THURSDAY, MAR 20, 2014 10:15 PM +0900
The New York Times manufactures ignorance: More half-truths about Ukraine
Once again, the media and the foreign policy establishment are dangerously misreading history and current events
PATRICK L. SMITH
There is blur, certainly, but the legal grounding is clear: International law carefully avoids prohibiting unilateral declarations of independence.
Something else must be added instantly. It is no good thinking that the vote was somehow forced by the barrels of Russian rifles. The imagery is familiar, time-tested Cold War stuff with obvious truth in a lot of cases. And scarcely would Putin be above intimidation. But it does not hold up this time, if only because there was no need of intimidation.
The plain reality is that Putin knew well how the referendum would turn out and played the card with confidence. Washington and the European capitals knew, too, and this is why they were so unseemly and shamelessly hypocritical in their desperation to cover the world’s ears as Crimeans spoke.
This raises the legality question. There is blur, certainly, but the legal grounding is clear: International law carefully avoids prohibiting unilateral declarations of independence. In any case, to stand on the law, especially Ukraine’s since the coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month, is a weak case in the face of Crimeans’ expression of their will.
There was a splendid image published in Wednesday’s New York Times. Take a look. You have a lady in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, on her way to something, probably work. Well-dressed, properly groomed, she navigates the sidewalk indifferently between a soldier and a tank.
The shot was taken Tuesday, day of the annexation. No big one, she seems to say.
This is the right position. If there is big stuff in Crimea’s change of status from the point of view of Crimeans, it is that the 2.2 million of them, 60 percent of them Russian, will leave behind a failed state now staring at the prospect of life under the neoliberal austerity regime those at the southern end of Europe love so much they simply cannot get enough of it.
I have explored previously in this space the journalistic phenomenon I term “the power of leaving out.” We have a classic case before us.
The Ukraine crisis was the final touch, the political piece, in a two-decade campaign to entice westward the country’s vigorously anti-Russian elements. More broadly, we have the advance of NATO up to Russia’s borders, a strategy so provocative and ahistorical that even Tom Friedman thinks it was dumb (or he did for at least one afternoon at the computer not long ago).
This kind of willful omission can do lasting damage to public understanding.
The Pentagon has sent new F-16s to Poland and new F-15s to the Baltics. It is now flying surveillance jets over the Polish and Romanian borders with Russia. It is planning new naval exercises in the Black Sea, the rough equivalent of Russian naval exercises in the Caribbean.
My point is simply that there is more in Putin’s 47 minutes at the podium than our media tell us.
This is a man who knows precisely what he is doing now, having been provoked in Ukraine. He is doing his utmost to bring America’s unipolar moment to an end. I am for this project, not as a Russophile or some kind of Putinite, but as an American.
“Our Western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun,” Putin said. “They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: Here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle, ‘If you are not with us, you are against us.’”
I find it hard to argue with much of this. Little to refute, much to regret.
He also declared that he has no interest in going further into Ukraine. I take this to be so, at least for now; I also think it will depend on the West’s next moves, and these could include more big mistakes. Putting American troops on Ukrainian soil within the next few months seems an especially worrisome insensitivity.
THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014
Former U.S. Ambassador: Behind Crimea Crisis, Russia Responding to Years of "Hostile" U.S. Policy
Now, how would Americans feel if some Russian or Chinese or even West European started putting bases in Mexico or in the Caribbean, or trying to form governments that were hostile to us? You know, we saw how we virtually went ballistic over Cuba. And I think that we have not been very attentive to what it takes to have a harmonious relationship with Russia.
You see, in the Orange Revolution in Kiev, foreigners, including Americans, were very active in organizing people and inspiring them. Now, you know, I have to ask Americans: How would Occupy Wall Street have looked if you had foreigners out there leading them? Do you think that would have helped them get their point across? I don’t think so. And I think we have to understand that when we start directly interfering, particularly our government officials, in the internal makeup of other governments, we’re really asking for trouble.
You can join NATO, and that will solve your problems for you." You know, and yet, it is that very prospect, that the United States and its European allies were trying to surround Russia with hostile bases, that has raised the emotional temperature of all these things. And that was a huge mistake. As George Kennan wrote back in the ’90s when this question came up, the decision to expand NATO the way it was done was one of the most fateful and bad decisions of the late 20th century.
The fact is, Russia now has returned Crimea to Russia. It has been, most of its recent history, in the last couple of centuries, been Russian. The majority of the people are Russian. They clearly would prefer to be in Russia. And the bottom line is, we can argue 'til doomsday over who did what and why and who was the legal and who was not―I'm sure historians generations from now will still be arguing it―but the fact is, Russia now is not going to give up Crimea. The fact also is, if you really look at it dispassionately, Ukraine is better off without Crimea, because Ukraine is divided enough as it is. Their big problem is internal, in putting together disparate people who have been put together in that country. The distraction of Crimea, where most of the people did not want to be in Ukraine and ended up in Ukraine as a result of really almost a bureaucratic whim, is―was, I think, a real liability for Ukraine.
I would say that I think Russian media have exaggerated that right-wing threat. On the other hand, those who have ignored it, I think, are making a big mistake. We do have to understand that a significant part of the violence at the Maidan, the demonstrations in Kiev, were done by these extreme right-wing, sort of neo-fascist groups. And they do―some of their leaders do occupy prominent positions in the security forces of the new government. And I think―I think the Russians and others are quite legitimately concerned about that.
２本目の記事はソ連時代のアメリカ大使のデモクラシーナウでのインタービューですが、面白いことに２本とも、共通のテーマがあって、それは、欧米、米ーNATOがロシアを挑発してきた、ということではないか、と思います。
仮に、メキシコや西インド諸島に反米的なロシアやあるいは、中国の軍事基地をつくって、カリブ海で軍事演習し、さらに、ロシア人あるいは、中国人が先導、扇動して、ウォールストリート占拠デモのような大規模なデモが執り行って、反米政府を樹立しようとしたら、アメリカはどう感じるだろうか。
それと同じような挑発をアメリカはロシアに対してやっているのだ、と。
包囲網を作って挑発して、先に打たせて、潰しにかかる、これが、伝統的な戦術の一つなのかもしれませんね。
クリミアの住民投票についても、日米の主要なメディアが言うように、脅迫的的雰囲気のもと、不正な投票が行われた、とはみていない。
歴史的にもロシアに帰属してたところであり、住民もロシア系が多く、また、ウクライナ自体が崩壊寸前なので、ウクライナから離脱して、ロシアと併合したいというのも不思議ではなく、住民を脅す必要性がない、と。
一本目の記事はさらに、アメリカ主要なメディアがプーチンを悪魔のように云々し、さらに、欧米がロシアを挑発してきた歴史は割愛してしまっていることに注目しています。
そういえば、安倍ちゃんがいま、英語圏のメディアは悪魔のようにいわれておりますーーー日本のような外様大名は、ロシアのように敵国とは言わないまでも、つねに疑いの目でみられるわけですね。
それと、慰安婦問題でも、かりに、欧米のメディアがアメリカ自身のアジアにおける性奴隷搾取についてちゃんと報道していたら、これほど、こじれた問題にはならなかったでしょうし、もっと多くの女性が救われていたでしょうけど、アメリカの主要なメディアはデフォルトで愛国主義、帝国主義的であることは認識しておいたほうがいい、というのが私見です。
２本目の記事では、ウクライナ暫定政府内部のネオナチ勢力について、ロシアは誇張しすぎているかもしれないが、しかし、それを無視するのもいかがなものか、と指摘しています。
それと、一方的な独立宣言というのは、国際法では禁じてはいないわけですねーーこんなことも主要なメディアからは聞けない。
アメリカの都合の悪いことは、主要なメディアの報道では、すべて割愛。
ついでにいうと、日本のメディアもだいたい同じ傾向はあると自覚しておいたほうがいい。もっとも、海外ニュースについては、中国ネタ、半島ネタをのぞいて、英語の要約・翻訳だけですので、いずれにせよ、あまり期待できない。
それはともかく、プーチンは、国際法ではなく、拳銃で好き勝手やっているのは、むしろ欧米のほうだと言っているが、残念ながら反論できない、と。
反米とか親米とか、反中とか親中とか、反ロとか、親ロとか そういった、おれら、おまいら、といった枠組み以前に、情報の収集と適切な情報分析にもとづいて、冷静に評価してく必要があるのでしょうね。
それにしても、常日頃、日本の軍靴の音が聞こえているという"進歩的”な人たちがアメリカの軍靴の音が聞こえない、というのも不思議でならないのであります。
