The Toronto Star
March 15, 2014
Readers’ Letters
Realpolitik and the Russian enigma
Regarding the two letters (“More voices on Ukraine crisis,” March 8) that were highly critical of my recently published letter in the Star (“Don’t poke Russian bear in Ukraine,” March 4), there are two key points that cannot be left unchallenged:
First, the unruly mob that forced democratically-elected Victor Yanukovych from power in the Ukraine was not the kind of peaceful “nonviolent” protestors that Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported. In fact, there are allegations that the snipers who shot the not-so-peaceful protestors were in fact mercenaries hired by the Western-funded opposition.
Second, America with its “manifest destiny” and Canada were not very “peaceful countr(ies)” in the way that they attacked and stole territory from their neighbors and treated the native populations living there “since (the) 1700s.” Before condemning Russia for doing what every large nation does, we should look in the mirror first.
Michael Pravica, Henderson, Nev.
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Don’t poke Russian bear in Ukraine, Letter March 3
Can anyone deny that U.S.-NATO bombed Serbia to install USA’s Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo? Now, my next question. What is USA doing in Serbia’s Kosovo since 1999? It is 2014 and the USA’s military base is still firmly in place. Are we going to use our brains or are we going to be taken in by phony pretexts?
Russia, then, has much more reason to claim Crimea, right next door to Russia, than USA coming clear across the world to bomb sovereign Serbia for 78 straight days, together with its ally NATO doing the same. And Canada was right there with them. Did most folks forget already? It is much better to do our investigative research, and then come forth with our viewpoints.
Liz Milanovich, Edmonton
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