A few posts back, I linked to a commentary from a retired professor who blamed Washington for the mess we're now seeing in Ukraine.
When I made that post, I didn't have time to share my own thoughts, but will do so now.
While the professor's political bent appears to be quite liberal, he sees factors and reaches conclusions similar to my own.
The west bumbled its way into starting a civil war.
Kiev's former government had some serious issues, but outside tinkering seems to have disenfranchised the country's east and southern Baltic regions. /Armed homegrown opposition has been the result.
The West keeps talking about Russian equipment and troops in Eastern Ukraine. But I suspect many, if not all, these alleged troops are just as likely to be Ukraine troops that defected, taking Russian built Ukrainian hardware with them as they transitioned to the rebel side.
Meanwhile, the international sanctions game being played now threatens both Russian and European economies, with potential impact on the U.S. as well. All three economies had signs of weakness when Washington set sanctions foolishness in motion. And the moves and counter moves continue to escalate.
The outcome here may not be as horrific as what happened in Libya, at least for now, but economic damage may be far more widespread. And widening conflict is possible. The Obama administration and the NATO/EU folks seemed to have jumped into another situation without thinking things through.
Ukraine needs to come to a solution about what to do on Ukraine. Not Obama, Putin or the EU.
Roll back the clock to last December 2013: Victoria Nuland from the Obama-Kerry State Department bragged of the U.S. investing five billion dollars to move Ukraine in a "democratic" European direction. To hear Nuland tell it back then, all Ukrainians were demanding a fundamentally transformed European Ukraine.
Nuland and the U.S. team seemingly made no allowance for the country's deep cultural, political or economic Russian ties.
When it comes to fundamental transformation, the Obama team seems to have little patience, and leaves no room for moderation. Either at home or abroad.
From a speech Nuland gave in DC last December in Washington:
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