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What Ails Yushchenko

Except Yushchenko could not have been admitted to the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic in Vienna for dioxin poisoning. And the medical records obtained from that clinic do not indicate that diagnosis. In fact, Viktor Yushchenko’s problem is likely much more severe than record blood levels of dioxin. His problems are in all probability so severe and of […]

Except Yushchenko could not have been admitted to the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic in Vienna for dioxin poisoning. And the medical records obtained from that clinic do not indicate that diagnosis. In fact, Viktor Yushchenko’s problem is likely much more severe than record blood levels of dioxin. His problems are in all probability so severe and of such import for him and his party that he and the Rudolfinerhaus medical claque chanced a daring and bold gambit in order to hide the truth and simultaneously implicate his opponent. The truth is, Viktor Yushchenko may well be the victim of two poisonings, the more severe of which his physicians have yet to reveal…

It was the next day, after drinking beer, vodka, and cognac at dinner, that Yushchenko developed the symptoms that drove him to Rudolfinerhaus four days later. The doctors at that Vienna clinic surely knew immediately what we can also deduce now: Yushchenko’s symptoms indicate pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), and the cause was binge drinking on the night of Sept. 5.

Pancreatitis is caused 65-80 percent of the time by either alcohol or gallstones. Yushchenko did not have gallstones. Pancreatitis – which can be caused by chronic alcohol consumption or by one night of heavy drinking –causes severe stomach and back pain and can occur shortly after the alcohol ingestion.

Newly discovered documents, including Yushchenko’s official medical records, obtained from the Rudolfinerhaus clinic show conclusively that Yushchenko had pancreatitis. The Viennese doctors themselves flatly state that there is pancreatitis, and the laboratory and diagnostic test results shown are all consistent with that diagnosis. In addition, the test results show that Yushchenko also has an enlarged liver. This indicates that his drinking pattern is probably chronic and, because of that, he is on the road to developing severe liver disease. ~Thomas Boyle, M.D., Antiwar.com

I have heard it said that American journalists are phenomenally lazy and will sometimes run with almost any story as long as it gives them something to print. This seems to be an excellent example of journalistic apathy throughout the Western media, among other things, producing a false and widely accepted report that Mr. Yushchenko was poisoned by the Ukrainian government. There is undoubtedly also ideological bias behind this easy acceptance of Mr. Yushchenko’s ridiculous story, but even biased journalists would have qualms about propagating a story they knew to be proveably false, if only for reasons of their own reputations and self-interest. Only journalists uninterested in the facts of the case, on account of sheer lack of curiosity, could have missed such a clearly falsified story, much less having treated it as the truth.

If any Western journalists have discovered the likely truth behind Mr. Yushchenko’s ailments, pancreatitis brought on by excessive drinking, it is not surprising that they have failed to report it–it will hardly do to have a chronically ill man with a penchant for overdrinking as “the West’s man” in the Ukraine. Unpleasant memories of Yeltsin, that great and daring pro-Western reformer idolised for years by the Western media, must come rushing back to the Yushchenko propagandists in the Western press when they find that their new Trojan horse in the Orthodox world is yet another intemperate, dying man. It is at that moment that they remember that Yeltsin’s presidency was a disaster for Russia in no small part because of the man’s frequent incapacitation, however good it was for the Berezovskys and Khodorkovskys of the world, and that their absurd hopes for “reform” (read alignment of the Ukraine with policies dictated in Washington and Brussels) rest with someone who cannot guarantee the stability and certainty that foreign businesses will want to have.

Ironically, the proponents of dragging the Ukraine into the “Western” orbit by the chicanery of this new election will discover that their champion has managed to introduce a shocking degree of uncertainty and instability to an economy that was growing steadily and was slowly opening its market to more foreign, European investment. As anyone can tell you, investors hate uncertainty (part of the reason why President Putin’s recent actions towards Yukos have unsettled investors), and Yushchenko’s name has become synonymous with it. If “reform” generally means facilitating Western companies possessing more market share in the Ukraine, it is not at all clear that Yushchenko–notable for his alliances with socialists and crony capitalists such as Timoshenko–can or even wants to deliver such reform, even though he plainly intends to act as a lackey for Western states in geopolitical matters.

Anyone who believes that a man such as Yushchenko, whose party receives it support from the most dreary, insular kind of degraded nationalism, will be able to open the Ukraine to more foreign integration is kidding himself. The openness of such Ukrainian nationalism to the West is purely opportunistic and betrays no community of interest or beliefs whatever. Even the name of his party, Our Ukraine, may reveal the leftist, collectivist and illiberal convictions of his supporters. That is the business of Ukrainians to sort out, but Western observers should be aware that there is nothing in Yushchenko’s record or political base that will lead him to advance precisely those economic policies that Western governments and corporate media most desire.

What is worse is that the determined deception about Mr. Yushchenko’s poor health may have decided the new election in his favour. If it has, nothing better demonstrates the unethical nature of the journalism about the Ukrainian election debacle and the profound folly of relying upon uninformed and misinformed masses to determine the political future of nations. The “free press” and democracy have both received failing grades in this episode.

Far from being a moment of democratic triumph, the situation in the Ukraine confirms all those critiques of democracy that attack it for its incompetence, its irrationality and the damage that it does to the commonwealth. Our people were suckered into an illegal war in Iraq by such official contrivances and incredible credulity on the part of the media, and now the Ukrainians may have been fooled into backing an embezzler and lackey of foreign powers for their president. Far from a Yushchenko victory being a moment of Ukraine’s ‘real’ independence, I believe the majority of Ukrainians will have never been less free since 1991 than they will be under a Yushchenko regime. Normally, this would simply be a pitiable situation, but Americans and Europeans must take full responsibility for enabling Yushchenko to achieve his victory.

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