Hypocrisy seems to be massively in fashion. This from William Hague renders me speechless: “Be in no doubt, there will be consequences. The world cannot say it is OK to violate the sovereignty of other nations.”
Then today we have the British Establishment at a closed event in Westminster Abbey in memory of Nelson Mandela. Prince Harry, David Cameron, all the toffs. I was never more than a footsoldier in the anti-apartheid movement, but I trudged through the rain and handed out leaflets in Dundee and Edinburgh. I suspect very few indeed of the guests at this posh memorial service did that. David Cameron was actively involved in Conservative groups which promoted precisely the opposite cause.
My first appointment in the Foreign Office was to the South Africa (Political) desk in 1984. The official British government line was that the ANC was a terrorist organization. I faced hostility and disapproval even when I tried to get action on appalling human rights abuses like the case of Oscar Mpetha (thanks here to Tony Gooch and Terry Curran, they know why). I got in big trouble for asking how many black guests had been received in the High Commissioner’s residence in Pretoria.
Every day, on a day to day basis, my job involved dealing with members of the British establishment, its political, business and professional communities. The entire tenor of those meetings was how to prevent economic sanctions, circumvent existing sanctions and prolong the economic advantages to the UK of white rule. Support for PW Botha was axiomatic. I have no doubt many of those people or those who worked alongside them are in Westminster Abbey today.
The final extraordinary outbreak of hypocrisy is on the British left. Russian military invasion of Ukraine is approved by them, because it is an invasion by Russia, and not an invasion by the West. They are precisely as hypocritical as Hague. Both think it is OK to violate the sovereignty of other nations, but only by their chosen side.
Until 1917, Russia was an Empire, avowedly so. Thereafter the Soviet Union was a non-avowed Empire. The Crimea, and the rest of the Caucasus, was not colonized by Russia until the 1820’s onward. The reason Crimea has a majority Russian population is that Stalin deported the Krim Tartars as recently as the 1930’s. That was an old fashioned, wholesale colonial atrocity, precisely similar to the British clearing parts of Kenya for white settlement.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Russian statesmen like Nesselrode appealed to the British in particular, not to oppose their expansion in the Caucasus, because as he said like the British they were white Christian Europeans engaged in a civilizing mission among savages and Muslims. It was precisely the same colonial motivation the British used. There is no moral difference, or even overt difference in justification at the time, between British colonization of India and Russian colonization of Chechnya. Because Britain happens to be an island, we think of Empires as something you get to by ship. Russia’s Empire happened to be a contiguous land mass. But Dagestan, Chechnya, and Tartarstan were none the less colonies, exactly as were Kokhand, Bokhara and Khiva, formed to make Uzbekistan. Yet left wing anti-colonialism does not demand decolonisation by Russia, only the West. Gross hypocrisy.
Nice one Craig the reason you failed to spot the neo nazis in the cabinet is the party name and history is mysteriously lacking in say the telegraphs list of the cabinet.All the other members have the party in brackets.I think wikipedia editing is going crazy at the moment as well.
Grownups.
It’s very complicated but I think I get it now, thanks to the “100% anti-imperialist left wing circles”
I can mow see the dastardly Russian aggression for what it truly is.
The old “Calm and Restrain” ploy. I know it’s a bit anticlimactic compared to proper “Shock and Awe” but I suppose it will have to do for today’s Two Minute Hate. Who are those Russians to threaten to break a monopoly on the use of desrtuctive violence as diplomacy anyway?
Meanwhile in a sinister development Russia’s deputy foreign minister Georgy Karasin and his Chinese counterpart, Cheng Guoping, held consultations Monday and threatened the Free World by “stressing the need to continue the search for ways to resolve the situation in Ukraine, which would include wide participation from different political forces in the country and taking the interests of all Ukrainian regions into account.” Like the Feb 21 agreement or something.
Wherever will they think of for their next act of aggression?
http://rt.com/news/kiev-clashes-rioters-police-571/
More Russian aggression.
“We have become accustomed to the daily accusations by the Ukrainian media of carrying out some sort of military actions against our Ukrainian colleagues,” Russian Black Sea Fleet representative said, adding that “those who want to pit us against each other in the Crimea won’t succeed.”
Calm and Bore, the ultimate horror!
“Robert, as I have said before, revolutions are illegal, that’s rather the point. But what it does not give is outside powers the right to invade.”
But, according to Fred and others on here, the Russian’s haven’t invaded Crimea.
Radio 4 extra today had a play on this afternoon one if the lady characters said to another “I will smash their face in!”
Violence in society is everywhere we should not tolerate this use of language because it is vagrant assault on peace loving people.
All this is about a bunch of criminals or to give them their official name “far right neo-conservatives”, they are just fighting amongst themselves for a bigger share of the planetary spoils and a higher degree of power in the coming neo-conservative NWO that they have planned for ALL of mankind!!!. Please remember who rules Russia, neo-conservative russian oligarchs, just the same as those who rule in the USA/UK.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/4903011/George-Osborne-Visit-to-Russian-Yacht-with-Mandelson-a-mistake.html
Remember, its how it works
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/revealed-how-the-west-set-saddam-on-the-bloody-road-to-power-1258618.html
Craig,
“The final extraordinary outbreak of hypocrisy is on the British left. Russian military invasion of Ukraine is approved by them, because it is an invasion by Russia, and not an invasion by the West. They are precisely as hypocritical as Hague. Both think it is OK to violate the sovereignty of other nations, but only by their chosen side.”
Who on the British left is “approving” the invasion by Russia?
Read this article from the Communist Party of Great Briton:
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/999/ukraine-revolution-in-one-square
Not a hint of support for the invasion.
So can you name the names of the British left supporting this invasion?
I am not a communist by the way and I don’t support Putin or the invasion but what happened is quite understandable politically.
Hi Craig
I doubt that any of the various International Gangsters – Putin included – jockeying for a dominant influence over Ukraine will get everything they want, and that is a good thing, but I tend to think that Geography will trump here and the Russians will come out with the best deal. It did appear that the EU came up with a sensible plan that included Russia in the compromise, but the US decided to “Fuck the EU” and shot all that out of the water. That arrogance is likely to only entrench those opposed to US interests, including perhaps EU States who are increasingly irritated with being spied on and treated with contempt by Washington.
Who knows, in a decade, it might be Russia coming into the European Union and the US ostracised as the “Rogue State” it so obviously is. After what I’ve seen in the last decade or so, anything is possible. In my view, there is unlikely to be any military escalation here, unless the West manages to provoke it somehow. Putin does not want a war and he will certainly compromise in order to avoid one. He merely wants to negotiate from a strong position.
For those failing to notice, there are secessions and localisations going on all over the world. This is because the price of energy is forcing the world to downsize making the influence of large states and centralised governments ever harder to sustain. Everyone is becoming more regional and this is not just hard faced Nationalism. It makes economic sense in a contracting world.
craig
3 Mar, 2014 – 3:51 pm
“What I suspect to happen next is that Putin will stage an attack on ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine.”
Craig, Putin doesn’t need a “false-flag” attack but the west does.
It is more likely to be against non-Russian civilians or Ukrainian armed forces.
Britain has just pulled a hilarious “haversack ruse”.
Anybody who doesn’t know what that means, look it up! 🙂
“Washington wants missile bases in Ukraine in order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent, thus reducing Russia’s ability to resist US hegemony. Only three countries stand in the way of Washington’s hegemony over the world, Russia, China, and Iran.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/03/03/washingtons-arrogance-hubris-evil-set-stage-war/
Craig has done an excellent job in skewering the fashion for hypocrisy in political life in the real world
After almost 100 comments on this thread – most of which are unfavourable to Craig’s thoughts – it’s perhaps timely if we were to skewer the hypocrisy of most of the commenters here in this unreal world. A hypocrisy to which I and a few others (ESLO, Resident Dissident, Anon, Kempe…) have been pointing for quite a while now and which I’m pleased to note Craig seems to have recognised as well.
Let’s be honest – this indignation about “neo-Nazis” in the interim Ukraine govt is entirely synthetic. Most of the hypocrites don’t really give a damn about neo_Nazis: as evidenced by their constant support (cf threads passsim) of individuals and régimes whose actions are or were indistinguishable from those of neo-Nazis in intention and effect.
Therefore, this (unsubstantiated) talk of neo-Nazis is just a stick with which to beat the new Ukrainian govt. So what are most of the lefty regulars really pissed about? The evidence points to two things:
1/. a thuggish and undemocratically-inclined President of Ukraine – and, crucially, a soul-mate of thuggish, undemocratically-inclined President rasPutin – has been kicked out;
2/. worse, the lefty regulars are convinced that the US and the West were responsible for this laudable development. In other words, what has happened represents – oh, horror! – a “victory” for the US and the West against the Kremlin pin-up. This is of course unforgivable.
Case closed, I’d say.
Old mark
3 Mar, 2014 – 5:10 pm
“Details are sketchy here, but if the report is true, the Russian side has just dangerously upped the stakes-“
At times like this take what the BBC says with a pinch of salt – it is practically run by the security services.
“But Russia’s Vladimir Putin is frustratingly wily for his opponents. For one, this protective principle is not to be confused with humanitarian intervention, an inchoate doctrine that admits, disingenuously, to no self-interest other than those of the “innocent” civilians. Rather, it is a principle based on intervention for reasons of nationality, otherwise termed the “doctrine of diplomatic protection.” Like it or not, Putin is playing by the book all strong powers have written over the centuries.” Binoy Kampmark analyses.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/03/02/ukraines-games-of-sovereignty-russia-vs-us-exceptionalism/#sthash.IPinMVhP.dpuf
Letter from Yanukovych presented to UN by Russians. Yanukovych asks for Russian military help.
“Putin himself has not yet said much publicly. Everything has been done through his spokesmen. He’s spoken privately to many officials, but has not made any major speeches.
That is a good point, and it reinforces my sense that we don’t know what his tactics are or what his strategy is. To what extent is this a plan, and to what extent is this an improvisation and largely a reaction to the rapid deterioration of the Russian position in Ukraine? The fact that he hasn’t said things that have locked him in is, to me, a glimmer of hope. And again, one thing it suggests is we shouldn’t give up on—however skeptical we are—the idea of negotiating something of a return to the status quo ante, where Russian troops would leave and you would have some kind of a joint Russian, EU, U.S., IMF economic package for Ukraine, which among other things would include some protections for the Russian speakers in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. That might be a long shot given where we now are, but I certainly would not give up on that kind of an outcome at this point.”
http://www.cfr.org/ukraine/respond-ukraines-crisis/p32522
IMO, any negotiation which includes the IMF won’t fly.
Yanukovych is the democratically elected President of the Ukraine who was overthrown by the thugs in Washington and their stooges in London, as the disarray on the content as to how to respond to the coup demonstrates.
Nothing is closed now.
I had thought I was going to disagree with you at first, thinking FO expects a gentleman to lie for his country etc, read on thinking that although in your life you have paid the price for not playing the game you can’t really complain about no invite, read on about your RSA post, thought you have a good point to make there, and read on then on about the hypocrisy on the left over the Russian invasion of Ukraine I thought your bang on. Please continue to defy expectations.
There is a childish article in this week’s Spectator by James Delingpole, who suggests that right wing news agencies should feed people what they want. Eeeehhmm they do, although the good thing about the Spectator is that it is not always as predictable as you might think (except for on fracking)
Craig 3 Mar, 2014 – 1:13 pm
“Phil, “More government, more bureaucracy, more laws, more police, more coercion”. I have consistently argued for less of all of those. I am deleting your comment as it is a deliberate falsehood.”
Your repeated enthusiasm for the EU, and various other forms of government, would seem fairly described as an enthusiasm for “bigger” government (“bigger” being one part of my deleted comment that didn’t make your quote).
I contend that “more bureaucracy, more laws, more police and more coercion” are an inevitable consequences of bigger, stronger, more government. Call for one and the others follow. I suspect you missed that and deleted over defensively.
And by saying “deliberate” you assign motivation to me – something you often counsel others against. Hypocrisy lives in the heart of governments, some lefties and even some liberal establishment minded bloggers.
“After negotiations with the European Union, and a parallel effort by Ukraine to secure loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) broke down, the Ukrainian government blamed the collapse of the agreement on the IMF’s push for severe austerity measures. Announcing the end of the negotiations, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov called the IMF’s austerity demands the “last straw.” IMF requirements listed by Ukraine include a wage freeze for public employees and large increases in home utility costs.”
http://www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?contentid=1755
Heavy coercion is the only path for this tactic.
Just me, 3 Mar, 2014 – 9:07 pm
Yes, a good point about wanting a US missile base. Those who argue that they don’t would be advised to look at Poland and how that country has moved from the Russian sphere of influence and now has US military bases there. The Binoy Kampmark link in my previous comment mentions that at the time the shooting kicked off there were three ministers from European countries in Kiev “Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier, France’s Laurent Fabius, and Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski, were in Kiev during the shootings. The otherwise conservative Economist could hazard that their presence “may have facilitated a controlled collapse of Mr. Yanukovych’s rule.” “
.
Alexander Muzichko (aka Sashko Byliy) is one of the leaders of the “Right Sector” neo-nazi organization, also a member of the UNA-UNSO “Viking” squad. In 1994 he fought Russian troops in Chechnya.
He was one of Dudayev’s body guards, the former Chechen president.
Said to be connected to a unit of Shamil Basayev’s (who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school massacre in 2004, when 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children).
.
Here he is talking about a weapons cache sacked from an army base at Rivne, saying they will be used against the Russian bases in Crimea (note, on 25th Feb).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74LUtuKSKYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74LUtuKSKYk
“Only three countries stand in the way of Washington’s hegemony over the world, Russia, China, and Iran.”
Except that the US lets an Israeli company, Magal Security Systems, handle some of the security at US nuclear installations, both civil and military. Mind you, so does Germany (civil).
I think I’m right in saying that Russia doesn’t. (Corrections welcome.)
Meanwhile, if there is a physical attack on ‘ethnic Russians’ in eastern Ukraine, I wouldn’t assume the Russian authorities are behind it.
I see there is another Mike operating here (comment relating to 30,000 Russian troops). Jon/mod will confirm that I am Spartacus.
Let’s hope this bozo doesn’t get any ear-time in Washington.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/01/nato_needs_to_move_now_on_crimea
“The overthrown president, who has since fled to Russia, was accused of mass murder, and the new government demanded his extradition (a dumb move, since Russia’s constitution forbids extradition). But there are serious questions about this interpretation of events: the special forces were never issued rifles and were never ordered to open fire on the protesters; there were quite a few special forces members themselves among those killed; the killings were carried out in such a manner as to incite rather than quell protest, by targeting women, bystanders and those assisting the wounded. The killings were followed by a professionally orchestrated public relations campaign, complete with a catchy name—“Heaven’s Hundred” (“Небесная сотня”)—complete with candlelight vigils, rapid clean-up and laying of wreaths at the scene of the crime and so on.”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2014/03/reichstag-fire-in-kiev.html#more
I rather think this particular deck-chair would be much better placed over there.
Don’t you know, old boy.
I can’t see why Craig mocks lefties. In recent months I have been surviving on 60 quid a week, thanks to a load of righties deciding to take charge, on a minority vote, and impose sanctions on the UK population. There has been no construction industry in the UK until election year. Where’s the Crime in Russia assisting a Russian majority in the Crimea?
The Chinese banks assist the Chinese people to do business. What a weird’ old-fashioned socialist principle. But Craig’s mocking will surely itself be turned into an object of ridicule when China and its moral anchor of people power takes over the world. I’d give it 40 years.
My other thought was whether we too could (or have) plans to be able to our troops out in their thousands seemingly at very short notice without insignia (and not by labouriously unsewing the stitches, which might be the British way) . If we did oh what horror there would be and cries of there goes G****o.
COUP IN SCOTLAND?
What if Scotland wins the vote and there is then some financial crisis after a rejection from the EU, say the Scottish government are forced by circumstances or blackmailed to take the Ruble, there is a terrible crisis, and some unelected pro Britain group take over after a bit of a Scottish Maiden and ask Westminster (or Washington) to provide military support. Would that be ok?
BTW not this is not said to put anyone off independence I am almost in favour.. The reasons I am slightly in favour include a love of the history of the border reviers, which when I think about it is itself a good enough reason for voting against. Border reviers ehhm romantic history here in Britain but it wasn’t romantic at the time. It was very bloody lawless and violent. Borders are good for conflict and conflict is sometimes as good for a profit as free trade…..but at a terrible price.
Or,
COUP IN ENGLAND?
What if Scotland won the vote, try to close all military establishments, a Labour UK gov is hesitant, the unthinkable happens at Westminster, and there is an army coup d’etat of England and a withdrawal from the EU (obviously not NATO). The English army go anonymously into Scotland guard the bases at the request of a middle of the night newly elected pro England Scottish leader, who has signs a treaty with Westminster to provide support? What then? Can / should the English army go in?
We are all hypocritical and generally the need to stay sane helps keep the lid on.
Finally, surely the posting of unmarked Russian guards and intimidation of Ukraine bases will have triggered a forfeiture clause implied if not express of the Russian lease. Why no Ukrainian 146 forfeiture notice and an application by Russia to the UN for relief from forfeiture. I am not trying to imply that English legal principles should apply everywhere.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-transition-government-neo-nazis-in-control-of-armed-forces-national-security-economy-justice-and-education/5371539
According to Global research, Svobada has 6 cabinet ministers.
On Svobada FB page, they claim five. And no, I didn’t ‘friend’ them! Names below:
Oleksandr Sych – Vice Prime Minister
Andriy Mokhnyk- Minister of Ecology
Ihor Shvayka- Minister of Agriculture
Ihor Tenyukh – Minister of Defence
Prosecutor General – Oleh Maknitskyy
That’s just claims on the internets, but these are big hitter posts. . As to whether these individuals are hard-right neo nazi’s, further research would be required. That’s the thing, we are expected to be instant experts, because everything happens so fast, which is the advantage the Samantha Powers of the world have over (most of) us. She is an expert, and knows a lot about Ukraine, but she’s still a flint eyed neocon with, it seems to me, dismal judgement.
I don’t know – or care – much about Ukraine, but I don’t like hard right parties, for sure. I’d take slight issue with Craig’s central point about ‘the left’. I just dislike the term ‘the left’, as it’s an over-arching term. I’m sure Craig is correct about sections of ‘the left’, of course. I am under no illlusions here; Putin is all self-interest, and Russia’s actions are illegal, just as The West’s actions have often been. Intesrestingly, his rhetoric is exactly the same as ours, when we are about to do something illegal. And it makes me laugh when Russian ambassadors – as here in Australia – get carpetted by people like Tony Abbott, who happily agree with everything the US does.
And Hague is sinister, so I pay zero attention to anything he says. ‘I resign’ might get my attention, until then, my eyes glaze over.
“Oligarchs step in to save Ukraine’s sovereignty”
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/oligarchs-step-in-to-save-ukraines-sovereignty-338116.html
Well at least Brezhnev waited for his invitation before invading Czechoslovakia
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine-abroad/reuters-yanukovych-asks-putin-for-military-intervention-in-ukraine-338264.html