“U.S. Sens. McCain, Murphy address protesters, promise support.” Washpost

2013-12-15T162350Z_01_KIE61_RTRIDSP_3_UKRAINE-MCCAIN
"“You are making history,” Murphy, the senator, told the crowd. “If you are successful, the United States will stand with you every step of the way.” McCain commended veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who have been helping to defend the protest site. “Ukraine will make Europe better,” he said, “and Europe will make Ukraine better.” He then quoted the 19th-century Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko: “Love your Ukraine, love her in cruel times, love her in cruel moments, pray to God for her.”"  washpost

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Does McCain not know that he lost the presidential election in 2008?  Does Obama know that McCain is running his own foreign policy?  I thought that was against the law.  Or did Obama send him and the other fellow there?

I remember the Hungarian revolt of 1956.  That was brought on in part by intemperate statements made in the US Government, statements that implied that the US would "support" the Hungarian people.  In the event we did nothing.  To encourage revolt is a hazardous undertaking.  pl      

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-ukraine-us-sens-mccain-murphy-address-protesters/2013/12/15/be72cffe-65b0-11e3-997b-9213b17dac97_story.html

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40 Responses to “U.S. Sens. McCain, Murphy address protesters, promise support.” Washpost

  1. b says:

    McCain also told the (paid?) crowd that it should reject foreign interference. He evidently did not consider himself such.
    The Ukrainian industry in the east would be dead three month after signing the trade deal with the EU. Even after that deal the Ukraine would never be accepted as full EU member. It would just be too expensive to integrate it (estimates run as high as $200 billion) and most EU members are against it.
    The majority of the country has elected the current president and the parliament in rather fair elections. Why McCain and others think the crowd should overthrow the elected government in the name of “democracy” is beyond me. What if the elected president calls on Russia to help against a rebellion? Would NATO be willing to go to war over that? On what basis?
    The Ukraine need some loans and access to markets. Russia can give both without many conditions while the “west” demands the full IMF austerity program that would be the same economic catastrophe in the Ukraine that it has been elsewhere. Under such conditions no clear minded Ukrainian can chose the “west”.

  2. It is I think uncertain whether the Ukraine can survive as a unitary state, unless it is allowed to face both ways.
    One might imagine the condition of Northern Ireland, had London and Dublin been at daggers’ drawn. The Protestant militias would have decided which areas they could realistically hold, and got rid of the Catholic population in these by Serbian methods. And there would have been sfa that TTG’s friends could have done about it.
    Among Ukrainians, and Russians, you will find descendants of people who died with General Mikhail Kirponos in the Kiev salient, or in the defence of Sevastopol against Manstein. Likewise, among West Ukrainians, you will find descendants of people who have a vivid recollection of being occupied by the Red Army as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact – an unpleasant introduction to rule under Stalin’s terroristic paternalism – and who joined the SS Galicia Division with enthusiasm.
    If people in Brussels or Washington want to see this history in black and white terms, they are either fools, or knaves, or more probably both. The wounds of the past lie very close to the surface in the Ukraine, as in so many parts of the post-Soviet space. If Westerners are resolutely determined not to confront the complexities of Eastern European history, it is not beyond the bounds of possiblity that they could precipitate a civil war.

  3. Fred says:

    Apparently McCain and Murphy, certainly the crowd in Ukraine, didn’t learn much from our ‘support’ of Georgia.

  4. Matthew says:

    B: Clearly, Vladimir I-live-in-Beverly Hills-and-date-an-American Klitchko wants to choose the West. I suspect he won’t be missing any meals if Ukraine undergoes the Shock Doctrine. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wladimir_Klitschko

  5. JohnH says:

    I am always amused at how the leaders of “the world’s greatest democracy” are eager to equate the whims of the mob with democracy–as long as they don’t like the regime in question.
    Does anyone think that they would stand quietly by and let thousands of protesters occupy the Washington Mall for a few weeks?

  6. Bandolero says:

    Maybe John McCain’s main motivation to team up with the Ukrainian anti-government portesters and running US foreign policy is just rabid anti-semitism.
    I saw pictures of how friendly John McCain and Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the Social-National Ukrainian movement leading the current protests, just sat together in Kiev.
    In the Wikipedia article about Oleh Tyahnybok one can read what he told his followers about their historic mission:
    “[You are the ones] that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most” and “They were not afraid and we should not be afraid. They took their automatic guns on their necks and went into the woods, and fought against the Moskali, Germans, Kikes and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.”
    I find such statements quite anti-Semitic, and, eh, yes, they sound Nazi.
    So, given that John McCain now supports the historic struggle of Oleh Tyahnybok against the “Moscow-Jewish mafia” and “Moskali, Germans, Kikes and other scum” I think it’s an indication that John McCain is probably in Kiev just because he, JINSA’s 24th Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson Distinguished Service Award laureate, became a rabid anti-semite and supporter of the world’s Social-Nationalist movements.
    Could there be any other explanation?
    I now wait for John McCain inviting Oleh Tyahnybok to the US to attend meetings with like-minded people.

  7. Fred says:

    The various mayors in the US were rather quick to crush the Occupy movement. I can only imagine what Senators Murphy and McCain would have done if Vladimir Putin had come here and given speeches to the crowd quoting Thomas Paine.

  8. Eliot says:

    “To encourage revolt is a hazardous undertaking.”
    Washington is almost 5,000 miles away from Kiev. Moscow is just 500. McCain is making promises he can’t keep. Promises we won’t and can’t keep.

  9. Mark Logan says:

    John H,
    John McCain is exceptional. Watch the two minutes from 1:09:00.
    http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SenateForei
    ‘”I” now have to rely on the Saudis…’
    McCain does not know he lost the election.

  10. confusedponderer says:

    I find myself disturbed that, though Klitschko is apparently an earnest, well meaning guy, a good sport, and he is obviously being pushed and groomed as a new pro-western leader for the Ukraine, at least in Germany. Merkel has met him, rather publicly. It’s only a matter of time until he comes to DC I presume.
    Silly. It is still about that self-fuelling expansion of the EU/NATO and the rollback of Russia.
    What’s the point?
    Expansion is not an end in itself. EU and NATO expand because they have no better idea and because nobody wants so say it’s over, because the lure of ascension is in itself a powerful political leverage, and they are loathe to give that up, and then, inevitably, there are ambitions to be stilled and jobs and structures to be perpetuated. But at what cost?
    Economically Ukraine is a basketcase, and all Europe would do there is to sink money and suibsidies there.
    Russia wants that burden, so let them have it. And if they gain Ukraine as a strategic buffer between their borders and NATO, all the better as far as I am concerned.
    In the meanwhile we’ll continue to sink money into countries like Slovakia, Hungary (where Orban is assuring his re-election), Romania and Bulgaria, the latter being so currupt, that it holds the dubuious distinction of being (so far) the only country the EU ever suspended payments to – but then, we haven’t accepted Albania and Kosovo, yet …
    The funniest bit of it all – all these worthy exemplars were praised by the US as the New Europe, as models during 2003 (because they joined the ‘coalition of the willing’, were nice to Bush and probably all too willing to be bribed for that).
    “SOFIA, Bulgaria – The Associated Press | 6/12/2007
    U.S. President George W. Bush wrapped up his European tour with a stop in Bulgaria, hailing the country yesterday as a trusted U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan that is “helping others realize the
    U.S. President George W. Bush wrapped up his European tour with a stop in Bulgaria, hailing the country yesterday as a trusted U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan that is “helping others realize the blessings of liberty.”
    Although Bush’s welcome was more muted than the adulation he received a day earlier in Albania, thousands of Bulgarians – many waving tiny American flags – packed a square in downtown Sofia to greet the U.S. leader.

    Bush said he was impressed by Bulgaria’s transition to democracy and a free market economy, but he urged its leaders to step up their fight against organized crime and corruption as the best means of luring more U.S. and other foreign investment.
    “My call is to continue to make reforms, and if you find corruption, rout it out,” he said.”
    They didn’t heed his sage advice it appears, for in 2009 the European Comission suspended payments to Bulgaria.
    http://eeagrants.org/News/2008/Suspension-of-payments-in-Bulgaria
    The “decision of the Financial Mechanism Committee is made with reference to Article 11 of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Bulgaria and the EEA EFTA states, which obliges the beneficiary state to take proactive steps in order to ensure adherence to the principles of good governance”
    Personally I am quite unpersuaded that we can bribe places like Bulgaria into not being a cleptocracy.
    The endemic corruption they practice is unlikely to go away without Europe engaging in a several decade lasting nation building exercise. I don’t care about uplifting Balkan backwaters. Alas, so long I take comfort in that occupation by administrative oversight from Bruxelles is al least infinitely less violent than what the US tried with Iraq.
    PS: Corruption Transparency Index
    Ukraine Score 25 Rank 144/177
    Bulgaria Score 40 Rank 80/177
    Romania Score 43 Rank 69/177
    Albania Score 31 Rank 116/177
    Kosovo Score 33 Rank 111/177
    http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/
    Score is from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

  11. PStu says:

    Leaving aside the Russia component, the situation in Kiev echoes in many ways what we are seeing in Bangkok. There, an urban-based group of yellow-clad protestors attempt to shut down the government, but the rural electorate keeps re-electing Shinawatra (or his sister) in a one-fingered salute to Bangkok.
    While Yanukovych may not have won reelection without some manipulation of the vote, there is a strong element of support for strong ties to Russia, particularly in Eastern Ukraine.

  12. Matthew says:

    DH: Well, McCain’s visit went well. See http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-17/ukraine-bonds-rally-europe-officially-loses-fight-former-soviet-nation-russia-wins
    We should recognize a new scientific unit, the “McCain.” Like a culture, when you detect the presence of a McCain in your sample, you know your side will lose. It usually takes from 24 to 72 hours for a McCain to appear in any such sample.

  13. Bandolero says:

    confusedponderer
    Don’t take Transparency International’s (TI) “Corruption Perception Index” (CPI) as a measure for corruption. There are a lot of problem’s with such an interpretation of that index. Just to name a few:
    1st) TI itself claims the CPI is a corruption perception measure, which is something different than a measure for corruption.
    2nd) As the TI index measures corruption “perception” it might be called a measure of how well a country manages to hide corruption. When a government actively fights against corruption corruption becomes more visible, so it’s place on the corruption perception index falls.
    3rd) Perception is – among other factors – dependent on things like friendly or unfriedly media coverage, so the index measures how friendly the western media coverage is to that country, meaning in effect, countries whose government is more liked by western media get better ratings.
    4th) TI is officially “independent” but a highly politicized organisation largely funded by western governments, foundations and corporations, and so it is everything else than a neutral observer of the world.
    Let me add my personal impression from talking to people who worked at the TI HQ in Berlin. TI is highly (politically) corrupted. TI a propaganda and pressure tool against foreign governments which are too independent for the taste of western imperialists, and a whitewash organisation for corrupt foreign governments subservient to western interests.

  14. Matthew,
    However things develop from here, this looks uncomfortably like a catastrophe.
    There is no way that West Ukrainians will reconcile themselves to being brought back into a close Russian embrace. On the one hand, one can certainly say they have every reason not to – on the other, as ‘Bandolero’ rightly points out, some of the undercurrents are unloveable.
    Likewise, both in central Ukraine and indeed in the East, particularly among the younger people, there are plenty who would like much closer relations with the EU, and, of these, a very significant number do so in part because they also do not want to be drawn back into a close Russian embrace.
    How far the enthusiasm for the EU does or does not reflect unrealistic hopes is a moot point (but an important one, is that if extravagant hopes are replaced by disillusion, the political spectrum in the Ukraine might change in very odd ways.)
    In the event, the EU – with, it would seem, US backing – ended up with an offer which was all too patently intended to woo the Ukraine, as a whole, away from Russia. In so doing, however, they included terms which would – as ‘b’ points out – liquidate a great deal of industry in the regions which traditionally belonged to the Russian Empire.
    Moreover, they did not offer Yanukovich what he patently needs – money to escape a looming default. And they also made it patently obvious they wanted to get rid of him, and identified strongly with Yulia Timoshenko, who for reasons that escape me is still romanticised in the EU and Washington.
    How far Putin would have been prepared to live with ambiguity in the Ukraine is an interesting question. What however was the point in pushing him into upping the ante, and deploying a mixture of threats and, critically, bribes? In the torrent of sanctimonious Western commentary two critical facts have been ignored.
    One is that there is simply no way in which Russia would allow a free trade agreement between the Ukraine and the EU to provide a backdoor by which European goods could evade their own tariff barriers in their domestic market. Another that Putin is in a position to cope with Yanukovich’s acute financial problem by offering cash in return for equity stakes in those companies in which the Russians are interested.
    My fear however is that we move closer to a disintegration of the Ukraine – something I have long regarded as fraught with catastrophic potential. I would be happy if people better informed than me could provide reassurance.

  15. Bandolero says:

    Yanukovitch was just in Moscow. As he was there, there came some “temporary and reversible measures” as new developments in Russian-Ukrainian relations:
    Putin: Russia buys Ukrainian bonds for 15 billion US-Dollars
    http://de.ria.ru/business/20131217/267494662.html
    Russia lowers Ukrainian gas price by a third
    http://de.ria.ru/business/20131217/267494416.html
    Putin: Russia could use capabilities of Ukraines defense industry
    http://de.ria.ru/politics/20131217/267494350.html
    Alexey Pushkov (Head of Russian parliament’s foreign affairs commitee): Door for Ukraine to EU closed, EU has neither the money nor the will to lead Ukraine out of it’s financial crises
    http://de.ria.ru/politics/20131217/267493109.html
    So, for McCain it will now be easy to convince Ukrainians that his words have some meaning: he just has to offer Ukraine an immediate credit of 15 billion USD, put on the table for Ukraine additionally 4 billion USD yearly as subsidy for Ukrainian gas bills and promise the Ukrainian defense industry the possibility of contracts by the US military.
    If John McCain is not even willing to back up his warm words for Ukrainians with some small money for Ukrainians like Russia does it than McCain’s words are completely meaningless.

  16. b says:

    http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78576332/
    Ukraine’s besieged ruling party gets boost from by-election wins
    That’s a finger to McCain.

  17. Laura Wilson says:

    Best analysis of McCain’s “influence” ever! Thank you!

  18. kao_hsien_chih says:

    Ironically, this is true pretty much everywhere. Whether we (in the West) like it or not, Putin does have substantial support outside the “liberal” circles in Russia and is being reliably reelected through democratic means (the opponents are crying foul, but have no reliable countrywide evidence to back up their claims.) Heck, even in the US, the Republicans have a large and reliable support base outside the urban centers and manage to be an electoral force (except when they are being excessively dumb) most of the time, to the confusion of the talking classes ensconced in cities. How can we expect people who don’t understand what’s going on in the countryside of their own country to understand events in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe?

  19. Babak Makkinejad says:

    A 300-year long history of Ukraine being ruled by the Prince of Muscovy cannot be altered, in my view, during a 20-year period of the weakness of that Prince.
    It is as unlikely an event as Scotland becoming a subsidiary of the same said Prince.
    Indeed you ask what is the point of all of this Western interference in the East?
    May be it is the same as the one in Syria: we can screw you and wreck things because we can.

  20. Matthew says:

    KSC: The application of the Yeltsin’s economic policies (the “Shock Doctrine”) produced the immiseration of large sections of Russia’s population and the rise of Gangsta capitalism. Putin surely knows what these policies did to Russia’s demographics.
    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia

  21. MRW says:

    David, is Russia asking that the Ukraine give up their currency for the ruble, as Greece had to when it joined the EU? Is that a condition of a loan from Russia? If not, the Ukraine has a prayer. It can still denominate it’s debt in its own currency, and pay its workers internally.
    Otherwise, if the Ukraine joins the EU and adopts the Euro, which it must in order to join, the bond vigilantes will be in there in a nanosecond imposing austerity, and a loan in return for all of Ukraine’s resources. You will see a repeat of Greece and Spain’s economic destruction.
    BTW, I agree completely with the Colonel’s take on McCain. Who the hell does he think he is? If Obama didn’t order this, why isn’t he embarrassing this guy in public?

  22. Alba Etie says:

    Leader Putin will never never give up the ‘Near Abroad States ” after all of those bloody and destructive invasions in history . Trace it from wherever in History you wish , maybe Napolean – The West would do will to remember what happened in Georgia a few years back .

  23. Castellio says:

    As much of Ukraine was under the control of the Poles, as under Muscovy.
    West and East Ukraine are really quite different.
    However, 95% voted for Ukrainian independence only twenty years ago. Those in west Ukraine can’t quite understand why they aren’t living in the promised paradise, and think that they are “that close”, if only… if only…
    The other half is appalled.
    I find it hard to believe the nation can last.

  24. Castellio says:

    Did Yeltsin actually have “economic policies” or did he defer to others during his time? Just how much of a drunken front-man was he?

  25. confusedponderer says:

    Point is that the index gives an indication, and it was posted with that in mind.
    In the case of Bulgaria it happens to coincide with the quite unprecedented suspension of EU payments.
    I stand with that it is a folly to pull the least economically capable and worst governed places in the Balkans into Europe, just because.
    Why on earth is association, or membership in the European Economic Area and free trade not enough? It’s a boon all the same.

  26. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I know the “shock doctrine” extremely well, having been (sort of) involved in it when it went down, albeit very indirectly (as a college student some of whose professors were involved in such things). In some sense, everything I’d been doing since has been shaped by that experience. If I learned one thing, it is that being a doctrinaire fundamentalist, in “science,” “religion,” “reason,” or “free markets,” without knowing something about the “patient” in question is a very dangerous thing. If I might filibuster a bit, I don’t quite share the extreme skepticism about “social sciences” of our host and some of the posters (I am professionally in the field, after all), but, like the saying goes, the beginning of the wisdom is understanding what it is that you don’t know after all…and being too much of a believer blinds you to what you don’t know…

  27. Ulenspiegel says:

    Please MRW, get the facts right:
    EU is one thing, the EMU another. You can of course join the former without being a member of the latter.
    Greece gave up her own currency to join the EMU, not the EU. You are talking nonsense.
    Wether a loan is in EUR or another currency is a matter of negotiation.

  28. Harper says:

    The Obama Administration remains split between the foreign policy “realists” and the humanitarian interventionists. We saw this in Egypt, where Kerry and Hagel opposed cuts in aid to the Egyptian military and Susan Rice and Samantha Power wanted to cut off aid altogether. To undercut kerry, Rice sent McCain and Graham to Cairo to rail against the Generals and defend the Muslim Brotherood Morsi government as “legitimate” because they were elected, ignoring the tens of millions who took to the streets to demand his ouster. I do not rule out that the same behind the scenes fight is going on vis a vis the Ukraine. After all, Kerry is trying to work with Lavrov on Iran, Syria and probably even on the North Korea mess. My question is simple: Did Rice either deploy or encourage McCain and Murphy to go to Kiev? I know our Ambassador to the EU, Victoria Nuland (married to neocon Robert Kagan) was also in the square in Kiev handing out Twinkies last week, so the Administration is definitely siding with the “join the EU” mobs. A careful study of the 1,000 page Associates Agreement with the EU that President Yanukovych refused to sign, demanding a better deal, would have wiped out the entire industrial and agricultural economy of Ukraine for years to come. It provided for over 1,000 commodities to be imported to Ukraine duty free, meaning dumping of European goods on the Ukraine market, while Ukraine would have had to bring its manufacturing in conformity with EU standards before exporting to Europe. Yanukovych demanded 20 billion euro a year for an indefinite period of time to allow Ukraine to meet EU standards of production as a precondition for signing the AA. He was laughed at by Hollande and others for even daring to suggest such a “level playing field” deal.

  29. kao_hsien_chih
    As one of those posters who has on occasion expressed scepticism about aspects of the ‘social sciences’, I would like to say that I have found some of their products extremely useful.
    One aspect I have found worrying, however, is that on occasion whole fields of study seem to be dominated by assumptions which are little short of dotty. In a discussion of what she terms Putin’s ‘sistema’ last year, a very interest Russian sociologist now based in London, Alena Ledeneva, had some interesting remarks on the political aspect of scholarship relating to notions of ‘transition’:
    “The idea that there was a range of preconditions for democracy relating to issues of wealth, class, institutional legacy and political culture – some would even request American-type middle classes and a heritage of protestant individualism – lost ground to the belief that ‘all that seems to be necessary for democratization [is] a decision by a country‘s political elites to move towards democracy’. Thus, the role of elites becomes central, given the lack of need for preconditions of transition. Democratic transition should include a transplanted institutional design, with the determinative importance of elections.”
    (See http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2012/88_1/88_1ledeneva.pdf )
    This is precisely the mindset which has underpinned much Western policy ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Events in the Ukraine, following on from those in Syria, once again illustrate quite how effectively people in the grip of this mindset manage to filter out evidence which might call the basic assumption that the only obstacles to democratisation have to do with the wickedness of elites into question.
    A corollary of the basic assumptions involved, of course, is that detailed ‘area studies’ knowledge is marginalised.

  30. turcopolier says:

    David Habakkuk
    “A corollary of the basic assumptions involved, of course, is that detailed ‘area studies’ knowledge is marginalized.” That is absolutely correct. the neocons were drenched in social science dreck and assumed that a detailed knowledge of any of the countries they wished to transform was simply unnecessary because these places would be different after their transformation, pl

  31. Fred says:

    Yeltsin’s government followed the best ‘advice’ the western governments, corporations, think tanks and consultants had to offer. Putin and Yanukovych are apparently not willing to get shafted one more time so that immense wealth can be transferred once again to the West while their societies receive years of turmoil in exchange.

  32. Bandolero says:

    Fred
    McCain was on the stage in Kiev just accompanied by Mikheil Saakashvili who also addressed the crowd there so he should have known.
    After speaking to the crowd at “Euromaidan” Saakashvili flew into the US because he fears if he enters Georgia he may be arrested. I don’t know though whether McCain and Saakashvili flew back to the US in the same plane.

  33. Matthew says:

    Fred: It gets better. See http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2013/12/17/president-obama-sochi-billie-jean-king-winter-games-russia-putin/4058273/
    So we are not going to send any real politicians to Sochi, just gay activists?
    Whether you agree with the Russia’s anti-gay law (and I do not), I doubt this has been thought out. What does Obama do if Putin decides to turn King back at the airport? (Israel has been doing this to pro-Palestinian activists for years.) The Russians can use Google.
    Including King in the official delegation would have sent a message. By the Administration essentialy boycotting Sochi–but sending a gay activist–Obama is needlessly antagonizing Putin.
    And, I fear, setting us up to look ridiculous. lous.

  34. confusedponderer says:

    Harper,
    thanks.
    What struck me as hilarious was the mention of Victoria Nuland handing out candy. The mental image so created is haunting. The only candy I can imagine her to ever hand out is sour drops. But no, twinkies! Now I see in my mind that morose face, uttering in English to Ukrainian kids: No! This isn’t ordinary candy, these are Freedom Twinkies! DO keep that in mind!
    How I came to see her in such a light? Ah well, her performance as a spokesperson when the US cut off UNESCO funding after UNESCO admitted Palestine in was quite memorable.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEGuvuSe0q4
    What leaves me somewhat incredulous is that indeed we have the US Ambassador to NATO taking overt sides in an Ukrainian election.
    The phrase ‘blatantly and visibly meddling in internal affairs of another country’ come to mind.
    It’s almost as unbelievable as if Bibi came to DC to campaign for Romney … oh, wait … what could possibly be wrong about that? Likewise, dear Viccy is just nudging the Ukrainians to do the right thing, or else.
    I think, feeling bold this morning, that the next colour coded revolution should be the Twinkie Revolution. Maybe Miss Nuland can even secure a corporate sponsor as a novelty.

  35. This dispute will continue until the next invasion of the Ukraine by steppe peoples!

  36. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I’m not entirely sure if that view is necessarily reflective of “serious” academics, whose views tend to be too nuanced, “theoretical,” and “impractical” for the minds of policymakers. Policymakers seem to like to bring in advice from people who are interested in changing the world and use their academic imprimatur to justify why the world should be and can be changed as they dictate (the choice of the words intentional). So, we wind up with a paradoxical situation: people who supposedly bring in “academics” are interested only in that these people bring their convictions and their credentials (and the people who are brought in aren’t really “serious” academics at all, in the sense that they have little or no interest in understanding the situation in depth, beyond what might be necessary to further advance their agenda–thus no time for nuances like cultural backgrounds and situation-specific details that get in the way of their grand notions–nevermind that most “theories” are built on rather (too) specific premises.) This is just glorified hackery, hardly deserving of the term “scholarship.” Yet, these are the “intellects” that hold sway with the powers that be, unfortunate. I tend to get frustrated when I hear people attacking “social sciences” on the bases of these charlatans, but these are the most prominent “social scientists” most people see, unfortunately.

  37. Ursa Maior says:

    Well said colonel. And the lack of serious US support in 56, still plagues Hungarian-US relations. Seeing the so to say indecisive US foreign policy more and more people over here say ‘better the devil you know’. And are after strengthening ties with ‘horribile dictu’ Putin’s Russia.

  38. confusedponderer says:

    What, what? Didn’t the US appease World Communism by not having WW-III over Hungary?
    But, on a serious note, the point is well taken.
    Another example would be the US encouragement of the Shiite uprising against Saddam, and than watching rom the sidelines. An awful lot of people got killed because of that. There are more examples.
    The US saying such things gets people ideas, which is why such utterances should be made carefully and responsibly.
    If these ideas are mistaken, and the expected US support is not forthcoming, they then have taken a position which irreversibly puts them in a bad situation.
    Among others, the Hungarians and Iraqi Shia can testify to how that feels.

  39. LeaNder says:

    I registered that for Germany a member of the CSU or a member of the specific Bavarian part of the Christian democrats spoke next to McCain. That was all I needed to know in spite of a famous boxer being paraded as the pro-Europe party’s face for us Germans.
    http://preview.tinyurl.com/Ukraine-klitschko
    *********************
    But what about this Pat?
    http://mondoweiss.net/2013/12/foreign-policy-warmongering.html
    How much space to move Obama really has concerning Iran?
    I could never understand why Norman Finkelstein disliked Elie Wiesel as much as seemingly he did, I start to get an idea why that may have beeen:
    http://preview.tinyurl.com/kwoh64d

  40. Fred says:

    Obama is just proving how powerless he is. So the LGBT community is not happy with Russia’s domestic policies? Just look at what they demand in Hollywood – conform to their standards or lose your job:
    http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-duck-dynasty–star-s-anti-gay-remarks-spark-outrage-134231650.html

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