Posted on 11/23/2004 6:49:54 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Would-be czar Vladimir Putin has taken a giant step toward reasserting the regional hegemony of the former Soviet Union by stealing the election in Ukraine right under our noses.
As an unpaid, volunteer adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, the democratic candidate for president, I have seen, firsthand, how Viktor Yanukovich, the Putin candidate backed by a coalition of the Russian Mafia, oil barons, former KGB officials and communists stole the election and thwarted the obvious will of the voters.
While the former Soviet Union was composed of many smaller nations, now independent, the key was the combination of Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s 145 million people and Ukraine’s 45 million are the core of what was the Soviet empire.
Reuniting them has to be the primary goal of any aspiring Russian czar. But the Ukrainian people don’t want Russian domination.
The election contest pitted Yushchenko, who got the virtually solid support of the 60 percent of the population that is Ukrainian by ethnicity, against Yanukovich, who won equally united backing from the 40 percent that is ethnically Russian. The result was obvious: Exit polls (more accurate in Ukraine than when our own TV networks do them) showed Yushchenko winning by more than 10 points. But the final results, announced by the government, which supported Yanukovich, showed a small margin in favor of the Russian-backed candidate.
Putin regarded the contest as so important that he personally visited Ukraine in the weeks before the election to campaign for his candidate, a clear violation of the most elementary standards of independence and protocol. His former KGB henchmen — and once and future communists — combined with Russian organized-crime figures and oil barons to pump money into the race and to intimidate voters on the ground.
Yushchenko, a pro-Western former prime minister, survived two assassination attempts to make the race. At the start of the contest, he was run off the road while driving in Ukraine. When he walked away from the wreck, the opposition poisoned him. Hospitalized in Vienna, his doctors diagnosed the poison, which mimicked a stroke in its symptoms, and nursed him to recovery.
If they couldn’t commit murder, Putin’s boys decided to commit larceny and did all they could to stack the election. Their totally controlled print and television media — all the information outlets in the nation — refused to give any favorable coverage to Yushchenko and biased all their news toward Yanukovich. We couldn’t even buy advertising space in any mass-media outlet. But, undaunted, Yushchenko’s supporters got their message out by hand, distributing leaflets and fliers to every single household in the nation several times each week.
When, finally, the forces of freedom won the election, Putin’s operatives rigged the count and released totally phony results showing their stooge to be the winner.
The stakes could not be higher. If Ukraine and Russia combine, as Putin clearly wants, the old Soviet Union will be back on the road to regional domination and the old ambitions of global power will return. And 45 million people will be cheated of the right to determine their own future.
We, in the West, are at best distracted and at worst willing to cede to Putin regional control in return for his assistance in the war on terror. This is a mistake of the same order of magnitude as the allies made in the 1930s in dealing with Hitler. The theft of the Ukrainian election is parallel to Germany’s decision to march into the Rhineland. And our refusal to notice or act is akin to the French and British policy of turning the other way.
Freedom may be on the march in the Middle East, but it is in full retreat in Eastern Europe.
So, again the echo of the Nixonian question about China: Who lost Ukraine?
Ok, now I'm confused. This thread says that the guy Putin backed just step down in favor of the pro-Western guy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1287133/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1287167/posts
Who Lost the Ukraine?
NewsMax ^ | 11/23/04 | Dick Morris
Posted on 11/23/2004 7:56:02 PM CST
For the first time, while I have been very, very critical of Putin, and have warned many on this forum about him for years, my blood is boiling in a whole new way, a very personal way. I now have personal hatred of the man. He is far worse than even I could have imagined. He really is a "Vlad," as in Vlad the Impaler.
"IF" there were improprieties in the election it's not good. There is only so much we can do about it though. Even the opposition leader conceded to promote unity.
While we should keep tabs on what is going on over there, it's the heighth of insult to act as if Putin and clan instigated election fraud, unless it's obvious to everyone. I'm not convinced at this point that it is.
I do not understand our compulsion to kiss China's rosie red rectum, and keep Putin at an arm's length. Each are equally a threat these days. Together they are a much greater one.
I believe we have verged on squandering an opportunity to bring Russia closer to us over the last decade. We should have been giving Russia more commerce, and China a hell of a lot less.
What we have created is a cash fat China, who can spend it in Russia. We couldn't have pushed Russia toward China more if we had tried.
This needs to be corrected. We should trade with China a lot less, and grow closer ties with Russia by increasing trade there.
Please speak out for and pray for all Ukrainians who seek freedom and democracy.
Ukraine's Yushchenko Claims Disputed Race
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041123/D86HPU9G1.html
Pro-Western Candidate Moves to Grab Presidency in Ukraine
By Sergei Blagov
CNSNews.com Correspondent
November 23, 2004
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200411\FOR20041123g.html
I hope Ukrainians have private ownership of guns. It looks like they will need them soon.
Putin's man has not stepped down. The candidate favored by the west Yaschenko, is continuing to rally his supporters.
I agree on most counts. I just don't think we can remain disengaged with Russia. It's a mistake IMO.
Why do so many of these re-posts remain up while others get pulled? (No offense to poster)
I've been looking at Putin from all angles, for a few years now. Significantly, he embodies a very unique mixture. On the one hand, he has overtly tapped into the old intellecutal pan Slavism of pre WWI Russia. Secondly, he has liberally touched upon Soviet symbolism particularly vis a vis the military and intelligence services. And finally, due to his stay in Dresden, imbued in the Stasi nee SS culture there, he has also grasped the essence of the Nazi, heel clicking Teutonic "efficiency" albeit minus the slight, small shreds of the Western Tradition that the Nazis, who, as inheritors of the realms of the Prussian and Holy Roman Empires, may have had somewhere in their depths of being such minor calming influences. This man is going to be nothing but trouble.
Imagine, if you will, an evil man, an ace manipulator, who masters the art of using the springboard of a bastardized version of "free market capitalism" combined with his studies of the many anti capitalist totalitarian past and present despotisms to craft the ultimate in power mongering. There you have it.
The West? You mean France, Germany and the rest of the Euro-Weenie socialists? Did you know that the Euro-backed candidate that lost the election was supported by George Soros?
And the US would be better off with Yaschenko too. Ukraine's ascencion to the EU would give the (much more rightwing )Slavic countries more pull than the pacified "old Euros".
Maybe then it is a good thing and will slow down Euros rise as the one world power the Bible refers to in the end of this age. At least not promote it.
My guess it's the western Ukraine. Although I'm sure old Europe would prefer Yashchenko.
Interesting that certain pro-Putin people seem to keep waiving the bloody shirt of Soros while ignoring the support Yushchenko has received from the United States, Poland, the Baltic states and others. Make no mistake about it, if Yuvchenko is allowed to steal the elections, it will represent the introduction of a dictatorship even more oppressive than Lukashenko's Belarus (and staunch Putin ally).
Godebert, on another thread I noticed you stated that a "liberal democrat "American" election observer" was pro-Yushchenko. That observer is in fact is a former Republican Congressman from Colorado with impecable credentials. Your distortion of such an easily verifiable fact speaks for itself.
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