Being born and, educated in the USSR, I imagine I understand things there better than foreign commentators given to wishful thinking.
America has the discouraging habit of involving itself in places it has not even the slightest clue about. The Middle East was it for decades, and now the Bush Administration has decided to meddle in Eastern Europe.
What the US strategic interests in that area are, I cannot imagine. Since Russia doesn’t need containing, why spend billions propping up regimes hostile to Russia and strengthen Russian nationalists fearful of Western expansion?
Anyway, last year the US funneled about a billion dollars into the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, the American inmates’ robe color. Vast numbers of demonstrators were hauled in from the provinces for $16 a day, and the locals joined the show to get free goodies, like food and coats.
America, as usual, propped one scoundrel up against another. The opposition was led by the pro-Russian prime minister, twice convicted of rape and robbery. The pro-American side naturally consisted of Ukrainian nationalists, largely anti-semites. Both sides forged elections in the regions they controlled, and the result of 46% for the pro-Russians was not unreasonable. The US officials just did not know that in non-democracies about a third of the people automatically vote for the ruling party, pro-Russian in this case. Anyway, the elected president (the one convicted of violent felonies) was displaced and the pro-American one installed.
Just over a year later, the ostensibly popular pro-American president’s party got a mere 16% of the vote in the parliamentary elections. The convict’s party got the majority. The good thing is that the elections restored the balance of power, tilting it a bit away from the Ukrainian nationalists. The bad thing, the continuing downward spiral of the Ukrainian economy that survives by amortizing old Soviet industrial assets, will surely bring about a crisis, and the Jews will be right there to kill, as always happens in the Ukraine.
America destabilizes the Middle East by forcing equally silly policies on Israel.
Your comment on Ukrania is very interesting. You don't wat to know how the whole thing was covered by the press here, in Spain !!! You cannot imagine all the fight-for-freedom extravaganza (and handy clichés, hey, jourmalists are not experts in literature, no need to be creative!). The thing is I am mighty frightened of nationalism. And do we know about it in Spain!! I'm also astonished by the degree of interest any nationalistic movement seems to excite in USA. Can somebody, please, explain this intense interest to me? I really, really don't get it. Nationalism is one of the things that makes the Middle East scenario even more complicated. Americans, and why not? Europeans too, don't like complicated things. For them, the world should be written in black and white, but even if it's not, they manage to apply their "political daltonism" to just about everything. Journalists play this game just as willingly. Take the Middle East. Why waste time and money with complications when you can have the Arabs victims/villains-Israeli victims/villains readily made explanation for everything? (of course the fluctuation victim/villain is subject to change according to need). They impose policies on the area based on that, and the people who get caught in the middle are the real victims…..While we are dealt with as a bunch of stupid cows by journalists and political commentarists. I'm sick of it!!!