Saturday, November 27, 2004
The situation in Ukraine raises many memories. Especially looking at the information Blogs and websites. How times change. Way back in 1991 when the Baltics were breaking away from the USSR I set up and edited the BALT-L, a Listserv distributing mail messages on The Situation. This was pre-Internet general availability, and got messages in and out of the Baltics through the FIDO network (remember that?). It wasd also virtually the only online Baltics related service for a few years.
Compared to todays efforts it feels the same distance as between air combat in 1916 compared to (say) the Falkland War. Like dogfighting over the Western Front in rickety biplanes without parachutes compared to dueling between Harriers and Mirages..
Not that I am getting nostalgic about having a KGB Colonel assigned to keep tracks of me. And I was safe in the UK at the time... I watch the activities of PORA and others on the ground and count them all out and count them all back...
We didn't get in-depth articles out like this one by Tarik Ari so easily and quickly either.
And I didn't get a penny from any Western support groups for my time online... Now it seems there is a lot of support for Democracy Initiatives.
It is interesting to think about all this as a form of subversion I suppose, but I do ask - is Ian Traynor complaining about political actions like peaceful Ukrainian Democracy support? His article is not quite the same as advertised by the headline anyway. "US Campaign behind turmoil in Kiev" At least the backers of all this including Freedom House ( people like Samuel Huntington and Jeane Kirkpartick I note) aren't nearly as embarrasing as the verbal support I was offered on Lithuania by the likes of Senator Strom Thurmond in 1992.
Compared to todays efforts it feels the same distance as between air combat in 1916 compared to (say) the Falkland War. Like dogfighting over the Western Front in rickety biplanes without parachutes compared to dueling between Harriers and Mirages..
Not that I am getting nostalgic about having a KGB Colonel assigned to keep tracks of me. And I was safe in the UK at the time... I watch the activities of PORA and others on the ground and count them all out and count them all back...
We didn't get in-depth articles out like this one by Tarik Ari so easily and quickly either.
And I didn't get a penny from any Western support groups for my time online... Now it seems there is a lot of support for Democracy Initiatives.
It is interesting to think about all this as a form of subversion I suppose, but I do ask - is Ian Traynor complaining about political actions like peaceful Ukrainian Democracy support? His article is not quite the same as advertised by the headline anyway. "US Campaign behind turmoil in Kiev" At least the backers of all this including Freedom House ( people like Samuel Huntington and Jeane Kirkpartick I note) aren't nearly as embarrasing as the verbal support I was offered on Lithuania by the likes of Senator Strom Thurmond in 1992.
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