Orwellian Yushchenko

President Leonid Kuchma and other members of the outgoing Ukrainian elite, including the heads of the rebellious eastern regions, may be prosecuted by the new government, the president-elect, Viktor Yushchenko, told the Guardian.
“The president has to answer under the law like any other citizen,” he said yesterday, with reference to Mr Kuchma, in his [...]

The Coldness of Space in U.S.-Russian Relations

But today, Putin is said to be fuming in the Kremlin at the defeat of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, whom Putin even twice visited Ukraine to campaign for, at the hands of fiercely pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko and his top advisers have made quite clear they are determined to rush Ukraine into the 25-nation [...]

Justice and Charity in the Time of Disaster

“We” authorize the Congress that “we” elect to take any portion of “our” income it wants, as long as the percentage is set in a democratic (i.e., majority-vote) fashion. Once that portion or percentage is democratically set, the Internal Revenue Service is authorized to use force to collect the assigned take from everyone. The IRS [...]

A Theme of Russian History

When I was a student in college, my Russian history professor, James Simms, argued that Russian history could be generally understood according to a three-step political process that formed a theme that recurred throughout modern Russian history. There are undoubtedly a number of other ways to view Russian history, and there are disadvantages to [...]

Russia May Not Recognise Yushchenko Win

As European leaders hailed the apparent victory of Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko as a triumph for democracy worldwide, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Russia might refuse to recognize Mr. Yushchenko as the new president of his country. A statement issued by Moscow Wednesday said that electoral observers from the West were “not objective” [...]

Buchanan on the Ukraine Debacle and Neocon Russophobia

Among the agencies and organizations used to assist pro-West and pro-NATO parties with men, money and training are the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiaries – the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute – Freedom House, and George Soros’ assorted charities.
Who chairs IRI? John McCain. [...]

De Tocqueville and Ledeen

Over at National Review Online, Michael Ledeen has attacked ex-NRO staffer Russ Douthat for writing that the Iranians will not become “our people” merely by embracing democracy. To Ledeen, this is “distinctly un-American, a snooty rejection of our national mission, which, as Tocqueville observed more than a century and a half ago, is to [...]

Ledeen Admits Foreign Meddling in Ukraine

Yushchenko seems to have won, big big bigtime, in the Ukraine. Big turnout–around 78%–and big margin, about 15 points. It’s a dramatic and important moment, and the winning forces of the “orange revolution” are right to talk about democratic revolution. Here is yet another case where the forces of repression seemed to have all the [...]

Truth about the Bosnian War

In reality, after an initial bout of heavy fighting (summer-fall 1992), from 1993 to mid-1995 there was a period of relative calm on most fronts in Bosnia, interrupted by brief outbursts in isolated localities (Gorazde, Bihac). Stories of mass murder and grand-scale atrocities, such as “Srebrenica,” have never been independently substantiated. On the basis of [...]

Ukraine Election Challenged

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych refused to accept defeat in the country’s presidential election and vowed Monday to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the result, claiming that millions of his supporters were disenfranchised and that there was systematic fraud.
The Central Elections Commission cannot declare Yushchenko the official winner until all legal challenges are heard [...]