Ukraine: A Short History of Meddling

The thousand-yard Russophobic stare

It’s hard to keep track of all the frantic, overcooked coverage, but it looks like there’s a concerted effort in the press to shrink time and space and make it seem like the only truly bad Ukrainian meddling started and stopped with Donald Trump and his cronies. Naturally, big doses of Russophobia are being shoveled into the mix to make it all seem exceptional and scary — as if it’s all part of some of kind bigger partnership with the forces of darkness to undermine democracy around the world.

The New York Times has been leading the charge. Even journalists like Ken Vogel — who had previously reported on Democratic Party operatives shopping around for dirt on Trump’s people in Ukraine in order to sway the election and who had himself investigated (in a story cowritten with the Ukrainian president’s current spokeswoman!) Joe Biden and Son’s meddling there — now sidelines his own work as some sort of Trumpian conspiracy theory.

In other words: the whitewashing has begun.

But American meddling in Ukraine goes a lot deeper than Trump’s crude attempt to squeeze kompromat from the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It goes deeper than even Joe Biden or the DNC or the 2016 election. The truth is that America has been meddling and messing with Ukraine so persistently for so many years that no one thinks there’s anything wrong with it. It’s been the normal way of doing things. That’s why Joe Biden sat around yuk-yuking it up at the Council of Foreign Relations, bragging about bossing Ukraine’s former oligarch-president around — as if this elected billionaire leader of a foreign nation was nothing but a busboy working in Joe’s Delaware country club for tips. And why not? That’s how America’s political class thinks and acts.  (more...)

Ukraine: A Short History of Meddling

Further:

Ukraine and Ukrainegate, Continued

Trump's Impeachment, Ukraine, and War With Russia

Follow the money.