Ron Paul: What Should We Do About Crimea? – OpEd

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Is Crimea about to explode? The mainstream media reports that Russia has amassed troops on the border with Ukraine and may be spoiling for a fight. The Russians claim to have stopped a Ukrainian sabotage team that snuck into Crimea to attack key infrastructure. The Russian military is holding exercises in Crimea and Russian President Vladimir Putin made a visit to the peninsula at the end of the week.

The Ukrainians have complained to their western supporters that a full-scale Russian invasion is coming, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he may have to rule by martial law due to the Russian threat.

Though the US media pins the blame exclusively on Russia for these tensions, in reality there is plenty of blame to go around. We do know that the US government has been involved with “regime change” in Ukraine repeatedly since the break up of the Soviet Union. The US was deeply involved with the “Orange Revolution” that overthrew elected president Viktor Yanukovych in 2005. And we know that the US government was heavily involved in another coup that overthrew the same elected Yanukovych again in 2014.

How do we know that the US was behind the 2014 coup? For one, we have the intercepted telephone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. In the recording, the two US officials are plotting to remove the elected government and discussing which US puppet they will put in place.

You would think such undiplomatic behavior could get diplomats fired, but sadly in today’s State Department it can actually get you promoted! Nuland is widely expected to get a big promotion – perhaps to even Secretary of State – in a Hillary Clinton administration, and Geoffrey Pyatt has just moved up to an Ambassadorship in Athens.

Ambassador Pyatt can’t seem to control himself: Just as tensions were peaking between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea this month, he published a series of Tweets urging Ukraine to take back Crimea. Is this how our diplomats overseas should be acting? Should they be promoting actions they know will lead to war?

When the mainstream media discusses Crimea they are all lock-step: that’s the peninsula Putin annexed. Never do they mention that there was a referendum in which the vast majority of the population (who are mostly ethnic Russians) voted to join Russia. The US media never reports on this referendum because it produced results that Washington doesn’t like. How arrogant it must sound to the rest of the world that Washington reserves the right to approve or disapprove elections thousands of miles away – meanwhile we find out from the DNC hacked files that we don’t have a lot of room to criticize elections overseas.

What should we do about Ukraine and Russia? We should stop egging Ukraine on, we should stop subsidizing the government in Kiev, we should stop NATO exercises on the Russian border, we should end sanctions, we should return to diplomacy, we should send the policy of “regime change” to the dustbin of history. The idea that we would be facing the prospect of World War III over which flag flies above a tiny finger of land that most US politicians couldn’t find on a map is utterly ridiculous. When are we going to come to our senses?

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

Ron Paul

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American physician, author, and politician who served for many years as a U.S. Representative for Texas. He was a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.

6 thoughts on “Ron Paul: What Should We Do About Crimea? – OpEd

  • August 23, 2016 at 1:50 am
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    Ron Paul is very wrong. First, the conversation between Nuland and Pyatt famously intercepted by the Russians was about negotiations between the two sides of the “revolution,” and not about deposing Yanukovich. Second, Russians were a part of the negotiating team, but they strategically chose to walk out. Third, US had no interest in deposing Yanukovich. What many people do not understand is that in fact he, while encountering violent opposition from Yulia Timoshenko’s camp, awarded large gas and oil contracts to US and EUropean firms. These contracts ticked off the Russians more than anything. Fourth, although we need to engage with Russia, we also cannot allow them to feel that the tension is off. In fact, it was the infamous “reset” perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and Kerry that empowered Russia for this latest round of power play. Today’s Russian government only understands power, including power over personal finances of Russian power elite. And they need to be treated with tough love and realpolitik for if you give them a finger, they will take the arm, the left leg, and par of the torso.

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    • August 24, 2016 at 9:26 pm
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      ” And they need to be treated with tough love and realpolitik for if you give them a finger, they will take the arm, the left leg, and par of the torso.”
      I suppose that the poor Russians are not like you or Soros or the American government, bosom pals with the Saudis and Qataris and Israelis, Chosen.

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  • August 23, 2016 at 12:29 pm
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    Adil, with all due respect, as a Ukrainian Jew, I can testify that Ukrainian nationalists are no more Natzis than any other peoples trying to protect their homeland. Ukraine has had its history of certain nationalists supporting Natzis, but that does not extend to the rest of the people who care about Ukrainian national integrity. By the way, Stalin’s government too supported the Natzis by signing Molotov-Rubitrop pact and arresting generals who were warning about the risks of dealing with the Natzis.

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    • August 24, 2016 at 8:59 pm
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      What I don’t understand is why none of the 30 or so oligarchs who own Ukraine are not ethnic Ukrainian, and why the posts of president, vice-president, prime minister and the economics or finance minister are not open to ethnic Ukrainians.

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  • August 23, 2016 at 2:35 pm
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    Hes right. Washington is against votes for Self Determination. Brexit could happen here, and maybe a Texit is needed to recalibrate Washington.

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  • August 23, 2016 at 4:47 pm
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    The last paragraph of this utterly truthful article needs to be followed immediately.
    Why won’t it be? Because it fails to account for the overriding influence of the United States’ military/industrial complex, (which needs above all to sell weapons to NATO and into other US proxy wars like the one against ISIL), for the influence of the neo-Cons embedded in non-elective positions in the D.C. ‘deep state’ (whose pro-Israel policies mandate making the Middle East ‘safe’ for Greater Israel’s expansion), and the influence of the many “non-profit”(Open Society) organizations paid for by billionaire George Soros that operate to foment “color revolutions” in societies around the globe to replace legitimately elected governments with American puppets (Ukraine, Egypt, El Salvador, Honduras,Nicaragua, Haiti, Brazil, Venezuela (on-going)and too many others to list–who will obediently carry out American orders.
    American orders always have to do with maintaining US hegemony over the globe (via our 800+ network of military bases),by ridding ourselves of Russia (first), taking control of Eurasia (second) as we move into the Caspian Sea area (where we are currently building the TAPI through Afghanistan/Pakistan) in order (third) to “contain” China as we previously “contained” the Soviet Union. Will the US risk precipitating WWIII in order to do all this? The answer is YES because the neo-Cons are the same hard-liners that think they won the first Cold War against the USSR and that they can do it again.
    More crucially, the entire Western press supports this viewpoint so that Americans and most NATO countries are deceived as to the tremendous danger of the US drive for global hegemony and its accompanying determination to marginalize or eliminate Russia and China.
    I might just add that the notion that democracy or democratic institutions or the 2016 election will save us is false. All “democratic” institutions have been bought up by the banks and the plutocrats (like Soros, the Kochs et al). Any ‘elected’ leader who fails to obey orders will be assassinated. Ditto any “popular” leader who marshals the allegiance of ordinary people: one does remember that in 1968 the power structure eliminated Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X. In the almost fifty years since then, our chains have grown only steadily tighter. We have now militarized police forces and the most comprehensive surveillance state ever known on this planet.

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