Once again we hate the Russians, the enemies of my youth; after all, they invaded the Crimean Peninsula, sovereign territory belonging to Ukraine, and shot down a commercial aircraft, and it is all President Donald Trump’s fault. The Russians colluded with Candidate Trump to sabotage our Democracy, right?
Interesting that the term collusion is vanishing from the media vocabulary. How dare President Trump attempt to get along with the Russians? If I am not mistaken, the invasion of Ukraine was during the Brack Obama administration and the stage for the invasion was set during Secretary Clinton’s watch. President Obama resurrected this issue in his speech in Illinois, marking his recent return to political campaigning. The strategy will be to wrap the Russians and President Putin around President Trump’s neck and by extension all Republican candidates.
“The U.S. has influenced elections in at least 84 countries since 1945.” Global News. Is that a bad thing? Not in my eyes, but let’s not get so full of outrage that we stop talking to other nations who do it to us.
A Feb. 24, 2014, Washington Post editorial celebrated the Maidan demonstrators and their successful campaign to overthrow Yanukovych, a pro-Russian head of the Crimean government. The “moves were democratic,” the Washington Post concluded, and “Kiev is now controlled by pro-Western parties.” Think the United States of America would like it if the Russians help overthrow a sovereign pro-American government in Mexico or Canada?
The Cato Institute published “U.S. officials were blatantly meddling in Ukraine. Such conduct was utterly improper. The United States had no right to try to orchestrate political outcomes in another country—especially one on the border of another great power.
“It is no wonder that Russia reacted badly to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government—an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing, but apparently with its assistance.” Cato Institute.
It is worth looking at a bit of history to understand the Russians’ view of and the mindset of the Russians before the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. The all-weather deep water ports the Russians have maintained on the Black Sea on the Crimean Peninsula date back to 1783. They were deeded to the Ukraine in 1954 when they were part of the Union of Socialist Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), with a treaty to allow the use of the ports by the Russians. The demise of the USSR in 1991/1992 resulted in a sovereign government in Ukraine and a treaty leasing the ports to the Russian Federation. All was well until 2014, when with our help, the elected pro-Russian government was overthrown, and the leases canceled.
The Russians lost nearly half a million troops in the Crimean War and arguably 450,000 or more in World War II defending and retaking the Crimean ports. The Russians are not going to relinquish control of the Black Sea all-weather deep-water ports without a fight. How in the name of history the Department of State did not see this is puzzling. It is diplomatic malpractice to think that the Russian Federation was just going to give up the ports without a fight.
If the new government in the Ukraine had left the leases in place, all would have been well. The United States has leases for bases in Cuba, the Philippines, Japan, Germany, Korea, Kosovo at Camp Bond Steel, England, Belgium, Iraq, Afghanistan and many more nations.
The Chinese have a system that allows Hong Kong to exist with a different system of government and economic system but still be a part of China; a similar compromise could have avoided a war. However, the President Obama/Clinton Department of State forgot history and tried to freeze the Russians out of ports vital to the economy and defense of the Russian Federation.
They handed the Russians a winning issue on a silver platter. Putin’s approval ratings with the people went from a very high 61% to an astronomical 81% after the invasion of Ukraine. President Clinton once said, “if I have a 60% approval rating, I could do anything I want.”
I am fully aware the American left and right want to hate the Russians, but the invasion of the Ukraine and Putin’s undying popularly was a diplomatic blunder on our part that needs to placed at the feet of President Obama, not President Trump.
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