The other day, on September 7, 2009, to be exact, I was intrigued to find an interview conducted by one of the world's most respectable media outlets, Germany's Spiegel Online International, with Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, posted on Spiegel's website. It was a fairly intelligent interview, but I was disappointed not to find perhaps the most pertinent question that could and should have been asked of the Ukrainian President, particularly so close to the seventieth anniversary of the official start of World War II in Europe (unofficially it started not with Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, but with his illegal takeover of Czechoslovakia completed in March 1939.) How come that some of the most reprehensible figures in the history of Ukraine, such as Bogdan Khmielnitzky, the perpetrator of the great Jewish Holocaust of the 17th century, and the more recent Nazi collaborators and co-authors of the WWII Holocaust Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych have been declared Ukraine's national heroes by Mr. Yushchenko's Presidential decrees? A related question could also be asked of him, how would Mr. Yushchenko explain the refusal of Russia's chief rabbi to accept a Ukrainian medal of honor, citing Ukrainian anti-semitism?
I don't have a problem with the German media here, knowing that the Germans, like all of Western Europe, consider Mr. Yushchenko a pest, particularly after his admitted sabotage last winter of the deliveries of Russian gas to Europe (transported over Ukrainian territory), in which all Europe suffered: when you do not like someone you may find it difficult to ask tough questions mistakenly but understandably concerned that these may be misconstrued as your negative bias. But frankly, I am surprised that the American media has so far failed to ask these important questions on its own. After all, Mr. Yushchenko is one of Washington's biggest friends. Shouldn't he be made accountable for such things, and do we the public not deserve at least an explanation of what this all means?
Going even further, practically all of our Eastern European buddies have been accused by European Jewish communities of virulent anti-Semitism, some had even served in their young years in the Nazi SS, and never really repented! Today old Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Nazis are celebrated as national heroes both in their homelands and... in Washington DC! Perhaps, we might paraphrase an old cold war phrase about foreign SOB's, to say: Yes, they are antiSemites, but they are our anti-Semites!
But there is also another, much wiser saying: Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.
I don't have a problem with the German media here, knowing that the Germans, like all of Western Europe, consider Mr. Yushchenko a pest, particularly after his admitted sabotage last winter of the deliveries of Russian gas to Europe (transported over Ukrainian territory), in which all Europe suffered: when you do not like someone you may find it difficult to ask tough questions mistakenly but understandably concerned that these may be misconstrued as your negative bias. But frankly, I am surprised that the American media has so far failed to ask these important questions on its own. After all, Mr. Yushchenko is one of Washington's biggest friends. Shouldn't he be made accountable for such things, and do we the public not deserve at least an explanation of what this all means?
Going even further, practically all of our Eastern European buddies have been accused by European Jewish communities of virulent anti-Semitism, some had even served in their young years in the Nazi SS, and never really repented! Today old Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Nazis are celebrated as national heroes both in their homelands and... in Washington DC! Perhaps, we might paraphrase an old cold war phrase about foreign SOB's, to say: Yes, they are antiSemites, but they are our anti-Semites!
But there is also another, much wiser saying: Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.
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