US vs Russia: Ukraine fiasco

[TSA]

“I think he’s been willing to show a deeply held grievance about what he considers to be the loss of the Soviet Union,” Obama said. “You would have thought that, after a couple of decades, that there’d be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that the path forward is not to revert back to the kinds of practices that, you know, were so prevalent during the Cold War.”

The president continued, saying Putin must believe that the West has somehow “taken advantage” of post-Soviet Union Russia.

“He wants to, in some fashion, make up for that,” Obama said. “He may be entirely misreading the West. He’s certainly misreading American foreign policy. We have no interest in circling Russia and we have no interest in Ukraine beyond letting Ukrainian people make their own decisions about their own lives.”


When we he just learn to keep his mouth shut.

[Th'Pusher]

POLITICO Breaking News

03/28/14 05:15PM EDT (expires: 03/28/14 06:15PM)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Russian President Vladimir Putin called President Barack Obama to discuss the U.S. proposal for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, the White House said in a statement Friday.

Obama suggested that Russia “put a concrete response in writing,” and agreed that Secretary of State John Kerry would meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov to discuss it, the statement said.

Obama also told Putin that the U.S. supports a diplomatic path in close consultation with Ukraine. “President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the statement read.

[Wild Cobra]

Only possible if Russia leaves...

They aren't going to do that!

[Nbadan]

Obama also told Putin that the U.S. supports a diplomatic path in close consultation with Ukraine. “President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the statement read.

Give Putin an inch he'll take a mile....Like he tried in Georgia and Croatia....I would not be surprised to see Putin attempt to gain a land bridge to Crimea...this may not be over...

[TSA]

Give Putin an inch he'll take a mile....Like he tried in Georgia and Croatia....I would not be surprised to see Putin attempt to gain a land bridge to Crimea...this may not be over...

Of course it's over, Obama told him to stop.

[Wild Cobra]

Of course it's over, Obama told him to stop.

Obama should stop trying to intervene. He looks like a fool every time he does.

[pgardn]

Obama should stop trying to intervene. He looks like a fool every time he does.

What exactly has he done wrong since the Russians took Crimea before the election?


He basically stated that the response would be economic and ramped up as events unfold. He stated this was not a good economic situation for any country, especially Russia and the EU, no one would benefit.

We start with a tiny pinch and then start twisting pubic hairs. The tricky part will be getting the EU to get tougher as time goes by. Putin cannot possibly turn back the clock without severely damaging the Russian economy. If Putin continues the land grab he might end up having missiles in Poland which is part of his reasoning to try and negotiate on Iran going nuclear. Russia has Crimea. From a pure power play point of view it was already Russian. The economic and political subtleties of taking it made it a mistake, but it may make Russia feel like a big player after the Obama administration was making so much noise about China.

As we look to the future the Europeans are going to look for other sources of energy, the one huge economic advantage the Russians have/had. There have to be people in the Kremlin who understand this. And if Putin has totally shut them off, and just listens to the Nationalists, the Russian people are going to feel the old times, drinking AfterShave when they can't even distribute Vodka.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Obama isn't going to do anything without the Europeans walking in step. This is afterall their prospective member.

[Th'Pusher]

What exactly has he done wrong since the Russians took Crimea before the election?


He basically stated that the response would be economic and ramped up as events unfold. He stated this was not a good economic situation for any country, especially Russia and the EU, no one would benefit.

We start with a tiny pinch and then start twisting pubic hairs. The tricky part will be getting the EU to get tougher as time goes by. Putin cannot possibly turn back the clock without severely damaging the Russian economy. If Putin continues the land grab he might end up having missiles in Poland which is part of his reasoning to try and negotiate on Iran going nuclear. Russia has Crimea. From a pure power play point of view it was already Russian. The economic and political subtleties of taking it made it a mistake, but it may make Russia feel like a big player after the Obama administration was making so much noise about China.

As we look to the future the Europeans are going to look for other sources of energy, the one huge economic advantage the Russians have/had. There have to be people in the Kremlin who understand this. And if Putin has totally shut them off, and just listens to the Nationalists, the Russian people are going to feel the old times, drinking AfterShave when they can't even distribute Vodka.

Jokers like wild cobra and TSA aren't interested in understanding the complexity of foreign policy.

Obama bad!

[boutons_deux]

Obama should stop trying to intervene. He looks like a fool every time he does.

the bigger fools are assholes like you and other right wingers, right-wing hate media, neo-conmen whining that "Obama should do some (unknown) thing" to man up vs Putin, since dubya and head invading/losing Iraq-for-oil and Afghanistan are such stellar examples of manning up.

Looks like Putin is going to takeover the ethnically Russian eastern sliver of Ukraine. whatchagonnadoabou ?

the US/EU oil, gas companies are controlling the US/EU (in(actions, since they would get hurt the most by severe sanctions, and they run the planet.

[boutons_deux]

go ahead, take Ned Nugent and simliar garbage with you, but your ty movies for adolescent boys will be unfortunately left behind

(heavily girdled) Steven Seagal favors Putin over Obama and says he may emigrate to Russia




http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/2...e+Raw+Story%29

[Winehole23]

The articles for mutual protection still exist. If Poland gets invaded we will go to war.

no longer purely defensive, I ought to have said.

[Winehole23]

NATO has gone way beyond its raison d'etre.

[boutons_deux]

Why It's Going to Be Impossible to Isolate Russia

German Chancellor Angela Merkel could teach U.S. President Barack Obama one or two things about how to establish a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As if Obama would listen. He'd rather boost his cons utional law professor self, and pompously lecture an elite Eurocrat audience in the glittering Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, like he did this Wednesday, on how Putin is the greatest threat to the U.S.-administered global order since World War II. Well, it didn't go that well; most Eurocrats were busy taking selfies or twittering.

Putin, meanwhile, met with the CEO of German engineering and electrical conglomerate Siemens, Joe Kaeser, at his official residence outside Moscow. Siemens invested more than U.S. $1.1 billion in Russia over the past two years, and that, Kaeser said, is bound to continue. Angela was certainly taking notes.

Obama couldn't behave otherwise. The cons utional law expert knows nothing about Russia, in his (meager) political career never had to understand how Russia works, and may even fear Russia — surrounded as he is by a coterie of spectacularly mediocre aids. His Brussels rhetorical tour de force yielded absolutely nothing — apart from the threat that if Putin persisted in his "aggression" against eastern Ukraine or even NATO members-countries the president of the United States would unroll a much stiffer sanction package.

What else is new, considering this [3] by supreme CIA asset and former Pentagon head in the first Obama administration, Bob Gates, is what passes for political analysis in the U.S.

The $1 trillion game-changer

Demonized 24/7 by the sprawling Western propaganda machine as a ruthless aggressor, Putin and his Kremlin advisers just need to play Sun Tzu. The regime changers in Kiev are already mired in a vicious catfight. [1] And even Ukraine's acting Prime Minister Arseniy Petrovych "Yats" Yatsenyuk has identified the gloomy times ahead, stressing that the signature of the economic part of the association agreement between Ukraine and the E.U. has been postponed — so there will be no "negative consequences" for industrialized eastern Ukraine.

Translation: he knows this will be the kiss of death for Ukrainian industry, on top of it coupled with an imminent structural adjustment by the International Monetary Fund linked to the E.U. (maybe) bailing out a bankrupt Ukraine.

Asia Times Online's Spengler coined a formulation: "A specter is haunting Europe, and that is the specter of a Russian-Chinese alliance at the expense of Europe." The alliance is already on — manifested in the G-20, the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. There are military technology synergies on the horizon — the ultra-sophisticated S-500 air defense system is to be unveiled by Moscow, and Beijing would absolutely love to have it. But for the real fireworks, just wait a few weeks, when Putin visits Beijing in May.

That's when he will sign the famous $1 trillion gas deal according to which Gazprom will supply China's CNPC with 3.75 billion cubic feet of gas a day for 30 years, starting in 2018 (China's current daily gas demand is around 16 billion cubic feet).

Gazprom may still collect most of its profits from Europe, but Asia is its privileged future. On the compe ion front, the hyper-hyped U.S. shale "revolution" is a myth — as much as the notion the U.S. will be suddenly increasing exports of gas to the rest of the world any time soon.

Gazprom will use this mega-deal to boost investment in eastern Siberia — which sooner rather than later will be configured as the privileged hub for gas shipments to both Japan and South Korea. That's the ultimate (substantial) reason why Asia won't "isolate" Russia. (See Asia will not 'isolate' Russia [4], Asia Times Online, March 25, 2014.)

Not to mention the much-anticipated "thermonuclear" (for the petrodollar) possibility that Russia and China will agree payment for the Gazprom-CNPC deal may be in yuan or rubles. That will be the dawn of a basket of currencies as the new international reserve currency — a key BRICS objective and the ultimate, incendiary, new (economic) fact on the ground.

Time to invest in Pipelineistan

Even though its centrality pales compared to Asia, Europe, of course, is not "expendable" for Russia. There have been rumbles in Brussels by some poodles about canceling the South Stream pipeline — pumping Russian gas underneath the Black Sea (and bypassing Ukraine) to Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Italy and Austria. The Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister, Dragomir Stoynev, said no way. Same for the Czech Republic, because it badly needs Russian investment, and Hungary, which recently signed a nuclear energy deal with Moscow.

The only other possibility for the E.U. would be Caspian gas, from Azerbaijan — following on the trail of the Zbig Brzezinski-negotiated Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, which was conceived expressly to bypass both Russia and Iran. As if the E.U. would have the will, the speed and funds to spend billions of dollars to build yet another pipeline virtually tomorrow, and assuming Azerbaijan had enough supply capacity (it doesn't; other actors, like Kazakhstan or ultra-unreliable Turkmenistan, which prefers to sell its gas to China, would have to be part of the picture).

Well, nobody ever lost money betting on the cluelessness of Brussels' Eurocrats. South Stream and other energy projects will create a lot of jobs and investment in many of the most troubled E.U. nations. Extra sanctions? No less than 91 percent of Poland's energy, and 86 percent of Hungary's, come from Russia. Over 20 percent of the foreign lending of French banks is to Russian companies. No less than 68 Russian companies trade at the London Stock Exchange. For the Club Med nations, Russian tourism is now a lifeline (1 million went to Italy last year, for instance.)

U.S. Think Tankland is trying to fool American public opinion into believing what the Obama administration should be applying is a replay of the "containment" policy of 1945-1989 to "limit the development of Russia as a hegemonic power.” The "recipe": weaponize everybody and his neighbor, from the Baltic nations to Azerbaijan, to "contain" Russia. The New Cold War is on because, from the point of view of U.S. so-called "elites,” it never really left.

Meanwhile, Gazprom's stock price is up. Buy now. You won't regret it.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...ter976470&t=21

[Wild Cobra]

Just because we wore on opposite sines with Russia during the cold war, doesn't mean we are always right. We were wrong supporting those against Russia in the Afghanistan war, and we are wrong being against them on this issue.

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

https://news.vice.com/articles/russi...ttack-dolphins

[Winehole23]

Baltic states seek NATO boots on the ground: http://www.dw.de/baltic-states-seek-...und/a-17528935

[Wild Cobra]

Baltic states seek NATO boots on the ground: http://www.dw.de/baltic-states-seek-...und/a-17528935

Do they have regions that they mistreat their Russian citizens in? That would be the only cause for concern.

[Winehole23]

sidebar:

Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth. Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep” forces on behalf of “Pax Americana”:

“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”

These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking.


Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.


But that’s not the shocking part.


What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark deep force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).
Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.


Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,“The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.

http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-o...o ents-show/

[Wild Cobra]

sidebar:

http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-o...o ents-show/

How dirty does that make Obama's hands?

[pgardn]

Why It's Going to Be Impossible to Isolate Russia

German Chancellor Angela Merkel could teach U.S. President Barack Obama one or two things about how to establish a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As if Obama would listen. He'd rather boost his cons utional law professor self, and pompously lecture an elite Eurocrat audience in the glittering Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, like he did this Wednesday, on how Putin is the greatest threat to the U.S.-administered global order since World War II. Well, it didn't go that well; most Eurocrats were busy taking selfies or twittering.

Putin, meanwhile, met with the CEO of German engineering and electrical conglomerate Siemens, Joe Kaeser, at his official residence outside Moscow. Siemens invested more than U.S. $1.1 billion in Russia over the past two years, and that, Kaeser said, is bound to continue. Angela was certainly taking notes.

Obama couldn't behave otherwise. The cons utional law expert knows nothing about Russia, in his (meager) political career never had to understand how Russia works, and may even fear Russia — surrounded as he is by a coterie of spectacularly mediocre aids. His Brussels rhetorical tour de force yielded absolutely nothing — apart from the threat that if Putin persisted in his "aggression" against eastern Ukraine or even NATO members-countries the president of the United States would unroll a much stiffer sanction package.

What else is new, considering this [3] by supreme CIA asset and former Pentagon head in the first Obama administration, Bob Gates, is what passes for political analysis in the U.S.

The $1 trillion game-changer

Demonized 24/7 by the sprawling Western propaganda machine as a ruthless aggressor, Putin and his Kremlin advisers just need to play Sun Tzu. The regime changers in Kiev are already mired in a vicious catfight. [1] And even Ukraine's acting Prime Minister Arseniy Petrovych "Yats" Yatsenyuk has identified the gloomy times ahead, stressing that the signature of the economic part of the association agreement between Ukraine and the E.U. has been postponed — so there will be no "negative consequences" for industrialized eastern Ukraine.

Translation: he knows this will be the kiss of death for Ukrainian industry, on top of it coupled with an imminent structural adjustment by the International Monetary Fund linked to the E.U. (maybe) bailing out a bankrupt Ukraine.

Asia Times Online's Spengler coined a formulation: "A specter is haunting Europe, and that is the specter of a Russian-Chinese alliance at the expense of Europe." The alliance is already on — manifested in the G-20, the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. There are military technology synergies on the horizon — the ultra-sophisticated S-500 air defense system is to be unveiled by Moscow, and Beijing would absolutely love to have it. But for the real fireworks, just wait a few weeks, when Putin visits Beijing in May.

That's when he will sign the famous $1 trillion gas deal according to which Gazprom will supply China's CNPC with 3.75 billion cubic feet of gas a day for 30 years, starting in 2018 (China's current daily gas demand is around 16 billion cubic feet).

Gazprom may still collect most of its profits from Europe, but Asia is its privileged future. On the compe ion front, the hyper-hyped U.S. shale "revolution" is a myth — as much as the notion the U.S. will be suddenly increasing exports of gas to the rest of the world any time soon.

Gazprom will use this mega-deal to boost investment in eastern Siberia — which sooner rather than later will be configured as the privileged hub for gas shipments to both Japan and South Korea. That's the ultimate (substantial) reason why Asia won't "isolate" Russia. (See Asia will not 'isolate' Russia [4], Asia Times Online, March 25, 2014.)

Not to mention the much-anticipated "thermonuclear" (for the petrodollar) possibility that Russia and China will agree payment for the Gazprom-CNPC deal may be in yuan or rubles. That will be the dawn of a basket of currencies as the new international reserve currency — a key BRICS objective and the ultimate, incendiary, new (economic) fact on the ground.

Time to invest in Pipelineistan

Even though its centrality pales compared to Asia, Europe, of course, is not "expendable" for Russia. There have been rumbles in Brussels by some poodles about canceling the South Stream pipeline — pumping Russian gas underneath the Black Sea (and bypassing Ukraine) to Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Italy and Austria. The Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister, Dragomir Stoynev, said no way. Same for the Czech Republic, because it badly needs Russian investment, and Hungary, which recently signed a nuclear energy deal with Moscow.

The only other possibility for the E.U. would be Caspian gas, from Azerbaijan — following on the trail of the Zbig Brzezinski-negotiated Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, which was conceived expressly to bypass both Russia and Iran. As if the E.U. would have the will, the speed and funds to spend billions of dollars to build yet another pipeline virtually tomorrow, and assuming Azerbaijan had enough supply capacity (it doesn't; other actors, like Kazakhstan or ultra-unreliable Turkmenistan, which prefers to sell its gas to China, would have to be part of the picture).

Well, nobody ever lost money betting on the cluelessness of Brussels' Eurocrats. South Stream and other energy projects will create a lot of jobs and investment in many of the most troubled E.U. nations. Extra sanctions? No less than 91 percent of Poland's energy, and 86 percent of Hungary's, come from Russia. Over 20 percent of the foreign lending of French banks is to Russian companies. No less than 68 Russian companies trade at the London Stock Exchange. For the Club Med nations, Russian tourism is now a lifeline (1 million went to Italy last year, for instance.)

U.S. Think Tankland is trying to fool American public opinion into believing what the Obama administration should be applying is a replay of the "containment" policy of 1945-1989 to "limit the development of Russia as a hegemonic power.” The "recipe": weaponize everybody and his neighbor, from the Baltic nations to Azerbaijan, to "contain" Russia. The New Cold War is on because, from the point of view of U.S. so-called "elites,” it never really left.

Meanwhile, Gazprom's stock price is up. Buy now. You won't regret it.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...ter976470&t=21

Like Russia holds all the cards, BS.

They stand to get hurt worse than anyone. A country with basically a vulnerable petro based economy. Can't even grow enough food for their own people yet they have so much farmland.

Gazprom up, up from when? And you can BUY that stock. This in itself shows why Russia can't turn back.
Putin is playing a dangerous economic game.

[boutons_deux]

Like Russia holds all the cards, BS.

They stand to get hurt worse than anyone. A country with basically a vulnerable petro based economy. Can't even grow enough food for their own people yet they have so much farmland.

Gazprom up, up from when? And you can BUY that stock. This in itself shows why Russia can't turn back.
Putin is playing a dangerous economic game.

Russia has Europe by the balls, and can dump all its gas in Asia, if you can read.

[Winehole23]

How dirty does that make Obama's hands?

not at all, that I can tell. can you fill in the blanks? USAID is an NGO.

[boutons_deux]

not at all, that I can tell. can you fill in the blanks? USAID is an NGO.

... implementing US State Dept policies