"Something Rotten in the State of Ukraine"

"Pundita, the more I read about the Ukraine election, the more confused I become about whether democracy was really served. There are strong arguments on both sides."
[Signed] June in Cincinnati"

Dear June:

At least you're looking at both sides, which is what Americans need to do, if we want to forge good foreign policy for this era.

Pundita has observed before that the situation in Ukraine is complex. No small part of the complexity is due to the simple fact that almost all US news media ignored the situation in Ukraine until it blew up. The media ignored the situation for years--despite America's deep involvement in Ukraine during those years. So of course the situation is confusing because it's tons of new data to sort through and hitting all at once.

But keep at it because once you learn the way things work with regard to one situation the knowledge transfers to other situations. After a time you'll see certain patterns emerge, then following the international news will become much easier.

With regard to Ukraine, there are two issues: the claims of fraud during the election, and the pre-election situation that brought so much outside influence and money to the election during the past two years.

Take cheer from the following report , "Something Rotten in the State of Ukraine," written by an observant and idealistic American eyewitness to the situation. He, too, is trying sort things through....