Discrimination Against Russians

When I see a "talking head" (blessedly few nowadays as I have "cut the cable") pontificating about the lack of discrimination against Russians in the Ukraine I have to wonder if they are ignorant of the recent history of the area or just want to continue to receive their salaries. 

We have the example of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic now independent. 

The civil war that broke out in the country after 1992 has meant a massive departure of some 400,000 Russians – and some Uzbeks – so that today the former constitute less than 3 per cent of the population. Russian is not an official language, but a language of ‘inter-ethnic communication’ under the Constitution. Despite constitutional provisions that initially appear to guarantee the use of minority languages, and despite the large percentage of minorities in the country, in particular Uzbeks, minorities are largely excluded from employment in public service.

If you are Russian you will not be employed by any business, so those that remain are informal workers or drive taxi or other such employment. We may read through the 400,000 people who had to leave suddenly. They were mostly Russians. Each of them would have owned their own apartment. They had to leave quickly so what they received was a fraction of the value of their apartment and they arrived back in Russia destitute. The same thing happened and is happening in Uzbekistan. My wife knows of people to whom this happened. 

No persecution of Russians you say? Tell that to the refugees. But you might say, "But those are Moslem countries."  

Yes, but the same thing occurs in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and especially Estonia. The New Republic tells us: 

In Estonia, things are far worse. Ethnic Russians are somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of the population. And yet, after Estonian independence in 1991, they were not given citizenship, even if they were born there. Russians who weren't living in Estonia before Soviet times are given a gray passport connoting their official status as "aliens." They can't vote in national elections and have trouble finding work. To get citizenship, they have to pass an Estonian language exam. (Estonian, which is not an Indo-European language but an Ugro-Finnic one, is notoriously difficult, with 14 cases.) The Language Inspectorate, which Russia Today derisively labeled "the language police," performs spot checks on bureaucrats and teachers to make sure they know Estonian. If they fail the test, they lose their jobs. 

The New Republic points out that Estonia is a member of NATO. So if the Russian Federation attacked, all of NATO would respond. It needs to be noted that this expansion of NATO was in direct violation of a signed letter of understanding between the US and Russia signed in 1990—no expansion of NATO to former Soviet republics. Clinton ignored this letter, as has every president since. Can you blame Russia for a reluctance to trust anything any American president says, especially if the "bad blood" rumored to exist between Putin and Obama is real. 

Putin was willing to give a huge amount of money as aid to Ukraine to avoid this whole mess, 15 billion in fact. This was far superior to the offer from the EU that president Yanukovych did not sign. He did not reject an EU agreement, he asked for more money from the EU, as was his responsibility. Yanukovych was leaning toward accepting the better offer from Russia. Note that the proposed EU agreement included cooperation with the EU military, a back door membership in NATO. 

This image is extremely popular in Russia. It shows Obama with the curls of the likely future president of Ukraine showing who really is in charge. Any agreement with Russia was unacceptable to many, including those outside the country in the West. This possibility led to the riots in Kiyv. These riots were instigated by, and to a degree controlled by, the US. Police were burned alive and captives tortured. The president fled. A parliament, surrounded by armed revolu-tionaries who told the parliament how to vote, voted to make Russian a language not usable for official business. This was rescinded quickly, but it clearly shows the intent to follow the example of the Baltic states and discriminate against Russians. Many are leaving Ukraine now for these very reasons. 

So put yourself in Putin's shoes. The US through its EU proxy is trying to continue to violate the letter of understanding that forbids the expansion of NATO. Putin's nation stands to lose a large part of its navel bases in the Crimea region when this happens and the lease on their major warm water ports expires. The Ukrainians signal that they intend to persecute Russians. Russians in the Crimea, where a large part of the Russian navy is based, ask for help. 

What would Putin do? 

My father-in-law is Ukrainian so my wife has friends, relatives, and relatives of friends all on different sides. So I will conclude with a story from a friend of my wife's and her relatives in Ukraine. At a school evaluation meeting by regional authorities at the local grade school their son was asked his name, "Dmitry" he said. The visiting school officials were not pleased. That name was too Russian. It needed to be changed to its more Ukrainian equivalent. I am sure many Ukrainians would be shocked by the boorishness of the officials, but it tells us "which way the wind is blowing."

What should Putin do? 

Who Ya Going Blame?

One reason that Yanukovych is now the former president of the Ukraine was that snipers killed many protesters. Of course Yanukovych was responsible ... of course. When I first heard about the snipers, my first thought was not that the Ukrainian government was responsible. There is a long history of what are called false flags. 

Here is how Wikipedia describes a false flag operation:

False flag (aka Black Flag) operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and can be used in peace-time. 

Here is where I have discussed this before. 

So did the former Ukrainian government kill the protestors? The foreign minster of Estonia, after a trip to Ukraine, thought that the Ukrainian government was not involved in the sniping. He thinks that it was the protestors themselves. Here is the intercepted phone call: 

Was he right? I have no idea. There is in fact no way to know who killed whom. The main thing to take away from this is that we who are thousands of miles away do not know anything beyond what we are told. 

Do you believe what you are told? 

Crimea Does Not Pay

I guess Russia will find our soon enough if its Crimea play pays. In the meanwhile here is a presentation on the crisis that concentrates on the real issues underneath it all—energy. 

Phony Pretext

The whole situation in Ukraine does have its moments of amusement. John “you just don’t invade a country under a phony pretext” Kerry being one of them. It is not clear if the US was lying about its thoughts on supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The US might just have been criminally stupid. John "I voted for the war in Iraq before I voted against it" Kerry is an example of hubris. To say that one cannot invade a country on a phony pretext, what was he thinking? The US spent 5 billion to destabilize Ukraine, as was admitted by a US diplomat, and then expects Russia to do nothing. Russia will not allow Crimea to be within NATO.

Does this mean all is well in the Russian Federation? While I thought that Putin in the below embedded press conference made a lot sense, there is a roaring elephant that was not mentioned in the press conference. If the principle is to be self-determination, then what about Chechnya and the other small Islamic areas in the Caucasus mountains? When will their elections take place?

I am sure Chechnya occurred to at least one of these court reporters. But of course it cannot be mentioned. They know who ultimately pays for their vodka. Peter Arnett was CNN's premier reporter. Yet he was immediately fired when he opposed the Iraq war. Phil Donahue was fired as well. Wonder why you cannot trust the media? As the old saying goes, "He who pays the piper calls the tune." Six corporations control 90% of US media. Unfortunately what you get outside the mainstream is Alex "what about Building Seven" Jones. If you are a regular reader you know I will immediately throw out another cliché. Let's see ... ah, if you leave the mainstream for Jones you are, "jumping out of the frying pan and leaping into the fire."

I do have concerns about the conflict. I doubt the crisis will cascade out of control, but this is always possible. More likely is that the crisis might be the tipping point for the larger economic crisis I have been writing about. I still think this will be avoided for some time, but as Yogi Berra said, "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." On a personal level I worry about my family's planned trip to Russia. There is talk about closing Russian embassies. That would make visas difficult.

My main point is not about the details of the conflict. It is instead to avoid being played by "the powers that be" to arrive at the opinion they want from us sheep. Sure I want to be a sheep when the shepherd is the Good Shepherd, but Obama or Putin, not so much. The ultimate solution is to read widely and think for yourself.

Since this Putin press conference was not well publicized, I put it here.

Imagine

No, this is not a tribute to that famous John Lennon song. 

Everything Is Not AwesomeImagine that you are a businessman with a long history of sales to one customer. Because of long-standing ties you even give the customer a 30% discount. But the customer is not paying your bill promptly, often not paying it at all. The amount owed keeps growing and growing. What do you do? At some point you place the customer on a cash only basis. You have no choice. Why should you continue to offer discounts to that customer? I have been in this situation a number of times, in fact I am in this situation right now. Everything is not awesome. (Cheesy reference to the Lego Movie.) 

While the parallel is not exact, this is the situation that the Russian Federation is in right now with Ukraine. Why should Russia continue to sell gas to Ukraine if they are not being paid? Why should they offer discounts under what they can get for the gas in the rest of Europe? Would you? 

Imagine further that this customer was also a wholesaler that took your product and resold it and kept that money. That was the situation the last time the darling of the West, Yulia Tymoshenko, the once and future Prime Minister of Ukraine, was in charge. Ukraine is a "choke point" for natural gas sales to Europe. The Ukraine government used this fact to steal gas from the pipelines as most Russian gas sales to Europe flows through the pipelines in Ukraine. While Gazprom is frantically building new pipelines, they will not be completed before 2016. 

So in that situation what would you as a businessman do? 

Keep these facts of the situation in Ukraine in mind as whatever unfolds over the next few days. I doubt any nation-state would act any differently than what the Russian federation will do, and soon. So, while Russia is not rainbow unicorns, sweetness and light, and puppies, it will act in what it perceives as its own vested interests. All nation-states do the same.