Obama’s Fairy Tales

The other day I heard a statement by U.S. President Barack Obama, in which he alleged that the sanctions, which the U.S. government and its lackeys in Europe and elsewhere – including, of course, the Czech Republic – are devising with growing aggression and stubbornness, do not constitute a new Cold War. Instead, they are “a very specific issue related to Russia’s unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine can chart its own path,” he said. I heard Obama say this during a radio broadcast.

You might be inclined to laugh at this until your sides split, but although I occasionally contribute to this paper’s comics section, this statement by Mr. Obama really doesn’t belong there. The president – of a country that systematically and continuously disrespects the right of nations to chart their own path, and a country that subordinates and punishes anyone who won’t submit to the American world view – is talking nonsense, and he believes that everyone will swallow it.

Does the American administration respect the path that the Cubans chose for themselves? Cuba’s freedom is a clear example of something that Uncle Sam’s own policy won’t allow, as the decades-long embargo against Cuba demonstrates. And do America’s hawks respect the right of Latin American people to choose their own path toward development? What hurdles were placed in Hugo Chávez’s way, and how many national coups – think of Chile – did the United States actually organize – not only in this region – to stop a path from being charted according to popular will?

Similarly, in the case of Ukraine, the U.S. failed to respect the free choice Ukrainians made during their elections. When the existing president fell out of favor, the U.S. government invested $5 million in an effort to manipulate a regime change in Ukraine.

Similar fairy tales pour from the mouth of this Nobel Peace Prize winner – whose policies, alas, have been severely discredited – as well as from the mouths of the representatives of our own civil democracy. They were indeed a pretty sight at the liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party’s (ODS) press conference last Wednesday. For parliament member Miroslava Němcová and party leader Petr Fiala, these fairy tales are beyond doubt, which they demonstrated when they told us that ODS “recognizes Russia’s attempts to interfere in Ukraine’s domestic politics.”

For goodness’ sake, who was it that first influenced these local affairs? Who provided the extras at the Euromaidan protests? Was it not, perhaps, European politicians with American diplomats and advisers whispering in their ears? You can be certain that those American ambassadors are always there – and everywhere.

“The whole crisis began when the West began to meddle in Ukrainian affairs,” political scientist Oskar Krejčí reminded us this week. “Year zero began before the preparations for the EU’s Eastern Partnership [Summit] in Lithuania last November..Maidan began before the summit, and Western politicians, including the Czech foreign minister, had already been to Maidan to support the demonstrators,” he said. But such thoughts are unfashionable, and their authors unwanted. Most of the mainstream media, which many of us continue to follow seemingly without question, does not allow alternative viewpoints on air. And when alternative points of view are allowed, they are brief, and aired only to avoid criticism. We should give credit to the exceptions.