For a more informed commentary on Ukraine than Paul Craig Roberts's, you might look at these two pieces, one a recent article by, and the other an interview (with transcript) of Professor Steven Cohen, a longtime Russia specialist (unlike Roberts). Roberts is coming from a point of view that might be described in many ways as 'ultra-right,' and there are some similarities between Roberts's comments you posted and some recent comments by ultra-right wing columnist Patrick Buchanan (with Buchanan basically taking up for Yanukovich's Ukraine and Russia, and saying that in the "culture wars," Putin is on the "right side," and explaining this in part by reference to the Putin administration's hostility toward gay rights, favorable treatment of the Christian Church (with Orthodoxy having become practically a state religion in some respects in Russia) [interestingly, Buchanan, a fanatical Catholic, glosses over the fact that the Orthodox Church has traditionally been very hostile to the Catholic Church], and some other things that Buchanan interprets as properly "conservative." But this is coming from a guy who admired the Franco regime in Spain.
Roberts is a bit of a wing-nut, and not a Russia specialist. He says "Ukrainians will not escape corruption by joining the EU. Indeed, Ukrainians will suffer worse corruption." Sure, there is some corruption in EU countries, but anyone who has done business in both Western Europe and Russia (and most other parts of the former Soviet Union) knows that there's a big difference in the level of corruption, and it ain't worse in the EU.
Cohen writes for The Nation and would be considered left-of-center by many people, and would be perceived (perhaps unfairly) as being a bit of an apologist for the Soviet system (he has stressed what a mess Russia in the 90s became and how catastrophic that period was for Soviet citizens who had enjoyed stability and in many cases more prosperity under the Soviet system than they did in the 90s under Yeltsin).
Here are the Cohen links:
democracynow.org
thenation.com
(Appears in the March 3 issue of The Nation, was written February 11).
If you watch the part of the video where Cohen is interviewed, he comes across as very informed, not a ranter or raver, but rather is warning that we've seen with the Arab Spring countries what happens when a street-led movement gets taken over by the extremists, and that that is happening in Ukraine (the interview was at least a few days ago).
Cohen ends up reaching some of the same conclusions as both Roberts and Buchanan. They all believe that the mainstream media in the U.S. hasn't given the Ukraine story fair treatment, and that the U.S. and the EU are being very hypocritical.
People who think that regimes become total puppets of their patron countries are overestimating how many different aspects of governance there are in countries the size of Ukraine or Afghanistan. There might have been a puppet regime in a place the size of Granada, but look at how obstreperous Karzai is for the U.S. to deal with in Afghanistan, notwithstanding the countless billions of dollars in aid, the massive war effort and American lives lost in trying to bolster his government. If it were that easy to create a 'puppet' government, his should be one, and it isn't.
The bureaucrats in the EU and U.S., and the fervent ideologues and cheerleaders for intervention and nation-building efforts--like John McCain--may get some moral satisfaction from denouncing Yanukovich for cosying up to Putin's authoritarian and in many ways repugnant regime, but the fact is that the process of making Ukraine well-run, prosperous, and even relatively non-corrupt, will take decades if not generations (as it is taking that much time in Russia--more prosperous now than before, but only very, very patchily well-run, and very, very corrupt, and little tolerance for dissent of any kind). If it really were just a matter of Ukrainians saying, "We'd rather be more like Poland than Russia, and that's what this whole Ukraine conflict is about," it would be one thing, but they can't just wish their basket-case economy and traditions of corruption and internal disunity away by ousting Yanukovich.
And does the E.U., with its 'unshakable' economies like Greece, Portugal, and soon France, have the resources to support Ukraine for all the years it will take, which are going to entail bitter pills of reforms regardless of whether the full-fledged IMF free-trade model is followed, or even a more lenient version of it.
These issues are ungodly complicated, and I see through it when formulaic phrases are passed off as wisdom and morality, whether uttered by Obama, McCain, Merkel, Roberts, or whomever. |
