Your Daily Dose of Ukraine Related Incompetence and Hypocrisy

It turns out that one of the first acts of the new parliament in the "no-bigotry, ethnocentrism, or fascist parties here" Ukraine was to rescind the status of the Russian language one of the official languages of the Ukraine: (and note how this was buried at paragraph 5 of the story)

Officials in Moscow continued Tuesday to express displeasure with events in Ukraine, if not as harshly as the day before. One bill that flew through the Rada on Monday downgraded the status of Russian as an official language, which struck critics as an unnecessary and incendiary move and which opened Ukraine’s new authorities to stinging criticism from their larger neighbor.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, tweeted Tuesday, “We want to curtail the influence of radicals and nationalists who are trying to play first fiddle in Ukraine.”

Note that this story was from February 25, 4 days before Russia sent troops.

Do you think that there is any connection?

As Ted Rall pithily observes that, "Millions of ethnic Russians in former Soviet Republics have suffered widespread discrimination and harassment since the 1991 collapse — and that their troubles began with laws eliminating Russian as an official language."

BTW, the person who seems to be deepest in our shenanigans in the Ukraine, you know, things like funding the Neo-Nazi Svoboda party the Pravyi Sektor militia, that would be Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who is literally in bed with the Neocons.

I mean it.  She is married to Robert Kagan, who is not just a Neocon, but is pretty the much the ur-Neocon, having co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) which has called for:

• The overthrow of Saddam Hussein (1999)
• The overthrow of Saddam Hussein, because he was behind 9/11 (2001)
• Called for American hegemony across the world
• Repeatedly called for preemptive military strikes
• Permanent U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia
• Hostilities with China

Yeah, he founded the group that more than any other organization put us in Iraq.

And his reward for this? 

Why, he is on the State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

How do these folks, and here I am referring to both the Neocons like Kagan and Nuland, and Liberal Interventionists like the Samantha Powers, continue to maintain influence in our foreign policy?

Why is an an uninterrupted record of failure, misery, and the death of innocents considered an endorsement for greater responsibilities in Washington, DC?

It's like promoting the guy who designed the Edsel to run the company.