BS: Ukraine

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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:49 PM

Source?

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: bobad
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:36 AM

Putin`s Ministry of Truth

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: 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: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 08:03 AM

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

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: 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: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Mar 14 - 03:50 PM

The Ukraine say good-bye to Crimea.

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: 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: 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: GUEST,whatever
Date: 06 Mar 14 - 10:52 PM

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

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,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: 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,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: 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
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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Ed T
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 10:45 AM

Excuse my sloppy keyboarding.

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 - 10:34 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: 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 - 10:29 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 09:01 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: 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 - 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: bobad
Date: 05 Mar 14 - 07:39 AM

Obama: "Let me be clear"

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: 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