To the Editor:
Peter Bulkowski’s letter (“Annexation of Crimea shows Putin wants to rebuild U.S.S.R.”) is a bit comical, because President Vladimir Putin has as much chance of rebuilding the Soviet Union as I have in becoming the emperor of Ethiopia. It is not going to happen, and I am sure he knows it. As far as the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is concerned, we don’t need it. Just one glance at the world and we see who is the biggest violator of all sorts of agreements.
Is it possible to ignore the decades of American predatory wars and regime changes all over the world? Country after country has been bombed into the Stone Age, the ground poisoned forever and with millions of innocent victims. Think of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and others, and now Ukraine. Mr. Bulkowski writes, “For all its faults … America is a far better ally and a far better model than Mr. Putin.” I find this declaration very, very strange.
Mr. Bulkowski’s idea that Ukraine will be much better off through integration with Europe is just a dream. If he followed the membership requirements he knows it is not possible. Let me explain.
In Dnevnik, a leading daily I read fairly regularly, a recent reader wrote, “In the former state [socialist] my share of state debt was around 1800 DM (Deutschemarks); today in ‘democracy’ my share is around 30,000.00 euros. Slovenia was prior to ‘democracy’ industrially relatively well developed, we had no unemployment, we had a modern health care system, available to all free of charge and without waiting lineups, we had a good educational system free of charge to all and the culture was blooming. There were no hungry people; today there are around 30 per cent of citizens hungry. Children are hungry. Who benefitted from ‘democracy’? About five percent of population.” This is approximately what Ukraine can expect from EU.
“The signing of a trade and political partnership [on June 27] between Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and the European Union,” www.wsws.org reports, “marks a new stage in the plan to economically and militarily encircle Russia. … The cost extracted from Ukraine for membership is vast. It threatens $500 billion in lost trade with Russia and possible bans on Ukrainian imports.” You will note that former president Yanukovych was deposed by the EU and U.S. for refusing to sign this partnership. However, Mr. Bulkowski appears to think Ukraine can afford to discard Russia and replace it with European and American markets. But he forgets that the EU and U.S. are in Ukraine for their own advantages, and have no concerns about the needs of average Ukrainian.
Meantime, the new Kiev government is being pushed by the U.S. to pursue the war against eastern Ukraine, and they are unashamedly destroying the social infrastructure. They have smashed Europe’s finest airport. They are destroying hospitals, kindergartens, schools, homes and all kinds of other civilian installations.
The Ukrainian website www.aif.ua reports, says www.wsws.org, “residential gas utilities have increased by 56 per cent since May 1 this year, while electric power prices have risen since June 1 by 10 to 40 per cent in various parts of the country. … Heating prices are to rise by an average of 40 per cent throughout the country.” So the living standards are going down and not up as Mr. Bulkowski prognosticated.
The only hope is that by next election, the working class Ukrainian will see through this predatory enterprise and vote for his own advantage, and not for the interests of foreign and domestic billionaires.
Boswell