{"id":20107,"date":"2014-03-14T16:20:19","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T22:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=20107"},"modified":"2014-03-14T16:20:19","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T22:20:19","slug":"crimea-and-western-values-escobar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=20107","title":{"rendered":"Crimea and Western ‘values’ – Escobar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crimea and Western ‘values’<\/strong>
\nBy Pepe Escobar – The Roving Eye – 14 March, 2014<\/p>\n

Every sane sentient being knows that Ukraine’s “unity” is not worth a new hot or warm war. Or even the current Western-peddled Cold War-style hysteria. Especially when Russia, once again, fights fascism – as embodied by some of the key players now in power in Kiev, and the US and EU’s response is to relentlessly demonize Russia.<\/p>\n

Crimea – historically, culturally, sentimentally – is Russian, conquered by Catherine the Great from the Ottomans in 1783. Sevastopol was founded by Catherine. If a swing band would play a version of I Left My Heart in Sevastopol, all hearts involved would be Russian.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet those eminent Western practitioners of state idolatry have ruled that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a referendum to decide its future – be it rejoining Russia or remaining in Ukraine with a huge degree of autonomy, according to the 1992 constitution. The eminences could not possibly admit that does not suit their geopolitical power play.<\/p>\n

Thus the current Mass; a ritualistic, hysterical invoking in unison of “international law” (Obama), (distorted) history and even morality (in the US’s case, considering the historical record, a positively dreadful joke).<\/p>\n

No question the original inhabitants of Crimea are the Tatars – whose rights will be fully protected in a new Crimea. They had not achieved their self-determination for the same reason Native Americans also did not.<\/p>\n

Yet much more alarming in the whole case is how the West once again conveniently, selectively manipulates the arbitrary carving of colonized lands – the key reason of ongoing, intractable geopolitical disasters.<\/p>\n

South Sudan’s independence was obsessively fought for by Washington – helped by Hollywood clones of the Clooney variety. The pretext was to correct an arbitrary colonial carving. So that applies to Sudan, but it does not apply to Crimea.<\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson’s “insurgents” had the right to rebel against the British, but Crimeans cannot rebel against what most view as an illegal, fascist-laden, putschist regime in Kiev. <\/p>\n

And that is superimposed on an arbitrary colonial carving; Ukrainian-born former premier Nikita Khrushchev, then at the head of the USSR, gave Crimea away to Ukraine, in the name of Soviet solidarity, without a Crimean referendum.<\/p>\n

Washington – via a NATO war – dismantled the former Yugoslavia in the name of the “right of nations”. While Crimea is not allowed a peaceful referendum, Kosovo – essentially a drug mafia scam – had the right to be “liberated”. It would be so complicated to explain to public opinion that was essential for the maintenance of Camp Bondsteel – the largest military base outside of the US. The Empire of Bases trumps any “right of nations”. …more
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Crimea and Western ‘values’ By Pepe Escobar – The Roving Eye – 14 March, 2014 Every sane sentient being knows that Ukraine’s “unity” is not worth a new hot or warm war. Or even the current Western-peddled Cold War-style hysteria. Especially when Russia, once again, fights fascism – as embodied by some of the key more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4284],"tags":[4281],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20108,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20107\/revisions\/20108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}