So, Volodymyr Zelensky shows up, digitally-speaking, with his hand out, and Joe responds with a promise for $800 million in military aid. This is all fine and well, the Ukrainian people have become military targets for Russian missiles and tank guns and don’t get wrong, this invasion should never have taken place.
That being said, I also happen to believe that when all is really said and done, that Ukraine and all those other Eastern European countries that emerged after the Soviet Union collapsed, give me a pain in the ass.
Where did countries like Moldova, Slovakia, Serbia, and Ukraine come from and why does what happens in those places have anything to do with us?
In 1914, all these countries were parts of three imperial empires: Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman regimes. They were governed, so to speak, by autocratic potentates who basically left everyone alone as long as their authority wasn’t challenged which meant as meant as taxes were paid maybe not in full but at least more or less on time.
All three empires didn’t survive World War I. Russia became the Soviet Union, Austria and Hungary became independent states, the Ottoman home territory eventually became Turkey and most of what they owned became independent countries (ex. Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, etc.) in the Near East.
Basically, what this meant was that national borders appeared, representatives of these countries began showing up at the U.N., some places held elections, others did not. The big joke in Israel about Syria is that one day the Syrian President, Hafez al-Hassad (father of the current President) calls in his Interior Minister and says: “We need to hold an election! The United Nations loves elections. So, schedule an election but the only name on the ballot will be me.”
So, the election takes place and the day after the votes are counted the Interior Minister comes into the President’s office ands says: “Mister President! Mister President! The votes have been counted and you received 99 and six-tenths of the votes. Which means less than one-half of one percent of the people don’t want you to be in charge. What else could you want?”
“Their names,” replies al-Hassad.
I don’t believe that all that much has changed in this region of the world over the past thirty or so years. Remember Clinton and Bosnia? In July, 1995 a military force of Bosnian Serbs swarmed into the town of Srebrenica, a mountainous village located 30 miles from Sarajevo, and shot more than 8,000 men and boys.
After Clinton bombed the shit out of the Bosnian Serbs, a deal was brokered which remains in force to this day. Meanwhile the country has an unemployment rate of 25% and the two rival communities – Muslim and Eastern Orthodox Christian – manage to maintain an uneasy peace.
As for the other countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union but declared themselves to be independent, sovereign states after 1991, most of these countries maintain primary trade and commercial relations with the Russian Federation, as the successor to the Communist government is now called. At the same time, for the most part countries like Moldova and Slovakia have seen dramatic improvements in their national economies but they are hardly what we would call modern, stable national states.
I still don’t understand how and why the United States has become Ukraine’s new great friend. It took us twenty years to extricate ourselves from the mess in Afghanistan, another country which we felt needed our support after Soviet troops crossed over the border in 1979.
We committed military forces to Afghanistan as a response to the Taliban giving al-Qaeda a sanctuary after the Twin Towers were attacked in 2001. Joe can say he won’t commit military forces to Ukraine, but does that pledge really mean anything if the current Ukrainian government is replaced at some point with a political leadership that we don’t want to see around?
The Ukrainian government to which we are now going to send $800 million in military aid happens to be seven years old, and this is a part of the world where governments come, and governments go.
If we help Ukraine repel the current Soviet invasion, can we assume that the Ukrainian government will still be around in another seven years? I’m not so sure.
NOTE: Don’t take this column as in any way supporting Fucker Carlson’s rant about how supporting Ukraine is another liberal scam. Carlson’s the single worst and most malevolent news media personality since Father Coughlin tried to teach Americans about the perfidy of Communists and Jews.