A lack of integrity can be seen in Obama’s recent comments about Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
On June 7, President Obama told the G7 gathering in Schloss Elmau Krün, Germany that the world must “stay focused on the importance of upholding the principles of territorial integrity” regarding Ukraine.
Like Obama, most casual Western observers seem to have their own ideas about what is and is not integral to Ukraine. Not everyone’s ideas on this match the facts, though.
I describe the related misconceptions in detail in my book Ukraine in the Crosshairs. But let me give you a brief synopsis.
In early 2014, Ukraine experienced a complete collapse of constitutional authority. You wouldn’t know that from the Western headlines. They claimed that the democratically-elected president Yanukovych had been impeached. But, truth be told, he was not impeached. Those who told you that he was were either misinformed or lying. The facts are clearly documented my book.
Even the US government at first admitted that Yanukovych was not impeached. US sponsored international broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty early-on revealed that he was not. In a story titled “Was Yanukovych’s Ouster Constitutional?” the US international broadcaster documented that the efforts to impeach him fell short of the constitutionally required vote.
I personally asked the Ukrainian mission to the United Nations about this. A spokesperson admitted that Yanukovych had not been successfully impeached.
Once the story got out about the media impeachment fraud, however, the initiators of the American and Ukrainian fabrication changed their story. Now they were saying that Yanukovych had abandoned his office.
But the new regime did not respect the constitution when they wanted to replace him. Impeachment and resignation were the only constitutional options. Neither was followed. So then, the Maidanists conveniently threw out the constitution.
By no stretch of any reasonable imagination can it be considered that the imposition of new leadership in Kyiv was either democratic or constitutional.
So if there was not a legal transition, what happened?
If you examine the facts you will find it hard to disagree that a complete constitutional collapse occurred. The president was forced under threat of death to leave the country, and the democratically installed constitution was nullified.
In the wake of all this, three entities stepped in to fill the vacuum. On one hand there were the Maidanist revolutionaries who forced their way into control in Kyiv. Most of the former-Ukraine accepted the revolutionary control. Yanukovych had been a very unpopular leader.
This transition was not accepted by the leaders in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. And they seem to have had the support of most of their people. They declared their own claim to the territories in which they lived. They never voted for the Maidanist revolutionaries, nor did they support the revolution. The Maidanist revolutionaries never had control over Crimea or eastern Ukraine. The people there had decided to go their own way. If ever there was a clear example of the UN principle of self-determination it was here.
The Maidanists had no legitimate right to force themselves upon the eastern part of the former Ukraine, nor on Crimea. The invasion by Kyiv of eastern Ukraine was without provocation. The Maidanist revolutionary claims to those territories were not superior to the claims of the people who were living in those regions.
And this shows exactly the absence of integrity in Obama’s argument. There was no violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity at a time when the former-Ukraine lacked any legally identifiable territorial integrity. Basically, there were three separate claims to parts of the territory of the former Ukraine. Surely Obama and his crew must have studied the situation carefully enough to realize that.
However, now Obama seems to be trying to put one over on the EU and the rest of the world on this situation. What principle of territorial integrity is he talking about? Where is his own integrity when it comes to Ukraine?
If Obama can’t be honest with the EU and with his own people on this matter, what personal integrity does he have left?
William Dunkerley is author of Ukraine in the Crosshairs. He is a media business analyst, principal of William Dunkerley Publishing Consultants, and a Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow.
