{"id":28810,"date":"2014-03-14T17:51:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28810"},"modified":"2014-03-14T17:51:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:51:53","slug":"a-new-crimean-war-in-the-making-as-russia-is-being-pushed-to-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28810","title":{"rendered":"A New Crimean War in the Making as Russia is Being Pushed to the Wall."},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/p>\n

Lucien Rajakarunanayake<\/strong><\/p>\n

Half a league, half a league
\nHalf a league onward
\nAll in the valley of death
\nRode the six hundred
\n“Forward, the Light Brigade!
\n“Charge for the guns!” he said:
\nInto the valley of Death
\nRode the six hundred <\/em><\/p>\n


\n– Charge of the Light Brigade
\n\u2013 Alfred Lord Tennyson -1854<\/strong><\/p>\n

The “Charge of the Light Brigade” was a charge of British light cavalry against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. It recalls a battle with very high British casualties and no decisive gains. The battle is best remembered to this day by the poem with its name, by Alfred Lord Tennyson published just six weeks after the bloody retreat.<\/p>\n

Crimean War (October 1853 \u2013 February 1856) was a conflict where the immediate issue involved the rights of Christians in the Holy Land, controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in October 1853 over Russia\u2019s rights to protect Orthodox Christians. Initially, Russia gained the upper hand after destroying the Ottoman fleet at the Black Sea port of Sinope. Matters changed soon when to stop Russia\u2019s conquest, Britain, France and Sardinia too joined to support the Ottoman Empire, and the “neutral” Austrian Empire, also played a major role against the Russians. <\/p>\n

Crimea is once again in the news and there is growing concern whether the developments there today will lead to another Crimean War, which can extend to an even wider conflict. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is now 158 years since the end of the Crimean War, and significantly 2014 is also the centennial anniversary of World War 1. There is a barrage of propaganda being unleashed by both sides in the current conflict over the situation in Crimea and the larger State of Ukraine, of which it is a peninsula, with the West \u2013 mainly the United States and Europe come together against Russia, reminiscent of what happened during the Crimean War. The issue today is described largely by the Western media that echoes the US and European leaders as one of democracy and safeguarding of the sovereignty of Ukraine, from threats by Russia. There are clearly wider issues than this overly simple explanation for this crisis that keeps growing each day, with Crimea expected to hold a referendum next Sunday whether to remain part of the Ukraine, remain independent or possibly join the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

The propaganda from the West is largely that of hypocrisy as best seen from the very early comment by US Secretary of State John Kerry. “You just don\u2019t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests \u2026 This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It\u2019s really 19th century behaviour in the 21st century.” (NBC \u2013 Sunday, March 3, 2014). John Kerry has obviously forgotten the US & UK invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the pretext of neutralizing so-called weapons of mass destruction, which was very much in the 21st century and also the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan. Such 21st century behaviour by the US, supported by many European states, does not give Russia the right to invade Ukraine. But it is necessary to expose the hypocrisy of the West both in helping to develop and now seeking to extend the crisis in Crimea and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

One has to question here about the democracy in Ukraine that the West is so anxious to protect. The government led by the recently ousted President Viktor Yanukovych was certainly elected by the people. But, there is little doubt it was a rancorous leadership, where many Ukrainians felt their State had been captured by a corrupt elite, which cannot be dislodged by democratic means. It was a rule of the corrupt rich, including Yanukovych, who had little interest in the rights of the people. There were public protests against the government, with the Maidan or Freedom Square in the capital Kiev being taken over by anti-government demonstrators. But, was it only these Ukrainian protestors who carried on the campaign? What were western leaders doing among those people, encouraging them towards an overthrow of an elected government? These included Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union; Senator John McCain of the US, who is known to rush to any scene of a crisis where Western interests are promoted, as in Libya and Syria. What was the role of the British Foreign Secretary William Hague at the Maidan, as well as several other European leaders? Do they allow foreign leaders to come to their own countries to address the protestors against the elected governments?<\/p>\n

And, how did the protests begin? It was when President Yanukovych rejected a trade agreement with the EU that would possibly have brought all the hardships the EU has imposed on countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, on the already hard pressed Ukrainian people, and instead turned to Moscow, that offered a different and easier package of urgently needed funds and cheaper gas. The people had the right to protest, but how does one turn the rejection of a trade agreement into the demand for Western style democracy, and nothing less? There are no questions about Russia seeking to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence, having considerable cause for concern when the advances by the EU gave every indication of the approach of NATO much closer to its borders.<\/p>\n

There is also the admitted telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, in which they discuss installing a new, pro-US government that will incorporate the opposition figures favourable to them among those leading the street protests against President Yanukovych. They concluded that Arseniy Yatsenyuk should head a new government, which is what exactly happened, once President Yanukovych was forced to leave, with Yatsenyuk becoming the interim prime minister, exactly as planned. He is due to meet President Obama this week. <\/p>\n

It is difficult to ignore the role of the West, mainly the US and the EU, in engineering the fall of the elected government of Ukraine, which has to a large extent led to the position that Russia now takes over Crimea, where it is keen to ensure the presence of its Black Sea fleet, and now has the opportunity to talk of the need to protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine, who comprise a substantial number of the population, both in the Crimea and regions of the Ukraine closer to Russia.<\/p>\n

If the Crimean War was about Russia acting to protect the rights of Orthodox Christians, against the Ottoman Empire, and France and Britain joining the Ottomans on the side of Catholics and more importantly to oppose Russia, the situation today, especially in the Crimea, is that the Russians claim their right to protect the Russian speakers there, and if any expansion of the dispute takes place, and act on behalf of the Russians or Russian speakers in other parts of Ukraine, too. This may seem a repetition of history in a different form, and a dangerous repetition too. But it does not seem to be one of farce.<\/p>\n

What we see today is Russia\u2019s determination to deter the eastward thrust of NATO, towards its border nations. Russia did act decisively when NATO tried to expand to Georgia in 2008. It is important to recall recent history in this situation. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, the then US President George HW Bush, assured Russia that NATO would not extend to its borders. But President Clinton broke this promise and expanded NATO to the very borders of Russia, drawing in almost all former Warsaw Pact member states. <\/p>\n

As most analysts see it, Ukraine is today even more important for Russia than Georgia, having a substantial Russian speaking population. In the emerging situation, if a new pro-US and Western government in Kiev decides to join NATO, Russia would very likely lose its Black Sea ports, which is a major cause for growing Russians concerns about the role of the West in Ukraine today.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to quote Simon Tisdall, assistant editor and foreign affairs columnist of the Guardian in “Opinion” his piece to CNN on March 7, 2014. “US President Barak Obama, a former law professor who should know better, has charged Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, with violating Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity, in breach of international law.<\/p>\n

“But it is Obama, following in Bush\u2019s footsteps, who has repeatedly and cynically flouted international law by launching or backing myriad armed attacks on foreign soil, in Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan to name a few, without U.N. Security Council authorization. It is Obama\u2019s administration which continues to undermine international law by refusing to join or recognize the International Criminal Court, the most important instrument of international justice to have been developed since 1945.<\/p>\n

“And it is Obama\u2019s State Department, principally in the person of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, that fatally overplayed its hand in the run-up to last month\u2019s second Ukraine revolution. Nuland\u2019s infamous “f**k the EU” comment revealed the extent to which Washington was recklessly maneuvering to undermine Ukraine\u2019s elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, by backing the Kiev street protesters\u2019 demands.”<\/p>\n

David Paul, the President of the Fiscal Strategies Group, USA, writing in the Huffington Post on March 11, 2014 said: “It may seem like we are embarking on a new dark and dangerous era… [But] the elder Bush recognized the importance of acknowledging that Russia has its own strategic interests within its region, and that even with the collapse of the Communist regime, it would have the power to assert itself\u2026 Bush eschewed a Manichean world view, and could accept that other nations have interests and perspectives that are different than ours. Russia, Bush and the Paleoconservatives around him understood, would be less dangerous if it were not backed into a corner.<\/p>\n

“But that was not the path we chose. Instead, we chose to push Russia to the wall at every opportunity possible, and now we are surprised that it is pushing back. Putin is playing with a strong hand on his home turf. His ultimate intentions in the Ukraine in the current crisis are opaque. But his goals have been known for years.”<\/p>\n

NATO has deployed reconnaissance planes in Poland and Romania to monitor the Ukrainian crisis. A United States warship crossed Turkey\u2019s Bosphorus Strait, headed towards the Black Sea, to conduct military exercises with Bulgarian and Romanian naval forces, and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun has also crossed Dardanelles en route to the Black Sea as tensions simmer over Ukraine\u2019s Crimea region. The Crimea is facing a rising state of tension with a charge of much more than a light brigade looming in the days and weeks ahead.
\n
\nCOURTESY:THE ISLAND<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Lucien Rajakarunanayake Half a league, half a league Half a league onward All in the valley of death Rode the six hundred “Forward, the Light Brigade! “Charge for the guns!” he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred – Charge of the Light Brigade \u2013 Alfred Lord Tennyson -1854 The “Charge …<\/p>\n

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