that woebegone country into an oasis of democracy, the Bush administration let them slip away one by one.
Having seriously misread one of the world’s oldest nations, not to mention its own, the Bush administration did very little to set the record straight.
As time passed by, one could hear the U.S. casualty clock ticking ever more loudly. Punctuated with gory, internet downloadable beheadings of Western contractors, not to mention the untold Iraqis killed by mistake, the clock went on and on, slowly sinking the Bush administration into a geopolitical quagmire beyond the resuscitative power of Kerry’s sense of humor.
The recent gains made by Reps turned out not to be a case of too little to little, for a scandal scarred party unable to heal itself.
Good news for Saddam: He may now occupy his well-deserved seat on death row secure in the knowledge that, in a way, he has settled the score. The unfound stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have finally made impact on his enemies, becoming weapons of mass defrockment.
The sea change in the U.S. legislature offers yet another perspective on the pendulum of public opinion. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupt absolutely. With that in mind, the Democrats should do their best to keep the pendulum from leaving their side. And that means avoiding mistakes their predecessors made.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Cheney Chews out Energy Empire
Vice President Dick Cheney grabbed the Russian bear by the balls, in what sounds like the most vicious and delicious diatribe ever from the Bush administration’s Russian cuisine. As a guest speaker at a geopolitical get-together in Vilnius, Lithuania, Cheney made headlines by dishing out hot potatoes on the Kremlin’s conduct of foreign policy. Describing Russia’s current state of affairs, he used the words backsliding and blackmail.
Cheney, who has a background in the energy sector, elaborated on Russia’s decreasing democracy coupled with its increasing role as a global energy supplier. That the vestiges of the evil empire keep protruding themselves in Russia’s self-proclaimed vision of an energy empire breaks no news. Many of the Black and Baltic Sea leaders who assembled in Vilnius had long solicited Washington’s concurrence on their diagnosis of Moscow’s condition. The forum attracted not-so-big countries with not-so-small problems. Indeed, counties like Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine seek prosperity through preserving the fruits of democracy from the fungi of Russian despotism.
Vice President Cheney became the third top-level conservative to speak openly against Russia’s blackmail-thy-neighbor behavior. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holds the lead for having vented her view on Moscow’s gasmanship. Senator John McCain has repeatedly reflected on the Russian issue and has urged President Bush to boycott the July G8 summit in St. Petersburg. Experts believe both Rice and McCain will run for the Republican nomination for president in 2008.
Dick Cheney, a controversial figure loathed by liberals, still deserves respect from a purely Ukrainian point of view. In the late 80s, then-Congressman Cheney visited Chernobyl. He avidly supported Ukraine’s independence when the USSR could no longer support itself. As Secretary of Defense in the Senior Bush administration and a major hawk, he helped a chicken Kiev gourmet Bush see the forest for the trees.
The Kremlin and the conservative camp seem all the more at odds. In the gung-ho days of the GOP’s rodeo on terror, Bush and Putin used to ride together. We all remember that Kodak moment when Dubya looked into Puttie’s eyes and got a sense of his soul. It was a wedding ceremony where Condi, a distinguished Sovietologist and then-NSC adviser, played the maid of honor. With the honeymoon in full swing, Moscow made no big fuss when Washington withdrew from the ABM treaty.
Being Bush’s staunch ally supplied Putin with the geopolitical currency needed to buy Washington’s silent stamp of approval on Moscow’s imperial designs in the near abroad. One version has it that, while the US went after the axis of evil, the Kremlin framed the Kuchma regime to put Ukraine into its wheel cart. Much to Putin’s gastronomic advantage, on the eve of Operation Shock and Awe, the Kolchuha scandal set off shock waves on both sides of the Atlantic, portraying Kuchma as Hussein’s accomplice and casting Ukraine into monthlong isolation.
Thanks to the relatively low US Army casualties, lack of trophy evidence of the Kolchuha transfer, and the dispatch of 1,600 Ukrainian troops to Iraq, Kuchma redeemed some of his political value. That didn’t help his successor strategy, though. The rest is history — and something Russia can’t reconcile with.
In addition to Ukraine, Russia’s hit list also includes Georgia and Moldova. Russia has banned wine imports from these countries, apparently trying to strangle their chief source of earnings. Meanwhile, Russia continues catering to the separatist enclaves in these countries. Georgia’s Abkhazia, Adzharia, and South Ossetia, as well as Moldova’s Transdniesteria, operate as Russia’s pet geopolitical subsidiaries.
Whether it’s American crusaders or Russian regionalists, the tug-of-war between Washington and Moscow has not ceased. The Bush administration is credited with record budget deficits and tax cuts for the rich. America often behaves like a bull in a China shop. Likewise, Cheney is no saint, but when it comes to Russia he calls a spade a spade. Ukraine stands to benefit from the balance-of-power effects that stem from the Cold War instincts of his cohort.
Babysitting fledgling democracies requires no troop deployments. As the West counters Russia’s predatory posture diplomatically, it will help Russia reinvent itself and become a reliable partner.
