Ukraine’s democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych, in exile in Russia, sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking for Russia to use its armed forces to restore law and order to Ukraine. The fact that a third of Ukrainian ministries are now firmly in the hands of neo-Nazis representing the Svoboda and Right Sector political parties and the move by the Ukrainian opposition-led government to declare the Party of the Regions political party of Yanukovych illegal was enough to spur Russia into action by securing its naval base in Crimea from provocations by neo-Nazi thugs arriving from Kiev. The neo-Nazis, who now control the Defense, National Security, Prosecutor-General, Agriculture, and Environmental ministries of Ukraine, have conducted an anti-Russian «cultural revolution» aimed at toppling statues to Russian and Soviet heroes from the Second World War and the Napoleonic War and ensuring that the Russian language be relegated to secondary status in Ukraine.
Yanukovych’s letter to Putin was released by Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin. In the letter, Yanukovych told Putin, «The country has plunged into chaos and anarchy. The country is in the grip of outright terror and violence driven by the West. In this context, I appeal to the President of Russia Vladimir V. Putin to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to re-establish the rule of law, peace, order, stability, and to protect the people of Ukraine»…
The Russian government and the de facto Ukrainian government-in-exile of Yanuovych, now headquartered in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, a city some 125 miles from the Ukrainian border. Russia and Yanukovych contend that the takeover of the government by the Ukrainian opposition was a violation of the February 21 agreement by Yanukovych, the Ukrainian opposition, and the European Union that the people of Ukraine would vote for agreed upon constitutional changes in a national referendum followed by a government of national unity that would include representatives of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. However, the banning of the Party of Regions, as well as the Communist Party of Ukraine, along with the coup d’etat by the opposition, violated the spirit and letter of the February 21 accord.
Churkin also cited the smuggling of weapons by neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists into major Ukrainian cities. It was the specter of neo-nazi gangs using smuggled weapons against Russians and ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Crimea that forced Russia to take immediate action to protect its own citizens and military personnel assigned to the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sebastopol, Crimea, as well as defenseless Russian Ukrainians living in the Crimean autonomous republic.
After reading Yanukovych’s letter to Putin to the UN Security Council, Churkin defended Russia’s military foray into Crimea, saying, «It’s completely legitimate under Russian law, and given the extraordinary situation in Ukraine, this threat and the threat to our compatriots, Russian citizens, and the Black Sea Fleet.»
Western intelligence sources told this reporter that NATO intelligence services, working with Saudi-funded militants in Libya, arranged for older Libyan weapons of Russian origin to be smuggled into Ukraine prior to the Sochi Winter Olympics. Some of these weapons, according to this reporter’s sources, were used by neo-Nazi paramilitary groups in Kiev to fire on protesters in Maidan Square. Forensic analysis of the bullets showed that they were fired from Russian weapons. The global news media falsely claimed that Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces had snipers in buildings around Maidan Square who were shooting protesters. However, reliable intelligence sources revealed to this reporter that the weapons, while Russian made, were from Libyan arms caches captured by Al Qaeda affiliates from the ousted government of Muammar Qaddafi.
While a large number of Russian security forces were understandably deployed away from the Ukrainian-Russian border to look for the three «black widow» Islamist suicide bombers in and around Sochi, enhanced security and customs controls on the Russian-Ukrainian border were disrupted, allowing for the weapons from Libya to be smuggled into Ukraine. The hyped «black widows» was actually a «feint» used by the West to create a combined ruse operation and disruption operation.
While the United States, Canada, Australia, and France have condemned Russia’s operations to safeguard its naval base in Crimea and defenseless Russian citizens and Crimeans in the autonomous republic, these powers have shown their utter hypocrisy and ignorance of their own histories in providing aid to their allies said to be facing external threats.
On October 14, 1983, a radical faction within the government of Grenada, a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, overthrew the more moderate Marxist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. After Bishop and his loyal ministers were assassinated on the orders of the new prime minister, Bernard Coard, President Ronald Reagan appeared in the White House with the Prime Minister of Dominica, Mary Eugenia Charles. Charles appealed for Reagan to intervene militarily in Grenada. A letter, dated October 24, which was purportedly written by Grenada’s Governor General, Sir Paul Scoon, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, requesting the United States and Grenada’s Caribbean partners to dispatch troops to Grenada to restore stability, was released by the White House on October 27.
However, Scoon later wrote in his autobiography that the letter was not his and that it had been drafted in Barbados. In other words, every stated reason the United States gave for invading and occupying Grenada was false. The Scoon letter was a fake. Prime Minister Charles did not have a letter from Scoon prior to asking Reagan for U.S. troops. And the stated primary reason for the U.S. invasion: danger posed to 1000 U.S. citizens on Grenada, including a number of medical students, and Cuba’s building of a military airbase on the island, all turned out to be false. There was no danger to U.S. citizens and the only Cubans on Grenada were construction personnel building the country a new international airport. Moreover, Scoon had not informed either Queen Elizabeth or British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of his verbal request to Prime Minister Charles for U.S. troops. In other words, the entire Grenada invasion was based on an American fraud.
But for the 45 Grenadian military and over 24 civilians killed by American troops, including 12 patients of a mental hospital bombed by American warplanes, Reagan’s fraud was very real. In addition, 358 Grenadians were wounded by American invaders. Compare that to the zero casualties resulting from the Russian security intervention in Crimea. What nation is the real aggressor, the one with the blood of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocents dripping from its hands?
Similarly, in 1989, after Guillermo Endara defeated for president of Panama, the hand-picked candidate of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, the United States increased its military presence in the Panama Canal Zone, citing Noriega’s threat to U.S. citizens and military personnel in Panama. After Panamanian troops fired upon and assaulted vehicles transporting U.S. military personnel, U.S. President George H W Bush ordered a full-scale invasion of Panama, an overkill reaction ironically code named Operation JUST CAUSE.
Bush’s invasion, including the firebombing of one of Panama City’s poorest barrios, El Chorillo, killed some 3000 Panamanian nationals and left 20,000 Panamanians homeless. The Pentagon falsely claimed that only 250 Panamanians lost their lives. Bush’s primary reason for invading Panama was to safeguard the lives of American citizens, the same exact reason Russia has given for intervening in Crimea. When compared to Russia’s bloodless security operation in Crimea, Bush’s bloody Panama campaign was a complete violation of international norms of human rights and was a bona fide war crime.
In 1995, 1000 French troops in Operation Azalee invaded the Comoros, a group of Indian Ocean islands, to re-install President Said Mohammed Djohar. While Djohar was being treated in a French hospital in Reunion, a French colony, the French government demanded his restoration to power. Djohar was restored after French troops occupied the Comoros. No country demanded international sanctions against France for invading another country to restore to power an unpopular president.
The West can beat its chests, pull its hair, and gnash its teeth all it wants over Crimea. However, nothing Russia has done compares to the brutality of American and French actions in restoring their puppets to power in countries far from their own shores.
