Update, August 28, 2014: Those who have persisted in seeing the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the sole aggressor in Ukraine surely now have some explaining to do as it now appears that Russian troops have invaded. Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not even making a good-faith effort to come up with explanations that anyone in the United States or Europe could believe,” Stephen Long, an international security expert at the University of Richmond in Virginia, told McClatchy News. “No matter what Russia calls it, it’s been obvious for a long time that Russia is actively involved.”[1]
Update, February 21, 2014: A systematic refutation of Stephen Cohen’s and others’ points maligning the Ukrainian opposition may be found in a New York Review of Books article by Timothy Snyder.[2] I strongly recommend it.
One of the interesting things about the Democracy Now! program is that they will occasionally allow their guests to hang themselves. It is essential interview technique to not superimpose your own understanding upon that of the person you are interviewing,[3] and it is to Amy Goodman’s, Juan González’s, and the other Democracy Now! anchors’ credit that, at least insofar as I have observed, they abide by this rule very strictly. Read more
- [1]Stephen Long, quoted in Matthew Schofield, “Russia appears to invade Ukraine, opening 2nd front,” McClatchy, August 28, 2014, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/28/238054_russia-appears-to-invade-ukraine.html?rh=1↩
- [2]Timothy Snyder, “Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine,” New York Review of Books, February 19, 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/↩
- [3]Ruthellen Josselson, Interviewing for Qualitative Inquiry: A Relational Approach (New York: Guilford, 2013).↩