A Curious History
There's also a curious history to U.S. attitudes toward ethnically divided Ukraine. During Ronald Reagan's presidency -- as he escalated Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union -- one of his propaganda services, Radio Liberty, began airing commentaries into Ukraine from right-wing exiles.
Some of the commentaries praised Ukrainian nationalists who had sided with the Nazis in World War II as the SS waged its "final solution" against European Jews. The propaganda broadcasts provoked outrage from Jewish organizations, such as B'nai B'rith, and individuals including academic Richard Pipes.
According to an internal memo dated May 4, 1984, and written by James Critchlow, a research officer at the Board of International Broadcasting, which managed Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, one RL broadcast in particular was viewed as "defending Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the SS."
Critchlow wrote, "An RL Ukrainian broadcast of Feb. 12, 1984 contains references to the Nazi-oriented Ukrainian-manned SS 'Galicia' Division of World War II which may have damaged RL's reputation with Soviet listeners. The memoirs of a German diplomat are quoted in a way that seems to constitute endorsement by RL of praise for Ukrainian volunteers in the SS division, which during its existence fought side by side with the Germans against the Red Army."
Harvard Professor Pipes, a conservative academic, also inveighed against the RL broadcasts, writing -- on Dec. 3, 1984 -- "the Russian and Ukrainian services of RL have been transmitting this year blatantly anti-Semitic material to the Soviet Union which may cause the whole enterprise irreparable harm."
Though the Reagan administration publicly defended RL against some of the public criticism, privately some senior officials agreed with the criticism, according to documents in the archives of the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. For instance, in a Jan. 4, 1985, memo, Walter Raymond Jr., a top official on the National Security Council, told his boss, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, that "I would believe much of what Dick [Pipes] says is right."
This three-decade-old dispute over U.S.-sponsored radio broadcasts underscores the troubling political reality of Ukraine, which straddles a dividing line between people with cultural ties oriented toward the West and those with a cultural heritage more attuned to Russia. Though the capital Kiev sits in a region dominated by the western Ukrainians, the Russian-allied Ukrainians represent most of the population, explaining Yanukovych's electoral victory.
Loving a Putsch
Now, right-wing militias, representing historical resentments toward the Russians and hostility toward the Jews, have seized control of many government buildings in Kiev. Faced with this intimidation, the often-unanimous decisions by the remaining legislators would normally be viewed with extreme skepticism, including their demands for the capture and likely execution of Yanukovych.
But the U.S. press corps can't get beyond its demonization of Putin and Yanukovych. The neocon Washington Post has been almost euphoric over the coup, as expressed in a Feb. 24 editorial:
"Ukraine has shaken off its corrupt president and the immediate prospect of domination by Russia -- but at the risk of further conflict. The decision by Viktor Yanukovych to flee Kiev over the weekend triggered the disintegration of his administration and prompted parliament to replace him and schedule elections for May."The moves were democratic -- members of Mr. Yanukovych's party joined in the parliamentary votes -- but they had the effect of nullifying an accord between the former government and opposition that had been brokered by the European Union and tacitly supported by Russia.
"Kiev is now controlled by pro-Western parties that say they will implement the association agreement with the European Union that Mr. Yanukovych turned away from three months ago, triggering the political crisis.
"There remain two big threats to this positive outcome. One is that Ukraine's finances will collapse in the absence of a bailout from Russia or the West. The other is that the country will split along geographic lines as Russian speakers in the east of the country, perhaps supported by Moscow, reject the new political order."
The Post continued...
"What's not clear is whether Mr. Putin would accept a Ukraine that is not under the Kremlin's thumb. The first indications are not good: Though Mr. Putin has been publicly silent about Ukraine since Friday, the rhetoric emanating from his government has been angry and belligerent. A foreign ministry statement Monday alleged that 'a course has been set to use dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods to suppress dissenters in various regions.'"
So, the Washington Post's editors consider the violent overthrow of a democratically elected president to be "democratic" and take comfort in "democratic" actions by a legislature, despite the curious lack of any no votes and the fact that this balloting has occurred under the watchful eye of neo-Nazi storm troopers patroling government offices. And, according to the Post, the Russian government is unhinged to detect "dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods."
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