Celebrating 35 years of Ukrainian independence

 

Ukraine gained its modern independence on 24 August1991, when the country's parliament adopted the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, as the Soviet Union began to dissolve. On 1 December 1991 over 90% of Ukrainian voters approved the independence declaration in a national referendum. On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union officially dissolved itself, and the global community of nations recognized Ukraine as a free country.

"Slava Ukraini!" (Слава Україні!) is a Ukrainian national salute meaning "Glory to Ukraine!". It serves as a symbol of Ukrainian sovereignty, resistance, and national pride, and is the official military salute of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The customary response to "Slava Ukraini!" is "Heroiam slava!" (Героям слава!), which means "To the heroes — glory!"

Democrats adopt Soviet strategy for quashing dissent

Hey, it worked for Stalin!

PS752: Cue Iran's "sincere apology"

Here's the headline Walt expected: "US officials say 'highly likely' Iranian missile brought down Ukrainian airliner". Lifetime pct .983.

The rest of the story, so far (the news is breaking just now) is that American satellites detected the launch of two missiles shortly before the Ukrainian International Airlines B737-800, operating flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv, crashed shortly after takeoff.

Reuters and The Associated Press both report that US officials say they believe the shooting down of the aircraft was "accidental". When Still-President Trump was asked about the crash at a presser a few minutes ago, he told reporters he had a terrible feeling about the downed airliner but offered no additional details. "Somebody could have made a mistake," he told reporters at the White House. "I have my suspicions."

As to the consequences, Walt's prediction is that there will be no retaliation by the USA, Ukraine, or anyone else. The government of Iran will express its "sincere regret" about the "incident", and will pay millions of petrodollars in compensation to the families of those killed. That will suffice for the US government, since doing anything else -- shooting down an Iranian airliner, for instance -- would provoke a war which, in truth, the Americans do not want.

There is a precedent for my prediction -- the case of Korean Airlines flight 007, which was shot down on 1 September 1983 by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor while en route from Anchorage to Seoul. The B747 deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding American spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, not accidentally but deliberately. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

VIDEO: "Bitter Harvest", worth seeing in 2017

Coming soon to a cinema near you (if you live in the USA or Canada), Bitter Harvest is a romantic-drama film set in Ukraine at the time of The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомо́р), a man-made famine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates.

Shot on location in Ukraine, Bitter Harvest was directed by George Mendeluk, with original story and script Richard Bachynsky Hoover. The film stars Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan and Terence Stamp. Inspired by actual events -- one of worst but least-known tragedies of the 20th century -- it is an intense story of adoration, respect, insubordination and survival as observed through the eyes of two young lovers struggling to survive the famine along with their Cossack grain farmer families. As Stalin advances the ambitions of the burgeoning Soviet Union, a youthful craftsman named Yuri (Max Irons) fights to survive starvation, detainment and torment to spare his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks) from the Holodomor. Against this tragic backdrop, Yuri escapes from a Soviet prison and joins the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement as he fights to rejoin with Natalka and proceed with the battle for a free Ukraine.



Walt recommends Bitter Harvest highly. You need to see it to understand why Ukrainians everywhere oppose Russia's plans to reoccupy their country, and why the West needs to stand with them against Russian aggression. Donald Trump please note!

UKRAINE FOR UKRAINIANS - Walt chooses his side

Agent 1, who is of Ukrainian descent, used to complain about being called "Asian" of "Eurasian". "We are Europeans!", she said. Even worse, during the Soviet Days, was to be called a Russian! "We are not Russians!" she said. "We have our own flag, our own language. And the Russians have taken our land!"

That, in a nutshell, is what the violent demonstrations raging in Kyiv -- the capital of the Ukraine -- are all about. The Ukraine is a country divided geographically, and by language and religion. The conflict -- which could escalate into a civil war -- is about much more than whether the country should face the future as part of the European Union or as a satellite of Russia. It is about whether the Ukraine can hold onto its fragile independence.

The division between the western and eastern parts of the Ukraine runs more or less along the Dniepr River, which runs right through Kyiv. The economy of the eastern Ukraine is dominated by mining and industry; that of the west is chiefly agricultural.

The eastern Ukraine was thoroughly and deliberately "Russified" during the Soviet era. The use of the Ukrainian language was discouraged, even prohibited; people were ordered to speak Russian. Similarly, the Ukrainian Catholic Church (aka Byzantine Rite or Greek Catholic) was dispossessed and the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the only Christian church tolerated by the atheistic Communists.

For most of the 20th century, the Ukrainian people -- particularly those of the west -- were ruled by people who were similar to them (Slavs) but still "foreigners". First the Poles, then the Russians. And they objected, as forcefully as they could, to the tyranny of "the other".

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Ukrainian nationalists saw their chance to resurrect the short-lived Ukrainian republic, which had flourished for a few months in the aftermath of World War I. A volunteer army was formed, to fight on the side of the Nazis against their Soviet (read "Russian") overlords.

Inevitably, the nationalists became disillusioned and formed the УПА -- Українська Повстанська Армія (in English "Ukrainian Insurgent Army") -- which waged military campaigns against both Nazi German and Soviet forces. Theirs is the red and black flag you see here...and waving in the streets of Kyiv today.

The УПА was the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists — Bandera faction (OUN-B), originally formed in Volyn (in the northwestern part of the country) in 1943. Its official date of creation is 14 October 1942, the Feast of the Intercession of the Theotokos. The goal of the OUN was the re-establishment of a united, independent national state on Ukrainian ethnic territory -- "the rebirth, of setting everything in order, the defence and the expansion of the Independent Council of the Ukrainian National State".

OUN also revived the sentiment that "Ukraine is for Ukrainians". With the downfall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the rebirth of the Ukrainian republic, it was thought -- perhaps "hoped" is the better word -- that goal had at last been achieved.

A quarter of a century later, the Ukrainians find themselves ruled once again by corrupt, repressive, Russian-speakers whose aim seems to be to bring Ukraine back to the bosom of "Mother Russia". And that, dear readers, is why true Ukrainians are in the streets of Kyiv today. May God bless them and Our Lady protect them! Ukraine for the Ukrainians!

How can we be silent in the face of Islamization of our country?

Martin Niemöller was a Protestant pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. He was an anti-Communist and, frightened by the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, at first supported Hitler's rise to power. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned, and led a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler.

In 1937, Niemöller was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. His crime was "not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement". You have probably seen a version of his famous statement, "First they came...", frequently quoted as a warning about the dangers of political apathy. Here's one version...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic
Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak for me.

Walt was reminded of this by an article sent to me by Agent 17. It begins with a quote from an (apparently fictional) German psychiatrist, a survivor of World War II, who was asked how many German people were true Nazis. His answer should guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

"Very few people were true Nazis," he said, "but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, like the majority, I just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world as we knew it had come

Compare this with the Islamization of Europe and North America which is being perpetrated by Muslim extremists right now, while we, the silent majority of Western "Christians" -- like the three wise monkeys -- see nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing.

We are told again and again by "experts" and the talking heads of the lamestream media that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. This may be true, but so what? It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.

It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The fact is that the peaceful majority of Muslims is a silent majority -- cowed and extraneous to the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic fundamentalists. The Soviet Union was populated by millions of Russians (and other nationalities) who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Soviet Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

The majority of China's 1.3 billion (and counting) people are peaceful too, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians -- most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget the more recent example of Rwanda, which collapsed into tribal butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace-loving"?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because -- like Pastor Niemöller -- they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the world as they knew it is at an end.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us Westerners, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end, not just of their world, but of our own!

Footnote: The Afghan Taliban today launched a major spring offensive, with multiple attacks against Western embassies in the central diplomatic area and parliament in Kabul. Explosions, rockets and gunfire are rattling the city even as I write, and scores of casulaties are reported.