When Egypt’s military ousted their democratically elected
government a couple years ago, there was a giant ho-hum from Washington, and
our media pundits. We continued to give
billions to the generals of the coup. It’s
all just Realpolitik in the Middle East.
Now the people in the streets [and East-West agitation – see
Gagnon’s somewhat opinionated but factual article] of the Ukraine have
chased out an overbearing President Yanukovych, and Russia moves troops into the
Crimean part of the country they used to own.
Somehow this is tantamount to an act of war against the USA, if our
media is to be believed.
here has been a toppling of a democratically elected
[yet perhaps not really representative] government in the Ukraine. Their president flees to Russia which had
been his supporter. Now Russia wants to
take back Crimea which they gave to Ukraine when it was part of the USSR in
1954. Politics is fickle and
sovereignty subject to all superpowers’ self-interest. Russia still has their biggest naval base
there. Ukraine is the conduit for
massive amounts of oil and gas to the West.
A quick glance at the map above shows once again that
policy is driven by the money politics of oil-gas markets controlled by the
threat of war. Dick Cheney’s
observation, before the Afghan and Iraq wars, is the rule of this deadly
game—It’s not always important who own the oil, “it’s who controls the spigot.”
This is what the
New York Times reports on the recent history of the sovereignty vs.
Realpolitik situation [leaving out our Afghan, Iraq involvements].
“The Kosovars’
secession from Serbia in 1999 drove a deep wedge between the United States and Russia that soured relations for years. Washington
supported Kosovo’s bid for independence, culminating in 2008,
while Moscow saw it as an infringement of Serbia’s sovereignty.
Now 15 years later,
the former Cold War rivals again find themselves at odds, but this time they
have effectively switched sides: Russia loudly proclaims Crimea’s right to
break off from Ukraine while
the United States calls it illegitimate.”
“Consider the
different American views of recent bids for independence.
Chechnya? No.
East Timor? Yes.
Abkhazia? [and S. Ossetia]
No.
South Sudan? Yes.
Palestine? It’s
complicated.
It is an acutely
delicate subject in the West, where Britain wants to keep Scotland and Spain
wants to keep Catalonia.” [Canada’s Quebec
also a recurring question.]
For full article -- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/world/europe/crimea-crisis-revives-issue-of-secessions-legitimacy.html?ref=world&_r=0
Does anybody remember yesterday’s international crisis of
Syria - Iran [and Iraq and Afghanistan]?
Pax
Christi USA has a prayer—study—action reflection
to help keep us focused on these still open wounds—ongoing elements of the problem
of universal soldiers made to protect international financial interests.
Here is their prayer ---
This is the fast
that pleases me:
to break unjust
fetters,
to let the
oppressed go free,
and shelter the
homeless poor.
If you do away with
the yoke,
the clenched fist,
the wicked word,
if you give your
bread to the hungry
and relief to the
oppressed,
your light will
rise in the darkness. (Isaiah 58:6-7, 10)
All praise be
yours, God our Creator,
as we wait in
joyful hope
for the flowering
of justice
and the fullness of
peace.
All praise for this
day, this season.
By our weekly
fasting and prayer
cast out the spirit
of war, of fear and mistrust,
and make us grow
hungry for human kindness,
thirsty for
solidarity with all the people of your dear earth.
May all our prayer,
our fasting and our deeds
be done in the name
of Jesus. Amen.
--- From the Archdiocese of Chicago (1983)
Our country needs to find ways to enter a permanent partial
fast from oil and gas. Lets return to a
simpler smarter use of our energy resources that includes some of our own
physical labor, and devise new renewable energy methods—better stewardship of
God’s good earth.
References --
[especially revealing is his video link to a Dec. 2013 State Dept briefing on Ukraine for oil executives]
Illumination by Kathy Brahney
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