Back to the good old days …
by digby
For those who are unfortunately watching cable news and are being misinformed and confused by the commentary on the events in Crimea, particularly from the usual suspects like John McCain, this article in the New York Times about Ukraine’s history and relationship with Russia will get you up to speed:
Crimea, a multiethnic region populated by Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars, has been the focus of territorial disputes for centuries, and in recent decades it has frequently been a source of tension between Ukraine and Russia.
Before this week, the most recent of these disputes occurred in May 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Crimean Parliament declared independence from Ukraine. And there has always been an expectation that when things become tense between Russia and Ukraine, that tension is likely to be felt must acutely in Crimea.
“The Crimean peninsula has become an arena for the duel between Kiev and Moscow on political, economic, military and territorial disputes,” Victor Zaborsky, an expert on the region, wrote in a 1995 paper for the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
The 1992 dispute was resolved with an agreement known as the Act on Division of Power Between Authorities of Ukraine and Republic of Crimea, which granted Crimea autonomous status within Ukraine.
In that sense, it is similar to the status of Chechnya within Russia. Chechnya’s autonomy nods to that region’s distinct Chechen language and Muslim religion, while in Crimea, such autonomy acknowledges that the political and cultural identity is often more Russian than Ukrainian.
McCain is on CNN now beating the drums for … I don’t know what. But like his pals in this article, he’s clearly nostalgic for the cold war:
“I look back wistfully at the Cold War,” Inhofe said Thursday at a breakfast meeting with reporters. “There were two superpowers, they knew what we had, we knew what they had, mutually assured destruction meant something. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Now we have these people who are not rational, not logical, they’re nuts.”
[…]
McKeon agreed and harkened back to the days when he said Russia and China could be depended on to keep their client states in line.“When we used to have superpowers, they would let things go until it looked like it was going to spill over. Then they would step in and stop it,” he said. “We can’t get any help from Russia now with Iran or Syria, they are just pushing us all over the place. It’s a dangerous world and we are making it more so, because by cutting defense we are totally eliminating Reagan’s line ‘peace through strength.’”
The good old days ….
That’s what I grew up with. It wasn’t as fun as it looks.
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