Without A Shot Fired By Jack D. Douglas
(2014-03-05 at 18:25:02 )

Without a Shot Fired By Jack D. Douglas

The Crimean War of the 1850s made famous by Tennysons "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" poem was fought fiercely by Britain, Russia, Turkey, Austria, France and lesser forces and resulted in about 250,000 deaths on both of the major sides.

The Ukrainian coup in Kiev by some thousands of street fighters was supported by the United States to undermine the rebuilding of Russian power. Instead, in a few days Putin has reunited Russia with its centuries old territory of the Crimea without a shot being fired and in a breathtaking show of reason and caution by the Russians, Russian-Ukrainians and non-Russian Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian forces which the coup leaders were trying to whip into a fury of attack on the lightly armed, walking Russian soldiers with no insignia put down their weapons and turned over major weapons to the Russians, including about 49 top-grade fighter planes (Mig 29s), much of the firepower of the Ukrainian air force.

The ignorant American officials were left sputtering absurdities and propaganda, such as, "This is like the Nazi Munich!" That is totally absurd since the Crimeans were overwhelmingly joyful, largely because they are overwhelmingly Russians who never wanted to become Ukrainians against Russia when the collapse of the Soviet Empire led to the transfer of the Crimea to the Ukrainian state that broke off from Russia. They are celebrating a homecoming, not fighting a war against their fellow Russians.

The populations are more mixed in the major industrial cities of Eastern Ukraine, but the Russians and people intermarried with the Russians or otherwise interrelated are a strong majority. They too want to go home to Russia and escape the coup and whatever that might lead to in the Ukraine, including possibly an awful civil war for power.

IF Putin can pull off anything near the remarkably peaceful reunion in those regions that he has done in the Crimea, he will be a Peaceful Uniter of George Washington proportions and a super hero in Russia.

I doubt that is a good thing for us in the long run, but what do you expect when you have totally ignorant bunglers like Obama and Kerry stirring up coups thousands of miles away with no idea what that might produce?

Jack D. Douglas is a retired professor of sociology from the University of California at San Diego. He has published widely on all major aspects of human beings, most notably The Myth of the Welfare State.

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