Western Ukrainians getting out of Dodge to avoid conscription

[eridani]

Wouldn't more autonomy for easterners be simpler?

http://www.nationofchange.org/two-chance-meetings-while-traveling-europe-1409579475

They turned out to be two Ukrainians from Kiev, both just out of college. The young man, Vladimir, was trained as an engineer. The young woman, Svetlana, was a communications grad. She spoke better English than Vlad. They explained that they had left Ukraine a month earlier in a group of some 100 young people, “to find work, and to get away from the war.” At the time Ukraine had no conscription, but this month conscription was reimposed for all men between 18 and 25, with the potential, as the army is getting routed, of all males up to 60 getting called up. So they left for good reason. Protests, with mothers saying they won’t let their sons be sent off to fight, are reportedly spreading all over western Ukraine against conscription (though this is not being mentioned in the US corporate media).

Both Vladimir and Svetlana said that they had no interest in fighting the rebels in eastern Ukraine, and they said that the Ukrainian government installed after rioters ousted elected President Viktor Yanokovych was “completely corrupt.”

They added that there was no prospect for work in Ukraine -- not even for communications majors and engineers. Only for soldiers. But the people aren’t really interested in being soldiers, or in fighting, which explains the army's high desertion rate and its poor performance in the field against eastern Ukraine's rebels. Only in the militias, which are filled with volunteer fascist Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, does one find people who want to fight.

[pscot]

1. If Ukrainians won't defend themselves

maybe they are, in fact, destined to be a subject people.

[eridani]

2. The easterers are defending themselves against attack from the west

Looks like more than a few westerners have no interest in being aggressors, which makes me think that this could be solved if the US and NATO were not so intent on extending military hegemony.

[sabrina 1]

14. Ukrainians are defending themselves against a corrupt government that wants to enslave them

to the IMF and World Bank as was done to so many countries in S. America tragically causing decades of hardship, dictators backed by the West and bloodshed. Same thing in Ukraine now that the IMF has moved to second and first world countries to try to force them into strangling debt that they will never get out of and insanely, have sent the army to kill their OWN PEOPLE to try to FORCE this disastrous future on them.

We need to stop acting so blindly partisan on these issues. The Eastern Ukrainians are DYING by the hand of their own corrupt Government, backed by the Western Imperialist nations and NO ONE ELSE.

Sometimes it's hard to face the truth, but the fact is killing your own people because they don't agree with what their government has in store for them, is a CRIME no matter who does it.

[LeftyMom]

3. Do you people ever stop to listen to yourselves?

Jesus.

[Scootaloo]

5. Both Russia and Ukraine are led by bags of assholes

I don't blame these people from getting the fuck out of there. Did you miss the newest law passed by Ukraine's governemn, allowing government shutdown of media and press arbitrarily? Just because Russia is the aggressor here doesn't actually make Ukraine some sort of sainted nation.

[LeftyMom]

6. I don't doubt it. But the pro-Russia faction on DU is fawning and creepy.

Reminds me of when HannahBell was posting about what an awesome place North Korea is, but that was one nut and not a while faction of people who take one side's propaganda entirely too seriously.

[Scootaloo]

7. I think your own biases are skewing things a bit

I consider myself a neutral party - or at least, having equal antipathy towards both governments - and i have to say I haven't seen any of this vaunted 'fawning' from either side. No one's lauding Putin as a glorious hero, no one's claiming Poroshenko is the second coming, nothing like that. In fact it mostly seems to be slapfighting over who's "more evilest", if anything

[LeftyMom]

9. It's the whole liberation angle. It's goofy.

I certainly didn't go into the issue with any particular biases: the grandparents left Eastern Europe so I could not give a shit. God bless them. But one side consistently posts questionable sources, which is what got me paying attention because shoddy reporting is the express route to my bad side.

[eridani]

8. Niether Russia nor North Korea have 800+ military bases around the world

Therefore not too much an imperialist threat. This does not mean that either is a wonderful place to live. I'm not seeing how US military hegemony improves either place, though.

[LeftyMom]

11. The idea that Russia is not an imperialist threat (or at least an aspiring one) involves

requires an ignorance of history, a failure to listen to anything it's government says, and an unwillingness to open today's paper.

Christ Almighty.

[former9thward]

13. Where are their worldwide bases

[tazkcmo]

27. Not a prerequisite

to having imperial aspirations. As Leftymom said, if you think Russia has no imperialistic aspirations then you don't know the history of Putin or Russia or willingly disregard it.

I have no dog in this fight and in fact could care less that Putin is annexing Ukraine although I do have compassion for the innocent people whose lives are being lost, destroyed or other wise disrupted due to the war. We're ALL going to be in a world of hurt due to climate change. Some scientists are predicting that major sh8t will hit the fan is as few as 5 years from now. But Russia not imperialist? lol

[sabrina 1]

16. I listen to facts. From what I can see, so does the poster you just addressed. What is it about

the OP that you object to, about the young people fleeing yet another corrupt government in that sad country? Do you think those young people should die so that the IMF can control their country?

Do you agree with them looking for a better future which they KNOW will not be found if they are sent to die for something they don't want in the first place?

Having followed the corruption in Ukraine since the so-called Orange Revolution, the greed, the outright theft by their own leaders, I totally support them leaving.

Just as people have left other European countries for centuries when they become unbearable to live in, and COME HERE. Maybe they too should have died, in vain, to make the greedy rich richer ....

[polly7]

4. They aren't stupid. Only the rest of the 'civilized' world thinks so. nt.

[Jenoch]

10. This story is an interesting anecdote, and nothing more.

[geek tragedy]

12. Article is by nutjob Dave"Ron Paul is better than Obama" Lindorff.

Makes sense that an anti-American Obama-hating loon like Lindorff would be on Team Putin.

[sabrina 1]

17. Another great liberal writer attacked. Are there any left that haven't been? The truth is often

painful, although we suffered no pain telling the EXACT SAME TRUTHS during the Bush years for some reason. One day those resisting facts will have to face them. I think the time is here actually as our own Corporate Media loses more and more credibility and people are exposed to so much more information from actual journalists from all over the world.

The FACT is that Ukraine's coup government has collapsed. Our 'guy Yatze' has 'resigned' or was forced out as he was no longer needed, he did serve the purpose as in interim puppet I suppose. .Now, the new President Boroshenko, the Chocolate King as he is known in Ukraine, a multi billionaire and friend of the West, who has switched sides so often it's hard to keep up with whom or where he stands, though it appears it's always with the IMF/World Bank gang, the neocons et al, has declared what WE WERE TOLD was a Legitimate Govt elected BEFORE the Coup, is 'ILLEGITIMATE'.

It must be hard trying to defend all this. Because as soon as you think you got it right, they slap you down by changing positions. eg, I was told that those elected before the coup were 'legitimate'. And of course called a 'pootie lover' or whatever. NOW their very own 'guy in Ukraine, the Chocolate King, Boroshenko, tells us they are NOT legitimate after all.

So there you are, is Boroshenko right now, because I find myself in a weird place too, HE AGREES WITH ME NOW! Lol.

What a tragic mess, a government sending an army to kill its own people. Soldiers mothers, and yes this is being reported pretty much everywhere except here, demonstrating against their sons and husbands being sent to kill their own people.

And here, in the US, we are once again, asked to cheer for the wrong people. And once again, the pesky Left sees right through it all and present a thorn in the side of the powerful forces that are trying to control yet another sovereign nation.

[tazkcmo]

28. Good job n/t

[eridani]

18. Being a nutjob, he really never met two Ukrainians when he went to Finland

Is that what you are claiming here?

[geek tragedy]

19. would you find credible a similar piece written by Paul Wolfowitz finding

the exact opposite?

[eridani]

20. I'd be surprised if Wolfowitz could come up with salient detail.

Do you have any support for the notion that the general public in western Ukraine supports attacking the east? (Although they probably would if Russia actually attacks them personally. Could happen, but might not)

[geek tragedy]

21. I think the entire country wishes the war would end.

I remind you that the war began when Russia's proxies within Ukraine started shooting.

[eridani]

22. The west attacked demonstrators in the east

It could end by prompt agreement to much more autonomy for the east. That would be by far the most effective way to wrong-foot Putin.

[geek tragedy]

23. No, that was Syria.

There was an armed uprising in the east, comprised largely of Russian nationals.

[eridani]

24. i see. People who are being burned alive should just quit persecuting arsonists

Robert Parry: Burning Ukraine's Protesters Alive

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/23596-burning-ukraines-protesters-alive

In Ukraine, a grisly new strategy – bringing in neo-Nazi paramilitary forces to set fire to occupied buildings in the country’s rebellious southeast – appears to be emerging as a favored tactic as the coup-installed regime in Kiev seeks to put down resistance from ethnic Russians and other opponents.

The technique first emerged on May 2 in the port city of Odessa when pro-regime militants chased dissidents into the Trade Unions Building and then set it on fire. As some 40 or more ethnic Russians were burned alive or died of smoke inhalation, the crowd outside mocked them as red-and-black Colorado potato beetles, with the chant of “Burn, Colorado, burn.” Afterwards, reporters spotted graffiti on the building’s walls containing Swastika-like symbols and honoring the “Galician SS,” the Ukrainian adjunct to the German SS in World War II.

This tactic of torching an occupied building occurred again on May 9 in Mariupol, another port city, as neo-Nazi paramilitaries – organized now as the regime’s “National Guard” – were dispatched to a police station that had been seized by dissidents, possibly including police officers who rejected a new Kiev-appointed chief. Again, the deployment of the “National Guard” was followed by burning the building and killing a significant but still-undetermined number of people inside. (Early estimates of the dead range from seven to 20.)

[geek tragedy]

30. Parry practically works for Putin. nt

[eridani]

31. This was reported many places

Is it the parallel with the Nazi arson in WW II which Parry pointed out that offends you? The white supremacists even used the same slogans.

[joshcryer]

25. The head of the Ron Paul Institute is leading the charge on twitter.

No surprise there.

[socialist_n_TN]

32. Whereas you guys are on the side of John McCain and Dick Chaney.......

I wouldn't be too quick to try and smear Josh.

[joshcryer]

34. Nope.

For instance, Russia implemented forced conscription in Crimea, but we don't hear anything about that from the pro-Putin posters.

It's not the same thing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Good for them. K&R

Of course, I would say that of anyone who fled conscription in any country.

[Tarheel_Dem]

26. Lindorff? Really? Remember this? "Ron Paul Supporters Try Brainwashing Democrats..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023152339

[Blue_Tires]

29. It's hard to blame them for wanting out

Since it is clear that Ukraine cannot mount an effective defense against Russia's military, and NATO isn't coming to bail them out...

[malaise]

33. The only way to stop the wars is for young men to tell the establishment

to go Cheney themselves. Great news.