Conflict over Crimea shouldn't be a surprise

Last Modified: Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 1:36 p.m.

I am married to a morning person. When my lovely wife arises, bluebirds flit around her head whilst draping flowers over her shoulders and cute little bunnies scamper betwixt her feet as she greets the new day with a smile on her face and a song trilling from her lips.

Me? Morning finds me more like Frogo (Frodo, Frogo? That munchkin with big feet in that Tolkien movie is who I mean) dragging hisself up Mount Doom toward the volcano. I am not a morning person.

Apparently opposites sometimes do have an affinity for one another. Not always, though. Witness Russia and Ukraine.

Provincial I might be, but I do have several Ukrainians among my acquaintances. A happier and thriftier bunch you couldn't imagine. The ones I know came here as refugees after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. They work hard, scrimp and save and support an extended family across two continents and an ocean away. They are all morning people.

Ukraine has been under the Russian thumb off and on for several hundred years. Americans instinctively identify with this country wanting to throw off the bear on their doorstep, and the gall of Russia to just step in and snatch a chunk of Ukrainian territory certainly fits the stereotype of a hulking bully abusing its neighbor. But ...

Crimea, a fat peninsula with a skinny neck dangling down into the black sea, was won by the Russians from the Ottoman Turks back before our own War Between the States. A former Russian premier named Khrushchev handed the place over to the Ukrainians back in the '50s, mostly as a goodwill gesture. Didn't mean much at the time, since the whole place was part of the old Soviet empire. It is roughly like the American president telling Florida that they could have south Alabama. Then, when Florida secedes to become the new state of Disneyland and starts making trade pacts with Cuba and Venezuela, you think we might want south Alabama back? You bet we would.

A couple of Moldovans I was talking to last week (Yes, I know some Moldovans also; I get around) who grew up as close neighbors to Ukraine and citizens of the old USSR explained to me that Russia was NEVER going to give up Crimea. Ever. They also shed some light on all those protests being aired on the evening news during the Olympics.

Seems there is a lot of money riding on Ukraine getting into the European market system. It was no secret that many of those protesters were being paid $25 in American money a day to show up and protest. I have no doubt that many took the money so they could express their displeasure at their Putin puppet president and that many would have been there if no money had been paid, but no one knows how many would have been there unless they had been paid by corporations who stood to make a lot of money out of the deal with the rest of Europe.

You see, Russia is ruled by the opposite of morning people. They grouse and pine for yesterday and lay around dreading the future, which doesn't look all that promising for them. Considering the people in charge in Russia today, I think it is foolhardy to presume that there is any dealing with them on any basis other than kicking them out of the UN, the G-8 and every other world group that they can use to cause mischief. Russia is a third-world country run by criminals and opportunists who hold their nation hostage.

The only reason it is still in the same league with the western world is its nuclear arsenal, which is about as useful as wings on a pig in the 21st century. The only thing that a nuke does for a nation is to make the conventional wars that Europeans submit themselves to every quarter century or so to be shorter and lower keyed. (i.e., Bosnia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, etc.)

In short, there is no role for the U.S. to have any constructive effect in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, except to stop the fiction that Russia is worthy of the respect that Washington insists on giving it.

I don't know how you go about kicking a country out of the civilized community, but I bet our senators from N.C. might have an idea or two. I would very much want to see them try.

Reach Chip Worrell at


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