Russia vs EU vs NATO vs US (OT)

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Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 3, 2014 - 07:36pm PT
But I am pleased to see this thread is staying relatively civilised despite a
few attempts to stir the pot, right, Werner? ;-)

ps
I just saw Cozgrove's post telling me to
"STFU... You have nothing to add as per usual and need to sit back and listen to some real brains chiming in like TC."

Coz, thanks for the cogent advice, I'll take it under consideration. I
suggest that you learn to respond in an adult manner to an opinion you
might not agree with. Telling people to "STFU" is rather Putinian, don't
you think?

vlani

Trad climber
mountain view, ca
Mar 3, 2014 - 08:01pm PT
a Putin installed gangster
He barely replaced one gangster with another. Unfortunately this is the reality all over Ukraine, and Russia. All the local governments are stuffed with gangsters.

Telling people to "STFU" is rather Putinian
No that is his foreign minister diplomatic language: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/2825637/David-Miliband-subjected-to-F-word-tirade-from-Russian-foreign-minister-Lavrov.html
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Mar 3, 2014 - 08:34pm PT
Putin is sometimes described as a revanchist, seeking to recreate the Soviet Union. That is a useful shorthand, but it is not really accurate. Putin and many of his gang may have once been Communists, but they are not that today. Rather, they have embraced a new totalitarian political ideology known as “Eurasianism.”

The roots of Eurasianism go back to czarist émigrés interacting with fascist thinkers in between-the-wars France and Germany. But in recent years, its primary exponent has been the very prominent and prolific political theorist Aleksandr Dugin.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/372353/eurasianist-threat-robert-zubrin
WBraun

climber
Mar 3, 2014 - 08:47pm PT

And I told you the traitor snake McCain had his hand in this from the beginning.
Everywhere McCain shows up becomes death, war, destabilization, chaos, etc etc ....
The guy in center is neo nazi

Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:01pm PT
TGT, interesting article but I disagree with the author on a number of points.
Primarily I disagree with Dugin's influence in the Kremlin. Putin is not
stupid. I don't believe he thinks he stands a snowball's chance in a warm
place of realizing some kind of Slavic mega-state vs the

"the maritime cosmopolitan power “Atlantis” "

I aver that he only cozies up to Dugin to secure his radical fringe's votes
and you always want to keep a dangerous guy close to you.

I also disagree with the author's assertion that:

"It is in the vital interest of America that freedom triumphs in Ukraine."

It would be very nice but, seriously, how is it vital to us?
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:07pm PT
I'd agree with you on that assesment.

The greater threat to Putin is an analogue of what happened in Ukraine where a critical mass of the peasants got fed up with the kleptocracy.

Werner, everyone knows Mclame is an idiot.

(Except maybe Lindsey Graham)
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:15pm PT
That's because the kleptocracy was stoopid and didn't let them eat cake.
People revolt when they've nothing to lose, right? The Russian proletariat
is doing much better than their poor cousins plus Putin wouldn't be such
a limp wrist if it came to wielding the power of the 'security forces'. But this
contretemps plays into his hand nicely as Russians love nothing more than
an 'Enemy At The Gates', to reprise the famous movie's title. They are,
most deservedly, the world's leading xenophobes and they will unflinchingly
rally to the motherland's banner in the face of western pressure.
vlani

Trad climber
mountain view, ca
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:20pm PT
I seriously doubt that the current government of Ukraine will bring more democracy or freedom. Again, looking at their handling of anyone who disagrees with them, that been Crimea or other pro-russian provinces. There is no credible political force in Ukraine to stand for democracy. Whoever comes to power will be more brutal in crashing the opponents than their predecessors. That was the trend so far. The next public revolt in another 10 years will result in much worse bloodshed.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:28pm PT
The essence of Russia is that she produces more history than can be consumed locally: this has been true since Catherine the Great, and especially true for the last century. Part of it is geography, part cultural. She straddles Europe to the West, and Asia to the East. She holds the Northeast front of Christendom. She is not Catholic, not Protestant - but Orthodox. Her people do not understand, nor are they comfortable with, the fruits of the enlightenment - but in arts, sciences, and music fewer people are as skilled. She is a very big country in both population and geographic size. Insecure, yet strong. Sickly, but powerful. She will not be ignored.

No one should be shocked this is going on. What we have seen over the last week is easily somewhere between the Red Most Likely and Red Most Dangerous COA.

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-fundamental-value-of-ukraine-crisis.html
philo

Trad climber
Is that light the end of the tunnel or a train?
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:32pm PT
All you hand wringing whiners complaining that Obama is so lame and weak.
Crimea River. What would you have him do? Ramp up the rhetoric to Def Con Dumb.
This precedent of invasion was put into place by the pre-emptive policies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. We have nothing to say about what Russia is doing in their sphere of influence. NOTHING! or do you think that Russia should have gotten all saber rattly with us when we illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq?
rick sumner

Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
Mar 3, 2014 - 09:33pm PT
In late 1985 the Saudi's flooded the oil markets with below cost oil, as low as 9/barrel, for a protracted period. Other than decimating the economies of the relative few U.S. oil producing states it was a great shot in the arm for the U.S. economy as a whole and the increasing economic activity helped finance our military buildup. I don't remember Reagan objecting too much. Meanwhile the USSR, already reeling from costly foreign adventures, had their predominate export rendered a loss even as they faced an arms race with the U.S., this lead directly to their downfall several years later. Brilliant geopolitical maneuvering. We have the means of doing something very similar again, without any detriment to our oil producing states. Does anybody here believe the current genius's in our U.S. "kremlin" have their heads out of their progressive asses enough to actually affect working geopolitical solutions?
rottingjohnny

Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
Mar 3, 2014 - 11:49pm PT
Gee Rick... you should contact Sarah Palin and do some more brainstorming...It's obvious you have more on the ball than Obama and the Chicago gangsters...
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Mar 4, 2014 - 01:56am PT
When someone with this guys knowledge, experience and credentials is freaking out big time...perhaps we should be at least a little bit worried...

The end could be nearer than you think — Paul Craig Roberts
March 3, 2014

Readers:

We are having trouble today with the website. I do not know if it is problems caused by the typical incompetence of US business enterprises, including those who host websites and have offshored American jobs to foreign countries, or whether it is National Stasi Agency induced. Certainly, the propagandistic US government does not want any truth available to compete with Washington’s systematic lies. Washington is desperate to control the explanation of the situation in Ukraine that, as a result of Washington’s incompetence, has resulted in Ukraine falling under control of neo-nazi elements, whose rabid anti-semitic and Russophobic actions and rhetoric have caused Ukraine to split in half. If you were unable to access my column today, use this URL: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/03/03/washingtons-arrogance-hubris-evil-set-stage-war/

Eastern and southern Ukraine are Russian-speaking former Russian territories added to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Communist Party leadership of the Soviet Union. These provinces are agitating to be returned to Mother Russia where they certainly belong. They are determined not to be part of a neo-nazi regime that will be looted by Western bankers and corporations and be forced to host US missile bases that will make western Ukraine a target for nuclear annihilation, like Poland and Czech Republic.

The propagandistic rhetoric issuing from the mouths of the White House Fool and the excrement that the Fool placed in charge of the Department of State is designed to cover up the abject failure of the Obama regime’s plot to install its puppets as Ukraine’s new rulers. The Obama regime is too stupid to comprehend that its rhetoric is preparing the gullible and ignorant American population for war with Russia. The neoconservative ideologues, who have been lusting for war with Russia ever since the 1980s when I was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, will take advantage of the war preparation, which the White House Fool and his State Department excrement are creating with their rhetoric, to start a war that will destroy life on earth.

The neoconservatives are insane. They believe that nuclear war can be won, and that the US has the advantage to destroy Russia in a first strike.

Americans are so ignorant and gullible that they do not realize that their very existence is on the line, and that the insane neoconservatives who control the weak Obama puppet are determined to cross the line.

If any are still so gullible as to believe that the illegal deposing of the elected government of Ukraine was a “sincere indigenous revolt against a corrupt government,” the delusional should watch this video of the neo-nazi intimidating the US stooge who is a member of what Washington pretends is the government of Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV5Wm3qXfy4

God help the American people. Their ignorance and gullibility make them an enormous threat to life on earth.

Yes, I know. I have readers who have escaped The Matrix. But the majority of the American population is lost.

War will be the result of the ignorance, gullibility, and stupidity of the American population, its prostitute media, and the hegemonic ambitions of the evil neoconservatives. The corrupt rulers of Europe will sell out their peoples for American money until they are all vaporized in nuclear explosions.

The total corruption of truth, integrity, and morality that Washington has imposed on the Western world has aligned the West with the powers of Darkness and death. No greater evil exists than the government of the United States.
bluering

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Mar 4, 2014 - 01:59am PT
Werner's graphic is particularly priceless. Notice Serbia among the obvious other US debacles.

The Serbs were screwed by the US in favor of 'ethnic Albanians' as they were called. Why do you suppose their 'ethnicity' was never described back then by Billy Jeff Clinton and Madeleine Albright?

They were f*#king Muslims assaulting Serbian police forces and the Serbs started to fight back! This was a true injustice in history, it was re-written.

And we participated in slaughtering Serbs who had helped us in WWII. We f*#ked them.

Think for yourself. Look at the facts. Do not trust what ABC/CBS/NBC tells you. Do some homework.
vlani

Trad climber
mountain view, ca
Mar 4, 2014 - 02:35am PT
That article of Paul Craig Roberts on the prev page is very factually incorrect. Crimea was the only territory joined Ukraine in 1950-s, not all the southern-eastern regions. Most of the current Ukraine was cut as it is by bolsheviks in 1922, and some more added in 1939-1945, in expense of Polland, Romania and Slovakia. Here is a map from wiki:
bigbird

climber
WA
Mar 4, 2014 - 02:41am PT
bluering....
That a disingenuous way to frame that conflict...

Are you gonna claim that Srebrenica massacre didn't happen either?

bluering

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Mar 4, 2014 - 02:52am PT
Bigbird, I do not deny that.

How many slaughters of Serbs have you not been told? What's my point?

You were sold a pile of sh#t. The whole conflict started just as I said, Serb cops getting gunned down and them retaliating. The Albanian Muslims did some nasty sh#t too, especially as they recruited Muslims from other countries.

They're pulling a page from the same book.
HighDesertDJ

Trad climber
Mar 4, 2014 - 05:58am PT
bluering posted
How many slaughters of Serbs have you not been told? What's my point?

You were sold a pile of sh#t. The whole conflict started just as I said, Serb cops getting gunned down and them retaliating. The Albanian Muslims did some nasty sh#t too, especially as they recruited Muslims from other countries.

They're pulling a page from the same book.

Are you saying that we intervened in Yugoslavia as part of the plot to ensure the return of Caliphate and Muslim supremacy Obammmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



(countdown to holocaust denial)
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 4, 2014 - 10:57am PT
Why does every ST thread have to go off the rails? This is about the Ukraine, not Serbia.

Paul Craig Roberts is also completely off his rocker to even suggest that the Ukraine could

"be forced to host US missile bases that will make western Ukraine a target for nuclear annihilation,
like Poland and Czech Republic."

That is so ludicrous it barely deserves a comment other than "why in the
world would we even want to put missile bases in the Ukraine?" And we
have missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Mar 4, 2014 - 12:21pm PT
This is the best thing I've read on this:


What's behind Russia's moves in Ukraine? Fear of NATO

An expanded Western military presence in Eastern Europe alarms Moscow


By Edward W. Walker
March 4, 2014



The causes of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine are many, but most fundamentally its roots can be found in an enormously consequential decision made by the United States and its allies in the early 1990s. Faced with a strategic challenge of constructing a new security architecture for post-Cold War Europe, the decision was made to embark on a program of gradual NATO expansion to the east.


A first round of accession took place in 1999, with membership for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. That was followed in 2004 by membership for Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, and in 2009 by membership for Albania and Croatia.

Officially, NATO's position is that any country that wishes to join the alliance and meets its accession criteria will be welcomed. In practice, however, there was never any serious prospect that Russia would be allowed to join. Indeed, for many of NATO's new members, the primary incentive to join was to deter aggression by, and deflect pressure from, Moscow.

PHOTOS: Deadly clashes in Kiev

Accordingly, Russians concluded that NATO expansion was directed first and foremost at containing Russia militarily and politically, and Moscow has been unambiguously and passionately opposed to the process since its inception. Today, the Russian political elite is virtually unanimous in viewing NATO expansion as an acute threat to Russian national security.

It likewise views eastern enlargement of the European Union as a first step toward full incorporation into Western institutions, including NATO — hence, Moscow's intense opposition to Ukraine signing an EU association agreement in November.

There can be no doubt that NATO expansion has brought many benefits to the alliance's new member-states. But it has also contributed greatly to the acute geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West that has now come to a head over Ukraine.

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The fundamental problem with the project from the beginning was that, at some point, it would inevitably run up against the countervailing power of Russia. We reached that point initially in 2008, when NATO officials indicated at a NATO summit in April that Ukraine and Georgia would soon be offered membership plans, a decision that helped precipitate the brief war between Russia and Georgia that August. We have reached it again, with far more at stake, today in Ukraine.

For now, the immediate task is to try to defuse the crisis through active diplomacy. Although it is appropriate to warn Moscow about the dire political and economic consequences of further military intervention, as President Obama did Friday, it is also incumbent on Western governments to warn the new leadership in Kiev that it would be reckless to provoke Russia further or to ignore Russian interests.

The stark fact is that even if Russian military intervention stops with the establishment of a pro-Russian vassal state in Crimea, Russia will have enormous leverage over the new government in Ukraine. It can cut back on crucial gas deliveries, raise the price of gas and other commodities it is selling to an economically prostrate Ukraine, impose painful tariff and nontariff barriers on trade, and, above all, it can stir up endless trouble for Kiev, not just in Crimea but also in other Russian-speaking regions of the country.

In the longer term, the crisis in Ukraine suggests that it is time to reconsider NATO expansion and to explore alternative institutional arrangements for European security in the 21st century. Ukraine, for example, would be much better served by a NATO-Russian-Ukrainian treaty that provided for its military neutrality and some kind of a common customs regime for trade with the EU and Russia (or a Russian-led customs union). It is in no one's interest, least of all Ukraine's, to see a continuation of the dogfight between Russia and the West over Ukraine's external orientation.

More ambitiously, an effort could be made to reinvigorate the security architecture constructed in the 1970s to reduce East-West tensions during the Cold War, notably the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes all NATO members, all former Warsaw Pact countries and all 15 Soviet successor states in its membership.

A renewed commitment to conventional force limitation, confidence-building measures and military transparency — using the OSCE as the institutional focus — along with some kind of institutionalized neutrality for Ukraine might produce an international environment that helps rather than undermines Ukrainian political and economic stabilization. It might even contribute to gradual liberalization in Russia as well.

Edward W. Walker is an adjunct associate professor of political science and executive director of the Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East European Studies at UC Berkeley. He is the author of "Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the USSR."


Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-walker-ukraine-nato-expansion-20140304,0,4405864.story#ixzz2v10Wqudz

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Werner is right in a way, we've basically forced Putin's hand with the
NATO hegemony.

And Obama should quit citing 'international law' violations. He talks like
some born-again Moses who found some tablets under a burning bush.
The only international law is the law of the victor.

And, just like in Tijuana, everything is negotiable.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Stay tuned for my exposition on Ronald Hingley's (Emeritus Fellow at Oxford) The Russian Mind.

And for climbing content and Vlani and Vitya's amusement I will include
some of my preliminary notes...

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