America's phony NGOs and the Ukraine gambit

Since the Reagan era American taxpayers have involuntarily gifted billions of dollars to US government creations like the National Endowment for Democracy and similar fake NGO's.

It's no secret that a considerable amount of effort and money has been invested in stirring up anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine. Ukraine would indeed be a major prize, geographically and politically, to lure into the Western camp.

The Boiling Frogs blog has a comical story today "proving" that the US-funded democracy activists in Kiev have been using the identical pamphlets that the US-funded democracy activists in Tahrir Square were passing around two years ago; in translation, of course.

It's essentially the same story that Wayne Madsen had on the Voltairenet blog in the middle of December.

On the occasion of the toppling of Lenin's statue in Kiev earlier in December I wrote that those idealistic youth should be careful what they wish for. The latest numbers from the World Bank indicate a youth unemployment rate in Ukraine that is lower than almost all the EU nations. Why would they be so keen to join the EU?

That's where the slow and steady drip of ceaseless on the ground propagandizing, courtesy of America's myriad phony NGOs comes in. The Neocons thought they had Ukraine in the bag almost ten years ago with the "Orange Revolution", but that was not to be. They see this as their next best, and possibly last chance.

That's why, in addition to on-the-ground "democracy activists," even Neocon heavy hitters like John McCain and Victoria Nuland find time to assist the effort. McCain even made time to have dinner with anti-government stalwart and neo-nazi Oleh Tyahnybok while he was in Kiev.  Nuland made a point of passing out sweets and sweet talk to the protesters.

I don't live in Ukraine, so the question of whether the country chooses to be more closely aligned with the EU or Russia is neither here nor there for me. Ideally they should be able to forge good relations with both. But to do that, they need to be left to their own devices and allowed to make their own choices.

Nuland, McCain, NED, take your phony NGOs and your US-financed "democracy activists" and go home.

Let the Ukrainian people decide the future of Ukraine.