No Russians among Slavyansk self-defense forces - NYT reporters

[Tommy_Carcetti]

61. The difference between RT and others...

....is that RT is state owned. And while I don't necessarily oppose government running certain things (fire, police, highways, I would argue health care as well), the media is not one of those things. Like religion, there has to be a separation from the state in order to ensure the legitimacy of both. White it is easy just to label just about any news source as corporate media, that alone does not make their reporting inherently

I'm certainly not disputing that at various times during its history, the U.S. has played a hand in participating the forcible ouster of democratically elected governments. Iran, Chile, etc. But just because it has happened in the past does not mean it has happened in Ukraine. And frankly, the evidence to support that the regime change that occurred in February 2014 was in fact some western organized coup is extremely, extremely thin (notwithstanding how emphatically proponents of those theory claim it to be true.)

The same facts are repeated over and over and those repeating them insist it is smoking gun evidence of a western led coup. Those "facts" include Victoria Nuland handing out cookies to Maidan protesters...which frankly is comical if that can be considered evidence that the US was leading the charge. Then there's the quote about the $5 billion in aid to Ukraine. However, when one considers that the figure represents a 20 year period lasting over various presidential administrations (both Ukrainian and US), there's nothing that really suggests impropriety on its face. Finally, there was the taped phone call between Nuland and Pratt where they are discussing their preference for Yanukovych's successor. While that might initially raise a few eyebrows, there's nothing intrinsically nefarious about it when it all gets boiled down. People will discuss who they want in charge--that doesn't mean they will get those persons in charge. Hell, look here at DU ("I want Hillary!" "I want Warren!" etc.)

It's fun to get caught up in the different personalities, but I fear people are assigning much more power and influence to certain persons and factions than they actually deserve. In the end, McCain will be McCain, Nuland will be Nuland, and Svoboda will be Svoboda. There's been so much focus on those particular individuals because they are fun to kick around, but coup theorist place way too much importance all three (especially McCain and Nuland) in actually shaping events on the ground.

Really, what upsets me most about the western coup theorists is that they take a very patronizing tone towards ordinary Ukrainians, and then claim to be acting in their interests. Essentially, the idea is that Ukrainians are too stupid and simplistic to enact change on their own, or see that the West was pulling the strings. And in the end, Maidan was a very real, very popular and very large expression by many real and ordinary Ukrainians. There was real corruption in the Yanukovych government to be protested, and also many Ukrainians know their own history and they know close relations with Russia almost always causes great sorrow and strife for Ukraine. So they spoke out against it, Yanukovych pushed back in a most violent manner which only got the protesters even more angry, and finally when things reached a fever pitch Yanukovych chose to take his ball and go home. And needing an interim government before elections could be held, one was appointed in the meantime. It's really as simple and straight forward as that.

While I appreciate your very civil tone in your response to me, I simply cannot agree with you as to much on anything. I'm not accusing you of being an apologist for Vladimir Putin (although there are others on here that arguably do fall into that category) and I no doubt believe you see in good faith improper Western influence in various world affairs (not necessarily an imaginary problem, but one that has its limits). But Ukraine simply is not 1950s Iran or 1970s Chile. In cases like those, there were fingerprints and signs of our involvement that just don't exist here.