Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Foremost I should say that Edward Snowden strikes me as little more than a narcissistic, egotistical, publicity-seeking idiot who is to national intelligence what Kim Kardashian is to media celebrity. What’s more, he seems every bit the media whore she is, and is probably hoping that his NSA leaks will make him even more famous… Read more.
I’m not going to insult your intelligence by delineating the obvious symmetries/analogies any further. I’m merely imploring Western leaders—who might eventually have to play Churchill and FDR to Putin’s Hitler—to show that you’ve learned from history by standing up to this bully if he even attempts to take Crimea… Don’t stand by and let him… Read more.
To all intents and purposes Crimea is now a part of Russia. All that remains is for the United States and Europe to negotiate a way to contain President Putin’s pan-Russian ambitions so that Ukrainians can govern what remains of their country (especially in the East) without undue interference. Their strategy of containment might work… Read more.
Reports are that Russia tried to no avail yesterday to get the UN Security Council to debate Ukraine’s complaint about Russian troops violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity behind closed doors. Conspicuously absent from these reports, however, was any reference to China being no less solicitous of avoiding open debate. This was brought into stark… Read more.
I’m merely imploring Western leaders – who might eventually have to play Churchill and FDR to Putin’s Hitler – to show that you’ve learned from history by standing up to this bully if he even attempts to take the Crimea. (The president of China might have to play Stalin….) Don’t stand by and let him… Read more.
Tensions that were simmering between anti-government protesters and riot police for the past three months finally erupted into revolutionary conflict in Ukraine last week. Street clashes leave at least 26 people, including 10 police officers, dead and hundreds injured. The violence begins when protesters attack police lines and set fires outside parliament after it stalls… Read more.
I’m on record hailing Ukrainians as my favorite ex-communists. Alas, I’m also on record lamenting that, ever since their triumphal Orange Revolution in 2005, they have done nothing but trample all over my hopes for the political development of their country. Just two years after that revolution, which was supposed to set them on an… Read more.
Regular readers know that I have a soft spot for the Ukrainians. Unfortunately, ever since their triumphal Orange Revolution in 2005, they have done nothing but trample all over my hopes for the political development of their country. The latest in this respect came on Tuesday when a judge sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko… Read more.
What has transpired over the past five years in the Second-World country of Ukraine should disabuse anyone of the notion that terminally dysfunctional governments exist only in the Third World. Here are a few excerpts from a September 24, 2008, commentary entitled Update on my favorite ex-communists: the Ukrainians that should explain why: I officially declare the coalition… Read more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko an offer he could not refuse: he told Yushchenko that if Ukraine’s 47 million “orange revolutionaries” wanted to continue receiving gas from Russia to cook their food, heat their homes and drive their cars, they would have to pay four times as much for it. When… Read more.
