Crimea, Russia, Putin and Why Should I Care?

Mr.Vladimir  Lenin

Doesn't he LOOK Russian?

A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at either end.
--Soviet aphorism

Mad Dog is the first to admit ignorance when it comes to Russia, Russian history and the current events in Crimea.  His self education has begun with the entertainment, semi true history series, "Reilly, Ace of Spies," and is now augmented with Wikipedia, which was not available when "Reilly" first aired in the early 1980's.  But, from this, admittedly, pop history version of the background, Mad Dog has to ask:  What business is it of his, or of America or of Britain or Germany if Russia bear hugs Crimea or even all of Ukraine?  
In fact, Mr. Putin has remarked, with unusual candor, "Ukraine isn't really a country, you know."  That remark might be applied to Iraq and a variety of other countries whose boundaries were drawn by men in drawing rooms in London, Paris and elsewhere who then retired for cigars and brandy to their men's clubs. 

Reilly playing in Russia

 Taking the cynical point of view, which one absorbs from "Reilly" this is not about the people living in these places but more likely about resources, like oil, gas, pipelines and things that spell "Money." Even before, but certainly during the Russian revolution, Britain, the United States, France and Germany all sent agents to Russia to gain control there, but were defeated by the sheer size and complexity  of Russia and the impossibility of influencing events and behavior of that large grizzly bear by sending in fleas and mosquitoes. 

Having learned from Napoleon, the Western powers were timid and chastened by prior experience. They didn't want to risk sending armies, but they were happy to send in assassins, spies, agents provocateur which was low cost, lower risk and eminently deniable and would never appear in children's history books, which, after all, constitute the sanitized fantasy which nations teach their children.  So, the "great powers"  plotted low risk plots to depose or assassinate Lenin, once it became clear Lenin was not going to allow Russia to continue in the World War One carnage. 

Lenin accepted Germany's dismantling of large parts of the Russian empire to preserve his own revolution and his grip on power in Russia. The Allies wanted him out and wanted someone (Reilly) in to get Russian troops to open up an Eastern Front. 

The real Reilly shot dead in Russia

So, there is a long history of America and Britain and Germany trying to manipulate Russians, happy to expend Russian lives for British profit.

And if you are going to talk about past behavior of Britain, France and Germany--well, don't get Mad Dog started. Do the word "Empire" ring a bell?

There is also a long history of America dominating its own neighbors, even annexing territory. America trumpeted its "Manifest Destiny," provoked wars of "liberation" to bring freedom and American industry to island peoples, and to use them for profit. 

  But now America condemns Russia for behavior which is not essentially different from what America has always done.  America, after all, annexed part of Mexico and that is now called "Texas."  From Mad Dog's perspective, we are still suffering the consequences of that. Mad Dog would gladly give Texas back to Mexico, and Mad Dog would sweeten the deal by throwing in South Carolina and a high draft choice, maybe Arizona, although, it must be admitted Mexico may not regard South Carolina as sweetening the deal. 

  If Mr. Putin looks to America's experience with Texas, he might think again about Crimea.

Did the United States not invade Panama in the later part of the 20th century, dig a canal through it in the early part of that century, invade Grenada, take Cuba away from Spain, (and the Philippines, too), and mess around in Nicaragua and any other Caribbean island we coveted?  

So Mad Dog says: Render unto Russia that which is Russia's. Heaven help them. Sure as shooting, nobody else will.

Now, Mad Dog anticipates Secretary of State Kerry will reply (perhaps not on this particular blog, but elsewhere) that while America has been a bad boy in the past, we now have found religion and we are for "self determination" for all the world's people--the way we valued self determination for the Vietnamese. When we value self determination for a people, that has, in the dark past, often involved dropping bombs on them, and agent orange and Coca Cola and Big Macs.  We, as George Carlin noted, whip a little American industry on them, and pollute their water and air.  Lucky them.

Mad Dog is no Russian o phile. Russia is a riddle within a riddle, (Churchill) but it has as long and nasty history as any nation on earth, with a particularly rancid history of antisemitism  not to mention the Stalin years where whole populations were starved and thousands, maybe millions deported, shot, and otherwise treated unkindly.

On the other hand, their history looked pretty wonderful in the opening ceremonies at the Olympic games. And they can be remarkably funny, in a dark sort of way.

At any rate, if they want the home of Chernobyl, the lovely port city on the Black Sea and a few gas lines, Mad Dog would say, let 'em have it. None of it is worth disrupting a single American military family in deployment.