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good thing he's not prez.
US Provokes Russia, Acts Surprised to Get a Nasty Reaction
How crazy will Americans get over Ukraine?f too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there's a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that's a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.
Ukraine is NOT a real place. Ukraine has never been a real place, not in the sense that Madascar or Cuba are both undeniably real places with real edges. Ukraine has no real edges, just lines on a map imposed by some treaty or army over the past several thousand years. To speak, as the more pompous do, of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" is to speak of an imaginary construct, useful for blurring people's minds for political purposes.
Ukraine in recent years has been what the power brokers of the disintegrating Soviet Union decided to let it be in 1991. Ukraine has no coherent history as a nation. First inhabited some 44,000 years ago, most of the region's history is as occupied territory.
Russia's history of maintaining a military presence in Crimea is older than United States history. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been based in Sevastopol in Crimea continuously since 1783. For the Russians, this is a crucial warm water port, currently leased from Ukraine till 2042.
To understand what this means to the Russians, it probably matters more to them than the United States would care if the Cubans decided to threaten the Naval Base at Guantanamo, and we know that wouldn't have a happy ending.
Both NATO and the European Union were pressuring Ukraine to choose sides, NATO's side. How did they honestly expect Russia to react, sooner or later?
These provocations have gone on for years in different forms, apparently with President Obama's blessing, since he apparently did nothing, or nothing effective, to mitigate or even stop the relentless instigation of Ukrainians toward violence. In mid-December 2013, former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich warned of the trap Ukrainian demonstrators in Independence Square were headed toward.
Writing in Haaretz on February 25, before Ukraine fully came apart, Amatzia Baram wrote with clear-eyed analysis of the developing situation:
If Ukraine degenerates into chaos, Russia's naval base in Sevastopol will be in danger. If that happens, Putin may have an interest in seeing Ukraine split, for he will have no choice but to seize control somehow - perhaps with the services of a loyal Ukrainian politician - of Sevastopol and the surrounding area, or even of Eastern Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula where it is situated.
The United States does not bear the sole responsibility for de-stabilizing Ukraine and risking a nuclear power confrontation, but there is little doubt that if the United States had not been an eager co-conspirator in twenty years of increasingly reckless global expansionism we wouldn't be in this current quandary.
But here we are, headed into another media wonderland where the actual context of putting missiles near another country's borders is expected to elicit a reaction different from the one the Russians would get if they tried to finagle Mexico into a military alliance or base missiles in Canada.
Come on, people, keep your wits about you. American exceptionalism isn't always such a good thing.
http://readersupportednews.org/opini...nasty-reaction
good thing he's not prez.
damn u nailed it EXACTLY. thats just my damn luck SMH
" I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth"
/faceplant
War kicks ass, tbh...hoping to see a good fight.
lol antichrist wants war, smh
good thing i'm in australia now
maybe the US should apologize to both sides about a youtube video
patton is still sitting there in that big jeep in the sky saying "i told you so."
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/04/wo...rpt/index.html
(CNN) -- I am a Russian-speaking Ukrainian. I am ethnically half-Russian, as my father was born in Siberia. I spent much of my life in Donetsk, a Russian-speaking area of Ukraine. Now I live in Kiev.
My kids speak Ukrainian in school and with many of their friends, and we speak Russian at home. When my son's fourth-grade teacher talks to me, she speaks Ukrainian. I respond in Russian. We don't even notice that our conversation is in two languages.
I understand Ukrainian but don't speak it as easily as I speak English. I just never had any pressure to learn it. In Lviv, in the western part of Ukraine, most speak primarily Ukrainian, but even there, I never had anybody look down on me for my Russian. In the eastern and southern regions, many people speak Russian, and there is absolutely no forced "Ukraineization."
You might be asking what all this fuss is about in Crimea, the autonomous region of eastern Ukraine with strong ties to Russia. Why are thousands coming to the streets with Russian flags? It's easy to explain.
Many people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine don't want the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But there are some who are afraid of forced Ukraineization because they have been fed propaganda by Russian TV channels for years. The purpose is to convince Ukrainians that we are divided, not one country, and that the safest course of action for Russian-speaking areas is to break away and join Russia.
These ideas have been cultivated since I was a child. I remember when I lived in Donetsk in the '90s, how scared we were that a candidate from western Ukraine would win an election and force us to speak Ukrainian. But when I moved out of the area of aggressive Russian information, I quickly realized I can speak Russian in Kiev or Lviv and no one will ever be upset with me!
Over our 22 years of Ukrainian independence, fears of language or ethnic persecution have never come true. But they were kept alive by Russian propaganda. We understand that Putin is trying to escalate tension and provoke civil war in Ukraine right now. He can't afford for a free Ukraine to succeed: His own people might get an idea that it's possible to overthrow a tyrant and build a prosperous country.
Putin won't succeed. Ukrainians are wiser than that and won't kill each other over the nonexistent problem of language. To demonstrate that, last week, people in Lviv (traditionally Ukrainian-speaking) spoke only Russian all day, and in response, those in Donetsk (traditionally Russian-speaking) spoke Ukrainian!
No civil war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin! It must be getting harder to justify the presence of military force to "protect" people when nobody is in danger.
I just talked to my friends in Crimea.
Yuri in Simferopol told me that it's a handful of pro-Russian extremists in the streets trying to make a scene for Russian video cameras -- they are showing that these are the Russians who request protection!
Meanwhile, the rest of the city is terrified by the presence of Russian military forces and are evacuating their families to central or western Ukraine.
I got a similar report from Luda in Kharkov. She said that a large group of Russians were brought across the border by buses, and they were the ones inspiring and instigating unrest that resulted in putting a Russian flag on a municipal building.
The amount of propaganda Russia has poured onto Ukraine is hard to comprehend. Putting troops on Ukrainian land is going to bring the very opposite result from what Putin expected: I believe it's uniting Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia and Putin are getting into deeper isolation from the world as more and more countries are recalling their ambassadors from Russia and condemning the government's actions.
Good job, Mr. Putin! Thank you from all of us Ukrainians (Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) for uniting Ukraine against your military aggression.
Blowing Putin up so we don't have to endure photos of him thinking he's to sexy for his shirt.
It hurts.
Interesting link:
Crimean Premier Says Ukrainian Military Units Have Started to Surrender
The prime minister of Crimea, the autonomous Ukrainian republic seized by Russian military forces, said Tuesday that most Ukrainian military units on the Crimean Peninsula had surrendered and pledged allegiance to his pro-Russian government, and that local officials were working to speed up a referendum on independence from Ukraine.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said that Crimean officials were in control of the security situation, even as standoffs continued between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops at several military installations, including at a base near the Belbek airport, near Sevastopol.
“There is no safety threat to human life in Crimea,” Mr. Aksyonov said.
US NGO Involvement in Ukraine Uprising
Close analysis of do ents related to the recent protests in Ukraine culminating in the ouster of the Viktor Yanukovych-led government suggest probable foreign-orchestration, according to historian and geopolitical analyst F. William Engdahl. The US has vigorously advocated for Ukraine-European Union integration, much as it backed the 2004 failed “Orange Revolution” to split Ukraine from Russia in an effort to weaken Russia. Yanukovych opposed such amalgamation.
In December 2013 Ukrainians presented evidence suggesting direct involvement of the Belgrade US-financed training group, CANVAS, as a key player behind the Kiev protests–an information sheet distributed to opposition protestors in Kiev that “is a word-for-word and picture-for-picture translation of the pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in the 2011 Cairo Tahrir Square protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak and opened the door to the US-backed Muslim Brotherhood.”
In addition, Ukrainian boxer-turned political guru Vitaly Klitschko, a major figure inspiring the coup, has met with US State Department officials and is close to Angela Merkel’s CDU political machine in Germany. Two EU statespersons pushing integration—Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski—are also both closely aligned with Washington interests.
http://www.projectcensored.org/us-ng...aine-uprising/
Forbes: 'The Invasion Of Crimea Is Crushing Russia's Stock And Currency Markets'
1) The Russian benchmark stock index, the MICES, is down 10% or more (it has been down as much as 11.2% earlier today), the biggest drop in at least five years (depending on the close).2) The Russian ruble reached all time lows against the euro and the dollar. To prop it up the Russian central bank—on a "temporary" basis—raised interest rates 1.5%, from 5.5 to 7.0%, and spent $10 billion toward the same end. This will significantly hamper growth in Russia unless they lower those rates fast.
3) Shares of the corporation Gazprom, the Russian Federation's gas monopoly, are also down 10%.
4) The yield the Russian government has to pay on its state bonds is near a record high.
5) Foreign capital reserves for Russia are at a multi-year low.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...s?detail=email
war is outdated
There's a bit more at stake than competing national vanities; Ukraine borders NATO partners.
As evidenced in the recent EU action in Libya, the USA is the relevant military force. We will be consulted.
lol @ leaked phone call saying the snipers were firing on both sides and hired by Maiden leaders.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...t-Yanukovich-s
Paul Ryan Uses Ukraine To Argue For Construction Of Keystone XL Pipeline
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...aine-keystone/
and ... and ... and .... Benghazi!
and ... and ... and .... IRS!
and ... and ... and .... Obamacare!
Repugs, and their voters, are total assholes.
This could be a legigitamate argument, no? As long as the expectation is set that this would result in additional exports at the expense f American energy independence and cost to consumers.
Canadian's XL pipeline oil is not for US consumption or US energy independence.
US crude can't be exported (but Repugs are pushing for that), don't know if Canadian tar sold to US companies can be exported, probably yes.
Tar is so expensive to refine, it's refined into higher-margin/cost-recovery products for export.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 03-05-2014 at 01:53 PM.
I clicked that link and then continued clicking links to other pages. I now see what makes you crazy.
So now you want to go get serious.
Lighten up fella... So you did not like my reference to Right Said Fred and Putins nature photos?
Boehner To Obama: Confront Russia By Boosting Natural Gas Exports
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/boehner-obama-putin-natural-gas?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_camp aign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29
yeah, that'll show Putin who's boss!
Looks like we've sent f-18's to Poland.
LOL...
Like any of our exports will have enough ships to compete with the pipeline being built, and completed next year. The US would have to sabotage it, and I don't think our administration is that bold and stupid.
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