BS: Ukraine

Subject: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 12:32 PM

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/world/ukraine-history.html
A bit of history. It seems like this area is in the news. Any perspectives- to share, or information to add ?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Stringsinger
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 12:35 PM

Two dictators fight a reactionary 30% pro-fascist populace, ending in a stalemate, using the wrong weapons which can't be resolved by military means.

The US had no moral authority here.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 12:52 PM

Ukraine is a sovereign state, and entitled to govern itself how it wills.
The elected president was so bad, the people through him out before his time.
Crimea is different.
It was part of Russia and when it was handed to Ukraine, Ukraine was part of Soviet Union.
Crimeans mostly relate to Russia, and Russia's Black Sea fleet is based there.
If the rest of Ukraine becomes Westernised, Crimea might reasonably rejoin Russia.

Russia has put troops into Crimea, but Russian Parliament allows them to enter Ukraine.
If they invade the rest of Ukraine, they will be resisted.
If Ukraine seeks to recapture Crimea, they will be resisted.

The West has threatened only sanctions, and military intervention is out of the question.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 12:53 PM

Cdn news related to Ukraine:

" developments in Ukraine have prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to strongly condemn Russian military intervention in the country while urging President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops immediately.

In a statement issued following a cabinet meeting held Saturday afternoon, Harper said Canada is recalling its ambassador from Moscow and pulling out of the G8 process being chaired by Russia.

At the same time, Canada is recognizing the legitimacy of the new, pro-Western Ukrainian government."

."With 1.2-million Canadians of Ukrainian descent, many of whom vote or lean to the Conservatives, it would be easy to be cynical about the Canadian government's solicitous concern for what happens in the homeland."



Cdn. news article 

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 01:25 PM

Crimea is different. It was part of Russia and when it was handed to Ukraine, Ukraine was part of Soviet Union. Crimeans mostly relate to Russia,

You mean like Palestine was handed over to the Israelis, Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 01:30 PM

"You mean like Palestine was handed over to the Israelis, Keith?"

Er...not exactly - suggest you brush up on your history.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 01:44 PM

In an article in last week's Russian Pravda, it was noted that if Ukraine was divided, then the status of the Crimean Peninsula – returned to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Kruschev, would be open to discussion, and that would include Turkey having a say in the future of Crimea.

The reference to this claim is the "Küçük Kaynarca" (Karlowitz I) signed 230 years ago. As per this agreement, signed by the Russian Tsarina Catherine II on April 19, 1783, the Crimean Peninsula was taken away from the dominion of the Ottomans and handed over to Russia. However, one of the most important provisions of this treaty was the debarment of independence for the Peninsula and outlawing its submission to a third party: Should any such attempt be made, then Crimea would automatically have to be returned to the sovereignty of Turkey.

When Ukraine appeared as an independent nation following the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, Turkey acquired the right to claim the Peninsula back based on the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca; however, this was not brought up by the Turgut Ozal administration of the time. Turkey was content with advocating for the rights of the Tatar minority living on the Crimean Peninsula.

Turkey caught in the Russia-Crimea snowstorm

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 02:11 PM

We must be careful with this talk about the right wing, fascists and Nazis being behind the revolution. Even though all these elements are present in the Ukraine much of what we are hearing is Russian propaganda.

This from an excellent article in the New York Review of Books:

"From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by "right-wing thugs," a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday

Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul's newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d'état.

In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency."

Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 03:20 PM

Everything you need to know about the Tatars--the biggest victims of Russia's new Crimean war.

The New Republic

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 04:03 PM

I expect that the Russians will occupy Crimea, and it will receive a government favored by the Russians and supported by much of the population. It may be annexed by the Russians, but I don't think immediately.

The Ukrainian forces will not fight; it is obvious who would be the loser. They will receive verbal support from the EU and NATO but no military aid.

Rather useless sanctions may be applied against Russia.
If you like Russian vodka, stock up; the U. S. and Canada may ban it as part of sanctions.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 05:09 PM

If the Russians were to give up Crimea, then the USA would have warships there soon after!
The Russians should come up with their version of the Monroe Doctrine!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 05:11 PM

"much of what we are hearing is Russian propaganda." But rather more probably comes from the other direction. A lot more complicated and less clearcut than the media seems to be telling us.

Yakumovych and Putin both have some dictatorial qualities, but both were elected, as is of course quite common with dictators. Undoubtedly a lot of people in Kiev and the western part of Ukraine were hostile to him, and had voted against him, but there is no particular reason to assume that a majority of Ukrainians felt the same way.

The complicating thing in Ukraine is that it's really two countries, one in the west that has quite a lot in common with Poland, and where popular opinion was against Yakumovych, and preferred the idea of links with the EU, in the East of the country it is far more Russian in language and other ways, most especially in Crimea. And the Eastern part is actually larger, with a bigger population.

So when the Russians move troops into the Crimea, that isn't seen by the people there as an invasion, but a liberating force, in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine agains a coup which has overthrown it. And they appear to hope to be able to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. And that is probably more or less what the people in
the rest of Ukraine think as well.

All a mess. And a very scary mess. I was watching a TV programme about the Great War, and how a seemingly peripheral terrorist assassination built up over a few weeks into an unstoppable rush into total war. And then turned over to the news...

My feeling here is that though some kind of conflict between Ukraine and Russia might indeed be on the cards, it's not going to escalate into anything more than harsh words and maybe economic sanctions so far as the rest of us are concerned.

But then that is probably what I would have thought back in 1914 in the wake of Sarajevo....

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 06:17 PM

I suspect if France decided to send troops into Quebec- french-speaking Canada, (to protect french speaking and ethnicaly-connected to France citizens) if there was a similar internal political situation evolve with the government of Canada- combined with a desire of seperation among a percentage of citizens, it would stir up a "bees nest" of international concern. Few would likely conclude, "well it is ok, as these Canadians are ethnicaly French and like France, anyway".

Apples and oranages? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 06:29 PM

Correction - in a paragraph towards the end of my post I wrote "rest" where I should have written "east". Makes a difference.

So the paragraph should have read:

So when the Russians move troops into the Crimea, that isn't seen by the people there as an invasion, but a liberating force, in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine agains a coup which has overthrown it. And they appear to hope to be able to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. And that is probably more or less what the people in
the east of Ukraine think as well.
.......................

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 06:45 PM

There was a very important item in the article referenced by the OP. To wit:

"...in 1997 it was agreed that Russia would be allowed to base its fleet at Sevastopol for 20 years."

Knowing that this agreement with Ukraine will expire soon, it appears that Mr. Putin saw his opportunity to seize Crimea when a new, weak government took over Ukraine. Why not? In his view, at least, the benefits far outweigh the possible costs.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 06:56 PM

Yeah, them Rooshians got one helluva nerve intervening, but it's OK for the U.S. of A. to "intervene" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Etc. Etc Etc.....

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 07:02 PM

I notice BBC just noted a top ukraine naval officer has defected to the Crimean side. I expect the military is made up of those fom each area.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Janie
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 08:13 PM

Appreciate your comments and perspective, McGrath. The ethnosociopolitical history of central, eastern and southeastern Europe and Eurasia is so ancient and so complex that it is hard for me to really understand.

I also don't understand what it means to be a semi-autonomous republic within a constitutional nation. Alien concept to me.

I don't like being so ignorant that I don't have enough information to form an opinion except from my own ethnocentric experience. No amount of lay reading of the long and complex history of central and eastern Europe has ever prepared me to have an informed opinion. It is a scary situation is all I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 09:47 PM

Kick Russia out of the G8 and declare Putin a piece of shit! The Ukraine must show some balls as well and shut down Russia's pipelines! Europe can support their stand by conserving energy and finding non Russian energy supply! Canada can help by ramping up supplies to help Europe and this battle can be won without bloodshed!
Sadly however money rules and greed rates above either justice or compassion!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 10:18 PM

If Ukraine shut down the pipelines supplying Europe with oil from Russia I think they would be blotting their copybooks badly with the EU.

It's more likely the Russians might actually do that, in a tit-for-tat sanctions competition.

Never mind, we can get our oil from freedom- loving Saudi Arabia, where justice and compassion is so much in evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 10:18 PM

If Ukraine shut down the pipelines supplying Europe with oil from Russia I think they would be blotting their copybooks badly with the EU.

It's more likely the Russians might actually do that, in a tit-for-tat sanctions competition.

Never mind, we can get our oil from freedom- loving Saudi Arabia, where justice and compassion is so much in evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 12:17 AM

McGrath, you seem to miss the irony of my post! Better to shed a bit of oil instead of blood, but of course greed rules supreme! As for Saudi Arabia's love of freedom I agree with you, but surely it is a red herring! Would you not place the loss of a bit of oil more important than a desire for justice and freedom? I do not believe that to be so! Injustice in either Russia or Saudi Arabia equals as a piece of shit that I would oppose! Putin on the other hand is a disgrace, but Canada can help with long term gain if EU can face up to a bit of short term pain! In Canada we have to get rid of arseholes running our country as well, and it will take time, but surely the world can be a better place!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: michaelr
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 12:32 AM

To quote a great Canadian songwriter: "The trouble with normal is, it always gets worse."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 01:34 AM

As posted before......When banks compete, people die. This isn't so much about one nationalistic country verses another, ...it is about a strategically located country, looking to switch banks! 'Our' bankers are not directly involved, and our government couldn't give a rat's ass about the Ukraine, except how to make Obama look like he is a player...which he is not. If it was our pipelines, if it were our satellite wanting to do business with another global banker, if they were rich in natural resources, including opium or coke, THEN we might intervene....Putin knows that Obama isn't going to do shit, except give a shallow speech....and there you have it.
The Republicans are going to re-act with 'patriotic' indignation, and say that Obama is perceived as weak, the Democrats don't want to spend money for the military, and will hail Obama's 'reserve' as 'wisdom'.....BOTH of them will, hide the banker's interests, but neither of them will tell you the real story.....
I just did.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 03:53 AM

McG: "much of what we are hearing is Russian propaganda." But rather more probably comes from the other direction. A lot more complicated and less clearcut than the media seems to be telling us.

I'll agree with the fact that there's propaganda from both directions....but not with your estimation of balance. The propaganda from the pro-Russian side has been much more evident than that from the people who were originally demonstrating, who were actually pretty disorganised when it came to getting their message across.

McG: Yakumovych and Putin both have some dictatorial qualities, but both were elected, as is of course quite common with dictators. Undoubtedly a lot of people in Kiev and the western part of Ukraine were hostile to him, and had voted against him, but there is no particular reason to assume that a majority of Ukrainians felt the same way.

Again, I think this is quite simplistic. Yanukovych (you should at least get his name right) was indeed elected, probably quite fairly at the time...and not along a strict east/west split, either. A (slight but nevertheless real) majority of Ukrainians, both Russian Ukrainian speaking were fed up of the way the "orange revolution" government were governing and decided on a change. Part of the change they voted for was that Yanukovych promised to improve ties with the EU, and end corruption. However, the corruption just shifted to his own mates and he caved into Russian pressure to repudiate the agreement with the EU.

McG: The complicating thing in Ukraine is that it's really two countries, one in the west that has quite a lot in common with Poland, and where popular opinion was against Yakumovych, and preferred the idea of links with the EU, in the East of the country it is far more Russian in language and other ways, most especially in Crimea. And the Eastern part is actually larger, with a bigger population.

The language division is a bit of a red-herring in itself....almost all Ukrainians speak Russian, both east and west. My Russian teacher's Ukrainian,from the west, and Russian's her native language....she doesn't speak Ukrainian at all. Culturally the west has more in common with Poland and the east with Russia, but it's not clear-cut. Popular opinion was pretty divided across the country for and against Yanukovych. It was his corruption, then his repudiation of the EU agreement that kicked off demonstrations, fairly small-scale at first. They intensified when he started bringing in repressive laws and also imported hundreds of Russian "advisors".

The eventual scale of the demonstrations grew to the size they did on the back on Yanukovych's actions. The portrayal of the demonstrators as right-wingers is just not a good picture. There were right-wingers involved, true, but the movement was actually broad-based across the political and linguistic spectrum. A very close relative was in Kiev for quite a while just before the main violence kicked off and was surprised on talking to people at just how broad-based their politics were, from neo-fascists through to lesbian socialists! The relative's expectation on going there had been to find the demonstrators mostly conservative/ right-wing.

McG: So when the Russians move troops into the Crimea, that isn't seen by the people there as an invasion, but a liberating force, in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine agains a coup which has overthrown it. And they appear to hope to be able to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. And that is probably more or less what the people in the rest of Ukraine think as well.

I think you should say "some" of the people....probably largely drawn from the descendants of the ethnic Russians moved in by Stalin in 1944 when he deported the Crimean Tatars (original inhabitants) and killed most of them. Those who managed to return from the Gulags comprise about 12% of the region's population now, and they are terrified of a Russian takeover. I think that the 30% or so of "original" Ukrainians in the area, both Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking, may also feel ambivalent. There are strong memories throughout Ukraine of the fact that it was the Ukrainian "kulaks" who suffered most during Stalin's starvation policy of the 1930s, with around 7 million Ukrainians being deliberately starved to death by Stalin.

In fact, Yanukovych was properly, and legally, impeached by the Ukrainian Parliament, which is the ACTUAL legitimate government of Ukrain and has, under law, the right to impeach the President. Yanukovych's bleating that he's *still* the legitimate President is just not true...no more than would Nixon have been able to claim he was still President of the USA if he'd been impeached rather than resigning.

The whole sitution there is much more complex than east/west! I could say more but I have to be a BIT circumspect as I'm due back in Russia for a 6 week stint in 3 weeks or so, assuming that by then there hasn't been wholesale visa cancellation!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 04:57 AM

When/if Scotland votes for independence, and the English military bases at Faslane (navy) and Lossiemouth (RAF) are threatened by Scottish extremists, then England will send in English forces ( RAF Regiment to Lossiemouth) and the Royal Marines to Faslane.
At this point will Putin, NATO and the USA will threaten financial and military action against England?
I'm looking up the chessboard by a few months......

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 06:00 AM

Depends whether rUK (not "England) has a lease agreement on the bases with Scotland, I should think.

The fact that Russia's 20 year leases on their Crimean bases run out in 3 years time and that a west-leaning government might not automatically renew them may have some small bearing on Russia's action. No-one, extremist or otherwise, was threatening their bases. No demos outside them, nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 06:48 AM

Right wing nationalism
Ukrainian fascism
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 06:56 AM

Ethnic groups 

Interesting information on the ethic make - up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 07:15 AM

Just background on the region:

"Geographically, Turkey straddles the boundary dividing Europe and Asia. Sitting astride the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, Turkey controls the warm-water naval access of Russia, the Ukraine, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Control of the straits between the Black and the Mediterranean Seas has long been a matter of keen interest to Russia, as well as other nations bordering the Black Sea. Historically, Russia has viewed such control as the sine qua non of its own sovereignty."

a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/naval-arms-control-1936.htm">Montreux Convention 

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 08:37 AM

Wonder if any of this will make a difference to Britain's arms sales policy - doubt it?

"The scale and detail of the deals emerged after a forensic investigation by a committee of MPs, who also discovered that strategically controlled items have been sent to Iran, China, Sri Lanka, Russia, Belarus and Zimbabwe – all of which feature prominently on the Foreign Office's list of states with worrying civil rights records."
Arms sales to Russia
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 11:10 AM

The conflict is about the influence of the Putin regime, scarcely about ethnicity.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 12:48 PM

I don't think the only outside influence stirring things up is Putin. And what gets stirred up in such circumstances tend to involve ethnicity.

Thanks Rob Naylor for giving us some more in-depth stuff. It's all clearly a very complicated and ambiguous situation. The last thing that is needed is clumsy bluster from Foreign politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 12:53 PM

I just got extra parts for my Lada, downed the last of my ruski-vodka and sold all my rubles (going rate is a wheebarrow load for a "yankee dollah").

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 01:42 PM

Does not concern the 'Yankee dollah,' but the euro-

Putin wants the Ukraine in the Russian orbit; he was pushing a regime under Yankovich that was favorable to strong ties with Russia, but the revolt and moves toward the EU decided him to annex the Crimea, an economically important autonomous parliamentary republic within Ukraine.
58% of the population is ethnic Russian. Industrial plants deal with chemical production, mechanical work and petroleum. Farming is important (60 percent of the industry market).

Russia has important naval installations in Crimea.

All the Ukraine can do is capitulate, allowing Russia to take control of Crimea.
The EU and NATO members may impose some sanctions, but their efforts will be useless to change Putin's thrust.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 02:03 PM

Russia has given Ukraine's military in Crimea a deadline to surrender or "face storm," Ukrainian defense sources say, as deputies in the Russian lower house prepared a bill to annex Crimea.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 02:56 PM

Q, You post is dead on...especially, "Does not concern the 'Yankee dollah,' but the euro-"......different banking systems! (Just like when the U.S. invaded Iraq, because Iraq was making moves to going to the Euro..

Q: "Putin wants the Ukraine in the Russian orbit; he was pushing a regime under Yankovich that was favorable to strong ties with Russia, but the revolt and moves toward the EU decided him to annex the Crimea, an economically important autonomous parliamentary republic within Ukraine"

RIGHT, again!...besides that, the Crimea has the only other Russian warm water port, other than the one in Syria...which you covered, Q: "Russia has important naval installations in Crimea."

Q: "The EU and NATO members may impose some sanctions, but their efforts will be useless to change Putin's thrust."

Right....Governments are not the ones making these decisions ...companies (corporations/banksters) DO!

The rest is just excuses for propaganda purposes.
(Q, read my last post, before this one).

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 03:45 PM

Forbes- Business

Russian-Ukrainian Conflict Spilling Beyond Borders And Into Natural Gas Markets

Natural Gas

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 03:54 PM

One of the unnamed 'Guests': "Russian-Ukrainian Conflict Spilling Beyond Borders And Into Natural Gas Markets"

Key words are 'Beyond Borders And Into Natural Gas MARKETS'.......

This will eventually be 'solved' financially....if it can't, or doesn't, then it will get blown wide open.....UNTIL it will be...(BUT, you never know, there are naive 'patriots' still out there!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 05:32 PM

"...in 1997 it was agreed that Russia would be allowed to base its fleet at Sevastopol for 20 years."

Time to ring in George Santayana- for how many centuries has Russia been set on having a "warm water port"........ this recent business comes as a surprise to someone? This goes WAY beyond Putin.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 07:42 PM

It turns out that invading your neighbour isn't too good for your economy - the Russian stock market is down 12%.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 07:51 PM

That never stops people doing it. Look at the record of the USA in Latin America.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 08:05 PM

Look at the record of the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 08:13 PM

"It turns out that invading your neighbour isn't too good for your economy"

It never seemed to hurt the Vikings, invading Ireland, and elsewhere:)

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Janie
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 10:11 PM

Thank you, Rob Naylor.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 11:25 PM

bobad: "It turns out that invading your neighbour isn't too good for your economy....."

Who's 'your'?....the global bankers?...or the individual country's?...keep in mind, corporations and banks have different borders....and they'll 'play the national interests' against each others, within their own borders, if they can capitalize on it.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 04:23 AM

I'm not surprised to see Russia moving to defend it's not insignificant interests in Crimea (it is after all the kind of action that any major power would attempt - in some way), not least it's warm water port. The fact that Crimean's generally support Russia and that Crimea was formerly a part of Russia, is certainly fortunate for Russia for diplomatic reasons. As such, hopefully unless the West intervene before the referendum there (slated for 30th March I believe), things could stay peaceful until Russia secures it's interests there.

The US position on this is however breathtakingly hypocritical, when the US (including Obama's stated position "the US will defend it's interests" on the potential war in Syria just recently) repeatedly initiate military actions to 'defend their interests' abroad - usually many miles abroad, though it's own back door has seen plenty of aggressive measures "protecting US interests" too.

Kerry in particular is a joke: ""You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text," Kerry told the CBS program "Face the Nation."

Whu? Really you'd think he remembered the lies the West conspired in concocting about WMD in Iraq!

Someone flagged this up on CiF, I thought some folk here might find either of interest / or complete nonsense (take your pick), it's quite provocative:

What Neocons Want From Ukraine Crisis

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Stringsinger
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 08:55 AM

The tragedy of the Ukraine is that the rebels who rightly abhor Yanocovich have no legitimate plan of action to replace him, running the risk of finding another one just like him, a similar problem for Egypt or any revolutionary movement that takes place, remembering that the French Revolution wound up with Napoleon at the helm.

The sick nationalism of the Nazis have infected some of the Ukrainian rebels making it difficult for the world community to totally support their grievances.

As for Putin, he is emerging as another dictator, a replacement for Communism as a continuing Tsar, who aligns with Yanocovich in this capacity and whose power incites the envy of none other than Kim Jung Un.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 08:59 AM

The tragedy of the Ukraine is that the rebels who rightly abhor Yanocovich have no legitimate plan of action to replace him

Elections were planned for May.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 09:14 AM

Great letter in The Guardian this morning:

John Kerry accuses the Russians of acting "in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext". This should end all debate on Americans' understanding of irony.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Ed T
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 09:27 AM

All about gas?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 09:41 AM

Perhaps the people of Crimea have a right to determine their own fate, and the majority may indeed wish to rejoin Russia. However that decision should not be made looking down the wrong end of Putin's guns!
If Russia withdrew with a UN promise to hold a democratic and free vote on that question, and Russia was to agree that the rest of Ukraine would have soverign self determination including tne right to join NATO a fair outcome could result.
The problem is that arseholes like Putin here, and Bush in Iraq have no concept of diplomacy! If you have big guns better to follow the lead of Hitler and Stalin!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 10:29 AM

I find the American criticism of Putin's action totally grotesque. America and her allies have gone barnstorming into Iraq and Libya in the recent past, and America has been responsible for regime change from Iran to Venezuela. There has also been extreme criticism and attempts at destabilisation in Syria, while the repressive Saudi regime is regarded as a staunch ally.
   My take is that Putin has a perfect right to go into Crimea and stabilise the situation.
   The only politics working here is the politics of energy and it's distribution. What a surprise!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 10:48 AM

"Putin has a perfect right to go into Crimea and stabilise the situation."

I may have missed it but I had not heard of there being any instability in Crimea - can you expound on that?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 10:52 AM

Its kind of like the WMD's in Iraq, Bobad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 10:56 AM

Oh, and Bobad- do take a butchers at a geo-political map some time.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 11:07 AM

While the world theorizes and takes sides and hopes for this or that to happen or not happen, the Quakers in Moscow plead with Friends/Quakers around the world:

02 March 2014
To all Friends, a statement on Ukraine

Source.
A statement from Moscow Friends Meeting to all Quakers everywhere:

To all Friends:

Moscow Monthly Meeting of Friends asks you, dear Friends, to pray and work with us for peace in Ukraine. We propose the following principles to guide our prayers and our advocacy:
For government based on compassion instead of coercion, free from international interference.
For reconciliation among all the people of Ukraine regardless of ethnicity.
For all the different ethnic groups of Ukraine to be able to express their hopes and expectations freely.
For all controversies to be resolved without violence.
Moscow Friends will continue to follow the situation closely and prayerfully. Please join us.

Johan Maurer and Misha Roshchin
Moscow Monthly Meeting of Friends

Surely they want what we all would want for all the people of the world. War has never yet worked in the history of humans. Will we ever learn? "The people of the world must decide their fate, they need to stick together or disintegrate."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Stu
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 11:10 AM

Globalisation has made it impossible to deal with invasions like this as the markets get upset when trade is threatened. Look at how our governments abandoned Tibet and human rights in China in favour of trade, ignore slavery worldwide etc.

The Russians will keep Crimea because there's fuck all we can do about it, and market forces don't care about people.

It's all about the money, money, money . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 11:14 AM

The proper way for any nation to militarily intervene in the offairs of another nation, regardless of their interests or firepower, is through the UN (That of course may differ in times of war, where the outside nation is directly attacked by another nation).

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 11:26 AM

This is what WSJ columnist Bret Stephens suggests as a policy option for the US:

""In Russia," the historian Dietrich Geyer once wrote, "expansion was an expression of economic weakness, not exuberant strength." Mr. Putin's Russia is a petro-oligarchy whose survival depends on high oil prices and privileged access to the West for the politically connected elite. Raise interest rates, investigate the finances of Mr. Putin's inner circle, impose travel bans on Putin's cronies and broaden the scope of the Magnitsky Act, and we'll see just how resilient the Moscow regime really is. Only a president as inept as Barack Obama could fail to seize the opportunity to win, or even wage, the new Cold War all over again."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:10 PM

"Only a president as inept as Barack Obama could fail to seize the opportunity to win, or even wage, the new Cold War all over again."

Why would Obama - or anyone at all - want to wage the cold war all over again?
Diplomatically managing conflict situations is not, as a handful of psychopaths would like the people of the world to believe, a sign of weakness, but of sanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:24 PM

wage the new Cold War all over again."

Yup. Worked SOOOO well the last time around. Some idiots never learn.

But what one would expect from the Stephens - neo-conservative mouthpiece & editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post {a legal partner of the WSJ) from 2002 to 2004- and BooBad.

So let's go back to the days when men were men, and fight the First World War all over again
Back with Barry, back to "cash and carry", back with Barry's--

"And remember, 'I'm an American first, and a politician second'. . . Spoken like a true American politician"

Back with Barry, not with Lyndon, Ike or Harry, back with Barry's boys.

Russia is a petro-oligarchy

Unlike the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sawzaw
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:40 PM

"The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to. It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries. His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:54 PM

CS: "Diplomatically managing conflict situations is not, as a handful of psychopaths would like the people of the world to believe, a sign of weakness, but of sanity."

Leave me and my homeland out of it!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 01:03 PM

"Leave me and my homeland out of it!"
If only we could !! - tell the fellers who are still transporting 'rendition' victims though our local airport (west of Ireland)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 01:08 PM

Huh?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 02:23 PM

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ireland-told-atone-for-helping-us-rendition-242719.html

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 03:06 PM

In the meantime I am struggling to repair all the storm damage to my property.
in my opinion, even thugh the soviet regime had many faults they were all better off under the soviet union, and the only positive i can think of is, thank god all these idiotson both sides dont have nuclear weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 03:09 PM

"Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:54 PM
CS: "Diplomatically managing conflict situations is not, as a handful of psychopaths would like the people of the world to believe, a sign of weakness, but of sanity."
Leave me and my homeland out of it!
GfS"

Heh! Thanks for the laugh GfS ;-P

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 03:41 PM

How was the reaction and success of the Bush-Cheney approach in the Russian military incursion into Georgia much different from Obama?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 04:49 PM

Ah, Jeez, Ed- why are you introducing facts into the discussion???

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 05:30 PM

Welcome...anytime!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 07:23 PM

Induct Ukraine as NATO member, now

By Tarek Fata, Toronto Sun

First posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 06:34 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 06:41 PM EST
   
The first shots in the Ukrainian crisis have been fired.

Fired in the air by invading Russian troops in Crimea, to warn Ukrainian soldiers to back off, but shots nonetheless in what may well become a modern version of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Except this time, chances are it will be the American eagle that blinks, not the Russian bear.

As I wrote last week, the new, changed borders of Europe are a fait accompli.

Just as NATO sliced Kosovo out of Serbia to provide a homeland for Muslim Kosovars, the Russians have invoked the same principle to carve out Crimea from Ukraine's underbelly, ostensibly to save the region's ethnic Russian majority from "extremists" that have supposedly taken over in Kiev.

All of this could have been avoided had America shown some resolve in 2008 and accepted Ukraine's application to join NATO.

Unfortunately, the man who now leads NATO and the West is not John F. Kennedy, who eyeballed Russia into retreating from Cuba.

To put this crisis in perspective, it's important to look at the timeline in Ukraine.

On Oct. 21, 2013, NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen announced that Ukraine, which had been lobbying to become a NATO member for years, and had been rejected in 2008, would not join NATO in 2014.

A month later, on Nov. 21, 2013, the pro-Russian Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych unexpectedly announced he was abandoning plans to sign a long-awaited trade deal with the European Union.

This came as a shock to many in Ukraine and by December, Yanukovych's arbitrary actions triggered widespread protests, led by a most unlikely of Ukrainians—a dark-skinned, Kabul-born investigative journalist, Mustafa Nayyem.

(So much for Russian propaganda that the Kiev uprising was some sort of a White supremacist fascist putsch).

Nayyem used social media to rally students and others to protest.

Soon, tens of thousands of ordinary people joined him and his call for a European option for Ukraine.

(By the way, the "Maidan" where Nayyem's youth gathered, is a Turkish, Arabic, Persian word for a public square, that is used as far away as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and as near as Poland and Ukraine).

The question now before the EU and NATO is less about getting Russian troops out of Crimea than it is ensuring the rest of Ukraine is not sliced into two parts, with Moscow gobbling up the industrial east, with all its mineral resources, leaving a truncated and economically devastated western Ukraine in the lap of the EU to rescue and revive.

There is way to stop Vladimir Putin's imperial designs, but to accomplish it all of us, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will have to develop stiffer spines and a dose of courage.

Instead of the endless rhetorical condemnations and cliché-ridden utterances, what western governments have to do right now is this:

1. Immediately induct Ukraine as a full member of NATO and call Moscow's bluff, the way JFK did in 1962.

2. Through back channels, let Putin know he can keep Crimea, but any encroachment on the rest of Ukraine will be considered an attack on the other member states of NATO.

The choice is Obama's.

Stand up for Ukraine and be counted. Or, forever become the laughing stock of the world, from the Boko Haram of Nigeria and the Taliban of Afghanistan, to the over-dressed communist generals who run North Korea, to Putin's biker gangs of Moscow.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 08:39 PM

In Sunday's New York Times, Peter Baker reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had tried talking some sense into Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has an affinity for the Germans and Merkel especially: He served in the KGB in East Germany, where Merkel grew up. And yet, nothing:

    Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. "In another world," she said.

If you weren't sure of the veracity of that little reportorial nugget, all doubt should've vanished after Putin's press conference today.

Slouching in a fancy chair in front of a dozen reporters, Putin squirmed and rambled. And rambled and rambled. He was a rainbow of emotion: Serious! angry! bemused! flustered! confused! So confused. Victor Yanukovich is still the acting president of Ukraine, but he can't talk to Ukraine because Ukraine has no president. Ukraine needs elections, but you can't have elections because there is already a president. And no elections will be valid given that there is terrorism in the streets of Ukraine. And how are you going to let just anyone run for president? What if some nationalist punk just pops out like a jack-in-the-box? An anti-Semite? Look at how peaceful the Crimea is, probably thanks to those guys with guns holding it down. Who are they, by the way? Speaking of instability, did you know that the mayor of Dniepropetrovsk is a thief? He cheated "our oligarch, [Chelsea owner Roman] Abramovich" of millions. Just pocketed them! Yanukovich has no political future, I've told him that. He didn't fulfill his obligations as leader of the country. I've told him that. Mr. Putin, what mistakes did Yanukovich make as president? You know, I can't answer that. Not because I don't know the answer, but because it just wouldn't be right of me to say. Did you know they burned someone alive in Kiev? Just like that? Is that what you call a manifestation of democracy? Mr. Putin, what about the snipers in Kiev who were firing on civilians? Who gave them orders to shoot? Those were provocateurs. Didn't you read the reports? They were open source reports. So I don't know what happened there. It's unclear. But did you see the bullets piercing the shields of the Berkut [special police]. That was obvious. As for who gave the order to shoot, I don't know. Yanukovich didn't give that order. He told me. I only know what Yanukovich told me. And I told him, don't do it. You'll bring chaos to your city. And he did it, and they toppled him. Look at that bacchanalia. The American political technologists they did their work well. And this isn't the first time they've done this in Ukraine, no. Sometimes, I get the feeling that these people...these people in America. They are sitting there, in their laboratory, and doing experiments, like on rats. You're not listening to me. I've already said, that yesterday, I met with three colleagues. Colleagues, you're not listening. It's not that Yanukovich said he's not going to sign the agreement with Europe. What he said was that, based on the content of the agreement, having examined it, he did not like it. We have problems. We have a lot of problems in Russia. But they're not as bad as in Ukraine. The Secretary of State. Well. The Secretary of State is not the ultimate authority, is he?

And so on, for about an hour. And much of that, by the way, is direct quotes.

Gone was the old Putin, the one who loves these kinds of press events. He'd come a long way from the painfully awkward gray FSB officer on Larry King, a year into his tenure. He had grown to become the master of public speaking, who had turned his churlish, prison-inflected slang to his benefit. A salty guy in utter command of a crowd. That Putin was not the Putin we saw today. Today's Putin was nervous, angry, cornered, and paranoid, periodically illuminated by flashes of his own righteousness. Here was an authoritarian dancing uncomfortably in his new dictator shoes, squirming in his throne.

For the last few years, it has become something like conventional knowledge in Moscow journalistic circles that Putin was no longer getting good information, that he was surrounded by yes-men who created for him a parallel informational universe. "They're beginning to believe their own propaganda," Gleb Pavlovsky told me when I was in Moscow in December. Pavlovsky had been a close advisor to the early Putin, helping him win his first presidential election in 2000. (When, in 2011, Putin decided to return for a third term as president, Pavlovsky declared the old Putin dead.) And still, it wasn't fully vetted information. We were like astronomers, studying refractions of light that reached us from great distances, and used them to draw our conclusions.

Today's performance, though, put all that speculation to rest. Merkel was absolutely right: Putin has lost it. Unfortunately, it makes him that much harder to deal with.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,rb
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 11:01 PM

Canada should send the HMCS Protecteur to the Black Sea, after she gets towed to Hawaii by the US Navy for repairs.
Maybe re-christen her "HMCS Provocateur" with a bottle of Molson Ex.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 02:26 AM

You'd think before it got blown out of proportion, into joining 'alliances', which would escalate bloodshed, and bad P.R., you'd think the countries involved, (ooops I meant banks), would send their slickest negotiators to hammer out a deal..all leveraging everything they could, and sell out each other, and the citizens, who think it's about their countries....and work a deal.
That's what it's going to boil down to, anyway.......unless some bankster is 'in' with weapons manufacturer....then there is money to be made, selling ideologies and weapons..and hope they use up a LOT of them!!!.....they'd have to wage an intense propaganda campaign, to make sure both sides REALLY HATE each other REAL GOOD.....(and use up more ammo and stuff, for sale)
OH, by the way, do you remember me telling you that the five countries on the U.N. Security Council, are also the world largest weapons suppliers??...Briton, France, U.S., China and Russia......
So if it's all about fighting over money, and/or the way it is
'handled'.....
...so I guess that might in the bargaining....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 03:21 AM

Thanks for the link to the Irish Examiner Guest - do you notice that it's times like this that our Transatlantic cousins impose a vow of silence on such information; just as when it is pointed out that the Ukraine is heavy into extremist Antisemitic nationalism and the bunch that have taken over are among the worst?
This in no way excuses Russia's behaviour - even though they are on the side of the angels nowadays - but it does put things into perspective somewhat.
The risk now is that the world will end up with another former Yugoslavia - assisted by the West's support this time.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 04:52 AM

It is hard to test the veracity of any data when the puppet meisters on both sides manipulate even the shadows.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 07:39 AM

Obama: "Let me be clear"

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 08:47 AM

I suspect NATO announcing it was considering having Ukraine as member was a major tuning point for Russia's worries about it's security related to this country- which was likely a major factor contributing to the "chain of" current events. Having a "western-military-allied" nation on your doorstep surely must have concerned Russia. Was it not a similar situation that what got the USAs attention n the 60s in Cuba? Remember the Cuba blockaid standoff and"the Bay of Pigs" incident.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 09:01 AM

Good Soldier Schweik: in my opinion, even thugh the soviet regime had many faults they were all better off under the soviet union

I think you'd be surprised how few people in FSU countries would agree with you these days!

I've spent at least 3 months a year working in Russia for the last 2 years,and will again this year. I speak passable but not yet good Russian. I'm just back from Sakhalin, Moscow and Khabarovsk. My daughter works full-time as a journalist for a Russian news organisation in Moscow. My wife is of Estonian extraction. As well as Russia I've recently worked in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

I have local friends in these places....I make a big point of NOT getting very involved with expat "communities" when I work abroad, and try to cultivate local friendships. My best friends in Sakhalin are a charcoal burner, a lawyer and a teacher. And an FSB colonel, but we'll keep quiet about that :-). I know literally NO-ONE in any of the FSU or former east bloc countries I've visited who believes they were better off in the USSR. I *hear* about a few people who are nostalgic for a time when the USSR was seen as "the other big power" but I don't know any personally.

Last time I was in St Petersburg, the queue for the "Mashrutka" (fixed-route minibuses) was huge and moving slowly, and a young lad in the queue said something like "bloody hell, this is slow...it's even worse than in Soviet times". At that point a whole slew of older people in the queue (Russians aren't backward at criticising people in public!) rounded on this guy, telling him in strong terms that he had NO idea what he was talking about,and that it he did, he wouldn't dare to even think such garbage. These were ordinary workers.

There are no queues for basics like bread now, and the vast majority get enough to eat. When I studied in Poland in the summer of 1974, at Mikolai Kopernik University in Torun, the first Polish word I learned was "niema" ("there isn't any"). It was the standard answer to most questions about food or goods. As students (I was the only non-Pole on the course)we were relatively privileged and got more stuff than the general populace, but it was still pitifully limited.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 09:01 AM

A look back-Turkey, the Black sea and NATO 
A look back to 1998 to put some related aspects of today into perspective.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 09:23 AM

Another perspective, right or wrong 
What the Russians are saying:

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 09:30 AM

Rather than seek military aliances adjacent to superpowers, which contributes to distrust and counter measures- would it not make more sense to try and make these countries neutral, to creat a buffer zone? This would avoid making these super powers feel thatvthey are being "cornered". We all know the reaction of an animal who feels cornered.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 09:58 AM

Ed T: I think the comment he made that the "police state in the USA is worse than it ever was in the Soviet Union" gives an insight into the amount of credence that can be put on his comments.

I've said myself in the past that I've found some aspects of US society to be "akin to a police state"....the treatment meted out to a Norwegian colleague who didn't understand about "baggage tag matching" at LA airport was shocking, and some of the encounters I've had with immigration authorities have been horrible ( I have a namesake born in the same year as me who was convicted of arms smuggling in UK and EVERY time I enter the US I spend 3-4 hours in isolation, on top of the immigration queue time, while they check me out). I've witnessed other worrying incidents, too.

However, to compare it to the repression in the Soviet Union is just a total disconnect from reality. Many of my wife's family in Estonia were murdered by Stalin....just herded into railcars and shipped east without food or water. The reason for most of them going was that they lived on the island of Saaremaa which was wanted for a naval base and they were simply in the way. Very few came back. I pass the remains of 2 huge gulags whenever I go to the countryside with my local friends in Sakhalin. That's just 2 of literally dozens on the island. And how many Americans risk being shot in the back fleeing from the USA to Canada, as happened to hundreds, possibly thousands, of East Germans? I think the guy's sitting under a tinfoil hat!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:25 AM

Good post Rob. As someone who had family living under Soviet rule I can vouch for your description of life under this brutal dictatorship. What I find incredulous is that there are still some who cling to their romantic notion of communism - there was nothing good about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:29 AM

Rob Naylor,
By posting the link, my intent was not to validate the Russian perspective presented in the article. It was more to enable folks to consider the entire picture from all viewpoints, and from the information made available to citizens from the various nations involved.

A difficulty people often have, when trying tobunderstand the actions/behaviour of other states - as they are looming at them through the lenses of their own countries/cultures/national interests.IMO, one does not have to agree with this perspective, to factor it in.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:30 AM

Jim Carroll: do you notice that it's times like this that our Transatlantic cousins impose a vow of silence on such information; just as when it is pointed out that the Ukraine is heavy into extremist Antisemitic nationalism and the bunch that have taken over are among the worst?

Well, no, we've seen these accusations that the people who deposed Yanukovych were fascist anti-semites all over the place in the last couple of weeks. There's no "vow of silence" on that. Some of them undoubtedly are, but as I said above, the surprising thing to those I know who were in Ukraine recently was just how broad-brush the demonstrators were, comprising all political streams from far-right to far-left, plus a lot of people who are normally apolitical.

There was very little looting of stores, or damage to buildings other than government locations. The "bunch who have taken over" are largely the same people that were in government previously. The interim President is a former Prime Minister and former Head of Security. The interim Prime Minister was previously offered the role of Prime Minister by the ousted Yanukovych but turned it down. Most of the current cabinet have served in government before, several of them under Yanukovych. There are a couple of representatives of the Far Right: Yarosh, Deputy Head of Security, for example, who is the head of "Right Sektor" which is undoubtedly right wing.

But the cariacaturing of the new government as purely fascist anti-semites, and the stories of terrorism, chaos and lack of control is largely Russian propaganda designed to make the people of the Crimea and parts of east Ukraine fearful.

The "stream of refugees pouting into Poland" shown on RT was, according to my Russian teacher who hails from the Ukraine/ Polish border area, no more than the normal weekend border queues for shopping in Poland. And where are the "675,000 refugees" which RT says crossed into Russia from eastern Ukraine in February? That number would have required camps, resources, humanitarian aid etc on a huge scale.

It's one thing to be skeptical of US motives (I certainly am) but it's another to swallow wholesale Russian propaganda. FFS, the people I live among and work with in Russia don't even believe most of what Putin says!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:34 AM

When I stated "considerc the entire picture from all viewpoints", it refers to Ukraine, the OP discussion, not the downside versus upside (if one exists) of communism.That would be another issue, possibly warranting another thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:43 AM

Curious, Rob Naylor, since you seemvto have direct knowledge.

Would you say that Russia is still a communist state? If so, how isvit different from the pure communist state it used to be ((if different at all). Do people now have accessto information as other do in tge West. Or, is "the state"still the main infirmation source versus the "free press" (recognizing there are limits to what that constitutes everywhere).

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:45 AM

Excuse my sloppy keyboarding.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 12:22 PM

Would anybody seriously suggest that the USSR was ever a Communist state? True enough the people in charge were called a Communist Party, but then the same is true of China today.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 02:18 PM

Seems like Bobad did a couple of posts back MoH. It's one reason why I asked the question in the fashion I did.

To be clear, do you mean "true, by-the-book communism" MoH or do you mean forming a state government under some of the ideas of communism or using the name itself in describing the state?

Possibly no government has been actually "true to" the rigid concepts of forms of government, including democracy, communism, socialism etc

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 02:19 PM

exactly mc grath, it was not a communist state.
there were many terrible things about the soviet union,ALTHOUGH THE WORST PERIOD WAS UNDER STALIN, there were some good things too, there are now some terrible things about Russia.
its just the bad and good things are different, Whilst the soviet union existed many problems were suppressed now, a pandoras box has been opened.just for the record the soviet union was not the only place where people disappeared it happened?happens in china, chile, zimbabwe and even some other capitalist states like nazi germany, to mention a few.
russia is now governed by gangsters.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 02:45 PM

"But the cariacaturing of the new government as purely fascist anti-semites"
I didn't say that the new government was anything of the sort, and I dn't believe it is I was merely pointing out that the Fascist Anti-Semites are taking a major part in what is going on at present.
Much of what has been going on is nationalist-driven
This is the feller who has declared war against Jews in the Ukraine
http://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right
Your woman with the funny haircut that's just been released from jail is an extreme nationalist.
None of this is conclusive but from the blanket support they are being given it appears we haven't learned too much from from what happened in Yugoslavia.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 03:33 PM

Any regime that installs a fascist or near-fascist as Deputy Head of Security is pretty suspect. In a confused revolutionary or post-revolutionary situation an organised and determined minority can wield decisive influence. As Lenin demonstrated.

My impression from the only Russians I know is that most people believe that Putin is a great improvement on the Yeltsin years, and that it's a shame that Gorbachev wasn't given a chance to carry through his reforms, and wasn't a bit more like Putin in order to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 04:13 PM

"It never seemed to hurt the Vikings, invading Ireland, and elsewhere:)"

None of which could be described as neighbours, which may be why they chose them rather than the rest of modern day Scandinavia.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 04:17 PM

I rather think they might have done that too.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 06:50 PM

The Vikings, not neighbourly?

First I've heard of it!

I knew they were horny, as I have seen pictures of them in those hats.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 08:29 PM

For its part, the United States has strongly come down on the side of the opposition, regardless of its political character. In early December, members of the US ruling establishment such as John McCain and Victoria Nuland were seen at Maidan lending their support to the protesters. However, as the character of the opposition has become apparent in recent days, the US and Western ruling class and its media machine have done little to condemn the fascist upsurge. Instead, their representatives have met with representatives of Right Sector and deemed them to be "no threat." In other words, the US and its allies have given their tacit approval for the continuation and proliferation of the violence in the name of their ultimate goal: regime change.

In an attempt to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence, the US-EU-NATO alliance has, not for the first time, allied itself with fascists. Of course, for decades, millions in Latin America were disappeared or murdered by fascist paramilitary forces armed and supported by the United States. The mujahideen of Afghanistan, which later transmogrified into Al Qaeda, also extreme ideological reactionaries, were created and financed by the United States for the purposes of destabilizing Russia. And of course, there is the painful reality of Libya and, most recently Syria, where the United States and its allies finance and support extremist jihadis against a government that has refused to align with the US and Israel. There is a disturbing pattern here that has never been lost on keen political observers: the United States always makes common cause with right wing extremists and fascists for geopolitical gain.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-and-the-rebirth-of-fascism-in-europe/5366852

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Ed T
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 06:58 AM

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves". - William Pitt, 1783

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 08:09 AM

Our local paper carriers an article explaining the fate of two Irish people living in Crimea who are separated and, due to the divisions there, are on opposing sides
It is entitled 'The Two Sides to the Crimean Situation', which is misleading - there are numerous sides to the present dispute.
You have the supporters of the overthrown government and of the rebels.
Russia, however heavy-handed it is being, has a large number of Russian people living there.
Should the situation lead to war the United Nations will be put into a situation of having to consider intervention.
Due to the prominent presence of ultra-nationalists, everyone not of Ukrainian (whatever that means) origin is under threat.
The area has an extremely confusing turbulent history; it only became 'The Ukrainian People's Republic' following the Russian Revolution and later, following further hostilities, became the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic' in 1922.   
If nationalism gets any sort of a toe-hold it could lead to a bloodbath comparable with the Serbo-Croat one.
It is totally irresponsible politicking for any country to support one side at this stage,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 08:47 AM

Crimean parliament are taking the matter of Crimean independence from the Ukraine to a public referendum on the 16th of this month.
Meanwhile the current unelected government in Kiev declare any such public vote to be 'unconstitutional.'

There has been some fast negotiating going on behind the scenes in Crimea. Either that or the US-backed coup in KIev was predicted and Putin already had his political moves ready to put into play in Crimea when it happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 10:35 PM

Am I only the one cynical enough to wonder why this whole issue waited until the Olympics were history!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,whatever
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 10:52 PM

the Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, March 07- 14
45 Nations.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 03:18 AM

"For its part, the United States has strongly come down on the side of the opposition" oh dear, how many times has the us done that before with unfortunate consequences

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 11:34 AM

"Putin is like the bored kid in the back of the classroom slouching in his chair and not paying attention"

"This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility." Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir"

"I think they sit there across the pond in the U.S., sometimes it seems … like they're in a lab and they're running all sorts of experiments on the rats without understanding consequences of what they're doing, why would they do that? Nobody can explain."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 02:55 PM

Putin walks like a gun-slinger,

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 03:50 PM

The Ukraine say good-bye to Crimea.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 04:37 PM

While the route is unfortunate, andvtge fall-out long-lasting, there seems to be only one course-separation.cIt is best to have it done, rather than have it linger and fester.

That in itself, is nof the end of the world. In fact, it may allow both segments to focus on finding their future course, without the added turmoil of two Nations (artificially being brought together from outside), within one Nation

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Songwronger
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 09:14 PM

The fascist danger in Ukraine

A politically sinister propaganda offensive is underway in the media to either deny the involvement of fascists in the US-backed coup in Ukraine or present their role as a marginal and insignificant detail.

The New York Times, for example, asserted, "Putin's claim of an immediate threat to Ukrainian Russians is empty," while Britain's Guardian dismissed as a "fancy" claims that events in Crimea were an attempt to "prevent attacks by bands of revolutionary fascists," adding that "the world's media has [not] yet seen or heard from" such forces.

This is an obscene cover-up.

The reality is that, for the first time since 1945, an avowedly anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi party controls key levers of state power in a European capital, courtesy of US and European imperialism. The unelected Ukrainian government, headed by US appointee Arseniy Yatsenyuk, includes no fewer than six ministers from the fascist Svoboda party....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/06/pers-m06.html

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 08:03 AM

To shout "Foul cwaven" must be in order!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 03:08 PM

The Poisoning of Ukraine's President

One year later, the exact cause of Viktor Yushchenko's disfigurement is pinpointed

"The dioxin found in Yushchenko's blood—pure 2,3,7,8-TCDD—is "the most potent of all the dioxins," said Daniel Hryhorczuk, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois. "I doubt someone could have been sophisticated enough to give a dose in the range where you'd be guaranteed to maim and not kill," added Hryhorczuk, implying that the intent was most likely Yushchenko's death, not disfigurement. Hryhorczuk said the dioxin was probably not a homegrown concoction made in Ukraine, but rather, the work of a foreign laboratory. "To make a compound this pure requires a lot of sophistication."

The early suspect: Russian intelligence. After all, it is no secret that Yushchenko, a pro-Western reformer, was not the Kremlin's preferred candidate in 2004. Moreover, Russia's KGB has a long history of failed assassination attempts of political figures, stretching as far back as the time of Rasputin, Tsarina Alexsandra's mystic who was nearly poisoned in 1916 by pastries laced with cyanide.

During the 69 years of Soviet rule, the KGB took poison assassination plots to a new level of sophistication. In 1957, for instance, a Soviet agent assassinated Ukrainian émigré leader Lev Rebet in Munich using a cyanide gas pistol. In 1978, a Bulgarian agent at a London bus stop used an umbrella loaded with ricin pellets to inject a Soviet defector with poison. But dioxin poisoning is un-chartered territory, even for Russian spooks.

If this poisoning was an attempt on Yushchenko's life, why did the assailant not use a stronger substance like strychnine? After all, dioxin is not commonly used as a tool for assassination and the substance can be detected in the blood for years after initial contact. "

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_poisoning_of_ukraines_president/

Ukraine under Russian Rule

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 07:50 PM

Convicted because she made a deal with Vladimir Putin when he stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in the winter of 2009

Why isn't Putin equally guilty?

Yulia Tymoshenko's miraculous release at the weekend was from a seven-year prison sentence imposed for a non-existent crime. The former Ukrainian prime minister had done nothing wrong: the police, prosecutors and jurists who fabricated her offense were subservient to a state that wanted her eliminated. Whether or not Tymoshenko becomes president of her embattled country, Europe needs to find a way to deal with officials who are complicit in human rights abuses.

Tymoshenko was accused of abuse of office, because she made a deal with Vladimir Putin when he stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in the winter of 2009. This threatened a humanitarian disaster unless Ukraine agreed to pay a higher price for Russian gas. Under pressure from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and with her people dying from hypothermia, Tymoshenko gave in to Putin's demands. Some criticised her for not holding out for longer, and she narrowly lost the presidential election a few months later to Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych appointed his crony Viktor Pshonka as prosecutor general, who set his deputy, Renat Kuzmin, to destroy Tymoshenko. This was easy in a former Soviet state that had embraced democracy but had not reformed the justice system, in which all-powerful prosecutors control the judges. Ukraine has "P-plate judges" provisionally appointed for five years with tenure confirmed only if their decisions have not upset the regime. This system has produced a conviction rate in Ukraine courts of 99.8% – an impossible statistic for any democratic country.

To convict at Tymoshenko's trial, the judge brutally refused her bail and did nothing to discourage televised proclamations of her guilt by Yanukovych and his top prosecutors. But even this judge could not invent evidence – because there was none – that she had acted in the gas deal for personal gain, or with any trace of fraud or dishonesty.

Her actions, taken to avoid a humanitarian disaster, cannot rationally be regarded as a crime. But for making what her enemies called a "bad deal", she was jailed.

This travesty of justice was accompanied by similarly rigged prosecutions of her ministers. The Council of Europe turned a blind eye to the outrages. The European court of human rights upheld Tymoshenko's initial complaints, but its slow processes and indulgence of the Ukraine government's delaying tactics prevented it from giving her any meaningful relief.

This failure underlines the need for EU member states to adopt a "Magnitsky Law", which names and shames officials– especially judges, prosecutors and police chiefs – who are complicit in abuses. Sergei Magnitsky blew the whistle on state corruption in Russia and was killed in prison: the US, to Putin's fury, last year adopted a law that denied entry and banking services to 16 of his tormentors, including judges who had denied him bail.

London has become a favourite destination of violent and corrupt officials and oligarchs. But when five former secretaries of state for foreign affairs called last year on the minister for Europe, David Lidington, to support a Magnitsky law, his ignorant response was that it was "unlikely to contribute to achieving justice". Tell that to Tymoshenko.

Her vicious prosecutor, Pshonka, was the first to be indicted by Ukraine's parliament on Sunday, followed by the defense minister accused of ordering the shooting of protesters. There will likely be more charges against Yanukovych and his cronies if the opposition triumphs in the May elections. Can they be fairly tried in Ukraine, before their own judicial tools?

The greatest challenge to any new government will be to establish an independent judiciary. It may be better for it to invite European (including Russian) judges to sit on the trials of Yanukovych's corrupt apparatchiks, and to ask the international criminal court to try those accused of ordering the lethal force used against peaceful protesters – a crime against humanity.

Tymoshenko, whatever her faults in failing to capitalize on the Orange revolution, is a remarkable and courageous figure. After 30 months in prison for a crime that was not a crime, her greatest challenge will be to reform the justice system so this cannot happen again – even to those who put her behind bars.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:36 AM

Putin`s Ministry of Truth

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: pdq
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:43 PM

In recent years, Ukraine has had the second highest death rate in the World, exceeded only by South Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:49 PM

Source?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:11 PM

pdq must be looking at some of songwronger's sources.

Ukraine ranks 14 or 18, depending on whether you use OECD or CIA Factbook. Use google to see list.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: pdq
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:25 PM

Countries with the Highest Death Rates

view as: list / map
▲        Country        deaths per 1,000 population
1.      South Africa 17.36
2.        Ukraine 15.75
3.        Lesotho 15.02
4.        Chad    14.85
5.        Guinea-Bissau 14.77
6.        Central African Republic 14.42
7.        Afghanistan 14.35
8.        Bulgaria 14.31
9.        Somalia 14.22
10.        Russia 13.97

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 08:14 PM

"All a mess. And a very scary mess. I was watching a TV programme about the Great War, and how a seemingly peripheral terrorist assassination built up over a few weeks into an unstoppable rush into total war. And then turned over to the news..."

I think you are looking at the wrong war.

Think rather of the Sudetenland and its annexation at the point of a gun "to protect German speaking citizens", which escalated into the conquest of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis.

A much closer parallel to Putin's referendum at gunpoint. Who's going to argue with a bunch of masked men with Kalashnikovs?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:02 PM

Ed T: Curious, Rob Naylor, since you seemvto have direct knowledge.

Would you say that Russia is still a communist state? If so, how is it different from the pure communist state it used to be ((if different at all). Do people now have accessto information as other do in tge West. Or, is "the state"still the main infirmation source versus the "free press" (recognizing there are limits to what that constitutes everywhere).

Not been on Mudcat for a while as I was on vacation, climbing in the mountains, then in Moscow. Now I'm back on Sakhalin.

I'm not going to argue about whether the USSR was ever a "pure communist state". It's telling that over the years many people who have enthusiastically supported communism and in turn various communist states, whether run by Mao, Stalin or lesser figures, turn to the "well it was never really a proper communist state anyway" excuse once the failures, atrocities etc come to light.

However, having spent a considerable time in Poland in the 1970s when it was still in the Warsaw Pact, less but significant time in East Germany around the same time, and then a fair bit of time in the USSR (specifically Estonian SSR) in the early 80s, there's just no comparison.

In Estonia in the early 80s our rooms were definitely bugged. As independent visitors (ie not travelling as part of a controlled group) we were followed, not always very discreetly, everywhere we went and locals, both ethnic Russians and Estonians, were quite wary of speaking to us, and certainly wouldn't discuss political issues or even think of commenting negatively on their governments or leaders. Estonians could get (and understand) Finnish TV but it was often jammed.

As a foreign student in Torun, Poland, in 1974, I could access the "Foreign Club" which had English papers...but ONLY the "Morning Star" and "Socialist Worker"! (essentially organs of the Communist Party of GB and Socialist Worker's Party at the time).

Now, there's just no comparison. There's free access to the internet here (Russia, where I am now) and foreign papers and magazines freely available everywhere. Whilst most of the press is controlled to a greater or lesser extent, there ARE non-government-controlled publications, though their staff do sometimes suffer levels of intimidation...indeed, some have died in mysterious circumstances.

You can argue that the place is essentially run by gangsters....but then it was to as the USSR, too!....Putin and many of his cronies came up through the old USSR system, KGB etc. From what I hear, conditions in jails etc, while still appalling by European standards, are nowhere near as bad as they were under the USSR.

I can now have political discussions with my local friends and acquaintances, and these seem to be very free, with people criticising their government frequently. Local friends here are appalled at some of Putin's rhetoric on Ukraine, and are happy to say so. Discussions can get quite heated when pro and anti people get together!

Not sure how much it was reported in the foreign press (it was reported in the state media here as a small demo of a couple of thousand people!), but there was a huge peace demo in Moscow last week....at least 50,000 people, carrying alternating Ukrainian and Russian flags, with signs saying that Russia should leave Ukraine alone and one that I have a photograph of saying (in Russian): "Putin: he stole Russia and now he wants to steal Ukraine too".

I went for a walk round Victory Park in Moscow on Saturday and the statue representing the Ukrainian soldier was covered in red roses.

Either of those things would have been totally inconceiveable under the USSR.

One thing that is slow to change though is people being unwilling to take responsibility or to "go outside the box" to get things done. Everything has to be done strictly by the rulebook here, no matter how inconvenient it makes things. For example, one project I'm working on now is completely stalled waiting for visa applications to be allowed. It's going to have a knock-on effect onto a whole gas project (which is Russia's main source of foreign income) which will be held up for weeks or months and will cost the Russian economy hundreds of millions of dollars. But the local Visa Dept isn't accepting work visa applications because the forms have been changed and they don't have a supply of the new forms yet. No-one there is in the least interested in getting forms couriered here from Moscow, or sending images for local printing or whatever....they'll "come when they come" and until then the project's stalled as we can't get the required engineers in. No-one gives a damn...very similar to USSR days when "the government pretends to pay us so we pretend to work".

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:47 PM

Excellent chronicles and pov's here.

But on the bright side, Russia is willing to let Ukraine keep Chernobyl.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 01:10 AM

Just got out of a meeting with a fairly high-powered General Director of a local company we work with. Talking generally over a coffee after we'd finished business talk I asked him how the sanctions were biting. He gave a great guffaw and said: "the only thing the top people are worried about is why they AREN'T on the list!" It's a status symbol andif you're not on the list it means you're not "elite" enough!

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 11:20 AM

From: pdq - PM
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:25 PM
Countries with the Highest Death Rates

Still no source given, PeeDee- unless the source is your own imagination?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 12:03 PM

The US has nothing useful to say about Ukraine or Crimea. Many of the Svoboda Party in the Ukraine have actual Nazi ties. They are reactionary radicals, very much like the US House of Representatives, supported by the likes of McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Putin might be a little dictator but the US, by building up it's missile base in NATO has put him on the defensive so is a co-contributor to his authoritarianism. The cold war has been re-ignited by the radical reactionaries in America.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 01:09 PM

I quoted figures from the OECD and the CIA Factbook.
pdq gave figures but no documentation.
Lesotho
Afghanistan
Swaziland
DR Congo
Guinea-Bissau

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 01:22 PM

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-death-rate.html

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 01:25 PM

Oops! cut off. Ukraine is 14, Russia is 23, USA is 104 and Canada is 130.
Wikipedia; List of sovereign states and dependent territories by mortality rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 02:15 PM

Mitt Romney's apparently got a new gig as a
Stand-Up Comic

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: pdq
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 02:18 PM

OK, here is my source...

http://www.aneki.com/death.html

The CIA has politicised their numbers on many subjects for a long time, and the other sources cited probably use CIA data anyway.

Now can we discuss why Russia's Bread Basket is now near the worst place in the World as far as death rates go? Its farm land is legendary and its produce hase fed other parts of Europe for a very long time. What happened?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 06:05 PM

So tell me, PeeDee- where did this aneki outfit I've never heard of get THEIR numbers since they don't tell us what their "numerous sources" are?

Sounds kinda like Tailgunner Joe documentation to me.?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 07:07 PM

Actually, Ukraine does have a high mortality rate. Very similar to that of Russia, possibly even slightly higher. I wouldn't trust pdq's source for its exact position in a "mortality league table" but it IS much higher than western Europe and similar to nearby areas of Russia and Belarus. Source for this is:

Ukraine: The Social Sectors during Transition
A World Bank Country Study, 2010


There seem to be various reasons:

- a high incidence of smoking/ smoking-related diseases
- a high incidence of high blood pressure
- a very skewed demographic due to wars, famines and Soviet-era purges
- poor pollution controls in the industrialised east of the country
- low birthrate

Since the end of the soviet era there has been a gradual improvement, but the older generations were born and brought up under those conditions and what we are seeing now as those generations die off early is the consequences of the pollution, deprivation etc they lived their earlier decades under. Mortality rates dropped significantly between 1980 and 2010.

This has been compounded since independence by the aspirations of a large proportion of Ukrainians to adopt a western lifestyle (ie fast-food diet, less physical exercise) but without improving very much on the existing healthcare infrastructure.

Yulia Tymoshenko's government started a programme to improve health care in 2009 but this was largely emasculated when Viktor Yanukovych's government came into power in 2010.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 07:54 PM

aneki gives no documentation. reliability?

The Wikipedia entry also gives the CIA Factbook rankings; doesn't agree with aniki either.

Rates for eastern Europe are high in general, but a number of African countries are worse.

Others- Belgium, 60; UK, 82; Germany, 45; Latvia surprisingly high at 18.
(OECD listing)

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 08:12 PM

Just looking at the locals where I am now (Sakhalin) it's fairly obvious that a high percentage of the middle-aged men have some pretty severe alcohol problems. Almost everyone smokes.

I imagine it's similar in Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: bobad
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:09 AM

I would encourage those who are still buying into Russian propaganda re the uprising and slaughter of protesters in the Maidan, to read this article:

Photographs Expose Russian-Trained Killers in Kiev

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:21 AM

Baghdad, Boo-Bad

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Ukie
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 08:18 PM

Well I read through this entire thread and I must tell you that Jim Carroll is right. My grandparents came from Halcyon a (Galicia) and to say that my grandfather hated Russians would be an understatement- with an extreme passion! My grandmother was much more tolerant. She explained that east and west Ukraine were different. West hates Russia and is closer to Polish and east were pretty much Russian. But she also taught me that we are descended from the same people, the Rus, and would have remained one people had it not been for the Mongol Invasion. One people, much more alike than different in a myriad of ways, and different from the West, ruled by the heart.

The Ukie Nazis are a blight on our people. There is no excuse for the western media's blackout on this except that they have a nefarious agenda where our people are concerned and have given these haters a prominent place in the so-called revolution and current regime.

What the Ukie Nazis believe I am intimately familiar with and it smacks of the same sort of revisionist history/mythology that the Germans Nazis once espoused. First off, there must be an all purpose scapegoat. We all know who that is. Ukie Nazis don't hate all Jews, just "Postal Jews." For example, they don't hate benefactor Jewish oligarch Kolmoisky, recently appointed as governor of Dnipetrovsk, notorious for his mafias type business practices.

The Ukie Nazis cry crocodile tears over the Holodomor. The Holodomor never touched their regions. The Holodomor occurred primarily in the east, in the regions that were part of Russia until Lenin gifted them to Ukraine in the 1920's much as Kruschev gifted Crimea in 1954.Stalin, a Georgian, starved those regions for a few different reasons. 1.) Agricultural prowess that could produce exports that could finance his plans for industrialization (to compete with the west who I might had imposed similar hardships on their own "subjects" (Let's not forget the Irish famine). 2.) These were the regions inhabited by the people (many of them Cossacks) who fought against the Bolshevik Revolution. History is rife with examples of retaliation against lovers in a conflict. 3.) They were FARMERS. Land was very important to them. They were ideologically opposed to sharing in the sense that socialism espoused. They were branded "kulaks", counter - revolutionaries who should be forced into collectives or face genocide. I'm not altogether sure that Max or Lenin held farmers to the same standards as factory owners but that neither here nor there. Stalin was a monster. Not even Russian. In any case, none of this transpired in west Ukraine, land of Svoboda. You wouldn't know that to hear them rant about it.

Ukie Nazis are not descendants of Zaphorizian Cossacks in any sense although they have coopted the legacy of these great warriors much as Hitler would have done.

Open for discussion. ..

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST,Ukie
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 08:34 PM

Many errors due to autocorrect on Korean phone. Halychyna not "Halcyon" lol. Not "Postal Jews" but rather "Moskal Jews" lolol. Not "lovers" but losers in a conflict. Damn Korean phone. You must teach it! Marx = Max etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 07:36 AM

Last week, President Petro Poroshenko said Ukrainian security services had discovered that Russia directly orchestrated the killing of anti-government protesters in central Kyiv last February.
Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian President: "The General Prosecutor's Office and Ukraine's Security Services have found a direct link to Russia's part in the shooting of Maidan protesters. Now investigators have access to the records of phone conversations between former President Yanukovych and Russia's Federal Security Service. Together they planned the shootings."
In response, Vladimir Putin said the claims that Russia was involved in the Maidan massacre were baseless.

20 Russian FSB agents suspected of Euromaidan Revolution crimes identified

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 07:50 PM

The Donetsk terrorist gangs are using artillery to execute Russian mercenaries who are owed back pay for several months of "service," reports Liga.net, citing the Russian TV journalist Timur Olevsky.

Terrorists at the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) are executing Russian mercenaries to avoid paying them back wages, the well-know Russian journalist Timur Olevsky, a correspondent for the independent Dozhd TV channel, reported on his Facebook page, February 26.

"In Pisky I saw a strange scene. For four hours the DNR artillery pounded a building near the airport where another DNR unit was located. I even did a news report on it. I could not understand what was happening. And the Ukrainian officers could not understand it. They only said that it happened quite often. First they fired on their own and then they opened fire on them," Olevsky wrote.

Olevsky said the explanation was provided by a journalist who lives in Novosibirsk and who managed to return alive from the Donbas after several months fighting on the side of the DNR terrorists. "He said that this is the way they kill the mercenaries from Russia to avoid paying them the promised wages. They may owe them three months back pay, and before their return they shoot them down with artillery fire if they have managed to survive some useless battle. The Donetsk airport was one of those places. "Written off," Olevsky concluded.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 15 - 08:19 AM

This is an English-language translation of an op-ed by the slain Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, that the Kyiv Post published on Sept. 1, 2014. It is worth reading and re-reading to understand why Vladimir Putin decided to wage war against Ukraine.

One excerpt: "Ukraine became an example of an anti-criminal revolution, which overthrew a thieving president. 'Oh so you dared to get out onto the street and throw off a president?' Ukraine needs to be punished for it to make sure that no Russian would gets these thoughts. Moreover, Ukraine chose the European way, which implies the rule of law, democracy and change of power. Ukraine's success on this way is a direct threat to Putin's power because he chose the opposite course – a lifetime in power, filled with arbitrariness and corruption."


Boris Nemtsov: 'This is Vladimir Putin's war'

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 15 - 09:55 AM

Andrea Chalupa: "Putin always feared, ever since the Orange Revolution, that his pesky neighbor Ukraine would export revolution to Russia. That's why he killed Boris Nemtsov who was devoted to Ukraine and about to release damning evidence of Russia's invasion. Today at the Moscow protest, as thousands marched, a member of Ukraine's parliament was singled out and arrested. The Kremlin repeatedly ignores calls from the International community to free Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, a POW on an 80+ day hunger strike who has become a symbol of resistance. In short, Putin fears Ukraine. He has the second most powerful military in the world, but he's worried about a country with a depleted military; that's the power of being on the right side of history. There's no greater might than the longing for freedom."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 04:36 AM

At least dissidents got a show trial in Stalin's time.
Now they are just gunned down in the street.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 11:41 AM

"Now they are just gunned down in the street."
That's capitalism for you (not that Stalin was a communist by policy)
Interesting to examine Nemstsov's agenda - if Yeltsin hadn't got him, The CIA would've
Jim Carroll

NEMTSOV WAS A CAMPAIGNER AGAINST BANDIT CAPITALISM
CONOR O'CLERY

Neither his looks, his charm nor his integrity could save the 'golden boy' of Russian democracy
In the summer of 1994 Boris Nemtsov was a frequent telephone caller to our house in Washington DC as his 10-year-old daughter Zhanna was staying with us on her way to and from summer camp in Virginia,
A few years before, when I was Moscow correspondent of the Irish Times, Boris Nemtsov had emerged as one of the pere¬stroika generation of reform¬ers.
He began his political activ¬ism in 1988 in a successful campaign to prevent a nuclear power station being built in Gorky, since renamed Nizhny Novgorod.
Aged just 32, he was elected to the Russian Supreme Soviet in 1990 in the dying days of the Soviet Union. After the collapse of communism, President Boris Yeltsin appointed him first governor of Nizhny Novgorod.
He was tall, charming and good-looking, with an integrity and an exuberance for change that made him known as the "golden boy" of the fledging Russian democracy.
Yeltsin put him in charge of the first attempt at dismantling the communist system of state ownership in an orderly fashion. It was a pilot programme involving the privatisation of six state-owned farms in the Nizh¬ny-Novgorod region.
The model for this was constructed by the International Finance Corporation, in Washing¬ton, an off-shoot of the World Bank.
As a consultant on a team under Anthony Doran, manager of IFC's Russia division, which conceived and executed the project, my wife (also called Zhanna) came in contact with Nemtsov (hence his daughter staying with us).
Farm employees
The dining table in our house in the Washington suburb of Bethesda in those days was often strewn with documents translated into Russian on how to create entitlement certificates to give farm employees the purchasing power to buy land and property.
It was a complicated process based on fairness. Land entitlement certificates had to be equal in value but property certificates were calculated according to seniority, and pensioners and service providers had to be accommodated.
Much of the work involved legal terminology and components, and the production of Russian-language manuals.
Russian prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin endorsed the pilot programme and it became the template for privatising business, industry and property throughout Russia.
Nemtsov's achievements as a reformer were recognised by Yeltsin who appointed him a deputy prime minister in 1997. Nemtsov began a campaign against what he called "bandit capitalism". He insisted on top bureaucrats disclosing their incomes and using Russian-made cars.
However the idealistic Nemtsov was unable to prevent the rapid development of a culture of quick profits, corruption and oligarch capitalism.
The voucher system worked out at the IFC was overwhelmed with corrupt auctions. Loans for shares gave for¬mer party officials and bureau¬crats the means to grab enormous parcels of property.
Before stepping down in 1999, Yeltsin spoke of Nemtsov as his successor but in the end nominated former KGB official Vladimir Putin, who could be trusted not to pursue corruption charges against Yeltsin's family circle.
Neither wanted a reformer
Before stepping down in 1999, Yeltsin spoke of Nemtsov as his successor but in the end nominated former KGB official Vladimir Putin, who could be trusted not to pursue corruption charges against Yeltsin's family circle
in the Kremlin who would pursue a vision of a transparent, free and competitive society based on the rule of law. That this happened is Russia's tragedy.
We got Zhanna Nemtsova safely back on the plane to Russia after her stay in the US. Today she is a journalist working in Moscow for RBC-TV.
Conor O'Clery is a former Moscow and Washington correspondent of the Irish Times

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 12:14 PM

Now they are just gunned down in the street.

Kinda like the Black Panthers were.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 12:43 PM

"Kinda like the Black Panthers were"
Don't forget George Jackson (and a bit further afield Archbishop Romero), or Patice Lumumba.
All states and institutions have ways of removing yjjeir 'little problems'

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 01:16 PM

I fail to see what the possible benefit to Mr Putin would be in ordering the murder of a dissident with little public support, right outside his front door.   I just doesn't make sense.

Mr Putin is at the moment, one of the most popular presidents ever in Russia.....he regularly polls over 60% in popularity, why on earth would he involve himself in this?

If Nemtsov had really been a danger to Putin...and most observers say that he was a decade out of date, with no power base, surely he could have been bought off or eliminated without it being done on widescreen TV?

The most likely scenario is that one of his business deals went wrong, simply a gangland hit....another possibility is anti Putin elements setting it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 01:36 PM

"The most likely scenario is that one of his business deals went wrong, simply a gangland hit....another possibility is anti Putin elements setting it up"

Ha, ha, ha.........if you believe that maybe you would be interested in a bridge I have for sale.

Here's another good one from the party line: Moscow police; "Rain washed away all usable traces of the Nemtsov murder"

Photo of murder site

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 07:14 PM

"A stunning interview published today by Novaya Gazeta (one of very few independent media outlets remaining in totalitarian Russia), showcases the warped mentality of Putin's soldiers in Ukraine. Dorzhi Batomunkuev is a Russian soldier, who participated in a tank battle near Debaltseve. He detailed the process of deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine and outlined his own participation. While the information he revealed is quite staggering, Batomunkuev's self-described mindset is equally as revealing. Although the troops were initially told they are going to participate in military exercises, all soldiers knew where they were going. "Even if we do military exercises first, we'll be sent to bomb khokhols [derogatory slur used by Russians to describe Ukrainians]."

Batomunkuev describes the process of "maskirovka" (military deception) that commenced in Russia: painting over the license plates, disguising tanks, removing military patches and epaulets, leaving passports and military ID's with their military divisions. "We all knew where we were going. I was fully adjusted, mentally and physically, to the fact that we would have to go to Ukraine."

Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine is proud of Putin for deceiving the world

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 05:06 AM

Interesting CNN report on Nemtsov's position in Russian politics

"A spent "liberal" force?"

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 05:23 AM

"Meanwhile, the wait for answers continues. The attack took place in an area saturated with video cameras. Within hours, one television station was showing footage of the killing -- albeit from a considerable distance. Nemtsov was almost certainly under surveillance at the time.

If the Kremlin did not know before, it very likely knows by now who the killer was. Its next decision will be how to use the information for its own purposes. Whether or not the actual perpetrators are caught and punished, all know who created the climate of hatred in which liberal politicians are likened to "jackals who hang around foreign embassies" and a "fifth column" of traitors.

Nemtsov in his later years was never a threat to Putin's regime. Hardly a radical revolutionary, he cooperated with the authorities to avoid violence by moving the site of the first major Moscow demonstration in December 2011, and he participated in discussions with then-President Dmitry Medvedev about reforms of the political system.

Having come to symbolize for most Russians the disorder of the 1990s, he had little chance of rising to the top again. Indeed, he was the kind of liberal -- unbowed, unabashedly pro-Western, unpopular -- whom the Kremlin loved to hate. Now it will have to find somebody else."

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 07:29 AM

The Guardian has a slightly different take on the matter than what is being put out by the Kremlin and it's TV stations:

Was Boris Nemtsov killed because in Russia opposition figures are deemed traitors?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 07:52 AM

Well, nobody who was not immediately involved knows who killed Nemtsov, but the last few posts seemed to indicate Mr Putin as being guilty. This seems highly unlikely for all the reasons reported in the news media.

As for Mr Putin promoting an atmosphere of "paranoia", just look at how our politicians treat Russia and its president.
Hypocrisy or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 08:15 AM

"just look at how our politicians treat Russia and its president."
A somewhat odd statement about someone who, along with China, managed to block any action against the war crimes being perpetrated by Syrian butcher Assad.
If it hadn't been for the actions of "free Russia" in this matter, Isis need never have got a toe-hold in the Middle East.
This isn't to say that what is happening in the Ukraine is a one-way-street.
A NOT-TOO-BAD SUMMING UP OF THE SITUATION
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 12:09 PM

Amy Knight on the killing of Boris Nemtsov, and the long list of political murders that have occurred under Vladimir Putin's watch:

Russia: Another Dead Democrat

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 04:50 PM

the long list of political murders that have occurred under Vladimir Putin's watch

Two words, Guest: Salvador Allende.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 05:14 PM

I don't really understand your point Jim, surely if the West had removed Assad in the manner that we removed Gadaffi, the whole of Syria would now be under IS rule?

Assad and the West are at last fighting together against these head chopping monsters.....Assad said right from the beginning that the uprising was started by Islamic terrorists using a few "liberal useful idiots" as a smoke screen just as they did in every other country in the Middle East and North Africa.

No sensible person thinks that Western "democracy" can be transplanted into tribal cultures.....in my opinion even our leaders know that and de-stabilisation is their goal, but they have started to realise that the genie will not go back into the bottle.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 04:16 AM

in the manner that we removed Gadaffi, the whole of Syria would now be under IS rule?
As Libya is now under IS rule, you mean?
Nobody has ever suggested removing anybody - a proposal was made to send assistance to the rebels on humanitarian grounds - that proposal was voted down and nothing was done.
Isis leapt into the gap, recruited supporters from among people who were fighting Assad and rose from being an unknown fanatical entity to a world threat and we are now involved in fighting in the Middle East, with Assad as our ally.
The alternative to doing nothing in countries that wished to modernise during the Arab Spring revolts was to leave those despots being opposed where they were, which is what the west decided to do, and never had any real intention of doing anything else - bad business otherwise.
As I have always said, if oil had been a factor things would have been very different.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/u-s-assad-s-machinery-of-death-worst-since-the-nazis.html
jIM cARROLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 05:24 AM

Jim, from all reports, Libya is a lawless wasteland, ruled by warring tribes....fertile breeding ground for fundamentalist Islam.

The despots were there as a barrier to what we see growing in parts of Syria and Iraq. We were too stupid or naïve to see that before our "humanitarian interventions" in Iraq and Libya.....but we have no such excuses now.

"liberalism" should evolve.....if it must. Installing it at the point of a gun is a grave mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 07:38 AM

"The Kremlin propaganda machine is Soviet "agitprop" on steroids, critics say, also comparing it to the methods of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's propaganda minister, or to the Orwellian "Two Minute Hate" broadcasts."

Kremlin spin and the killing of Boris Nemtsov

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 08:30 AM

"liberalism" should evolve.....if it must. Installing it at the point of a gun is a grave mistake"
You are joking, of course?
Syria is run by a despotic dynastic dictatorship which has been jailing, torturing and murdering its opponents for decades.
Amnesty reports have suggested athat, along with the sniper ammunition, armoured cars, riot control equipment and chemicals which have seen sold to Assad by Britain, some of the electrical equipment (for peaceful purposes, of course) has been used to torture prisoners of the regime.
The Arab Spring protests were just that - protests - they were met with armed police and military opposition; some evolved into open revolt - the only type of evolution that is likely to change anything in these countries.
Britain and the US (and the West in general) has had no compunction in intervening in any country that they conceive as a threat to their own well-being - this has taken the form of open military intervention and CIA et al, 'Black Ops'
Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatamala, Bolivia, Brazil, The Phillipines.... the list of countries where the West has been happy to intervene, is endless
As far back as the Russian Civil War 14 western countries sent troops to overthrow the government and following World War Two, British troops were sent to assist the fascist terrorists in Greece.
The U.S. was supporting extremist right-wing regime after regime in South Vietnam - notably that of Hitler admirer, Marshall Ky.
Britain and the U.S. welcomed the Military coup in Chile with open arms and following the arrest of Pinochet for murdering and torturing thousands of his opponents, that nice Mrs Thatcher fought tooth and nail to prevent him from being brought to trial, declaring him " a hero of democracy".
The West is not interested in assisting democracy anywhere in the world unless any changes brought about are to their political and economic advantage - on the contrary, it is happy to intervene in any way at their disposal if that particular brand of 'democracy' doesn't suit them.
What is certain is that change and modernisation in the Middle East is both desirable and, eventually inevitable.
The outcome of those changes depaend very much on what assistance they get - so far, the West has helped Isis to be the front runner.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: akenaton
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 08:36 AM

Who finances Aljazeera?.......Hysterical nonsense.

Every government tries to control and manipulate, ever watched BBC lately? Try one of their late night World Radio channels they are full of propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 01:07 PM

"Amnesty reports have suggested athat, along with the sniper ammunition, armoured cars, riot control equipment and chemicals which have seen sold to Assad by Britain, some of the electrical equipment (for peaceful purposes, of course) has been used to torture prisoners of the regime." - an old chesnut of Jim Carroll's

Liked the complete and utter lie that these items had been "sold to Assad by Britain"

The British Government sold nothing, they granted export licences to private companies, absolutely no evidence that the standard NATO 7.62mm ammunition (tiny quantity) sale ever went through, the "armoured cars" Jim refers to were in fact armoured buses to transport police, while they may have been "armoured" in terms of glass and body-work they were not "armed" (no guns), chemicals? Sodium Flouride which is used in the maanufacture of cosmetics and the last licence expired in 2010, and is Jim really trying to tell us that Syria or any other nation for that matter should be denied electricity on the basis of what it might be used for? All this lot sold months before Assad Junior started slaughtering his citizenry with light and heavy weapons supplied by the shipload, month in and month out by Russia and China (Yet for some weird reason Jim doesn't single them out for condemnation)

No grasp of detail and no sense of perspective Jim - sad - same old shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 01:58 PM

"Liked the complete and utter lie that these items had been "sold to Assad by Britain""
All of these items were sold to Assag#d, despite your denials, you rode off into the sunset having failed to prove otherwise
You were given documented details of all of them - you denied it in stages - not sold, not licencesd, not sent, not enough to make a difference - and then silence.
Keith argued about the sniper ammunition (after having mistaken them for rifles) "All you were able to find was a few sniper rifles" - the he followed you steps.
Regarding the armored cars and riot equipment, he actually proposed that it was ok to sell this to a murderous dictator strangely saying "even a democracy has a right to keep law and order"
One artcle actually came with photographs of British armoured cars and water cannon being used on the streets with the caption pointing out what they were.
The sale of chemicals became a cause-celébre - too well-known even to bother about.
What planet do you establishment arse-lickers occupy?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 02:04 PM

My condemnation of Russia and China's role in Syria has been there since the beginning of this argument
You used the same slime-ball argument at the beginning of the Homs Horror thread
As British citizens, the British Government is selling arms to monsters in my and your names - hw about some condemnation of that indisputable fact - not a single word so far
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 02:13 PM

The British Government has sold no arms to Assad - his forces use no British weapons, weapon systems and what arms and weaponry Assad does have does not use any calibre used by any British light or heavy weapons - that a definite enough statement for you Christmas??

Instead of just spluttering and ranting of course you could come up with some facts - newspaper articles referring to the granting of export licences to third parties in the dim and distant past does not equate to the actual sale and delivery of weapons to Assad by the British Government.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 03:24 PM

"That a definite enough statement for you Christmas??
From you - of course bloody not - who the hell do you think you are?
You've had the reports all you can do is deny them

From your mate Keith on the Homs Horror site
"11 Feb 12 - 09:21 AM
"You have clearly been searching vigorously, but all you have come up with is some sniper rifles.
The only other "weapons" supplied were armour plated buses, tear gas and water cannon."
Better organise a quick hymn-sheet rehearsal - you're singing a little out-of-tune here, doncha think?
On the other hand "Instead of just spluttering and ranting of course you could come up with some facts"
Denials don't hack it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 03:29 PM

Further wisdom from Keith on the sale of equipment to the Assad regime also from the Homs Horror Saga
Jim Carroll

"Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 03:15 PM
Even liberal democracies have to deal with riots.
Non-lethal crowd control techniques are preferrable to live rounds.
If only Syria would restrict its security forces to using tear gas and water.
It would not be such a crime to supply such things, compared to what Russia and China supplies.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 06:41 PM

"You've had the reports"

What reports Christmas??

Do you mean newspaper articles that you just happen to agree with? Newspaper articles that state that the British Government issued export licences - nothing about the British Government selling anything.

You have no grasp of detail, no perspective, no understanding of what has been plainly reported. And after three years I am most certainly not going to waste my time discussing it with you, I will only continue to tell you that you are lying through your teeth and that you are guilty of deliberately misrepresentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 07:38 PM

"What reports Christmas??"
Still denying what you've been given - didn't doubt it for a minute
Try the Homs Horror thread (wher you and braindead took a severe thrashing) - all there and on record
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 04:17 AM

What I have been given Christmas are not reports but speculative newspaper articles that say that the Government of the UK granted exported licences to private third parties who may or may not have completed the transactions. Nothing whatsoever about the British Government selling arms to Assad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 05:58 AM

"What I have been given Christmas are not reports but speculative newspaper articles"
A total invention on your part - the Guardian article presented government details of the sales and actual charts showing the sales.
Doesn't matter anyway - the articles came from as far apart as The Guardian, The Daily Mail and the Telegraph - at least two of which are establishment mouthpieces and are hardly likely to make up evidence which shows the establishment in a bad light
Your denial of press reports is a regular feature of your arguments - all you offer in return is somewhat bullying and blustering denial - as here.
If these reports are false, show that they are - they were never denied by the Government - only you.
You're like the barber's cat, full of wind and pee, as my mother used to say (remember her - you once described her as a whore?)
You really are a bit of a low-life, aren't you?
Now - where's your evidence that these sales were made up (or even denied by anybody but you and the clown?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 09:11 AM

"Russia's finance ministry says the car being sought in connection with the killing of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov belonged to an "in-house security service" for the ministry, according to the Russian news agency TASS."

Business Insider

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 10:12 AM

Sorry Christmas the Guinard only witters on about licences. Perhaps you could name these British Government owned factories that are churning out all these weapons that are being sold by the British Government to Assad? Perhaps you could name the weapons being sold? After all you have said you have "details of the sales and actual charts showing the sales." - Don't worry petal I won't hold my breath - I do not anticipate getting any factual reply.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 12:13 PM

Twelve months on, the Kremlin has gotten away with the biggest territory heist the continent has seen since World War II.

The Crime of the Century

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 03:54 PM

"Sorry Christmas the Guinard only witters on about licences."
No the don't they state specifically that the sale was official - no wittering
The sale was covered in several papers - so far you have just denied them, after saying they were not a sufficient quantity to do any damage, rtat no licenses were issued, that the licences were issued and rescinded, probably for sporting purposes.... and several other excuses before you settled for "the newspapers made them up".   
Your thick mate settled for them being "only a few sniper rifles" - you went along with that at first
Consistency man, consistency, didn't Captain Mainwearing teach you that in the Home Guard?
You really are an unashamed feckin' eejit!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 11:44 PM

"they state specifically that the sale was official"

Then they would also state what British Government owned factories sold these items then wouldn't they Christmas? Name and shame them if you "know" that the British Government "whether in our name or not" sold weapons to Assad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:15 AM

I was wrong about the sniper rifles.
I have acknowledged my error to you many times.
That is your only evidence for sniper rifles and it is not evidence.
You know this but still use it because you have nothing else.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:22 AM

They were licenced by Britain - the same thing
If your crass arguments are in any way logical, there is no such thing as 'The British arms Industry'.
Even the British Trade Minister has admitted that human rights are not a consideration when it comes to arms sales
ARMING TYRANTS
IF YOU HAVE ANY EVIDENCE THAT "BRITAIN DIDN'T SELL EQUIPMENT TO ASSAD", OR, "IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO DO ANY HARM", OR "THE LICENCES WEREN'T ISSUED", OR "THEY WERE ISSUED AND WITHDRAWN"..... OR ANY OF THE OTHER CRAP YOU HAVE COME UP WITH TO EXCUSE THE SALE OF EQUIPMENT AND CHEMICALS TO A MONSTER, PRESENT IT INSTEAD OF YOUR OLD USUAL BLUSTER AND BULLSHIT
Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 04:22 AM

Syria does not use British made weapons.
What are we supposed to have sold them Jim?
They are supplied by Russia and Iran, not Britain.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 04:43 AM

"Syria does not use British made weapons."
Thewy bought sniper rifle ammunition - you acknowledged that fact and okd it even when you thought it was "only a few sniper rifles"
Tou also acknowledged the sale of riot control equipment and armoured cars, saying that it would be ok to sell him them if that was all he used
You even gave the nod to chemicals that are capable of being used for the manufacture of chemical weapons.
You've been given your actual quotes - too late to change your mind now - the cats well out of the bag

So, as the song says
"Come along then soldier, put away your gun,
The war is over for tonight"
What a pair of arsewipes!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 04:46 AM

Forgot to add, "more lies eh?"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 05:30 AM

I do not believe there is any evidence for us supplying sniper rifles or sniper ammunition.
I certainly have no knowledge of any such thing so do not cite me as evidence for it.

Syria does not use British made weapons.
They are supplied by Russia and Iran, not Britain.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 05:35 AM

BBC 46 minutes ago

European Union Foreign Ministers are meeting in the Latvian capital Riga to discuss the challenge posed by Russia.
Latvia and its Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania have recently voiced concern that Russia is an increasingly real threat.

(this thread is not about Syria, and threads about Syria get closed down.)

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 06:28 AM

"I do not believe there is any evidence for us supplying sniper rifles or sniper ammunition."
Too late, too late, the maiden cried - doesn't really matter what you (or your mythological historians) believe unless you can prove otherwise - you are a notorious defender of State terrorism and human rights abuses (not to mention Briatain's selling arms to whoever will buy them..
"this thread is not about Syria,
This thread is about anything anybody choses to believe related to the subject - you've been told before mind your own business
You were happy enough to post on Britain's sales of weapons to Syria until you painted yourself into a corner.
"Threads about Syria get closed down."
Only those which you dominate with your ranting hatred of other cultures
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 08:23 AM

"They bought sniper rifle ammunition"

Ehmmm NO Christmas they didn't, not unless you can tell me who's got the receipt of payment (The British Government most certainly hasn't).

All we do know is that at some time three years before Bashar al-Assad started the current programme of democide against his own population (Using mountains of arms and ammunition supplied to him by Russia, China and Iran), a private individual, an independent third party (Not the British Government), sought to sell a minute qualtity of standard NATO 7.62mm ammunition to Syria, the Labour British Government of the day granted this individual an export licence - That Christmas old son is all we know - we do not know if any transaction ever took place, or if anything was ever delivered.

Do you actually believe everything you read in the newspapers or the guff dished up by MSM? You appear to only do so when whatever it is supports your rather narrow outlook on life.

Currently there is a classic example of Press misreporting:

Hands up everybody who thinks that Harrison Ford was involved in a plane crash as reported by MSM and splashed all over the news and press?

As a fairly experienced pilot, Harrison Ford would be disgusted with the inaccuracy of that description, and quire rightly - After having successfully pulled off a remarkably difficult emergency landing.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 08:25 AM

Apologies that should of course have read a "A minute quantity"

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 09:00 AM

"That Christmas old son is all we know"
No it isn't - we know that Britain should not be licencing ammunition for pop-guns to a murderous regime
The sale was registered, the licenses were issued - whether the sale went through was immaterial
Britain was well aware of the tortures and murders carried out by the Assad regime - they should have allowed no sales of equipment whatever - "a few sniper rifles" sniper ammunition, armoured cars, water cannon, electrical test generators that were possibly used for
torturing prisoners, chemicals that were capable of creating weapons - sweet **** all should have been sold to these scum.
No I don't believe everything I believe in the papers - but i certainl;y don't dismiss it on the word of a bullying thug who disputes by denial.
You really are up your own arse if you think otherwise
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 10:10 AM

Was the ammunition for the Assad regime?
Unlikely as their weapons can not use it.

Perhaps it was for their Olympic shooting team?
Maybe the Damascus Ladies Shooting Club?
A hunting association?
A dissident organisation even?

Who knows, but Syria does not use British made weapons or ammunition.
They are supplied by Russia and Iran, not Britain.

What has all this to do with Ukraine?
Threads about Middle East get closed down so please keep to the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 11:55 AM

Why can we not discuss the Ukraine on a thread entitled Ukraine?
Three Mid East threads have been closed in recent days, so we are clearly not wanted to talk about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 12:40 PM

What sale was registered?? How is that done Christmas?

What was registered was that there was some bloke who thought that he might have a chance of selling something that required an export licence, he applied for and was granted that licence, the fact that he was granted and issued with that licence was the thing that was registered, not the sale associated with it. - Find it rather hard to work out just how you seem to be having such trouble grasping that - it is after all rather plainly stated in all these articles you keep wittering on about.

As for "The British Government sold weapons to Assad" - That is a lie - they didn't.

On Ukraine? Does this sound a bit "deja vu-ish":

1938:
"Immediately after the Anschluss of Austria into the Third Reich in March 1938, Hitler made himself the advocate of ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia, triggering the "Sudeten Crisis". The following month, Sudeten Nazis, led by Konrad Henlein, agitated for autonomy."

2014:
"Immediately after the annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation in March 2014, Putin made himself the advocate of ethnic Russian living in Ukraine, triggering the current crisis in Eastern Ukraine. The following month, pro-Russian and anti-government groups agitated for autonomy."

The current ceasefire is only temporary, the continued fighting at Debaltseve after the agreed ceasefire deadline was, as Putin himself admitted, quite predictable - They needed to capture that city as it is an extremely important transport hub linking the two eastern provinces of Ukraine that Putin has his eyes on. Now having taken that important city the movement and attention shifts to the South and the city of Mariupol, where the Russian Army, sorry Pro-Russian East-Ukrainian Freedom Fighters, are next tasked with fighting their way South-West along the Northern shore of the Sea of Azov so that they can link up with the Crimea - Simples

Once they have liberated that territory they would then continue round the coast to press the rights of Russian speakers in Moldova to sign away their country's independence.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Musket
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 01:23 PM

Yeah, Forge Masters never supplied Iraq and Matrix Churchill never got the nod from DTI..

These days, we don't need to worry about covering up arming conflicts because if you question it, we have the apocalypse apologists on hand to state categorically that no arms dealers over here supply this or that regime.

And there was me thinking they got their information from Wikipedia and Daily M*il, with briefings pulled from the UKIP website...

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:02 PM

""What was registered was that there was some bloke who thought that he might have a chance of selling something...."
You have documented evidence of this, of course?"

That is what the articles you have produced say - all the British Government or more correctly a Government Department did was to grant the Export Licence - Not Sell anything. No confirmation exists of any actual sales or transactions relating to the 7.62mm ammunition. Care to tell me just exactly how I am supposed to prove that something does not exist?

Were threads closed because of anything I submitted? If so then no Moderator has advised me of that - check with them if you want.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:19 PM

Middle East threads were closed because of your goose-stepping behviour.

Obviously you will not, and can not, produce an example of such behaviour.
It is a made up slur.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 04:14 PM

Historic political relationships between Crimea and Russia in a nutshell, to put more recent Russia-Crimea events into perspective:


Timeline history of Crimea 

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 06:36 PM

"Timeline history of Crimea"

Laughable Russian propaganda. You should really vet these links before posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 09:47 PM

"Laughable Russian propaganda. "

Yes, and "that observation" from a clearly unbiased poster (given the posting record) on this issue;)

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 10:55 PM

From the laughable Russian propaganda:

"2014 – The Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovich fell under a population revolt in Kiev. The Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and for its annexation to the Russian Federation.

Ukraine's revolution and Russia's occupation of Crimea: how we got here

Military occupation of Crimea by Russia complete: Ukrainian army leaves the peninsula

You can find many more reports of how Russia took Crimea if you care to look.
You don't really believe the version from your link, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 01:58 AM

Forge Masters Musket?

They were under the impression that they were supplying special piping for the Iraqi petro-chemical industry:

That look like a "Gun" to you?

The Iraqi's even have the forethought to export these through Immingham Docks where these components would sit there alongside similar looking spoolpiece components bound for platforms in the UK sector of the North Sea - it was only by chance that they were detected. Remember that Post-Graduate whose work was plagiarised by Tony & Co? That was what his work was about the intricate system of shell companies and fronts that Saddam had set up to get stuff normally prohibited into Iraq undetected.

Matrix Churchill? A Company that made machinery for making machine tools - not weapons. Here is the full story of that in a nutshell, as that seems to be in vogue:

"In the late 1980s, Matrix Churchill, a British (Coventry) aerospace quality machine tools manufacturer that had been bought by the Iraqi government, was exporting machines used in weapons manufacture to Iraq. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, its products later found in Iraq, were among the highest quality of their kind in the world. They were 'dual use' machines that 'could' be used to manufacture weapons parts. Such exports are subject to government control, and Matrix Churchill had the appropriate government permissions, following a 1988 relaxation of export controls. Crucially, however, this relaxation had not been announced to parliament – indeed, when asked in parliament whether controls had been relaxed, the then-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry replied incorrectly that they had not.
Matrix Churchill was contacted by HM Customs and Excise, under suspicion of exporting arms components to Iraq without permission. It had this permission but this was denied by the government, in line with the most recently announced policy on the matter. Matrix Churchill's directors were therefore prosecuted in 1991 by Customs and Excise for breaching export controls.
The trial did not go well for the government – public interest immunity certificates obtained by the government to suppress some critical evidence (supposedly on grounds of national security) were quickly overturned by the trial judge, forcing the documents to be handed over to the defence. The trial eventually collapsed when former minister Alan Clark admitted he had been 'economical with the actualité' in answer to parliamentary questions over export licenses to Iraq."

Remember Alan Clark Musket he was your "historian" who also admitted on another occasion when he had been economical with the truth - when he admitted that he had invented the "Lions led by Donkeys" conversation between two German Staff Officers.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 03:07 AM

An interesting article on Crimea:

A (not so) Brief History of Crimea-Peter Hitchens 

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 03:07 AM

"That is what the articles you have produced say"
Now there's a step in the right direction - up to now you have said that nothing has been produced - the list of your excuses gets longer and longer.
Les face it - you really are on a loser here.
There is no reason why arms should not have been sold to Assad from Britain - they were being sold to Qaddafi and being supplied to the rebels - business is business after all!!!
Britain has sold arms to states with appalling human rights records, Saudi Arabia, Israeli, Bahrain...... why not Syria, they have done nothing whatever to bring influence on the Assad regime over the decades of human rights abuses, torture and mass murder - Mrs T, in fact, described such behaviour as her idea of democracy.
You want to prove that the sales didn't take place, or that they were only for harmless purposes (like the chemicals for harmless toothpaste!!) - produce your evidence rather than shovelling bullshit.
You have made a total arsehole of yourself with all the different excuses you have given for trading arms to terrorist and murderous states - it happens all te time
On this matter, Britain is no different than China or Russia, except that, in their case, there seems to be some twisted support for Assad and his regime, from Britain's point of view, trading in death is an essential part of the economy
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 11:21 AM

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has described a secret meeting with officials last year when Russia decided it would take Crimea, the Black Sea region that Moscow annexed from Ukraine last March.

In a trailer for an upcoming documentary, shown on state-owned television late Sunday, Putin said that he met with security officials in February to make plans for saving Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled power after months of pro-European protests in the Ukrainian capital.

"We got ready to get him right out of Donetsk by land, by sea or by air," he said. "Heavy machine guns were mounted there so that there wouldn't be much discussion about it."

Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be "obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia."

Putin said the meeting took place on Feb. 23, 2014, almost a month before a referendum in Crimea that Moscow has said is the basis for incorporating the region into Russia.

The minute-long trailer was overlaid with dramatic music and sweeping shots of the Crimean coast. The channel, Rossiya-1, didn't specify when the full film would be released.

The Kremlin originally denied that it had sent troops into Crimea, though Putin later announced on state television that Russian troops had been sent in. Yanukovych was safely on Russian soil by late February, when Russia's military was establishing its presence in Crimea.

© 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: olddude
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 02:07 PM

It's all urine not mine

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 02:30 PM

Were threads closed because of anything I submitted? If so then no Moderator has advised me of that - check with them if you want.

Gosh, were you innocently fluttering your eyelashes as you typed that? Get real, will you. Threads are closed because of what SEVERAL of us submit, and that includes you. Thread closures are generally the result of accumulating bile. That's a fact. All you can do is shrug, because this isn't our gig. But the idea that one person's posts causes thread closures is wide of the mark. If you're honest.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 02:32 PM

Cause. Grrr

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 04:48 PM

...then no Moderator has advised me...

Uh - that's probably because they don't DO that, T-Bird. Or do you feel you deserve especial notification?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 03:45 AM

"Threads about Syria get closed down." – Keith A

Only those which you dominate with your ranting hatred of other cultures (That from Jim Carroll) – Eh? What ranting hatred of other cultures? Examples please.

"Middle East threads were closed because of your goose-stepping behviour."

Who's line was that? Quoted by Keith in his post of 06 Mar 15 - 03:19 PM.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 04:35 AM

"What ranting hatred of other cultures? Examples please"
Want a repeat of Keith's "cultural implant"?
Doesn't come any more hate-filled than that
Will dig up some of your own on ireland and its "whining" culture, if you want.
Then there''s the fear of the "burkah" from one oof you clowns, or the quotes from 'White Supremist' or 'Muslim Watch' that your team pull out of the hat (one of these, from the fascist Muslim Watch is the largest cut-'n-paste ever produced on this forum.
Much of what you people post would be liable to prosecution were it made elsewhere.
I take it you've given up on selling equipment to Syria and have no intention of commenting on Britain's selling weapons to extremist states!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 04:44 AM

I have no hatred, or even opinions about cultures I know little about.
I did report that some within the community in question blamed their culture for the offending in question.

It did not result in the closing of the thread.

Is that your only example Jim?
If so you have failed to make your case.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 06:08 AM

"I have no hatred, or even opinions about cultures I know little about."
You certainly have no knowledge of cultures you attack (please don't say you don't - branding the entire male population of one culture as implanted potential perverts is as gross as it gets)
Doesn't stop your smearing them
"I did report that some within the community in question blamed their culture for the offending in question."
No you didn't - you presented it as your belief and you have never at any time produced one single individual who has made a statement even approaching your statement - not one!!
"Is that your only example Jim?"
Of course it isn't - your persistent attempts to present the Muslim communities as potential and suspected perverts because of their culture and hotbeds of terrorism makes your hatred of them obvious.
Even if this were not true - your "cultural implants" statement would be adequate to have made my point - that's the type of thing the Nazis were saying about the Jews before they gassed six million of them - they even went to the trouble of providing "experts" to prove their claims - just like you have (or in the case of "implants" claim to have.
Produce them and prove me wrong - otherwise, back to your corner
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 06:09 AM

By the way
Do you want to comment on Britain selling weapons to despots - NO/
Thought not!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 06:42 AM

Ehmmm Jim we are discussing my-supposed ranting hatred of other cultures - so let us leave the supposed rants of others out of it when you address posts to me - OK?

Your "scatter gun" approach is just typical of your flying off the handle default setting and your total lack of perspective.

Discuss British Government arms sales to Assad in Syria? - Certainly whenever we they have actually occurred - so far they haven't. And I do not care a toss about how many newspaper articles you dig up alleging sales whilst the text of the article do not mention Syria and Assad at all and only refer to the issuing of export licences to other parts of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 06:52 AM

By the way
Do you want to comment on Britain selling weapons to despots - NO/
Thought not!!
Jim Carroll

Do you want to comment on the subject of this thread which is "Ukraine"?

Or do you just want to continue your obsessive stalking?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 07:56 AM

No you didn't - you presented it as your belief

I did say I believed those people who linked the offending to the culture, but it was not and is not my opinion.
I believe the weather forecast for tomorrow, but that is not my opinion either.
I have not the knowledge to form an opinion about depressions approaching from the Atlantic, or about minority cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 09:35 AM

"I did say I believed those people who linked the offending to the culture, but it was not and is not my opinion."
Which was, of course a lie - nobody has ever said such a thing otherwise you would have produced it - you never have nor will you ever - it is a product of your own sick mind.
There you go - prove me wrong!!
"Or do you just want to continue your obsessive stalking?"
I don't stalk - I post under my own name - who are you?
I've given my opinions on the Ukrain from the first time it was raised on this forum - it was me who first pointed out the fascist nature of some of the people involved and the dangers of the conflict escalating into an extremist war.
What do you think about it, o Shadow Man?
"Jim we are discussing my-supposed ranting hatred of other cultures"
Remind me - how many times have you sided with Braindead and
called him a knowledgeable debater (and the rest of us "you lot"?
Should have brought a longer spoon to this particular dinner-party.
Still no comment on selling weapons to extremist states, I see
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Teribus
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 10:30 AM

Instead of your usual vague scatter-gun approach Carroll care to put this comment of yours in some sort of context?

"Remind me - how many times have you sided with Braindead and
called him a knowledgeable debater" - Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:07 AM

"Instead of your usual vague scatter-gun approach Carroll care to put this comment of yours in some sort of context?"
No
Would you care to comment on Britain's selling arms to murderous states?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:15 AM

It is not a lie Jim.
I linked to quotes from Ahmed, Alibhai-Brown, and Shafiq who all blamed the offending on the culture.
Those were given at the time, and many times since.

You make the same old accusations knowing I will refute them in the same old way.
Every few weeks for over four years.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:20 AM

More recently, Guardian August last year,

"Much has been made about the religious background of the offenders in the Rotherham report. But this problem isn't about religion race: it's about a culture where notions of shame result in the blaming of victims rather than perpetrators.

Although painful to read, the Rotherham report presents an opportunity. It's an opportunity for leaders in the British-Pakistani community to stand up and speak out about the sexual and physical abuse in their midst. The Asian community isn't unique in having evil-doers, and the overwhelming majority of its men and women are good people who care about protecting others.

I am and always will be proud of my Pakistani heritage, but I firmly believe community leaders must take responsibility for the fact that the taboos that prevent others from identifying perpetrators and supporting victims enable further abuse. And those taboos must be challenged."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/29/-sp-untold-story-culture-of-shame-ruzwana-bashir

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:39 AM

Who's your community leader, Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:47 AM

it's about a culture where notions of shame result in the blaming of victims rather than perpetrators

Gee whiz, Keith - a culture that blames the victims rather than the perpetrators? That could be the general culture of the U.S., of the U.K, or for that matter most countries on the face of the earth.

Kinda like you & T-Bird blaming the Palestinians for Israeli genocide, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 11:49 AM

Before you ridicule this girl, at least read her story.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 12:09 PM

I can't see anyone ridiculing the girl. I can see two people directly challenging you.

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 12:15 PM

Having just read the article, I also think, in light of her age and considerable achievements (she's 31 fer chrissake), you should cut out the patronising and desist from calling her "a girl".

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 12:20 PM

"More than a year after the crisis began in eastern Ukraine, Russia remains undeterred in its goal of keeping Ukraine from moving closer to the West. Russia has backed the violent separatist uprising and taken a pivotal role in the talks about Ukraine's future."

Russia's Endgame in Ukraine

Subject: RE: BS: Ukraine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 15 - 01:05 PM

"I linked to quotes from Ahmed, Alibhai-Brown, and Shafiq who all blamed the offending on the culture."
THen it would be no problem to link us to any of them who have suggested that all Muslim men are implanted to rape underage girls
Not only do you show yourself up time and time again as having lied, but in order to get yourself off the hook you are prepared to drag the reputation of Britain into your gutter by suggesting that any public figure could make such a statement publicly and not only escape prosecution, but would be allowed to continue holding a public position - is that what you are claiming??
Your cut 'n paste
Your cut-'n-paste shows a woman talking about a culture of shame of be abused, not one of a culture (which she says she is proud of) which is implanted to rape young women - you, shamefully, are attempting to use her to get yourself off the hook - squalid as ever!!!
The vst majority of rapes in Britain are never reported because of that shame - nothing to do with being a Muslim
Jim Carroll