Ukraine tied up with Syria- Russia crucial to them bothFrom Robert Fisk @ the Independent.Fisk presents a narrative of dependance on Putin's Russia- and goes through the similarities between Ukraine and Syria that extend beyond Putin
Assad “will instead be dwelling upon the remarkable similarities between Yanukovych’s besieged government and his own Syrian regime, which is still battling an armed struggle against insurgents.
Assad & Yanukovych Similarities indeed, and there are so many: Blood in the Streets: Is the west repeating the Syrian model in Ukraine
Fisk- The similarities are "close enough to persuade the Syrian President and his Talleyrand – the Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem – to study the degree of support Putin gives to his ally in Kiev"
Without Russian and Iranian support, Assad could scarcely have survived the past three years of war in Syria. Nor could Yanukovych, without Moscow’s “brotherly” friendship, have withstood opposition forces – and the EU’s flirtation with Ukraine – as long as he has. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been using almost the same words of irritation and anger towards the US over Ukraine as he did towards America when it was threatening to bomb Syria. If Ukraine constitutes Russia’s eastern defensive wall against Europe, Syria – fighting against Islamist rebels every bit as ruthless as Putin has faced in Chechnya – is part of Moscow’s southern flank
There are other, more intriguing comparisons. The initial Syrian opposition to Assad – following revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt – was peaceful, although armed men did occasionally appear even in the early days of the revolt.
Fisk is typically contradictory- if armed men appeared, which they did, shooting at police and others then opposition was not peaceful, ever.
Just as Assad’s first opponents were idolised by the West – and its media – as freedom fighters, so were the Ukrainian opposition regarded as anti-regime rather than anti-constitutional by the same powers and their newspapers. Once Syria’s unrest became weaponised on both sides, the West and its Arab allies sent military equipment to Assad’s enemies. There is no evidence that the West has done the same for Yanukovych’s opponents, some of whom are now also armed.
Again is Fisk witting or unwitting, I don’t know? I can’t see him being unwitting.He would or should be aware of all the funding poured into Ukraine from NATO, then based on history recent and otherwise, safely conclude that the west has indeed armed the fascist opposition.Canada funding Ukrainian armed oppositionOr Maidan activists trained by NATO in 2006OrNuland and 5 billion OrNuland planning the new Ukraine government- F the EUI am comfortable with concluding the West has armed the fascists
Fisk then mentions a Syria/Ukraine trade pact:
There have, of course, long been contacts between Syria and the Ukraine. Just before the revolution in Syria, Assad visited Kiev, signed a free trade agreement and heard Yanukovych praise his country as Ukraine’s “gateway to the Middle East”. There are closer ties: the large number of Syrian students who have been attending Ukrainian universities and the larger number of Ukrainian citizens born to Syrian and Soviet parents before the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe. The older Syrian generals also know Kiev well from their early training in Soviet military schools.
Assad visited Kiev and signed a trade agreement?! I had no idea...I was, however, aware of the 4 seas strategy that Assad was enacting, that would have set up Syria quite nicely, really- June 2011 Assad's "Four Seas Strategy" Damascus converges with China But,Ukraine’s gateway to the middle east– interesting. I was compelled to search2010- right before the destabilization of Syria began in earnestJust as Fisk reported. Interesting...
Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine and the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform of the Syrian Arab Republic on protection of plant varieties
The protection of plant varieties. What would this have included or excluded GMO's?Considering? Ukraine: Cargill acquires stake in UkrLand Farming/food control = people control Would the Syria/Ukraine trade agreement have been problematic for Cargill?Fisk continues.......
The real question for Syria is this: will Putin be able to support Yanukovych if US and EU pressure continues to build? Is the survival of Yanukovych worth a new Cold War? If it is, Assad is safe: the Russians will not abandon Syria since this would demonstrate how easily they might turn their backs on “Russian” Ukraine. But what if the US offered Putin carte blanche in the Ukraine in return for his abandonment of the Assad regime? Obama could once more make his fraudulent claim that it was American military threats – rather than Russian mediation – that forced Assad to hand over his chemical weapons to the UN. And insist that Assad must bow to the transitional government which the Americans and British and other EU nations have been trying to foist upon his regime at Geneva.”
I actually believe the situation in Ukraine has gone beyond the US offering any sort of 'carte blanche' to anyone. So, I don't see this scenario Fisk advances as plausible.Continuing...
Assad, however, is a survivor. His Baath party was schooled in self-preservation by Putin’s predecessors. Assad may understand Yanukovych; yet he knows Putin better. Not for nothing do the Egyptians admiringly call the Russian leader “the fox”. That’s why Putin has sent his personal mediator to Kiev. Washing its hands of Damascus would do incalculable harm to Moscow’s standing in the “new” Middle East. ( I agree) The Syrians realise Russia is big enough to fight on two fronts. (frightening to contemplate) So Putin will probably just have to go on struggling for his allies – before Ukraine turns as bloody as Syria
The Ukraine turning as bloody as Syria- Entirely possibleWe could be looking at certain areas, already operating independently, making it officialThe Crimea- I did a post on this area so many years ago Crimea the pain in the Ukraine's backside
" After several years of negotiations, Crimea became an "Autonomous Republic" within the nation of Ukraine. Crimea has its own constitution, government and legislature and certain other rights that keep it from being just another region (oblast) of Ukraine"
Ukraine's autonomous Crimea region leans towards Moscow
This autonomous republic is traditionally close to Russia, and as demonstrations continue to wrack Kiev and other regions more than two months after anti-government protests erupted, local lawmakers have asked Moscow for protection against what they qualify as "extremists."
Extemists? That's not accurate enough in my book. What these protestors are truly is well trained and armed fascist fighters- backed by NATO nationsCheck this image out from the Yahoo article linked above and tell me what you see?Anti-government protestors of the "14 Hundred Self-Defense" group take part in a protest rally in front of the Prosecutor General building in Kiev on February 14, 2014 Protestors? Or an organized urban band of fighters? And Fisk doesn't know that the US and company supplied these obviously well organized, geared up, fully armed fighters.
I know this is a lengthy post, but, come on your attention span can take it ;)
The White House protests way, way, way too much...
White House stresses Ukraine conflict is not “proxy” war
The current situation, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, “is profoundly different from the Cold War era in that what we’ve seen in recent weeks and months is the express desire of Ukrainian people for a future that they decide on their own -- for themselves, for their nation.”
Nonsense
During the Cold War, there were “conflicts that were simply proxy conflicts,” he said. By contrast, “The Ukrainian people are not substitutes for anyone in this conflict. They are expressing their desires, not U.S. desires or European desires.
Double Nonsense. If you have to tell people this is not a proxy war it can only be because it is so obvious that it is a proxy war.