Bush and McCain on Ukraine
By IL-Glock21 Posted in 2008 — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Today President Bush met with Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko and discussed, among other things, Ukraine joining NATO:
KIEV, Ukraine - President Bush says he will work as hard as he can to help Ukraine join NATO and declared that Russia will not have a veto over the matter.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday with Ukraine's president in the country's capital of Kiev, Bush praised democratic and military reforms undertaken to help support Ukraine's bid for NATO membership. He said that the United States "strongly supports" Ukraine's request to get an outline for what it needs to do to join out of this week's NATO summit in Romania.
Bush spoke after talks with President Viktor Yushchenko. The Ukrainian leader said he is sure his country will "receive a positive signal" during the summit.
McCain commented on this during the contentious 2004 Ukraine elections after visiting with government and opposition leaders. He stressed the importance of allowing free and fair elections to take place as he believed the people of Ukraine would would overwhelmingly choose to ally with the West as a free and independent nation, not continue being treated like a puppet state by the Russians.
One critical problem McCain noted was that Europeans seemed hesitant to show a willingness to consider NATO or EU membership to the Ukraine giving the people far less incentive to stand alone against their current overseers:
In August I traveled to Ukraine to talk to government officials and opposition candidates. What I found was a sense that Ukraine was moving backward, not forward, on the road to democracy. Not only were the reports of intimidation against the opposition widespread, but there was also a pervasive expectation that the October election -- and the second-round runoff three weeks later -- will be rigged by the government. Already a local election in western Ukraine has been stolen, and there have been balloting irregularities in other local elections.
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So it is incumbent upon both the Western democracies and the government of Ukraine to reassess where things stand today. The Ukrainian government must end its siege of democracy and make the courageous choice to hold free, fair elections. If it does so, the United States and Europe should pursue an enhanced relationship with Ukraine, looking hard at its eventual membership in NATO and the European Union, expanding our bilateral relations, and determining ways to enhance the trading relationship.
If you'll remember that his worries of intimidation by Russian allied factions within Ukraine came shockingly true in the dioxin attacks on the opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko (before and after picture below):
From the recent footage it appears that his scars remain but his face is no longer as misshapen as it was when I last saw it during the Orange Revolution.
Perhaps I followed that election a bit closer than others as I have a Ukrainian friend who wouldn't have let me ignore it even if I tried. I remember watching those Orange Flags and getting the feeling I had in my younger days, watching the Berlin Wall come down. The domino theory is so much more satisfying in reverse... as nation after nation joins the ranks of free and independent nations embracing self-government.
McCain summed it up the following year when referring to the situation in Burma back in 2005:
The world has seen an astonishing hunger for freedom recently, in varied countries across the globe. The Burmese people hunger for democracy and justice no less than their brothers and sisters in Ukraine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. As we supported the legitimate aspirations of the people in those nations, so too must we seek freedom for all those denied it in Burma. Dr. Martin Luther King observed that "right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." Right will ultimately triumph in Burma -- the question is not if but when. The international community would do well to combine its efforts to hasten that joyous day.
One can hardly dismiss the strategic value of Ukraine to other NATO members as it sits across the Black Sea from Turkey, another valuable ally, between the Middle East and Europe (click for larger image):
It was one of, if not the most powerful state, outside of Russia itself, within the USSR during the dark days of Soviet dominance. And could play an equally key role as a defense point for the West as it once did for the Soviets.
McCain has made his support of the new Ukrainian government clear before it even existed, and has long recognized Ukraine's strategic importance to the west in both trade and security.
As the Kyiv Post noted:
Of the three presidential contenders remaining, observers said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would be Ukraine’s biggest advocate, as his record demonstrates. The likely Republican nominee lent his support to Viktor Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution from the very start, before the smoke cleared and other US politicians felt safer to extend endorsements.
He chairs the International Republican Institute, a leading advocate of Ukraine’s Western integration.
McCain has also been the staunchest challenger to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, avidly criticizing his authoritarian politics and even urging Russia’s exclusion from the Group of Eight (G8), the world’s greatest economic powers.
All three presidential candidates visited Ukraine at least once. McCain visited numerous times, most notably in August 2004 when he met with government and opposition presidential candidates.
I've been having difficulty finding any, let alone any solid statements in support for Ukraine's NATO membership from Senator Clinton or Obama until their current presidential campaigns and with little substance behind their support. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right place? McCain, alternatively, has expressed clearly since even before the Orange Revolution of the benefits of such a move and has strongly supported the new government along these and other lines ever since.
McCain continues to help Obama and Hillary contrast themselves with the concepts of leadership and relevant experience... he doesn't even have to do anything... he already did it. Meanwhile Obama acknowledges that his long running distortion on McCain supporting a "100 year war" in Iraq was not accurate... the Democrats can return to their civil war and continue to argue that either hope or tea parties makes up for their clueless foreign policies.
It'll be interesting to see how much Putin's successor ends up becoming Putin 2.0 or something less expected in the coming year(s) as far as its reins on the old comblock. But I definitely think that the US should try to reach out to them as they westernize, at least as much as possible, to encourage others to do the same. I want the borders of the free world to be as solid as they are expansive. Lord knows what kind of power balances will emerge in the coming generations.
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- "Make love not war? Real men can do both!"
this week especially.
My guess is that Bush will not get his wish, but it is important to see where McCain stands on Ukraine given their future importance as an ally.
....the polls done in the Ukraine that ask citizens whether or not the Ukraine should move forward with trying to join NATO...50% of those polled do not want their country to join NATO and 25% are in favor of joining NATO.
If half the people in the Ukraine are not in favor of their country joining NATO, what is this all about really.? Why are we pushing for Ukrainian entry into NATO when a majority of Ukrainians are not in favor of NATO membership.?
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Probably won't happen prior to another round of elections either. But in the upcoming years the next President of the US will need to advocate for it along with the leaders of the Ukraine to sway public opinion in that direction and make clear that it can and will happen when the time is right.
Hillary and Obama only remember that Ukraine exists when their foreign policy advisers let them know it's in the news. They're too busy promising the American public that they can "tax them into prosperity" or some such nonsense.
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- "Make love not war? Real men can do both!"
even if full membership for Ukraine is delayed by this year's compromises with Russia. Even Switzerland has been in the Partnership for Peace program.
The Russians really ought to see it more positively because it's past time their own military was made more efficient and professional. They've worked on it somewhat and seen some results in Chechnya but they still have some old guard types in the senior brass, the same geniuses who thought it was a good idea to send human waves of conscripts against Red Army veterans commanded by General Dudayev, in the first Chechnya campaign.
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