Pro-War Propaganda In The West And Crimea

If you wanted to honestly discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and our participation in it, it would be necessary to point out how the primary enablers of the Russian oligarchs are American oligarchs on Wall Street.
That American real estate continues to be the preferred way for Russian oligarchs to launder dirty money, and neither the Biden Administration nor the GOP has any intention of doing anything about that.
That NATO is using a slush fund to keep Ukraine in the war, and that Interpol says most of the weapons that we've given Ukraine will wind up in the hand of criminals and terrorists.

And then there's the people that identify on the Left that honestly think that Ukraine is defending democracy. The Communist Party of Ukraine got over 2.6 million votes and 32 seats in parliament as late as 2012. In May of 2015, Ukraine banned all communist parties and all communist symbols.
The leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine was physically attacked while addressing parliament by members of All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda", the neo-Nazi party, in 2014. A few months later this same right-wing mob tried to violently overrun parliament.
If you are a good liberal this won't bother you because it's just communists, right? No one hates communists more than liberals and they will gladly sell out communists to the right-wing every chance they get. But if you know anything about history then you would know that the right-wing never stops with just communists.

Ukraine’s Western-backed government has used Russia’s February 24 invasion to drastically escalate its repression of the left, banning Ukrainian socialist parties and imprisoning left-wing activists. There are widespread reports of Ukrainian state security services arresting and torturing leftists.
In an early morning speech on March 20, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council was banning 11 opposition political parties, half of which are left-wing.

One of the parties that were banned was Opposition Platform – For Life, which had 43 members currently serving in parliament, and was the 3rd largest political party in Ukraine.
The leader of this recently banned party was then thrown into jail when he tried to flee the country.
While President Zelenskiy was effectively banning all left-wing opposition parties, he was also cracking down on any leftist media outlets.
But that debate is for another day.

Instead I want to focus specifically on Crimea.

First off, let's look at the historical context.

For Ukrainians, the struggle to end the Russian occupation of Crimea is not just a matter of sovereignty, human rights, or national security. It is also a quest to defend international law and restore historical justice.
...
The Russian Empire does not actually feature in the approximately three millennia of recorded Crimean history until relatively recently, appearing towards the end of the eighteenth century. For thousands of years prior to Russia’s arrival on the scene, Crimea was home to a cosmopolitan array of peoples and nations including the Greeks, Scythians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, and many others. Far from being ancestral Russian land, the peninsula has traditionally been an international crossroads of cultures and civilizations.

The epoch of the Crimean Khanate occupies a particularly prominent place in Crimean history. This period saw the evolution of the Crimean Tatar identity. The Crimean Tatars have not had a state of their own for almost 250 years, but are now recognized as an indigenous people of Ukraine as a result of legislation adopted by the Ukrainian parliament in July 2021.
...
Crimea has always loomed large in Ukraine’s national story. The celebrated tenth century Ukrainian prince, Volodymyr the Great, who is credited with converting the medieval Kyivan Rus state to Christianity, was himself baptized in Crimea.

All of what the Atlantic Council says here is true. The problem is everything they DON'T say.
What they fail to point out is:
1) Crimean Tartars are NOT historically Ukrainian. The Tartars were from the Asian steppes, and conquered Crimea and the Kyivan Rus in a near-genocidal invasion in the 13th Century. In fact, the Crimean Tatars spent centuries making brutal slave raids into the lands of what is now Ukraine, until 75% of the population of Crimea in 1769 were slaves or former slaves.
2a) Volodymyr the Great was originally from Novgorod, which is where the roots of the current state of Russia began, and 2b) Russia also traces its roots in the Kyivan Rus, 2c) the Kyivan Rus lost control of Crimea not long after.
3) Crimea existed historically under the control of Greeks, Romans, Byzantium, Persian empires, etc. for centuries. Not once during those centuries did those empires ever control the land that is considered Ukraine today.
4) the Ukrainian identity doesn't actually have a beginning until the rise of the Cossacks in the mid-16th Century.

Crimea fell under the control of Russia in 1783 and remained that way until the Soviet Union redefined it as part of Ukraine in 1954. In other words, Crimea has been part of Russia longer than Florida has been part of the U.S.
Despite all of these facts, the pro-war West is trying to portray Ukrainian ambition of taking Crimea from Russia as some sort of righting a historical wrong.

VOA: US: ‘Crimea Remains Part of Ukraine,’ Retaking Russian-Held Areas Top Concern

“The United States does not and never will recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula. Crimea is Ukraine,” the State Department said in a statement.

The idea of Putin simply accepting the loss of Crimea to a hostile neighboring state is absurd. The famous Black Sea fleet has been based there for centuries. To think that the Russian military will simply accept losing control of that strategic naval base is as ridiculous of an idea as thinking the U.S. military was going to accept losing control of the strategic Panama Canal naval base to Noriega in 1989.
The Kremlin would simply kick Putin out of power if he ever agreed to this, and replace him with a hard-liner more ready to use nuclear weapons.

More importantly, there's the opinions of the people of Crimea to consider.
NBC recently made the mistake of actually asking people there what they think.

“This is our land,” she said Monday. “We will all put on uniforms and will go to the border to defend ourselves.”Her comments echoed those of most people NBC News spoke to in Crimea this week. While the government of President Vladimir Putin has cracked down on free speech everywhere, including in Crimea, the peninsula’s majority Russian-speaking population was considered more pro-Moscow than in other parts of Ukraine when it was annexed.

There has also been numerous referendums in Crimea over many decades.
A lot of the Putin/Russia haters like to say that the 2014 referendum, where 96% of the voters in Crimea wanted to join with Russia, was rigged, done at the point of a Russian bayonet, etc.

Now I could debate you on that, but I'm not going to bother, because I don't have to. Instead I'm going to refer to the 1991 Crimean sovereignty referendum.
Voters were asked whether they wanted to re-establish the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which had been abolished in 1945. The proposal was approved by 94% of voters.

In other words, Crimea voted overwhelmingly to separate from Ukraine (with an 81% turnout). What's more, everything was moving in that direction. Even Ukraine agreed.
However, check out how the Washington Post spun this vote years later.

Crimea had a referendum on independence from Russia back in 1991, when it was far more Russian than today, and it then favored being part of a newly independent Ukraine.

That is simply a lie. A blatant falsehood. Even Wikipedia is more accurate and truthful.

This would have meant that Crimea would have been a sovereign subject of the renewed USSR and separate from the Ukrainian SSR.

Following the referendum, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR passed the law "On Restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialistic Republic as part of USSR" on 12 February 1991, restoring Crimea's autonomous status as independent from the Ukrainian SSR.
But Crimea's separation from Ukraine got hung up on a technicality.
However, the issue didn't go away.

May 5, 1992: Crimea's parliament declares total independence subject to approval in a referendum to be held in August 1992.

May 13, 1992: The Ukrainian parliament declares the Crimean parliament's independence declaration unconstitutional and gives them until May 20 to rescind it. They also give President Kravchuk the power to use all necessary means to halt Crimean independence.

The Ukraine government required Crimean Russians to set their clocks to the same time as the rest of Ukraine for the first time since 1994, when the Russians had switched to Moscow time in protest. The Ukraine government had initially tolerated a second time zone within Ukraine, but required the Crimeans to come into line after four years. (The Independent [London] 3/28/97)

Which brings up the 1994 Crimean referendum, where 78% of the voters wanted autonomy from Ukraine.
Even more enlightening in that same referendum, is that 83% of Crimean voters wanted to have dual passports with Russia. The LA Times reported it at the time this way: Separatists Win Big in Crimea Vote : Ukraine: Candidates who favor independence or rejoining Russia get 73% of presidential ballots
This time Ukraine's government simply called the election illegal and ignored the results.

Did Putin rig the opinion polls too? I'm not talking about some Russian company under Putin's thumb. I'm talking about opinion polls conducted by American companies.

In June 2014, a Gallup poll with the Broadcasting Board of Governors asked Crimeans if the results in the March 16, 2014 referendum to secede reflected the views of the people. A total of 82.8% of Crimeans said yes. When broken down by ethnicity, 93.6% of ethnic Russians said they believed the vote to secede was legitimate, while 68.4% of Ukrainians felt so. Moreover, when asked if joining Russia will ultimately make life better for them and their family, 73.9% said yes while 5.5% said no.

In February 2015, a poll by German polling firm GfK revealed that attitudes have not changed. When asked “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?”, a total of 82% of the respondents answered “yes, definitely,” and another 11% answered “yes, for the most part.” Only 2% said they didn't know, and another 2% said no. Three percent did not specify their position.

How many times to the people of Crimea have to say it before the West will listen? Crimea wants to be part of Russia.

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desire to separate from Ukraine, or at least be autonomous. It doesn't jive with their
propaganda of 'freedom and democracy' which is being fought for.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

... is the First Principle of Human Rights.

The people have the right to choose their form of government.

The people living in Crimea are not Ukrainians, and they do not speak Ukrainian.

They do not belong to the past. They belong to the future that they are creating together.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
snoopydawg's picture

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A continuation of the Clinton era goals that they used Yeltsin to achieve for them. Also remember that Putin derided the oligarchs that didn’t put Russia above their need for greed. He asked if anyone felt sorry for them losing their money and yachts because they put their money with America instead of Russia….they were the ones who were supposed to regime change Putin.

In the history of the wars of the world, it almost never happens that the military strategy of a fighting state directs and revolutionizes the political strategy, and not the other way round — as aspiring politicians, military officers and policemen are taught by the venerable Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz to believe.

But it is happening in Europe now, on the Ukrainian battlefield, and in the war of the US and NATO alliance against Russia.
…..
What has remained of the plan of the destruction of Russia from those days is what there is today.

The oligarchs survive but, according to the terms of the US and NATO sanctions war, they cannot have their assets and freedom of movement back unless they overthrow Putin, change the regime in the Kremlin, and destroy the capability of the Russian military to defend the country.

The defensive strategy in response is obvious. Not only must the capacity of Ukrainian forces and their NATO weapons be destroyed at the front, and their remainder driven to a territorial line west of the Dnieper River, between Kiev and Lvov, out of range of Russian Crimea, Zaphorozhye, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk. Also, each of the NATO weapons must be defeated and destroyed which the US sends to the battlefield, and the airborne and ground systems for directing them at their Russian targets neutralized. .

If this Russian strategy succeeds, the implication for Europe – and the rest of the world (Taiwan) – will be plain. The US cannot defend NATO and NATO cannot defend its member states with a military capability that has been defeated. Article Five of the NATO treaty will become a dead letter. If and when that happens, the all-for-one-one-for-all principle of security in Europe which Article 5 promises will be replaced, first by the principle of every one for himself, and then by the principle of reciprocal security and non-aggression; that was the proposal of the Russian treaties of December 17, 2021.

They are the 5th columnists that are against what Russia is doing in Ukraine, but haven’t been invested in the country for some time.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cassiodorus's picture

is a sort of hubris: they think the Ukrainians can outlast the Russians and that the Russians will run out of ammunition stocks before they do.

Maybe they'll actually talk about peace at some point. I'd like to know what Seymour Hersh knows about all this.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Cassiodorus Is there any name at any level of domestic or international law for what they're doing? Effectively forcing two countries to fight to the death, like bugs in a jar (this childlore bloodsport being the conceptual origin of POKEMON, for whatever that's worth)?

I really do wonder whether someone actually looked through the Geneva Accords just to chart a trail to a Mephistophelian loophole.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

TheOtherMaven's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

Maybe that's why we're being told to "watch out for aliens"? Blum 3

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@TheOtherMaven Sounds like the title you'd get if Arthur Conan Doyle had done a collab with C.S. Lewis.

I'd look it up, but I don't want to accidentally find a meaning you didn't intend.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

TheOtherMaven's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat
aka "James Tiptree Jr.", aka Alice Sheldon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

soryang's picture

WP Exclusive
Former top U.S. admiral cashes in on nuclear sub deal with Australia

By Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones
March 7, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EST

In its quest to build nuclear-powered submarines, the government of Australia recently hired a little-known, one-person consulting firm from Virginia: Briny Deep. ... Briny Deep, based in Alexandria, Va., received a $210,000 part-time contract in late November to advise Australian defense officials during their negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain, according to Australian contracting documents. U.S. public records show the company is owned by John M. Richardson, a retired four-star U.S. admiral and career submariner who headed the U.S. Navy from 2015 to 2019.

Richardson, who declined to comment, is the latest former U.S. Navy leader to cash in on the nuclear talks by working as a high-dollar consultant for the Australian government, a pattern that was revealed in a Washington Post investigation last year. His case brings to a dozen the number of retired officers and former civilian leaders from the U.S. Navy whom Australia has employed as advisers since the nuclear talks began in September 2021, documents show.

The former U.S. Navy officials are profiting from a web of sources with sometimes divergent interests. One retired U.S. admiral charges $4,000 per day to consult for the Australian government while simultaneously advising other foreign defense clients and collecting his U.S. military pension, according to records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The overlapping arrangements cast doubt on whether the U.S. consultants can provide impartial advice and raise questions about whose interests they are representing, said Jordon Steele-John, a member of the Australian Senate whose Green Party opposes the nuclear talks and has been critical of the government’s dependence on American advisers. “If you’re on the payroll of a foreign government, your advice is by definition not independent,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/03/07/former-top-us-a...

How many former general officers do this? Why is the WP highlighting Richardson? I got the paywall on this WP article. So I copied the text excerpt from SV.

I didn't get the paywall on this one. I don't know why. I wonder if anyone else can get access to the full article. Catapult the propaganda!

South Korea gets a Biden state dinner and makes a deal with Japan
Oliver Knox, Caroline Anders Wash Post

This week has brought two interesting developments regarding South Korea that may benefit President Biden’s policies toward North Korea and China. Both approaches turn on rallying close allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific to contain the two nuclear-armed powers.

Let’s start with today’s development, scooped by my colleagues Yasmeen Abutaleb and Michelle Ye Hee Lee: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol next month will make just the second state visit of Biden’s term, complete with a state dinner on April 26.

One reason for the honor, they highlighted, is U.S.-South Korea cooperation on North Korea, “which has nuclear ambitions, launched an unprecedented number of missile tests and fired long-range missiles into the sea since Biden took office more than two years ago.” There’s also Seoul’s key role in the regional coalition Biden wants to counter China’s rise and ambitions.

“U.S. officials said South Korea’s billions of dollars of economic investments in the United States — including from major corporations such as Samsung, SK Group and Hyundai — played a key role in the decision to invite Yoon and his wife, first lady Kim Keon Hee, adding that such investments will help strengthen each countries’ supply chains. A senior administration official noted that such technology investments used to go to China.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/07/south-korea-gets-bide...

This article has misleading characterizations concerning what the Korean public thinks. It wasn't a deal, it was an embarrassing unilateral submission to Japan by Yoon. At the end one expert notes, that if Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel don't contribute to the fund for reparations to the victims of Japanese slave labor during WWII, the deal "won't amount to much." So a little daylight at the end. I don't think many Koreans regard China as a military threat. I think they know the economic consequences of stiffing them economically or militarily. I don't think they really care what happens to Taiwan either as long as their exports are not affected. It's not their fight.

My understanding is that South Korean and American corporations (with substantial investments in Japan) are the ones projected to make the payments voluntarily. The offending Japanese companies aren't required to do anything.

The Bloomberg commentary on this "agreement" is interesting:

This Tokyo-Seoul Accord Must Not Become Another False Dawn
An agreement to restore relations between the two nations has echoes of past failures. Both must ensure this one sticks.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-06/japan-south-korea-...

There's a paywall but the title suggests they know the know the so called agreement isn't really supported by South Koreans, and has basically been forced on them by the US. Yoon will do anything to get a photo-op with the western empire's CinC. This is because as a practical matter he has little domestic support (in the 30-35 percent range). Polls are being manipulated in South Korea to show inflated indications of support in excess of 40 percent. The number of people self identifying as conservatives, being polled, are consistently oversampled.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Yoon is being compared by critics in the opposition to the infamous traitor Lee Won-yong who led late Chosun down the path to Japanese Imperial domination.

(Source- 언론 알아야 바 youtube 3.7)

The comparison implies that South Korea is now little more than a protectorate, and that as the reincarnation of an infamous pro-Japanese traitor, Yoon is delivering Korea up to be scooped up and eaten. Yoon and his supporters from Samsung Group apparently believe that his capitulation to the US and Japan will somehow save them from what is currently viewed as the second IMF financial catastrophe ongoing in South Korea. It is doubtful that Samsung and SK will benefit on balance by embracing the US decoupling from China policy.

So much for South Korean statutory weapons export controls:

Exclusive: Seoul approved Poland's export of howitzers with S.Korean parts to Ukraine
By Josh Smith and Joyce Lee
Reuters 3.7

SEOUL, March 8 (Reuters) - Seoul approved export licences last year for Poland to provide Ukraine with Krab howitzers, which are built with South Korean components, a South Korean defence official and a Polish industry representative told Reuters on Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/seoul-approved-polands-export-howitzers-wi...

This one has a pay wall too.

So round and round we go as the historical pattern repeats.

돌고 돌아가는 길-노사연 Original performer No Sa Youn 1978 performed by Yoo Ji Na. 노사연
written and composed byKim Ook 김 욱

Ever returning path

Climbing one mountain after another, turning and turning
Going up to that grave, where is it?
My feet turn and turn
I cross one river after another, flowing, flowing
Wet, immersed in that water, where does it lead?
Inside me, it flows and flows.

My feet only turn and turn
Beneath them many circles
My form passes by, inside me the wheel turns,
The cycle ever as it turns
If I don't go, what will happen?
The water is good, so the grave
Whatever I do, I must go.

Crossing one mountain after another,
On that turning, turning path
Even better with a smile
Why not a small turn as time passes?
One blossoms only for a brief time
Even though I circle, I must follow my dream.

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語必忠信 行必正直