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Although there has been much concern in the media about how the government in Syria has been putting down urban insurgents, and some about how the government of Israel has been treating its opponents in Gaza, the government of the Ukraine has largely come in for a pass from the American press. The New York Times, however, has been starting to call attention to what’s involved in retaking major cities:
Ukraine Strategy Bets On Restraint by Russia
By ANDREW E. KRAMER AUG. 9, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — The warnings from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the White House over the past week could not have been graver in tone: The Russian Army, they said, had massed enough forces on the border with Ukraine to invade.
The last time Russian troops appeared to menace Ukraine, in the spring, the Ukrainian military quickly halted attacks on pro-Russian separatists to avoid the chance of touching off a new war in Europe. Not this time.
Buoyed by successes against the separatists over the past two months — and noting that the Russians have threatened an invasion in the region before without following through — Ukrainian commanders have pressed ahead with an offensive to drive the rebels from their stronghold in Donetsk in the east.
The army continued to fire artillery into the city nightly, and paramilitary groups raided outlying villages despite warnings from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he could intervene at any time to protect Ukrainians who favor closer ties with his country. And the Ukrainians have flaunted their victories.
When pro-Ukrainian militiamen reclaimed the village of Marinka from pro-Russian forces, they captured the action with a GoPro camera mounted on a fighter’s shoulder. The video showed them marching into the village, yelling and waving their rifles in the air, firing wildly.
The major involvement of free-lancing militiamen rather than organized armies suggests that the masses aren’t all that emotionally invested in this conflict.
Despite growing jitters in the West, Ukraine’s military leaders say they are making a well-calculated gamble, betting that Mr. Putin feels he has too much to lose to invade, including the possibility of crippling international sanctions. So while Western officials view each new Ukrainian artillery barrage in Donetsk as drawing the country closer to the brink, the Ukrainians see their unchecked advance as further confirmation that Mr. Putin is mobilizing troops only as a scare tactic to keep them from reclaiming territory.
The government in Kiev is “calling Putin’s bluff,” said Oleh Voloshyn, a former Ukrainian diplomat, who said political leaders dismissed Mr. Putin’s moves as “psychological pressure.”
“If we pause, it would show Putin that any time he puts troops on the border, we will stop,” Mr. Voloshyn said.
Ukraine was given just that option on Saturday when a separatist leader, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, offered what appeared to be an unconditional cease-fire to prevent a large-scale “humanitarian catastrophe.” On Saturday night, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s minister of the interior said Ukraine would not halt its offensive. …
So far, despite growing anxiety, the West seems loath to try to stop the Ukrainians, particularly after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, for which the United States blames the separatists. …
But Western leaders and analysts remain unconvinced Mr. Putin will be willing to be taunted endlessly or to permit extensive deaths of pro-Russian civilians. The United Nations said recently that at least 1,543 civilians and combatants on both sides have died since mid-April.
“The Russian president has a record of brash, emotional and forceful behavior, and he could just ‘go for it,’ ” Cliff Kupchan, a senior analyst with the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis organization, wrote last week in an analysis published by the group.
See my analogy comparing Putin grabbing Crimea to an ex-husband barricading himself in the beach house his ex-wife got in the divorce settlement after he hears she is remarrying.
The Eurasia Group estimated the likelihood of a Russian invasion at about 35 percent.
Some of the only backers of the notion that Mr. Putin will surely not invade appear to be the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine who crave his help. Yuri, a commander of about 500 pro-Russian fighters defending Donetsk, said he does not believe the Russians will cross the border.
“Russia,” he said, “is afraid of starting World War III.”
In general, I’m afraid of World War III. I don’t think there’s a high probability of it breaking out, but even a low probability of the Worst Thing Ever is frightening.
For the moment, it is clear the Ukrainians are emboldened. …
The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat.
Azov
Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.
In pressing their advance, the fighters took their orders from a local army commander, rather than from Kiev. In the video of the attack, no restraint was evident. Gesturing toward a suspected pro-Russian position, one soldier screamed, “The bastards are right there!” Then he opened fire.
In other words, most of the up-close fighting in Ukraine at present isn’t being done by mass armies representing mass publics, but by militias: limited numbers of enthusiasts of violence. The long range fighting is done by technical specialists, such as pilots, but the rifle butt to the face level fighting is being done by guys who like that kind of thing.
This has been a regular pattern in European warfare since the fall of Communism. As John Mueller, the Woody Hayes Professor of National Security Studies at Ohio State, pointed out in The Remnants of War, the Balkans Wars of the 1990s were largely fought not by draftees or normal volunteers. The various Balkan governments had a hard time getting the average young man to show up even when he was conscripted.
My guess is that most Europeans these days figure that the age of Stalin and Hitler in which Europeans would impose really awful government on each other is over, but the firepower of contemporary weapons is even more lethal. So warring over who is going to be in charge sounds worse to most Europeans than not warring.
Hence, the Balkan politicians in the 1990s like Milosevic and Tudjman turned to political extremists, prison gangs, mafias, and organized soccer hooligans — guys who find violence really fun — to do much of the killing for them.
Eventually, after about four years, in 1995 top American deep state guys like the Army head of Operation Desert Storm organized Operation Storm for the Croatian Army. Unsurprisingly, this actual organized army immediately smashed through the hooligans fighting for a Serbian separatist state in Croatia. But then the Croatian hooligan elements ran amok in the aftermath.
So, the good news is that the old question remains relevant: What if they held WW3 and nobody came?
The bad news is that those men who have shown up are not cool-headed professionals but guys who think burning down a building full of opposing demonstrators or shooting down what looks like an enemy supply plane (or, now that you mention it, could also be a jetliner) sound like pretty awesome ideas.
And what’s really scary is that those kind of guys just might be able to provoke the politicians — or give them excuses — to send in the pros, like 100 years ago.
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The United Nations said recently that at least 1,543 civilians and combatants on both sides have died since mid-April.
The death toll is surely above 10,000 now. In the southern cauldron alone the junta’s army lost three to four thousand troops.
“In other words, most of the up-close fighting in Ukraine at present isn’t being done by mass armies representing mass publics, but by militias: limited numbers of enthusiasts of violence.”
Perhaps they need a cool name to enhance their esprit-de-corps, like……..the Black Hand:
Black Hand
The Western Hemisphere would be physically unscathed though. The actual fighting and bombing would be in an arc from Eastern Europe through Iran/Central Asia and the Pacific Rim and the South China Sea up through the Koreas and Manchuria. And demand for domestic manufacturing output and labor would skyrocket and there would be a domestic economic boom, as there was during WWII.
Not everyone who’s fighting this war can be described as dregs. There is also a lot of religious and patriotic fervor, a lot of idealism. The following is from Strelkov’s order banning lewd cursing in his army:
We call ourselves an Orthodox army and are proud to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and our people, as opposed to the golden calf. Our banners bear the image of the Savior.
Cursing by soldiers is an offense to the Lord and to the Mother of God whom we serve and who protect us in battle.
The average Iraqi doesn’t seem much interested in fighting either. Which explains ISIS’s success against the Iraqi army so far (but not against their success against the Kurdish peshmerga).
Sailer wrote “See my analogy comparing Putin grabbing Crimea to an ex-husband barricading himself in the beach house his ex-wife got in the divorce settlement after he hears she is remarrying.”
How silly and ahistorical of you Steve. Did you think for a moment that Putin was going to allow a puppet regime we just installed along with a bunch of Neo-Nazis on our payroll in the Ukraine to take over Russia’s only naval port in the Black Sea that they’ve had under their thumb for as long as the U.S. has been a country?
You really need to rethink your premises. This would have been like the U.S. giving up Norfolk, wasn’t going to happen.
We came strutting into his back yard with a bunch of shadowy NGO’s bankrolled by the government whose sole purpose is to overthrow governments and install puppets that do our bidding. You think he doesn’t notice and won’t play hardball with us?
He did and our warmongers got all nasty and personal when he punked them at their own game.
We shouldn’t have even been over there to begin with. A sane people wouldn’t be over there. But Americans are far from sane anymore.
What kind of piece rates do you get for going on English-language comment boards and making utterances like this?Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
Nathan, above, said WW3 would leave the Western hemisphere physically unscathed. This is a comment so stupid that it must have been written with a sense of hipster irony. There are these things, Nathan, called "aeroplanes" and beyond that, you mentioned "skyrocketing" economic demand, hmm, skyrockets, oh and undersea boats. This is not Sparta; this is madness.
I think there are far too many guys in power in Kiev, Brussels and Washington who want Russia to cross that Ukrainian border so we can have a whole new ballgame. They want a transformative crisis of the kind that wipes out debts, changes maps, creates new alliances etc. Yes, they are that crazy. I’m just glad Putin and his team seem to be able to keep their cool.
The usually neocon Telegraph just published this short article on the EU’s big budget nosiness in Ukraine:
“Fresh evidence of how the West lured Ukraine into its orbit” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11023577/Fresh-evidence-of-how-the-West-lured-Ukraine-into-its-orbit.html
Not everyone who’s fighting this war can be described as dregs. There is also a lot of religious and patriotic fervor, a lot of idealism. The following is from Strelkov’s order banning lewd cursing in his army
So cursing is bad and un-Orthodox but lying about MH17 is perfectly Christian. What do you think of his theory that the passengers on MH17 were killed before the plane was shot down, presumably at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport? It’s also interesting that such a devout man has a portrait of Leonid Brezhnev outside his office. I guess the invasion of Czechoslovakia was just another act of Orthodox Christian kindness. Strelkov isn’t even his real name.
“or shooting down what looks like an enemy supply plane (or, now that you mention it, could also be a jetliner) “
I’m 99% sure that that plane was shot down by the Kiev junta. And the junta doesn’t do anything without a permission from its Washington puppet-masters. It’s not an independent entity.
Ukrainian dispatchers diverted that plane from its usual flight path INTO the war zone. The war zone is less than 1% of the territory of the Ukraine. It would have been easy to avoid and that flight’s usual path did not even run through it. Why did the Ukrainians divert the plane into the war zone? To shoot it down and blame the Novorossians.
If you're going to make claims like that, can you at least provide a link so we can judge if it's credible? I'm not going to believe a novel claim like this just cause a random commentator on the internet said so.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
The current U.S.-NATO policy/actions is crazier than Dick Cheney on bath salts.
It’s almost like, “Hmm, do I want my children to be turned into carbon silhouettes on walls or would I like to see them live to have their own children… who will have their heads chopped off and placed on sticks by ISNA?”
“What do you think of his theory that the passengers on MH17 were killed before the plane was shot down, presumably at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport? ”
Is there proof he actually said this? I checked the website right after the AP report aired and didn’t see anything.
“I’m 99% sure that that plane was shot down by the Kiev junta.”
Oh come on, there were reports on RIA or ITAR TASS that the rebels shot down a plane right before it was revealed it was a passenger airline. I do find it weird that Kiev immediately had rebel sigintel from that day. I also find it weird that they came out with sigintel the day after the plane shot down indicating the rebels had this weapondry(which if case, why fly the plane over the war zone). I also find it weird that the air traffic control audio has not been made public yet.
BTW, usage of the phrase “kiev junta” just exposes you as being a zombie. I really can’t deal with nuts on either side of this conflict.
The Novorussian side does not look particularly dreg-like. Rather, they look like middle-aged, working class guys to me. And, if they are all dreggy, you have to explain their odd effectiveness in the face of being outnumbered five or ten to one all the time and having virtually no armor. The National Guard part of the Kiev junta’s forced are obvious scum, though.
It’s interesting that the NYT has taken to noticing the Nazi flavor of our buddies in Kiev, though. I wonder what explains that.
How silly and ahistorical of you Steve. Did you think for a moment that Putin was going to allow a puppet regime we just installed along with a bunch of Neo-Nazis on our payroll in the Ukraine to take over Russia's only naval port in the Black Sea that they've had under their thumb for as long as the U.S. has been a country?
You really need to rethink your premises. This would have been like the U.S. giving up Norfolk, wasn't going to happen.
We came strutting into his back yard with a bunch of shadowy NGO's bankrolled by the government whose sole purpose is to overthrow governments and install puppets that do our bidding. You think he doesn't notice and won't play hardball with us?
He did and our warmongers got all nasty and personal when he punked them at their own game.
We shouldn't have even been over there to begin with. A sane people wouldn't be over there. But Americans are far from sane anymore.Replies: @Art Deco, @Ross, @Hunsdon
Did you think for a moment that Putin was going to allow a puppet regime we just installed along with a bunch of Neo-Nazis on our payroll in the Ukraine to take over Russia’s only naval port in the Black Sea that they’ve had under their thumb for as long as the U.S. has been a country?
What kind of piece rates do you get for going on English-language comment boards and making utterances like this?
- The overthrow of a Democratically elected government.
- The fact that it was done by (self described) Neo Nazis.
- Russia has had a naval base in Crimea before the US existed.
As the old saying goes: you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Your whiny implication that the writer is Russian is sad.
So cursing is bad and un-Orthodox but lying about MH17 is perfectly Christian.
The plane was likely shot down by the junta. IT is lying about it, not Strelkov.
What do you think of his theory that the passengers on MH17 were killed before the plane was shot down, presumably at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport?
I wouldn’t call it implausible. I haven’t heard Strelkov advance this theory, but I’ve heard it from others. It’s based on the fact that eyewitnesses at the scene reported a lack of fresh blood on the bodies of the passengers. There was fresh blood in the cockpit though. For all I know this could be a consequence of how the different parts of the plane depressurized. Or the passengers’ corpses really were old. I haven’t studied the issue.
It’s also interesting that such a devout man has a portrait of Leonid Brezhnev outside his office.
This is highly implausible. Strelkov was a monarchist in his youth. He idolizes the White (i.e. anti-Red) side in the Russian Civil War. People like that tend not to think highly of Brezhnev.
“Strelkov isn’t even his real name.”
I don’t think he’s ever denied that Strelkov is a nickname. I’ve certainly seen his subordinates acknowledge it as such. His first rank in the army was rifleman (strelok). It somehow got turned into a nickname many years ago. There’s really not much to it.
“The last time Russian troops appeared to menace Ukraine, in the spring, the Ukrainian military quickly halted attacks on pro-Russian separatists to avoid the chance of touching off a new war in Europe.”
Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they were worried about. I mean, that, rather than getting *their* ass handed to them on a plate.
Since MH17 has been brought up, are there any new developments? Has Ukraine released the air traffic control tapes? I don’t have cable and the sites I read haven’t really been covering this story for a while.
“BTW, usage of the phrase “kiev junta” just exposes you as being a zombie. I really can’t deal with nuts on either side of this conflict.
The junta’s supporters always get so mad when they see that word. It’s just one more reason to use it. The main reason is of course that it describes reality fairly. The current government in Kiev came to power as a result of an armed coup. There was an election eventually, yes, but it wasn’t a fair election. The main anti-junta candidate was beaten up on TV twice, his house was burned down, the junta-installed governor of his home region put a $1 million bounty on his head and he eventually dropped out. The junta essentially ended up running unopposed.
A couple observations. First, I agree that the media has given the government forces a pass. Their tactics are much stronger-armed than what the previous government did in Jan/Feb. I also remember Europe and the US making demands for restraint on the previous regime that they are not making with the current one.
Second, I thought a group with a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag meant that no one could associate with them, lest they too be labeled Nazis. Golden Dawn in Greece gets arrested and harassed, and no one is allowed to associate with them without being blacklisted. Shouldn’t the current government in Ukraine be treated as a pariah since they have made common cause with neo-Nazis?
“Oh come on, there were reports on RIA or ITAR TASS that the rebels shot down a plane right before it was revealed it was a passenger airline. “
I’m mostly following this war through Twitter. On that day I remember messages from the anti-junta side that an An-26 was going down. These were followed by messages about the Malaysian air liner. You’ve got to understand that when people in the war zone see a plane that has smoke coming out of it, they automatically assume that it’s a Ukrainian military plane that’s been hit by the Novorossian militia. The militia itself has no planes. This particular plane didn’t look like a fighter jet, so eyewitnesses on the ground assumed that it was an An-26 transport plane. The Ukrainian army uses those, and Novorossians have shot down a few of them.
To recap, even if the junta shot down that plane, the locals on the ground would still have interpreted it as “our guys” shooting down one of the junta’s planes. Which is how this was reported in the first few minutes. When they see planes going down, that’s the automatic assumption.
That's a good point. It's naive to assume that the belligerents have crystal-clear knowledge of the situation at any given time. This is a powerful source of conspiracy theories: the confusion of real of events throw up a welter of stray observations and conjectures, which the conspiracy-minded treat as facts.
I'm pretty sure the rebels accidentally shot down MH17, but there's been a claim that the wreckage shows signs of it being destroyed by cannon fire, ie, from a fighter jet, and it would be worth investigating.
BTW, what's the latest on the identity of the Maidan snipers, or has everyone forgotten about them?
“Rather, they look like middle-aged, working class guys to me.”
The region that’s revolted against the junta is called the Donbass. It’s the last big industrial region in Europe. Coal mining and heavy industry. The Kharkov region immediately north of the Donbass is just as Russian culturally, but it didn’t revolt. Why? No miners, not enough tough working-class guys generally.
So what we basically have is Jewish and Muslim oligarchs establishing a neo-feudal state in the Ukraine by use of roving bands of far right Ukrainian goys. Priceless.
If you can say, “the Woody Hayes Professor of National Security Studies ,” without smiling or giggling, then you must be under 45 or have no soul. All I can think of is him clobbering the Clemson player.
It’s also interesting that such a devout man has a portrait of Leonid Brezhnev outside his office.
Come, now — why would anyone have any reason to doubt that a Chechen-mercenary-hiring former FSB operative is a true soldier for Orthodoxy? Have you no shame, Sir? Perhaps Brezhnev’s picture is dwarfed by a much larger image of Jesus (in reverse-perspective egg tempera and gold leaf on wood panel) mowing down a horde of Ukrainians (who we all know are 100% non-Orthodox), and the reporter simply forgot to mention it. Did you ever stop to consider that possibility?
Besides, everyone knows that when a politico plays the Jesus card, it is for no other reason than that he is absolutely sincere and trustworthy.
“isn’t being done by mass armies representing mass publics, but by militias: limited numbers of enthusiasts of violence.”
Actually they are mostly young unemployable males looking for at minimum 3 square meals a day or more likely veterans benefits and at a maximum a lavish pension. After the war there is pressure not to demobilize (lay off the fighters) lest the gains of the war be lost. Employing the unemployable fighters usually takes the form of jobs in the government especially the police.
Former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas urged parliament to quickly approve new legislation on war veterans that will see them receiving financial benefits for the first time.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-war-veterans-hopeful-on-new-legislation
You can help Mohamud Noor defeat Phyllis Kahn in the August 12 primary by donating: https://noorforhouseorg.nationbuilder.com/donate
Why? Just because.
Steve, I know you like your complex analogies but the “Putin behaving as ex husband” (giant convoluted explanation follows) one just isn’t working in this case. If you really really can’t let go of the idea of a divorce, a more relevant one would be if the wife was acting the fool on social media. The husband sits back and lets her post pictures of herself obviously drunk at 1 am on a school night when the kids are at home, and bides his time until he’s got a binder full of pictures. Then his lawyer takes this to the judge, points out how his wife is a wreck and is neglecting the kids and she can’t figure out how she’s lost not only judicially, but socially as well.
Putin isn’t trying to compete with the US media, who are bought and paid for lock, stock and barrel at this point, the Left having finally met a KGB agent they don’t like. He’s waiting for the event that turns Europe against the US, which is where Russia is really competing. We all saw how all those little pigs squealed when Russia slapped down sanctions on Euro agricultural imports and what would be breathtaking hypocrisy to anyone unfamiliar with the circumstances.
I'm 99% sure that that plane was shot down by the Kiev junta. And the junta doesn't do anything without a permission from its Washington puppet-masters. It's not an independent entity.
Ukrainian dispatchers diverted that plane from its usual flight path INTO the war zone. The war zone is less than 1% of the territory of the Ukraine. It would have been easy to avoid and that flight's usual path did not even run through it. Why did the Ukrainians divert the plane into the war zone? To shoot it down and blame the Novorossians.Replies: @Hepp
“Ukrainian dispatchers diverted that plane from its usual flight path INTO the war zone. The war zone is less than 1% of the territory of the Ukraine. It would have been easy to avoid and that flight’s usual path did not even run through it.”
If you’re going to make claims like that, can you at least provide a link so we can judge if it’s credible? I’m not going to believe a novel claim like this just cause a random commentator on the internet said so.
It's interesting that the NYT has taken to noticing the Nazi flavor of our buddies in Kiev, though. I wonder what explains that.Replies: @reiner Tor
I think those middle-aged guys were the ones who spent three years as conscripts in the Soviet Army. If the football hooligans spent any time in an armed force, it was the Ukrainian one, where they probably received little if any training.
Or punching the TV cameraman live a few years before that.
Dregs, hooligans, who like to do violence?
Forget the Ukraine.
And, yes, forget World War Three.
Dregs, hooligans mass at, press upon, and infiltrate at will our own southern border.
Our army, unlike Putin’s, unlike Netanyahu’s, is not massed where the threat to us presses – not massed at what used to be our southern border.
For us, for what’s left of what used to be our country, that – as the old Ford ad campaign said – is Job One.
The region that's revolted against the junta is called the Donbass. It's the last big industrial region in Europe. Coal mining and heavy industry. The Kharkov region immediately north of the Donbass is just as Russian culturally, but it didn't revolt. Why? No miners, not enough tough working-class guys generally.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Miners are not to be taken lightly.
I don’t know Steve, a lot of things were covered in your post, and a lot of things are in the air – trying to force some sort of formal ‘generalized pattern’ on to conflict and the child of conflict, warfare, is really a mistake. We are too fixated on this idea of leaders and mass armies, formal declarations of war and all the rest of ‘stage show’ type militarism to realise that historically speaking, this has always been an anomaly. When does ‘violence’ stop and ‘warfare’ start? Perhaps a better view is to think of warfare as a mania, a progressive mania, that slowly but surely takes root in a deep atavistic pattern, and does what it is supposed to do, I venture to say that the old dark demon is always on our left shoulder and follows man around, inevitably and unavoidably, just like his shadow. In other words, Steve Pinker was writing a load of garbage.
Yes, there is generalized mega ‘hooligan’, (or warrior), type violence in Ukraine, and yes, the guys with epaulets and nuclear bombs haven’t shown up yet and probably won’t show up, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that somehow the epaulet guys have exited stage right and left the future of European warfare to hooligans. Epaulet guys show up when other bigger epaulet guys show up.
“soren says
BTW, usage of the phrase “kiev junta” just exposes you as being a zombie. I really can’t deal with nuts on either side of this conflict.”
I suppose “Junta” refers to a clique of generals. What is the proper term for a clique of civilian NGO stooges, like the ones who currently govern Ukraine?
How silly and ahistorical of you Steve. Did you think for a moment that Putin was going to allow a puppet regime we just installed along with a bunch of Neo-Nazis on our payroll in the Ukraine to take over Russia's only naval port in the Black Sea that they've had under their thumb for as long as the U.S. has been a country?
You really need to rethink your premises. This would have been like the U.S. giving up Norfolk, wasn't going to happen.
We came strutting into his back yard with a bunch of shadowy NGO's bankrolled by the government whose sole purpose is to overthrow governments and install puppets that do our bidding. You think he doesn't notice and won't play hardball with us?
He did and our warmongers got all nasty and personal when he punked them at their own game.
We shouldn't have even been over there to begin with. A sane people wouldn't be over there. But Americans are far from sane anymore.Replies: @Art Deco, @Ross, @Hunsdon
You really shouldn’t believe everything you read on RT.
“Ukrainian dispatchers diverted that plane from its usual flight path INTO the war zone. The war zone is less than 1% of the territory of the Ukraine. It would have been easy to avoid and that flight’s usual path did not even run through it.”
Except of course, as the Malaysian government confirmed a couple of days after the plane was shot down-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-route-minister
That conspiracy fantasy was debunked over three weeks ago.
“No miners, not enough tough working-class guys generally.” The last time the British miners tried violence, they proved to be dim-witted cry-babies who couldn’t even defeat an unarmed police force. They did manage to murder a taxi-diver though. Tough, eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBmiWhxzOg
“In general, I’m afraid of World War III.” Don’t worry, the Ebola will get you first.
Regarding ww3 I'm sure it's chances are higher if everybody thinks it's unlikely. The more likely it is viewed, the less likely politicians are to play with the fire. It's easy to imagine a political leader who would rather see the whole world (including his own empire) go down in flames than resign and let his empire disintegrate with relatively little violence. In fact, we've had such a leader less than a century ago.
– actually Separatist have tanks. And a lot of other heavy equipment fresh from Russia. At this point is hard to even call them Separatist. It is more like an undeclared Ukrainian-Russian war, where both sides pretend it is a civil war. There are regular armored battles and artillery and rocket duels. Russians regularly bombard Ukraine from their side of the border to allow for weapons and troop movements. Ukrainians cannot respond and sit in their foxholes.
Couple of my observations about the conflict: you will find as much Orthodox zeal on the Ukrainian as on Russian side if not more. Secondly: enemies of Russia always turn out to be fascist and Nazis no matter what their previous political and ideological convictions were before. I can only conclude that Mother Russia has miraculous power to turn everything she touches into Fascism. Countryside is neutral in this conflict. Separatist cause has no support outside cities which are populated by Russian immigrants. And even there support for Novorossiya is not so big. In my opinion about 20% of the population prefers Russia, another 20% wants Ukraine, the rest in the middle wants simply to be left alone. However Putin will not allow that.
The plane was likely shot down by the junta. IT is lying about it, not Strelkov.
What do you think of his theory that the passengers on MH17 were killed before the plane was shot down, presumably at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport?
I wouldn't call it implausible. I haven't heard Strelkov advance this theory, but I've heard it from others. It's based on the fact that eyewitnesses at the scene reported a lack of fresh blood on the bodies of the passengers. There was fresh blood in the cockpit though. For all I know this could be a consequence of how the different parts of the plane depressurized. Or the passengers' corpses really were old. I haven't studied the issue.
It’s also interesting that such a devout man has a portrait of Leonid Brezhnev outside his office.
This is highly implausible. Strelkov was a monarchist in his youth. He idolizes the White (i.e. anti-Red) side in the Russian Civil War. People like that tend not to think highly of Brezhnev.
"Strelkov isn’t even his real name."
I don't think he's ever denied that Strelkov is a nickname. I've certainly seen his subordinates acknowledge it as such. His first rank in the army was rifleman (strelok). It somehow got turned into a nickname many years ago. There's really not much to it.Replies: @CCR
If you think that killing all the passengers at Schiphol Airport isn’t implausible, I suggest your plausibility meter needs to be recalibrated.
The US military has similarities in that it’s also composed of a smaller number of people who don’t mind being associated with warfare although admittedly lots of them are there just for the paycheck and housing. It’s an all-volunteer military. We sure couldn’t reinstate the draft though. That’s dead and buried. Nobody would show up were they to try to call people up. The whole institution of mass armies composed of conscripts is probably over with in most parts of the world.
Or don’t know anything about Woody Hayes and assume it is one of Steve’s sport references.
How silly and ahistorical of you Steve. Did you think for a moment that Putin was going to allow a puppet regime we just installed along with a bunch of Neo-Nazis on our payroll in the Ukraine to take over Russia's only naval port in the Black Sea that they've had under their thumb for as long as the U.S. has been a country?
You really need to rethink your premises. This would have been like the U.S. giving up Norfolk, wasn't going to happen.
We came strutting into his back yard with a bunch of shadowy NGO's bankrolled by the government whose sole purpose is to overthrow governments and install puppets that do our bidding. You think he doesn't notice and won't play hardball with us?
He did and our warmongers got all nasty and personal when he punked them at their own game.
We shouldn't have even been over there to begin with. A sane people wouldn't be over there. But Americans are far from sane anymore.Replies: @Art Deco, @Ross, @Hunsdon
What this guy said? I’m entirely in accord.
Nathan, above, said WW3 would leave the Western hemisphere physically unscathed. This is a comment so stupid that it must have been written with a sense of hipster irony. There are these things, Nathan, called “aeroplanes” and beyond that, you mentioned “skyrocketing” economic demand, hmm, skyrockets, oh and undersea boats. This is not Sparta; this is madness.
What kind of piece rates do you get for going on English-language comment boards and making utterances like this?Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
Piece rates? The truth is its own reward.
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The pair of you seem to think you can alter reality by rhetorical assertions. Why? I don't know, it seems like a mixture of performance art and dishonesty.
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The moderator professes to be an advocate of minding-our-own-business blah blah and yet the writes scads of posts on what's not supposed to interest us. The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia's pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation. Since you all seem to fancy that Foreign Service professionals are idiots compared to the sophisticated folk on iSteve comment boards, it's pretty amusing that your preferred horse has ended up in these circumstances. So...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-tighten-the-ring-around-donetsk-1407670513
You're all stuck rooting for a Russian invasion (for which you can then stick the bill with Victoria Nuland).
ItReplies: @Chubby Ape, @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
If you're going to make claims like that, can you at least provide a link so we can judge if it's credible? I'm not going to believe a novel claim like this just cause a random commentator on the internet said so.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
MH17 flight path.
Actually, he’s the Woody Hayes Professor of National Security Studies at the Bobby Knight School of International Relations at THE Ohio State University. What, me worry?
Aren’t these SAM systems pretty much idiot-proof, as in, even idiots can use them to absolutely lethal effect? In other words, some slightly-more-smart Slav can program the array to fire at radar blips, then go drink vodka and smoke cigarettes with his buddies. That’s why passenger planes fly around war zones, not over them.
This post has been up for a few hours already and the phrase “paid Putin stooge” hasn’t been thrown in by one of the usual idiots. What gives? Are they all busy swarming other websites in their role as the internet thought-police?
“The Western Hemisphere would be physically unscathed though. The actual fighting and bombing would be in an arc from Eastern Europe through Iran/Central Asia and the Pacific Rim and the South China Sea up through the Koreas and Manchuria. And demand for domestic manufacturing output and labor would skyrocket and there would be a domestic economic boom, as there was during WWII.”
Are you saying that if Russia was attacked with nukes coming from Europe, they wouldn’t hit both Europe AND the US with ICBM’s and Sub-based nukes? Why wouldn’t they?
Or maybe you subscribe to General Turgidson’s theory about us winning a nuclear war while only “getting our hair mussed”. 10-20 million killed, tops!
I’ve noticed an epidemic of accusations that those of us who don’t buy the mainstream western narrative are paid by the Kremlin to post online. Think about how many fluent English-speakers it would require to hit niche sites such as this. I think this conspiracy theory (let’s face it, that’s what it is) is embraced by so many because it helps explain something new they’re seeing and they don’t like. What they’re seeing is a widespread and vocal rejection of “our” political class. People are figuring out that our “brightest and best” are “serial arsonists claiming to be the world’s fire department”, as someone said recently. Some of them are knowingly malicious but most of them seem to be just the sort of 3-rate types who develop in a closed loop society over time. It’s a cultural and intellectual type of dysgenics: the teacher’s pets, yes-men and power-worshippers inherit the top jobs and get to choose their apprentices. These 3-raters then form a Mutual Admiration Society in which they agree to call one another “scholars”, “senior fellows”, “seasoned journalists” etc. When a real crisis comes along all they have to lean on is the hype and spin of the 3-rater they last spoke to. It reminds me of this quote from Karl Kraus:
“How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.”
If you’re terrified that RT is going to mess with your mind and lay some heavy KGB voodoo on you then just look through the loads of raw and subtitled footage coming out of Ukraine. Look at Vice News’ YouTube site; they’re generally biased in favour of the “pro-western” gang but the footage they show will knock you off your mainstream hamster wheel.
“If you’re going to make claims like that, can you at least provide a link so we can judge if it’s credible?”
Here are a couple:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/malaysian-airlines-mh17-was-ordered-to-fly-over-the-east-ukraine-warzone/5392540
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10975524/Crashed-MH17-flight-was-300-miles-off-typical-course.html
The crashed MH17 flight took a route 300 miles to the north of its usual path, an aviation expert has said.
Robert Mark, a commercial pilot who edits Aviation International News Safety magazine, said that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur normally travelled along a route significantly further south than the plane which crashed.
Malaysia Airlines has insisted its plane travelled on an “approved route” used by many other carriers.
But Mr Mark said: “I can only tell you as a commercial pilot myself that if we had been routed that way, with what’s been going on in the Ukraine and the Russian border over the last few weeks and months, I would never have accepted that route.
“I went into the FlightAware system, which we all use these days to see where airplanes started and where they tracked, and I looked back at the last two weeks’ worth of MH17 flights, which was this one.
“And the flight today tracked very, very much further north into the Ukraine than the other previous flights did … there were MH17 versions that were 300 miles south of where this one was.”
Records of recent MH17 flights on the FlightAware appear to bear out Mr Mark’s claim, with earlier flights significantly further south than the flight that crashed.
On the maps I’ve seen the usual flight path was over the Azov Sea, way, way south of the war zone.
“The last time the British miners tried violence, they proved to be dim-witted cry-babies…”
Heh. I guess the level of objectivity with which middle-class Brits are able to look at British miners is roughly comparable to that of West Ukrainian Banderites looking at Russians.
How Russian is the Donbass, the region that has revolted against Kiev? Well, here is a 1921 poster entitled “The Donbass – the Heart of Russia.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhansk_Oblast#Demographics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk#Demographics
In February a poll conducted in Ukraine found 29.4% of Luhansk and29.8% of Donetsk supported joining Russia.
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=236&page=1
There is little local support for Russian expansionism.
Here's a stage show of how Russia represents Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwwBFJkwZ_Q
What kind of piece rates do you get for going on English-language comment boards and making utterances like this?Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
Every piece of this is factual. What fact do you object to?
– The overthrow of a Democratically elected government.
– The fact that it was done by (self described) Neo Nazis.
– Russia has had a naval base in Crimea before the US existed.
As the old saying goes: you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Your whiny implication that the writer is Russian is sad.
If you're going to make claims like that, can you at least provide a link so we can judge if it's credible? I'm not going to believe a novel claim like this just cause a random commentator on the internet said so.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Mike
Or alternatively you could not comment on something if you haven’t been following the story at all…
World War III could be averted if President Putin would simply lead sodomite Pride parades through Red Square twice weekly on horseback. Then Bathhouse Barry would lift all sanctions and the EU would welcome Russia back into the Western community.
The Holy Roman Empire (basically the German nation) failed to deal with the Ottoman aggression. Result : Martin Luther’s Reformation. The protestant United Provinces were attacked by Spanish Habsburgs. Result: Holland became the first modern commercial society (yes before England).
When the Soviet Union withdrew from the Warsaw Pact states, the West gave assurances that NATO would not be expanded into eastern Europe, so Russians have been fooled and know it. Putin won’t do anything military and he is probably scared to do the one thing he could do that would make the West cave in (cut off gas to Germany in the winter) the Russians are terrified of the Germans. It was the Germans informing Khrushchev in 1957 that they were going to start a military nuclear program that was the cause of WWIII almost starting in the early 60’s.
So if, as it looks like happening, Russia is going to be humiliated; then it will be transformed into something more able to defend it’s interests. Any war is going to be at least a decade hence and the Russia involved will not be Putin’s Russia
That's a bizarre interpretation of the early modern period.Replies: @Sean
I'm mostly following this war through Twitter. On that day I remember messages from the anti-junta side that an An-26 was going down. These were followed by messages about the Malaysian air liner. You've got to understand that when people in the war zone see a plane that has smoke coming out of it, they automatically assume that it's a Ukrainian military plane that's been hit by the Novorossian militia. The militia itself has no planes. This particular plane didn't look like a fighter jet, so eyewitnesses on the ground assumed that it was an An-26 transport plane. The Ukrainian army uses those, and Novorossians have shot down a few of them.
To recap, even if the junta shot down that plane, the locals on the ground would still have interpreted it as "our guys" shooting down one of the junta's planes. Which is how this was reported in the first few minutes. When they see planes going down, that's the automatic assumption.Replies: @David R. Merridale
To recap, even if the junta shot down that plane, the locals on the ground would still have interpreted it as “our guys” shooting down one of the junta’s planes. Which is how this was reported in the first few minutes. When they see planes going down, that’s the automatic assumption.
That’s a good point. It’s naive to assume that the belligerents have crystal-clear knowledge of the situation at any given time. This is a powerful source of conspiracy theories: the confusion of real of events throw up a welter of stray observations and conjectures, which the conspiracy-minded treat as facts.
I’m pretty sure the rebels accidentally shot down MH17, but there’s been a claim that the wreckage shows signs of it being destroyed by cannon fire, ie, from a fighter jet, and it would be worth investigating.
BTW, what’s the latest on the identity of the Maidan snipers, or has everyone forgotten about them?
With all due respect to the British coal miners but the Russians are different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBmiWhxzOg
“Chubby Ape
I’ve noticed an epidemic of accusations that those of us who don’t buy the mainstream western narrative are paid by the Kremlin to post online. Think about how many fluent English-speakers it would require to hit niche sites such as this. I think this conspiracy theory (let’s face it, that’s what it is) is embraced by so many because it helps explain something new they’re seeing and they don’t like. What they’re seeing is a widespread and vocal rejection of “our” political class.”
Quite so. I don’t like Vladimir Putin, and I don’t trust him (the man was a secret-policeman, for christ’s sake). But, assuming he doesn’t launch a nuclear attack against us, he is far less of a threat to me and mine that is our own political class, which seeks to rob my own people of the nation which they built. To paraphrase Muhammed Ali, no Russian ever called me white bread, a cracker, a “white-male”, or said I had stale blood. I’m sick of puffed up nothings who claim the mantle of authority incessently goading us into this or that war with whomever they assure us it the newest “Hitler”.
There is a nonzero chance of both ww3 and a serious infectious disease outbreak (not necessarily ebola), although neither seem to be very high at this point.
Regarding ww3 I’m sure it’s chances are higher if everybody thinks it’s unlikely. The more likely it is viewed, the less likely politicians are to play with the fire. It’s easy to imagine a political leader who would rather see the whole world (including his own empire) go down in flames than resign and let his empire disintegrate with relatively little violence. In fact, we’ve had such a leader less than a century ago.
Secondly: enemies of Russia always turn out to be fascist and Nazis no matter what their previous political and ideological convictions were before. I can only conclude that Mother Russia has miraculous power to turn everything she touches into Fascism.
Just like the Jews and Israel….
Here are two video clips from Ukraine showing angry mothers, wives and fathers against the 3rd round of conscription:
Mass protests held by families of men drafted into Ukrainian army
Ukrainian civil disobedience: communities refuse state’s calls for military mobilization
Both clips have English subtitles. This is the sort of stuff one can find just looking around YouTube.
The current president of the Ukraine was elected in May. Most of the local governments were elected in May. The national legislature was elected in October 2012. The previous president fled the country and was censured by organs of his own political party and replaced by the constitutionally designated official. None of this is esoteric information.
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The pair of you seem to think you can alter reality by rhetorical assertions. Why? I don’t know, it seems like a mixture of performance art and dishonesty.
—
The moderator professes to be an advocate of minding-our-own-business blah blah and yet the writes scads of posts on what’s not supposed to interest us. The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia’s pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation. Since you all seem to fancy that Foreign Service professionals are idiots compared to the sophisticated folk on iSteve comment boards, it’s pretty amusing that your preferred horse has ended up in these circumstances. So…
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-tighten-the-ring-around-donetsk-1407670513
You’re all stuck rooting for a Russian invasion (for which you can then stick the bill with Victoria Nuland).
It
Having said that, yes, Poroshenko is a kind of legitimate president, and I actually hope Ukraine will prevail in the areas other than the Crimea. But I can't help but not wish Nuland and her ilk a victory. So I hope that what will happen will be a nuclear armed and anti-Semitic Ukraine ruled by a Svoboda dictatorship and a still strong Putinist Russia.
Given what is happening in Iraq, I know that what the neocons touch will turn to shit, so I'm hoping for this shit instead of World War III.
Is NATO angling to expand even further to the East? If so, why? If it's to contain Russian expansionism, isn't it reasonable to expect the Russians to object? If it's like the missile shields in Poland---you know, to shoot down Iranian ICBMs, then why expand?
The sacred, sacrosanct borders of Ukraine are a 20th century invention. The idea that the Crimean peninsula is Ukrainian territory goes back to a drunken whim of Khruschev. The Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, and then the Russian Federation, has based its Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean peninsula since 1783.
Quick, let me know if any of the foregoing constitutes a bald rhetorical assertion that's attempting to alter reality. No?
The Russians wanted a warm water port since Peter the Great. That port is Sevastopol. After the coup d'etat against Yanukovich----wait, can we agree that there was a coup? Popular demonstrations, which forced him to flee the country, and disrupted the regular norms of government? Is calling it a coup d'etat a rhetorical assertion on my part? In any follow up comments, please let me know if you think it wasn't a coup, and we can argue that point as well, but for now, I'll call it a coup d'etat. After that coup, Russia---rightly or wrongly----was concerned about the fate of it's Black Sea Fleet.
Aided and abetted by the "polite armed men in green" Crimea declared its independence, after a vote, and then voted for a treaty of accession to Russia. Similarly, the Donbass region (in the shape of the now Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic) declared its independence, after a vote, and keeps hoping for Russian assistance.
If you'd care to comment on the relative casualty lists compiled by Putin's "seizing" Crimea, and Poroshenko's ATO ("Anti-Terrorist Operation") against the DNR and LNR, that's a conversation I wouldn't mind having either.
As I have said in the past, my main goal in this whole boondoggle is staying out of it. For most of my life, the main foreign policy goal of the United States was not getting into a shooting scrape with the Soviet Union. Differently phrased, the goal was to avoid starting World War Three, you know, the one that both starts and ends with mushroom clouds. In the interest of pursuing that goal, the United States sat by and did nothing when the Soviet Union acted in a far, far more provocative manner than Putin's Russian Federation has. (Think, say, Hungary '56.)
I think the West is egging Poroshenko on. Ukraine is basically bankrupt, and wars cost money. I don't see what the potential upside is, and I see a very real downside. Maybe it's the whole anniversary thing, I don't know. It's 100 years since WW1, it's 70 years since the Soviet Union was pushing a "united Europe under German direction" back from it's borders. Maybe that's causing my melancholy?
The Holy Roman Empire (basically the German nation) failed to deal with the Ottoman aggression. Result : Martin Luther’s Reformation. The protestant United Provinces were attacked by Spanish Habsburgs. Result: Holland became the first modern commercial society (yes before England).
That’s a bizarre interpretation of the early modern period.
“Art Deco says:
The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia’s pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation.”
Well, that’s dishonest. You’re talking about the Crimea, I presume? A piece of real-estate, with an important naval base, that Russia has controlled for at least two centuries. No, they were not about to let it go, anymore than we would give up Pearl Harbor.
And what is wrong with being an “inveterate non-interventionist”? Wouldn’t it at least be novel to try not f**king around in somebody else’s country for a change, given that your lot has had it’s way with our foreign policy for at least seventy years now?
I’ve noticed an epidemic of accusations that those of us who don’t buy the mainstream western narrative are paid by the Kremlin to post online.
As noted previously, the ‘accusation’ is that the Putin side is composed of paid Putin stooges, and also their useful idiots e.g. as was repeated most recently here. If you’re not the former, you might just be one of the latter. But I get it, arguing with a straw-man is so much easier than dealing with reality.
Speaking of which, I will leave it to others to judge the sanity of those who find it “not implausible” that associates of the “Kiev junta” massacred a plane of people in Amsterdam as part of a PR campaign (I’m guessing a squadron of paid gay assassins played a role somehow, though I’m not looking forward to seeing that musical any time soon), but let’s just say if the typical Putin supporter has those kinds of conspiracy theories safely inhabiting his or her brain, the man has a lot more problems than is commonly assumed. The fact that his paid flakkers are lame and obvious hacks is probably way down on the worry list.
the West gave assurances that NATO would not be expanded into eastern Europe…
What, this again? Been there, done that.
“The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia’s pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation.”
Crimea was an autonomous republic that had already voted once or twice to leave Ukraine even before Russia intervened. I already attacked a pro-Russian zombie, but anyone who thinks Crimeans should not get to choose to be in Russia or Ukraine is also a zombie.
“Speaking of which, I will leave it to others to judge the sanity of those who find it “not implausible” that associates of the “Kiev junta” massacred a plane of people in Amsterdam as part of a PR campaign…”
I’m not responding to HA, who is a disgusting neocon troll, but to any innocent parties who might take him seriously:
He’s basically trying to tell you that his side in the struggle for global dominance is much too nice to be able to kill 300 random people in order to advance its PR interests. This is false.
I am saying no such thing. These were not 300 "random people". These were people, that, according to the conspiracy theory, were in a plane in the Amsterdam airport when they were killed, whereupon this plane of corpses were flown all the way to Ukraine for the purposes of having it shot down.
What I am saying is that anyone who finds this a "not implausible" theory given the logistics involved is an idiot in need of medical assistance. You should at least be able to get that basic matter of reading comprehension through your tinfoil covered head. If not, then get some help.
Regardless, please continue to do me the favor of not responding to me. If not for my sake, then for "your side", whatever you happen to mean by that. After all, if I were into conspiracy theories, I would suspect that it was the Nulands of the world spreading such rumours around, knowing that Putin supporters would lap them up and echo them to the world as being "not implausible", thereby outing themselves as the loony idiots they are.
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The pair of you seem to think you can alter reality by rhetorical assertions. Why? I don't know, it seems like a mixture of performance art and dishonesty.
--
The moderator professes to be an advocate of minding-our-own-business blah blah and yet the writes scads of posts on what's not supposed to interest us. The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia's pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation. Since you all seem to fancy that Foreign Service professionals are idiots compared to the sophisticated folk on iSteve comment boards, it's pretty amusing that your preferred horse has ended up in these circumstances. So...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-tighten-the-ring-around-donetsk-1407670513
You're all stuck rooting for a Russian invasion (for which you can then stick the bill with Victoria Nuland).
ItReplies: @Chubby Ape, @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia’s pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation.
Putin did not help himself to some territory with 1.9 million people unlucky enough to be living on it, the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea jumped at the chance to get off the crazy train that is post-independence Ukraine. The Crimean government ran a snap referendum on whether to join the Russian Federation or remain in Ukraine under the 1992 constitution, the Russian option won overwhelmingly and reunification quickly took place with barely a shot fired in anger. I know it’s fun to personalize these things but there really were far more people with an active role in this than just mean old Vladimir Putin.
By the way, if Putin is supposedly the new Hitler, isn’t Putin terribly behind schedule? National Socialist Germany went from gaining power to lying in ruins in 12yrs while Putin’s been at this since 1999. I guess we could say Putin is the new Franco or the new de Gaulle but that lacks the pizazz of being the new Hitler, even though we seem to have at least two new Hitlers going at any one time.
Steve, during the balkan wars most of the fighters were villagers and working class men. Hooligans and wastrels joined in but were a small presence. The operation Storm killed and drove out a peasant population not an urban hooligan one.
“The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it “
Pew recently asked Crimeans if they want Kiev to recognize the referendum that reunited them with Russia. 88% said yes, 4% said no, 7% had no opinion. Do you think the people at Pew are Putin stooges? This result is actually more impressive than it would seem to those who don’t know the realities of the Ukraine. After 23 years of incessant pro-Ukrainian propaganda on TV and in the educational system only 4% of Crimeans wanted to go back into the Ukraine.
Oh, and by the way, more than 10% of Crimeans are Tatars. Barely a decade after the end of the last Chechen War a Muslim people has chosen to live in Russia by a clear majority. I think that’s impressive.
And why would even a Muslim group heavily courted by the West choose Russia? Because Russia is less corrupt, more prosperous and better-run than the Ukraine. And more pluralistic – not in a gay way, sure, but in ways that matter.
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The pair of you seem to think you can alter reality by rhetorical assertions. Why? I don't know, it seems like a mixture of performance art and dishonesty.
--
The moderator professes to be an advocate of minding-our-own-business blah blah and yet the writes scads of posts on what's not supposed to interest us. The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia's pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation. Since you all seem to fancy that Foreign Service professionals are idiots compared to the sophisticated folk on iSteve comment boards, it's pretty amusing that your preferred horse has ended up in these circumstances. So...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-tighten-the-ring-around-donetsk-1407670513
You're all stuck rooting for a Russian invasion (for which you can then stick the bill with Victoria Nuland).
ItReplies: @Chubby Ape, @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
That is at best a half-truth. The previous president of Ukraine was removed in an unconstitutional manner. You might also want to discuss the fact that there was some sort of intimidation involved after the police withdrew from the Verkhovna Rada and the Maidan activists entered the building. In fact, as we shall see, some intimidation might have been involved even later on.
That is true, but even here there is a small caveat, namely, that the only candidate in opposition to the revolution was beaten and had to withdraw his candidacy. I tend to think he would have lost the election nevertheless, and also there are conflicting reports about his activities (whether the reports about his separatist activities before his beating are true or not, I cannot assess), but what is sure is that the election was not quite normal, taking place after the president was unconstitutionally removed, and in an atmosphere of violence and intimidation.
Having said that, yes, Poroshenko is a kind of legitimate president, and I actually hope Ukraine will prevail in the areas other than the Crimea. But I can’t help but not wish Nuland and her ilk a victory. So I hope that what will happen will be a nuclear armed and anti-Semitic Ukraine ruled by a Svoboda dictatorship and a still strong Putinist Russia.
Given what is happening in Iraq, I know that what the neocons touch will turn to shit, so I’m hoping for this shit instead of World War III.
Based on a 2001 census ethnic Ukrainians made up 58% and 56.9% of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhansk_Oblast#Demographics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk#Demographics
In February a poll conducted in Ukraine found 29.4% of Luhansk and29.8% of Donetsk supported joining Russia.
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=236&page=1
There is little local support for Russian expansionism.
Here’s a stage show of how Russia represents Ukraine.
Putin did not help himself to some territory with 1.9 million people unlucky enough to be living on it, the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea jumped at the chance to get off the crazy train that is post-independence Ukraine.
That’s not the way I remember it. What actually happened was Russian soldiers wearing no insignia stormed the Crimean parliament, dismissed the duly elected government, and installed a ‘former’ gangster known as Goblin–whose party received all of 4% of the vote in the last Crimean election–as president.
SIMFEROPOL, UKRAINE—Strip away the propaganda from the chaos in Crimea, and this much is certain: last Thursday morning a political farce played out here in the regional capital.
It started with anonymous gunmen storming parliament house in a bloodless pre-dawn raid. By sunrise, the Russian flag was flying high above an occupied government house.
Lawmakers were summoned, stripped of their cellphones as they entered the chamber. The Crimean media was banished. Then, behind closed doors, Crimea’s government was dismissed and a new one formed, with Sergey Aksyonov, head of the Russian Unity party, installed as Crimea’s new premier.
If it was a crime, it was just the beginning. Aksyonov’s ascent to power at the point of a gun presaged all that has happened since — the announcement of a referendum on Crimean independence and the slow, methodical fanning out of Russian forces throughout the peninsula, ostensibly to protect Russians here from a threat no one can seem to find.
But here’s the most interesting bit: Aksyonov’s sudden rise as Moscow’s crucial point man in Crimea has revived simmering allegations of an underworld past going back to the lawless 1990s, when Aksyonov is said to have gone by the street name “Goblin,” a lieutenant in the Crimean crime syndicate Salem.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/03/04/meet_goblin_moscows_man_in_crimea.html
Give Crimea back to Tatarstan.
Considering Crimean Tartary was a centre of the Muslim slave trade, whose raiding kept the current territory of New Russia a depopulated no-man's-land for a couple of centuries, no.
“the West gave assurances that NATO would not be expanded into eastern Europe…”
What, this again? Been there, done that.
Yes, we read your content-free sneerings, and they were one of the reasons we decided to class you as a worthless troll.
In the interests of all-round fairness, let’s let NATO have their say:
“Thus, the debate about the enlargement of NATO evolved solely in the context of German reunification. In these negotiations Bonn and Washington managed to allay Soviet reservations about a reunited Germany remaining in NATO. This was achieved by generous financial aid, and by the “2+4 Treaty” ruling out the stationing of foreign NATO forces on the territory of the former East Germany. However, it was also achieved through countless personal conversations in which Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders were assured that the West would not take advantage of the Soviet Union’s weakness and willingness to withdraw militarily from Central and Eastern Europe.
“It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments. Some statements of Western politicians – particularly German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and his American counterpart James A. Baker – can indeed be interpreted as a general rejection of any NATO enlargement beyond East Germany. However, these statements were made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification, and the Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns. In the crucial “2+4” negotiations, which finally led Gorbachev to accept a unified Germany in NATO in July 1990, the issue was never raised. As former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze later put it, the idea of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolving and NATO taking in former Warsaw Pact members was beyond the imagination of the protagonists at the time.”
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2014/Russia-Ukraine-Nato-crisis/Nato-enlargement-Russia/EN/index.htm
Translation: While there was no formal treaty [and nobody claims there was], commitments were made by the US and German foreign ministers.
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The pair of you seem to think you can alter reality by rhetorical assertions. Why? I don't know, it seems like a mixture of performance art and dishonesty.
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The moderator professes to be an advocate of minding-our-own-business blah blah and yet the writes scads of posts on what's not supposed to interest us. The chap favored by the inveterate non-interventionists in these fora has helped himself to a piece of territory with 1.9 million people in it while so abrading the central government of that neighboring state that one might wager that Russia's pretty much guaranteed cold and irritable dealings with the Ukraine for a half-generation. Since you all seem to fancy that Foreign Service professionals are idiots compared to the sophisticated folk on iSteve comment boards, it's pretty amusing that your preferred horse has ended up in these circumstances. So...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-tighten-the-ring-around-donetsk-1407670513
You're all stuck rooting for a Russian invasion (for which you can then stick the bill with Victoria Nuland).
ItReplies: @Chubby Ape, @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
Altering reality by rhetorical assertions? And which, my good sir, would those be?
Is NATO angling to expand even further to the East? If so, why? If it’s to contain Russian expansionism, isn’t it reasonable to expect the Russians to object? If it’s like the missile shields in Poland—you know, to shoot down Iranian ICBMs, then why expand?
The sacred, sacrosanct borders of Ukraine are a 20th century invention. The idea that the Crimean peninsula is Ukrainian territory goes back to a drunken whim of Khruschev. The Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, and then the Russian Federation, has based its Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean peninsula since 1783.
Quick, let me know if any of the foregoing constitutes a bald rhetorical assertion that’s attempting to alter reality. No?
The Russians wanted a warm water port since Peter the Great. That port is Sevastopol. After the coup d’etat against Yanukovich—-wait, can we agree that there was a coup? Popular demonstrations, which forced him to flee the country, and disrupted the regular norms of government? Is calling it a coup d’etat a rhetorical assertion on my part? In any follow up comments, please let me know if you think it wasn’t a coup, and we can argue that point as well, but for now, I’ll call it a coup d’etat. After that coup, Russia—rightly or wrongly—-was concerned about the fate of it’s Black Sea Fleet.
Aided and abetted by the “polite armed men in green” Crimea declared its independence, after a vote, and then voted for a treaty of accession to Russia. Similarly, the Donbass region (in the shape of the now Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic) declared its independence, after a vote, and keeps hoping for Russian assistance.
If you’d care to comment on the relative casualty lists compiled by Putin’s “seizing” Crimea, and Poroshenko’s ATO (“Anti-Terrorist Operation”) against the DNR and LNR, that’s a conversation I wouldn’t mind having either.
As I have said in the past, my main goal in this whole boondoggle is staying out of it. For most of my life, the main foreign policy goal of the United States was not getting into a shooting scrape with the Soviet Union. Differently phrased, the goal was to avoid starting World War Three, you know, the one that both starts and ends with mushroom clouds. In the interest of pursuing that goal, the United States sat by and did nothing when the Soviet Union acted in a far, far more provocative manner than Putin’s Russian Federation has. (Think, say, Hungary ’56.)
I think the West is egging Poroshenko on. Ukraine is basically bankrupt, and wars cost money. I don’t see what the potential upside is, and I see a very real downside. Maybe it’s the whole anniversary thing, I don’t know. It’s 100 years since WW1, it’s 70 years since the Soviet Union was pushing a “united Europe under German direction” back from it’s borders. Maybe that’s causing my melancholy?
some screw up here, will try to fix later.
Commenter #13 and his nonsense about “piece rates” is typical of the kind of people who try to shout down those with differing opinions. But look at the fact that this commenter has over 500 comments logged so far this year. In actuality he is the one monitoring websites and jumping in to accuse others of working on behalf of foreign governments. He apparently has all the time in the world to cruise the internet and interject his conspiracy claims. Most other people have jobs to go to so he’s probably the one working for “piece rates”.
Give Crimea back to Tatarstan.
Considering Crimean Tartary was a centre of the Muslim slave trade, whose raiding kept the current territory of New Russia a depopulated no-man’s-land for a couple of centuries, no.
Robert Mark, a commercial pilot who edits Aviation International News Safety magazine, said that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur normally travelled along a route significantly further south than the plane which crashed.
Malaysia Airlines has insisted its plane travelled on an "approved route" used by many other carriers.
But Mr Mark said: "I can only tell you as a commercial pilot myself that if we had been routed that way, with what's been going on in the Ukraine and the Russian border over the last few weeks and months, I would never have accepted that route.
"I went into the FlightAware system, which we all use these days to see where airplanes started and where they tracked, and I looked back at the last two weeks' worth of MH17 flights, which was this one.
"And the flight today tracked very, very much further north into the Ukraine than the other previous flights did ... there were MH17 versions that were 300 miles south of where this one was."
Records of recent MH17 flights on the FlightAware appear to bear out Mr Mark's claim, with earlier flights significantly further south than the flight that crashed.On the maps I've seen the usual flight path was over the Azov Sea, way, way south of the war zone.Replies: @Hepp
From one of your own links:
That seems to me to be more credible than some random aviation expert’s opinion.
I'm not responding to HA, who is a disgusting neocon troll, but to any innocent parties who might take him seriously:
He's basically trying to tell you that his side in the struggle for global dominance is much too nice to be able to kill 300 random people in order to advance its PR interests. This is false.Replies: @Hepp, @HA
Is there any example of anything like this happening in the last 200 years or so? A western government killing random civilians in order to blame it on the enemy? Don’t give me some individual massacre or collateral damage in a war. I mean a real false flag operation, where killing is done so the enemy can be blamed.
If Ukraine's government can be considered Western, then I suppose Turkey's can too, and, as you know, last summer's alleged sarin attacks by the Syrian government are now widely believed to be the work of forces in the Turkish deep state, so there's one.
“Based on a 2001 census ethnic Ukrainians made up 58% and 56.9% of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts respectively.”
During the same census 24.4% of Crimeans declared themselves ethnically Ukrainian and 12.1.% declared themselves ethnically Tatar. Yet in the Pew poll that I linked to above only 4% of Crimeans did not want Kiev to recognize their referendum. It’s a mistake to assume that all or most self-described ethnic Ukrainians in the southeast of pre-coup Ukraine want to continue living in the Ukraine. Such an assumption has been shown false in the Crimea by Pew, an organization that cannot be plausibly accused of pro-Russian bias.
In February a poll conducted in Ukraine found 29.4% of Luhansk and29.8% of Donetsk supported joining Russia.
http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=236&page=1
I’ve followed your link. In the poll conducted from Feb 8 to Feb 18 of 2014 (shortly before the Maidan coup) the statement “Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state” was supported by 41.0% in the Crimea, 33.2% in the Donetsk region and 24.1% in the Lugansk region.
Even the most ardent Russian nationalists do not want to annex all of the Ukraine. They just want the Russian-speaking parts. The group of people who would like to see some or all of the Russian-speaking parts of the Ukraine re-join Russia, but who think that grabbing Western Ukraine would be a mistake must be pretty large. This group must explain a large portion of the difference between the 41% shown for the Crimea in the Ukrainian poll and the 88% shown in the Pew poll. Another portion of that difference would be due to the Maidan coup and subsequent violence.
If Putin bloodlessly annexed the Donetsk and Lugansk regions back in April, what share of the Donetsk and Lugansk populations would now be satisfied with his decision? According to these numbers, the answer is 0.88/0.41*0.332 = 71.3% in Donetsk and 0.88/0.41*0.241 = 51.7% in Lugansk. Odessa would also be slightly above 50%. Many thousands of lives would have been saved as well.
Since we’re talking about statistics, I’d like to bring up refugee flows. According to the UN, there are 117,000 internally-displaced people in the Ukraine right now.
UNHCR also reports that a larger number of Ukrainians are arriving and staying in Russia under the visa-free regime. The Russian authorities estimate that around 730,000 Ukrainians, including the 168,000 seen by the Federal Migration Service, have arrived since the beginning of the year under this programme.
This article reports that “Vincent Cochetel, head of the UNHCR’s European Bureau, says the agency believes “that number is credible.” He’s talking about the Russian 730,000 number.
Now, Mr. Cochetel might be wrong and Russia might be exaggerating, but if he’s right (and why should I question his expertise or honesty?), then more than 85% of the refugees are going to Russia. Why is this important? Well, these people are fleeing because their homes are being shelled. The Ukrainian government says that this is being done by “the terrorists” and the Novorossian government says that this is being done by “the junta”.
I think that if anyone besides the war criminals themselves would have a good idea of who is trying to kill these people, it would be they themselves, i.e. the victims. They have a huge interest in finding out, they’re close to events, information tends to circulate. And it appears that these people are mostly fleeing this hell to Russia. I don’t think they’d do this if they thought that Russian mercenaries and pro-Russian separatists were trying to kill them.
As they say, an army only gets to shoot at its own people once. The second time it’s shooting at a foreign people.
I'm not responding to HA, who is a disgusting neocon troll, but to any innocent parties who might take him seriously:
He's basically trying to tell you that his side in the struggle for global dominance is much too nice to be able to kill 300 random people in order to advance its PR interests. This is false.Replies: @Hepp, @HA
He’s basically trying to tell you that his side in the struggle for global dominance is much too nice to be able to kill 300 random people in order to advance its PR interests.
I am saying no such thing. These were not 300 “random people”. These were people, that, according to the conspiracy theory, were in a plane in the Amsterdam airport when they were killed, whereupon this plane of corpses were flown all the way to Ukraine for the purposes of having it shot down.
What I am saying is that anyone who finds this a “not implausible” theory given the logistics involved is an idiot in need of medical assistance. You should at least be able to get that basic matter of reading comprehension through your tinfoil covered head. If not, then get some help.
Regardless, please continue to do me the favor of not responding to me. If not for my sake, then for “your side”, whatever you happen to mean by that. After all, if I were into conspiracy theories, I would suspect that it was the Nulands of the world spreading such rumours around, knowing that Putin supporters would lap them up and echo them to the world as being “not implausible”, thereby outing themselves as the loony idiots they are.
“HA says:
“”the West gave assurances that NATO would not be expanded into eastern Europe…””
What, this again? Been there, done that.”
Promises were made, although there was no formal treaty. But on the subject of treaties, the US Senate has final say over whether or not the US shall, through a treaty, entangle itself with some foreign country. Given that the fundmental character of NATO can change with any particular new member, the Senate ought to revote on our NATO involvement everytime a new NATO member is proposed. Clearly, it is not in the interest of the United States to guarantee the security of a small nation prone to picking fights. Just as in Goodfellas, Henry and Jimmy would have been a lot better off if they didn’t have a friend like Tommy.
"It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments. Some statements of Western politicians – particularly German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and his American counterpart James A. Baker – can indeed be interpreted as a general rejection of any NATO enlargement beyond East Germany. However, these statements were made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification, and the Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns. In the crucial “2+4” negotiations, which finally led Gorbachev to accept a unified Germany in NATO in July 1990, the issue was never raised. As former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze later put it, the idea of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolving and NATO taking in former Warsaw Pact members was beyond the imagination of the protagonists at the time."http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2014/Russia-Ukraine-Nato-crisis/Nato-enlargement-Russia/EN/index.htm Translation: While there was no formal treaty [and nobody claims there was], commitments were made by the US and German foreign ministers.Replies: @HA
Translation: While there was no formal treaty, [and nobody claims there was] commitments were made by the US and German foreign ministers.
Anyone who doubts that this guy is indeed claiming that documents limiting NATO engagement do in fact exist is kidding themselves, but again, I leave that for others to judge.
As for you, you should additionally bone up on your translation skills, particularly in the matter of the words “Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns”, and “the issue was never raised”, if you really think that what you cited supports the notion that “Some [unspecified] statements of Western politicians [made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification and with no follow-up by the Soviet side]” amount to a “commitment” by anyone who has any understanding of diplomacy.
So, if this is the best your side can offer as evidence for any such commitment (other than references to Goodfellas — seriously?), I thank you for helping me make my case.
Hunsdon said: Umm, did you read my post? And my follow on posts? No. Do you respond to my arguments? No. Do you bleat about useful idiots and paid stooges? Yes.
As I've said before: Expanding NATO to the East is a bad idea. It will provoke the Russians. We have expanded NATO to the East, and provoked the Russians. All your bleating does not obscure that fact. Why are we provoking the Russians? What good can come of it?
Is there any example of anything like this happening in the last 200 years or so? A western government killing random civilians in order to blame it on the enemy? Don’t give me some individual massacre or collateral damage in a war. I mean a real false flag operation, where killing is done so the enemy can be blamed.
If Ukraine’s government can be considered Western, then I suppose Turkey’s can too, and, as you know, last summer’s alleged sarin attacks by the Syrian government are now widely believed to be the work of forces in the Turkish deep state, so there’s one.
If you watch the movie Fog of War featuring Robert McNamara talking about his life and what he learned, at one point McNamara talks about Curtis LeMay and the firebombing of Japan and the lesson McNamara says one should draw is that war should be proportional, and this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of war, why it’s fought and how to prevent it.
When you make war proportional, you make war rational. It becomes a sane choice that one can reliably balance against other choice in terms of costs and benefits. As a result, you wind up with more of it because you’ve made sure that it will sometimes be a good choice.
If you want less war or no war, you need to make the response to war disproportionate so that war is always a bad choice and never a good rational choice. Make sure that the costs are always greater than the benefits. Make it unrewarding and disproportionate and it will become unthinkable. That’s exactly how Mutual Assured Destruction prevented a direct confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union for decades.
The worse thing that can happen for peace is to have a leader that is reluctant to use force and go to war. When Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” it required an assumption that the person carrying the big stick will be willing to use it in response, otherwise, they might as well be carrying a hand puppet or a feather.
AnonNJ
“Is there any example of anything like this happening in the last 200 years or so? A western government killing random civilians in order to blame it on the enemy? Don’t give me some individual massacre or collateral damage in a war. I mean a real false flag operation, where killing is done so the enemy can be blamed.”
From the Wikipedia:
“The Lavon Affair refers to a series of failed Israeli planned and sponsored terrorist attacks, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation,[1] a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned civilian targets, cinemas, libraries and American educational centers. The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Communists, “unspecified malcontents” or “local nationalists” with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt’s Suez Canal zone.[2] The operation caused no casualties, except for those terrorists of the cell who committed suicide after being captured.”
That’s the first incident that came to my mind. The targets were civilian, but there were no casualties, so it’s not exactly what you asked about. Does anyone know if the lack of casualties was deliberate or came about through the terrorists’ incompetence?
Well, Hitler’s Germany was a Western government from within the last 200 years.
“The Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involved Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war and to justify the war with Poland. Alfred Naujocks was a key organiser of the operation under orders from Heydrich. It led to the deaths of innocent Nazi concentration camp victims who were dressed as German soldiers and then shot by the Gestapo to make it seem that they had been shot by Polish soldiers.”
This is closer to home:
The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs.[19] These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro’s communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy.
Wasn’t carried through though.
On 4 April 1953, the CIA was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.[26] One tactic used to undermine Mosaddeh was to carry out false flag attacks “on mosques and key public figures”, to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government.[26]
The CIA project was code-named TP-Ajax, and the tactic of a “directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party”,[27] involved the bombing of “at least” one well known Muslim’s house by CIA agents posing as Communists.[27] The CIA determined that the tactic of false flag attacks added to the “positive outcome” of Project TPAJAX.[26]
However, as “[t]he C.I.A. burned nearly all of its files on its role in the 1953 coup in Iran”, the true extent of the tactic has been difficult for historians to discern.[28]
I think that the Wiki implies that this one was carried through.
Hepp, in short, the answer to your question appears to be “Project TP-Ajax”. Done by the CIA in 1953 against Iran.
Hepp the answer seems no. but after furious googling the Russophiles, unpaid I add, can find ten things that aren’t remotely like killing 200 passengers in an airplane and then flying it into Ukraine to be shot down.
I can give a Russian example of a a false flag attempt that killed hundreds of citizens in order to secure a certain diminutive poltician fond of shirtlessness’s election, but I can’t imagine the Hundson’s of the world will like it. It’s very curious that the same people that trust nothing they hear from western media sources all of a sudden get strangely credulous when Putin’s messanger begin their spin. I know I risk the scarlet N for neo-con for pointing this out, but it seems like those of us that remain skeptical or both sides reporting are truly able to lay claim to impartiality. Whereas the Russophiles have in SWPL fashion made use of leap frogging loyalties to redirect their tribal loyalities to someone other than the home team.
There's plenty not to like about Putin. One can say, perhaps, that the dire situation of Russia in the 1990s was likely to throw up figure like him , a tough, unscrupulous nationalist who is nonetheless an effective leader. He's may possibly be the best Russia can hope for for now, and if we manage to unseat him through some colour revolution we are likely to regret it.
Hunsdon wipes the floor with you every time you tangle, so show some respect. The trouble with you, HA, is that you vastly overplay your hand, so instead of saying something semi-reasonable about the limits of the pro-Russian case, it always ONLY A FRICKIN’ MORON COULD POSSIBLY BELIEVE THIS FOR MORE THAN ONE SECOND, or words to that effect. You’d be more persuasive if you’d tone it down a bit.
Also, cherry-picking quotations doesn’t work very well when readers can access the full text. The remarkable thing about that NATO self-defense is not that they make pro-NATO argument, but that doing so they admit massives declarations against interest. They may not concede that the NATO was in the wrong, but you’re left with a pretty good idea of why plenty of other people think so.
Another paragraph (interspersed with comments):
Yet even if one were to assume that Genscher and others had indeed sought to forestall NATO’s future enlargement with a view to respecting Soviet security interests,
Bureau-speak for “yes, they did”.
…they could never have done so. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 later created a completely new situation, as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were finally able to assert their sovereignty and define their own foreign and security policy goals. As these goals centered on integration with the West, any categorical refusal of NATO to respond would have meant the de facto continuation of Europe’s division along former Cold War lines.
I always thought the tragic aspect of Europe’s post-1945 division lay in the fact that half the continent suffered under Communist dictatorship. If both eastern and western Europe are free, why does it matter that there are different institutional arrangements in different regions? North American is a divided continent, but Canadians and Americans are perfectly happy with that.
The right to choose one’s alliance, enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Charter, would have been denied – an approach that the West could never have sustained, neither politically nor morally.
“The right to choose one’s alliance”: talk about non-existent rights. Obviously there is no right to join any particular alliance – the projected ally needs to agree. And in deciding whether to agree, it would be wise (though not legally required – no law against being a reckless fool) to consider what the effects might be: destablizing relations with regional power for example. Ukraine has no right to join NATO, and NATO would be unwise or foolishly aggressive to encourage Ukraine to join, because at a certain point you will, predictably, run into the nasty world of Realpolitik. And that’s where we are now.
BTW, you (or rather, other readers here) might also look at this 2009 article from Der Spiegel:
NATO’s Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
Re: Turkey
Certainly not Western, and I don’t believe Seymour Hersh’s allegations on this anyway. We have no way of knowing if this is true.
Re: Lavon Affair
Ok, this is the closest to what I’m looking for.
Re: Iran
Looks like the targets were mostly or exclusively political actors, not western civilians
Our governments may be bad, but they are not this intentionally evil. Such false flag operations are rare to nonexistent among Western governments. If they actually happened, we would have heard about some of them by now.
Sam Haysom,
Whether or not your home team is truly served by neocon politicians depends greatly on your ethnic background and not at all on your citizenship or place of birth.
“If Putin bloodlessly annexed the Donetsk and Lugansk regions back in April, what share of the Donetsk and Lugansk populations would now be satisfied with his decision? According to these numbers, the answer is 0.88/0.41*0.332 = 71.3% in Donetsk and 0.88/0.41*0.241 = 51.7% in Lugansk. Odessa would also be slightly above 50%. Many thousands of lives would have been saved as well.”
Perhaps, but the Pew poll also showed that 70% of east Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to remain united, with only 18% agreeing that regions should be allowed to secede. Further, 58% of Russian speakers in east Ukraine wanted Ukraine to remain united, with only 27% allowing for regional secession.
I can give a Russian example of a a false flag attempt that killed hundreds of citizens in order to secure a certain diminutive poltician fond of shirtlessness's election, but I can't imagine the Hundson's of the world will like it. It's very curious that the same people that trust nothing they hear from western media sources all of a sudden get strangely credulous when Putin's messanger begin their spin. I know I risk the scarlet N for neo-con for pointing this out, but it seems like those of us that remain skeptical or both sides reporting are truly able to lay claim to impartiality. Whereas the Russophiles have in SWPL fashion made use of leap frogging loyalties to redirect their tribal loyalities to someone other than the home team.Replies: @David R. Merridale
Don’t assume that us “Russophiles” are uncritical Putin groupies. As I see it, the single overwhelming objective for the West wrt to Ukraine is to avoid laying the groundwork for a wider European war. A second, less important objective is too avoid further bloodshed in the current conflict. No other priority comes close to these two. Neither is well served by our current policies.
There’s plenty not to like about Putin. One can say, perhaps, that the dire situation of Russia in the 1990s was likely to throw up figure like him , a tough, unscrupulous nationalist who is nonetheless an effective leader. He’s may possibly be the best Russia can hope for for now, and if we manage to unseat him through some colour revolution we are likely to regret it.
Perhaps, but the Pew poll also showed that 70% of east Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to remain united, with only 18% agreeing that regions should be allowed to secede. Further, 58% of Russian speakers in east Ukraine wanted Ukraine to remain united, with only 27% allowing for regional secession.Replies: @David R. Merridale
Sure, but what the grown-ups (including Putin) have been calling for is federalism, not secession. If sanity were to prevail, the only open question would be the degree of regional autonomy.
I know I risk the scarlet N for neo-con for pointing this out, but it seems like those of us that remain skeptical or both sides reporting are truly able to lay claim to impartiality. Whereas the Russophiles have in SWPL fashion made use of leap frogging loyalties to redirect their tribal loyalities to someone other than the home team.
Let me just reiterate that none of the supposed Russophiles are advocating anything other than one thing, leaving Russia and Ukraine alone. I state that because I think some of the commenters who criticize the supposed Russophiles are trying to make them seem like the Israel-firsters who openly advocate for positive US action towards Israel, or the foreign policy wonks who openly advocate for aggressive US action in Ukraine and anywhere else on the planet save the Rio Grande.
If Putin took Crimea, or if the Russian rebels shot down that airliner, I don’t care. Right now there are several more pressing issues to America than those, not the least of which is our southern border and the willful negligence of our government to defend it.
I think most of the supposed Russophiles are advocating not interjecting into Russian affairs, not due to a love of Russia, but because it has absolutely no impact on the ongoing demographic destruction of our nation. I fail to understand what good it will do for whites to continue to spend American blood and treasure throwing our weight around the world, when the future appears to belong to Mexicans and other NAMs. It’s like someone whose house is sitting next to a sink hole wanting to spend his savings on getting new carpet. What’s the point?
Based on a 2001 census ethnic Ukrainians made up 58% and 56.9% of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts respectively.
Does anyone with better knowledge of that area know which side the Ukrainian Cossacks are on? I assumed they’d be pro-independence because of their fierce fighter reputation, but then again they are Orthodox Christians whose ancestors once pledged loyalty to the Czar. I thought the Cossacks in Crimea were Russian Cossacks who crossed the border, but I can’t tell. I know they have differently colored hats for the different klans. But I can’t tell which is which.
It seems like we are seeing a world where Col. Falkenberg’s regiment from the Jerry Pournelle stories could be effective.
HA said: Anyone who doubts that this guy is indeed claiming that documents limiting NATO engagement do in fact exist is kidding themselves, but again, I leave that for others to judge.
Hunsdon said: Umm, did you read my post? And my follow on posts? No. Do you respond to my arguments? No. Do you bleat about useful idiots and paid stooges? Yes.
As I’ve said before: Expanding NATO to the East is a bad idea. It will provoke the Russians. We have expanded NATO to the East, and provoked the Russians. All your bleating does not obscure that fact. Why are we provoking the Russians? What good can come of it?
“HA says
So, if this is the best your side can offer as evidence for any such commitment (other than references to Goodfellas — seriously?), I thank you for helping me make my case.”
It may be too bad that a movie has more, and more better, to say about foreign policy than what you have written, but it is none-the-less true. That’s your fault, I’m afraid.
“Does anyone with better knowledge of that area know which side the Ukrainian Cossacks are on?”
Cossacks are fighting for Novorossia both as units under their own command and as individuals in units commanded by non-cossacks. The most important cossack unit in this war has been the Army of the Don River led by ataman Kozitsyn. For those who don’t know, cossack commanders are traditionally called atamans. Kositsyn was born in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. I’m assuming that most of his fighters are fellow Don Cossacks, but I don’t know this for sure.
He’s been criticized by other Novorossian commanders and by pro-Russian observers for being unmanageable, for not coordinating his actions with others and for refusing to report to either the Donetsk or the Lugansk People’s Republics. Strelkov has been surprisingly vocal in his criticism of cossacks under his own command for the same reason – unmanageable, don’t want to follow orders, want to do their own thing.
A North Caucasus Cossack named Mozhayev and nicknamed Babai became a media sensation in Russia during this war, mostly for his cool appearance. He fought for Strelkov in Slavyansk. Strelkov later accused him of leaving his post.
Alexey Mozgovoy, one of the main Novorossian commanders, is of Cossack background from the Lugansk region of pre-coup Ukraine, but he does not wear cossack clothing and does not describe his units as cossack units.
There are no Cossack units fighting for the Ukraine. I’m sure that some individuals of cossack background do fight for it though. In the Ukraine cossacks were and are a strictly eastern phenomenon. But not all of eastern Ukraine is in revolt. Many parts of it are still loyal to Kiev.
The Ukrainians I know all say that the Russians taking over Crimea was a good thing and that they have been decent and fair. Can’t say as to what is happening in rest of the country.
Hunsdon wipes the floor with you every time you tangle, so show some respect.
Coming from someone with your ‘translation’ and ‘bureau-speak’ skills, I will take that as the strongest affirmation I could hope for. Or maybe next time, you could also allege that Hundson’s mopping the floor with me is a ‘not implausible’ assessment of what just happened — that might actually be even stronger.
As it is, sadly, nothing you managed to find changes the fact that Hundson’s ghost agreement, which he continues to devoutly believe in despite the nagging inconvenience of being unable to find or cite anyone who has ever seen it, remains a figment of his conspiracy-riddled imagination. If anyone mopped the floor with anyone, you did it with him, given what you cited (and failed to cite), and thanks again for that.
Because let’s review: the best you could offer as proof of any such agreement were various unspecified remarks by Baker, Genscher and others expressed in the context of German reunification, and in the face of silence from the Soviets, both in failing to raise any concerns, or offering any followup afterwards. Your little ‘translation’ and ‘bureau-speak’ glosses (which are apparently shorthand for “what I really wish the above statements said is the following…”) are not going to fool anyone who isn’t already convinced.
BTW, you (or rather, other readers here) might also look at this 2009 article from Der Spiegel:
OK, I did, and here’s what I found:
“But were such assurances intended to be valid indefinitely? Apparently not. When the two colleagues discussed Poland, Genscher said[to Baker], according to the British records, that if Poland ever left the Warsaw Pact, Moscow would need the certainty that Warsaw would ‘not join NATO the next day.’ However, Genscher did not seem to rule out accession at a later date…Baker said that it appeared ‘as if Central European countries wanted to join NATO.’ That, Genscher replied, was an issue ‘we shouldn’t touch at this point [emphasis mine].’ Baker agreed.”
In other words, you apparently cannot help making my case for me with every new citation you dig up. I’m sure there’s a Scorcese reference here for that which even Mr. Anon could understand, but I’m at a loss.
Again, if anyone can find anything to refute the earlier claim that all these ‘remarks’ were in the context of German reunification, and unbacked by Soviet follow-up, please do so. As it is, I can apparently just sit back and let Mr Bureau-speak continue to do my work for me, as he just keeps on mopping. He’s a lot better at that than translating, that’s for sure.
Oh, my whole argument collapses! How could the Russians have missed such a critical point? Why are they lying about it now?
Hmm... perhaps because this was a private conversation between the German and American foreign ministers, which the Russians weren't privy to. It seems they took Western assurances at face value and didn't notice any crossed fingers under the table. Also, as you point out, this was all in the context of securing Moscow's acquiescence in German reunification, meaning, it took place at time when Moscow had leverage and, in accordance with the principles of Realpolitik, could be disregarded when that leverage no longer existed. I prefer my Realpolitik without the smarmy sanctimony (yours and theirs), thanks.Replies: @HA
That's a bizarre interpretation of the early modern period.Replies: @Sean
Art, look at what is happening right now; six decades of ME conflict in which the Muslim states have repeatedly been crushed is the cause of new entities we can see forming up. These will be ideologically and territorially powerful states without internal contradictions.
Hunsdon said: Umm, did you read my post? And my follow on posts?
As a matter of fact I did, but I found no post where you provided anything that was worthy of a response (that one you made 2 days after my final post didn’t make the cut, and besides, if it takes you two whole days to dig up something that supposedly monumental, and all you could find was what you found, it supports my case more than yours). Given that Mr Fatuous Bureau-speak was all bent on trying to help you out, and his citations seemed more germane, I played along, but that didn’t work out as well for either of you as he seems to think. Maybe next time, he can focus on mopping and you, with all your cryptography and intuition skills regarding documentation that doesn’t exist, can help him with his translation issues.
But to what end? It has been almost 20 years since Venona came out, and you still think a document with this kind of import is waiting to be discovered somewhere, when it is in the Russians’ own interest to publicize it? I mean, if they’re waiting for Baker to die before they can forge something without him being able to deny it, that doesn’t really count, does it, so they ought to get a move-on. Oh, but maybe they left it to Baker or Genscher to keep the only copy of a document that handcuffs NATO expansion forever. That makes sense.
There!
HA is happy. HA is vindicated. HA still does not explain why expanding NATO to the East is a good idea; HA still does not consider the very real Russian fear of encirclement/encroachment; HA still does not advance a single argument to favor US/EU intervention in Ukraine.
Say, HA. In post number 79 of this thread, I presented Art Deco a number of statements for his evaluation. You are, of course, welcome to comment on them, and I indeed invite you to do so. The statements I made in that post represent my essential understanding of the Ukrainian situation. If you have a different take on any (or all) of them, perhaps we could discuss them.
Or you could just call me a useful idiot/paid stooge/neckbeard wearing gender confused Putinophile . . . but that wouldn't really help your argument much.Replies: @HA
But to what end? It has been almost 20 years since Venona came out, and you still think a document with this kind of import is waiting to be discovered somewhere, when it is in the Russians' own interest to publicize it? I mean, if they're waiting for Baker to die before they can forge something without him being able to deny it, that doesn't really count, does it, so they ought to get a move-on. Oh, but maybe they left it to Baker or Genscher to keep the only copy of a document that handcuffs NATO expansion forever. That makes sense.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Hunsdon
When I put on my lawyer hat, I call your response “nonresponsive.” You continue to focus on the probable nonexistence of a formal document ratifying the agreement not to expand NATO to the east. Let us grant your case: there is no such document, for the sake of argument.
There!
HA is happy. HA is vindicated. HA still does not explain why expanding NATO to the East is a good idea; HA still does not consider the very real Russian fear of encirclement/encroachment; HA still does not advance a single argument to favor US/EU intervention in Ukraine.
Say, HA. In post number 79 of this thread, I presented Art Deco a number of statements for his evaluation. You are, of course, welcome to comment on them, and I indeed invite you to do so. The statements I made in that post represent my essential understanding of the Ukrainian situation. If you have a different take on any (or all) of them, perhaps we could discuss them.
Or you could just call me a useful idiot/paid stooge/neckbeard wearing gender confused Putinophile . . . but that wouldn’t really help your argument much.
Edited to add: Two whole days? I’m sorry I wasn’t Johnny on the spot with my comeback, but I do occasionally drift away from the computer. I think I spent ten minutes doing the research in that post. Maybe fifteen.
The DRUGS of war?
There are no Cossack units fighting for the Ukraine. I’m sure that some individuals of cossack background do fight for it though. In the Ukraine cossacks were and are a strictly eastern phenomenon. But not all of eastern Ukraine is in revolt. Many parts of it are still loyal to Kiev.
Aren’t Cossacks the founders of what is now Ukraine? I thought Cossacks where the heart and soul of what would become Ukraine due to their revolt in 1648. If so, it seems strange none are fighting for Ukraine, though I do realize they are Orthodox Christians and so maybe they are simpatico with Orthodox Russians. When Russia was communist, many Cossacks joined the Germans in fighting the Soviets. But maybe an Orthodox Christian Russia is something they want to belong to.
Again, if anyone can find anything to refute the earlier claim that all these ‘remarks’ were in the context of German reunification, and unbacked by Soviet follow-up, please do so. As it is, I can apparently just sit back and let Mr Bureau-speak continue to do my work for me, as he just keeps on mopping. He’s a lot better at that than translating, that’s for sure.
HA, you are a great lawyer and have parsed through the information to determine that there is nothing illegal, or outside any treaty to expand NATO. Good for you. Now explain how that is helpful. When the Cold War ended in 1991, there was supposed to be a ‘peace dividend’ and everyone was going to de-escalate. Expanding NATO and interfering in Eastern European politics has served to escalate the tension in the region. How is that good for a dying people that the chances of war and conflict are still on the horizon? And by dying people, I am referring to Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Europeans in Europe and Europeans in North America. The last thing a dying people need is another war.
The most pressing problem to core, European Americans since the end of the Cold War has been the ongoing demographic transformation of this nation. Ditto for Europeans in Europe. Yet for over twenty years no one outside of Pat Buchanan types has even raised the alarm. Right now our southern border is being swamped and no one cares. They are too busy thinking about Ukraine and making sure Russia, whose population is dying, doesn’t become a regional power.
James O’Keefe has just released this video of him crossing the Mexican border, dressed as Osama Bin Laden, and there are no border patrol agents in sight. Yet somehow this doesn’t seem to get the attention it deserves.
Tell me HA, do you really think it is more important for NATO to expand to Russian borders, or for the United States to defend ours?
The fact that NATO isn't forever fixed by some vague verbal agreement 30 years ago is in no way an argument that it should be expanded. See the previous comment to Hundson about not assuming too much. Besides, this was all about an EU agreement anyway, and I haven't had much good to say about that, either, except to say I see no reason why the Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to do what they choose with it. (That being said, if they at some point decide they want to rip off a chunk of a neighboring state, like some other country I could name, I'd be against that as well.) Likewise, I tire of people repeatedly tossing around claims that ten seconds of clear thinking would reveal to be an obvious fiction. This ghost document is an example of that, as is the automatic assumption that it is Russia that needs protection from NATO instead of, say, the other way around.
More generally, no one should assume I’m gung-ho about anything that has happened in Ukraine or in Russia the last year, but cheering Putin on is just going to make things worse precisely because it hides the fact that nothing he's done lately is worth cheering. I don’t need to have all the answers to argue that Putin and his ilk aren’t one of them. But since I don't have all the answers, I'll start by trying to drain away the swamp of conspiracy theories and imagined histories that pervade this part of the world, just a little bit.
But to what end? It has been almost 20 years since Venona came out, and you still think a document with this kind of import is waiting to be discovered somewhere, when it is in the Russians' own interest to publicize it? I mean, if they're waiting for Baker to die before they can forge something without him being able to deny it, that doesn't really count, does it, so they ought to get a move-on. Oh, but maybe they left it to Baker or Genscher to keep the only copy of a document that handcuffs NATO expansion forever. That makes sense.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Hunsdon
When I put on my lawyer hat, I call your response “nonresponsive.” You continue to focus on the probable nonexistence of a formal document ratifying the agreement not to expand NATO to the east. Let us grant your case: there is no such document, for the sake of argument.
There!
HA is happy. HA is vindicated. HA still does not explain why expanding NATO to the East is a good idea; HA still does not consider the very real Russian fear of encirclement/encroachment; HA still does not advance a single argument to favor US/EU intervention in Ukraine.
Say, HA. In post number 79 of this thread, I presented Art Deco a number of statements for his evaluation. You are, of course, welcome to comment on them, and I indeed invite you to do so. The statements I made in that post represent my essential understanding of the Ukrainian situation. If you have a different take on any (or all) of them, perhaps we could discuss them.
Or you could just call me a useful idiot/paid stooge/neckbeard wearing gender confused Putinophile . . . but that wouldn’t really help your argument much.
Way too long a time. The fact that something that fundamental isn’t at the top of your search results, the fact that the only documents that could be found require Mr Fatuous’s bizarre-world translation skills to find anything remotely resembling what he apparently regards as obvious – all of that indicates, thankfully, that neither the Soviets nor the West were stupid enough to stake the entire future of NATO on some vague verbal agreement more suitable for determining who brings the pizzas to the next kegger. If it were that important, it wouldn’t be that hard to dig up, (unless of course you fall down the rabbit hole of thinking “it’s ‘not implausible’ that the NSA hacked Google to remove all traces of…” and so forth, and there’s been enough of that already.)
As for your challenges to Art Deco, he can speak for himself, but just as with this document, you shouldn’t assume views and claims when there is in fact no evidence that they exist. Several people, I among them, have expressed considerable irritation with Putin and his supporters (in much the same way, I’d wager, as those same people sneered the coming of the great and powerful Obama). I will likely continue to do so. But that doesn’t mean that any of those who agree with me are eager to nuke Russia. Nor does it mean that they like Nuland, or deny that she’s a weasel. I, for one, wouldn’t hesitate to affirm that Ukrainians kicked out their President like a bunch of soccer hooligans, and I would regard it as obvious that Russians – not to mention Poles and Hungarians – have legitimate concerns with the Ukrainian right that needed addressing. But all that could have been done like adults. Given what happened instead, cheering on (and blinding yourself to) what Putin is doing simply out of some perverse desire to smack it to Obama or the neo-cons, is lunacy, because it means that Ukrainians are acceptable collateral damage, and as primitive as that place is (and Russia is no different, by and large) I don’t go along with that.
As for the rest, Sam Haysom at #94 says it about as eloquently as needs be said. I would only add that the right-leaning useful idiots of today are pretty much the same as the useful leftist idiots of yesteryear, as far as I can determine. Both claim that Russia embodies characteristics that America somehow lost (though older useful idiots would spew out some Tom Joad babble to justify why America needs to be more like Moscow, where today’s fools focus on much more substantive matters, ahem, such as Obama’s inability to dismantle an AK-47.) Ultimately, the leftist ones never did much good for anyone, and based on what I've seen so far, I don’t hope for anything better this time around.Replies: @Hunsdon
iSteveFan,
The idea that Little Russians are a separate people from Great Russians and that they should be called Ukrainians instead of Little Russians was born in the minds of Little Russian intellectuals in the 1840s. There was a pan-European trend in those years for local nationalisms. This Ukrainian idea would have never spread beyond narrow intellectual circles if the Bolsheviks didn’t back it immediately after the 1917 Revolution. So the real founder of the Ukraine is V.I. Lenin.
The word Ukraine means “the outskirts”, and before Little Russian intellectuals laid their claim on it in the 19th century many different parts of Russia, some of which are now in the Ukraine, but most of which are still in Russia, were casually called Ukraines.
Cossacks started up in the late Middle Ages as Russian serfs who ran from their landlords or from the law to the edges of civilization. There were several such edges around Russia: Siberia, the Caucasus mountains and the southern steppes. The Cossacks of what’s now eastern Ukraine are descended from the guys who ran towards the southern steppes. Since Siberia, the northern Caucasus and the non-Ukrainian portion of the southern steppes are still in Russia, there are lots of people of Cossack background in Russia itself. The modern Ukraine has no monopoly on Cossacks.
At this point in time Ukrainian nationalism is strongest in the far west of the Ukraine. There were never any Cossacks in that region because it was always a well-settled, farming region – the opposite of a lawless frontier. All the Ukrainian Cossacks are in the southeastern portion of the Ukraine because that’s where the steppes, the former “wild fields” are. And Southeastern Ukraine is less enthusiastic about the Ukrainian idea than Western Ukraine is.
“But were such assurances intended to be valid indefinitely? Apparently not. When the two colleagues discussed Poland, Genscher said[to Baker], according to the British records, that if Poland ever left the Warsaw Pact, Moscow would need the certainty that Warsaw would ‘not join NATO the next day.’ However, Genscher did not seem to rule out accession at a later date…Baker said that it appeared ‘as if Central European countries wanted to join NATO.’ That, Genscher replied, was an issue ‘we shouldn’t touch at this point [emphasis mine].’ Baker agreed.”
Oh, my whole argument collapses! How could the Russians have missed such a critical point? Why are they lying about it now?
Hmm… perhaps because this was a private conversation between the German and American foreign ministers, which the Russians weren’t privy to. It seems they took Western assurances at face value and didn’t notice any crossed fingers under the table. Also, as you point out, this was all in the context of securing Moscow’s acquiescence in German reunification, meaning, it took place at time when Moscow had leverage and, in accordance with the principles of Realpolitik, could be disregarded when that leverage no longer existed. I prefer my Realpolitik without the smarmy sanctimony (yours and theirs), thanks.
Any time people want to start talking about real grievances, like Marc Rich or crazy Bandera-ites, or anything else like I’m fine with that, so long as it connects with reality. (I.e., easy on the RT links.) But nonexistent documents on NATO, and how Ukrainians have to lose as part of a payback for what happened to the Serbs in Kosovo? Not so much.Replies: @David R. Merridale
There!
HA is happy. HA is vindicated. HA still does not explain why expanding NATO to the East is a good idea; HA still does not consider the very real Russian fear of encirclement/encroachment; HA still does not advance a single argument to favor US/EU intervention in Ukraine.
Say, HA. In post number 79 of this thread, I presented Art Deco a number of statements for his evaluation. You are, of course, welcome to comment on them, and I indeed invite you to do so. The statements I made in that post represent my essential understanding of the Ukrainian situation. If you have a different take on any (or all) of them, perhaps we could discuss them.
Or you could just call me a useful idiot/paid stooge/neckbeard wearing gender confused Putinophile . . . but that wouldn't really help your argument much.Replies: @HA
I think I spent ten minutes doing the research in that post. Maybe fifteen.
Way too long a time. The fact that something that fundamental isn’t at the top of your search results, the fact that the only documents that could be found require Mr Fatuous’s bizarre-world translation skills to find anything remotely resembling what he apparently regards as obvious – all of that indicates, thankfully, that neither the Soviets nor the West were stupid enough to stake the entire future of NATO on some vague verbal agreement more suitable for determining who brings the pizzas to the next kegger. If it were that important, it wouldn’t be that hard to dig up, (unless of course you fall down the rabbit hole of thinking “it’s ‘not implausible’ that the NSA hacked Google to remove all traces of…” and so forth, and there’s been enough of that already.)
As for your challenges to Art Deco, he can speak for himself, but just as with this document, you shouldn’t assume views and claims when there is in fact no evidence that they exist. Several people, I among them, have expressed considerable irritation with Putin and his supporters (in much the same way, I’d wager, as those same people sneered the coming of the great and powerful Obama). I will likely continue to do so. But that doesn’t mean that any of those who agree with me are eager to nuke Russia. Nor does it mean that they like Nuland, or deny that she’s a weasel. I, for one, wouldn’t hesitate to affirm that Ukrainians kicked out their President like a bunch of soccer hooligans, and I would regard it as obvious that Russians – not to mention Poles and Hungarians – have legitimate concerns with the Ukrainian right that needed addressing. But all that could have been done like adults. Given what happened instead, cheering on (and blinding yourself to) what Putin is doing simply out of some perverse desire to smack it to Obama or the neo-cons, is lunacy, because it means that Ukrainians are acceptable collateral damage, and as primitive as that place is (and Russia is no different, by and large) I don’t go along with that.
As for the rest, Sam Haysom at #94 says it about as eloquently as needs be said. I would only add that the right-leaning useful idiots of today are pretty much the same as the useful leftist idiots of yesteryear, as far as I can determine. Both claim that Russia embodies characteristics that America somehow lost (though older useful idiots would spew out some Tom Joad babble to justify why America needs to be more like Moscow, where today’s fools focus on much more substantive matters, ahem, such as Obama’s inability to dismantle an AK-47.) Ultimately, the leftist ones never did much good for anyone, and based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t hope for anything better this time around.
HA said: Given what happened instead, cheering on (and blinding yourself to) what Putin is doing simply out of some perverse desire to smack it to Obama or the neo-cons, is lunacy, because it means that Ukrainians are acceptable collateral damage, and as primitive as that place is (and Russia is no different, by and large) I don’t go along with that.
Hunsdon said: WHAT PUTIN IS DOING? Ah, yes, well, if you rely on the WaPo and the Slim Times. It rather seems to be Poroshenko and Kolomoisky who regard Ukrainians (of whatever origin) as acceptable collateral damage, as the Kiev regime seems to be the one using close air support/ground attack aircraft, artillery and ballistic missiles on population centers. Could have been handled like adults? Oh my yes. That would have been an optimal solution.
Who declared an anti-terrorist operation? Would you say that the Ukrainian government, post-Yanukovich, has handled the situation in an adult manner? Whether under Yatsenuk's caretaker government, or after the election of Poroshenko? Would you say that the private armies of, say, Kolomoisky, are being used in a responsible and adult manner?
“Hunsdon says
There!
HA is happy. HA is vindicated. HA still does not explain why expanding NATO to the East is a good idea;”
I wonder if HA thinks that extending NATO membership to Georgia would have been a good idea, so that we could be on the hook for whatever crazy scheme their necktie-chewing politicians cook up?
Oh, my whole argument collapses! How could the Russians have missed such a critical point? Why are they lying about it now?
Hmm... perhaps because this was a private conversation between the German and American foreign ministers, which the Russians weren't privy to. It seems they took Western assurances at face value and didn't notice any crossed fingers under the table. Also, as you point out, this was all in the context of securing Moscow's acquiescence in German reunification, meaning, it took place at time when Moscow had leverage and, in accordance with the principles of Realpolitik, could be disregarded when that leverage no longer existed. I prefer my Realpolitik without the smarmy sanctimony (yours and theirs), thanks.Replies: @HA
OK, so there’s no record that Baker or Genscher intended NATO to stall in perpetuity, but you’re still insisting that that is not what they told the Soviets even though the article never say that. So in other words, you’re still tragically unable to dig yourself out of the hold you dug with your original citation (you might want to re-read that), which noted that the Soviets never even raised concerns regarding NATO expansion, nor followed up on these verbal assurances. all of which were issued in the context of German reunification. That’s all fine, because your superior translation skills are able to fill in the gaps. Whatever. As I told Hundson, you should be thankful that none of what you’re saying makes any sense whatsoever. How much more dangerous the world would be if the West and the Soviets were so stupid as to let something so fundamental as the entire future of NATO – in saecula saeculorum, I take it — ride on some ephemeral agreements no one can find any documentation for (absent your superior x-ray-vision translations). If anyone is dissing the Russians unfairly, it’s you.
Any time people want to start talking about real grievances, like Marc Rich or crazy Bandera-ites, or anything else like I’m fine with that, so long as it connects with reality. (I.e., easy on the RT links.) But nonexistent documents on NATO, and how Ukrainians have to lose as part of a payback for what happened to the Serbs in Kosovo? Not so much.
HA, you are a great lawyer and have parsed through the information to determine that there is nothing illegal, or outside any treaty to expand NATO. Good for you. Now explain how that is helpful. When the Cold War ended in 1991, there was supposed to be a 'peace dividend' and everyone was going to de-escalate. Expanding NATO and interfering in Eastern European politics has served to escalate the tension in the region. How is that good for a dying people that the chances of war and conflict are still on the horizon? And by dying people, I am referring to Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Europeans in Europe and Europeans in North America. The last thing a dying people need is another war.
The most pressing problem to core, European Americans since the end of the Cold War has been the ongoing demographic transformation of this nation. Ditto for Europeans in Europe. Yet for over twenty years no one outside of Pat Buchanan types has even raised the alarm. Right now our southern border is being swamped and no one cares. They are too busy thinking about Ukraine and making sure Russia, whose population is dying, doesn't become a regional power.
James O'Keefe has just released this video of him crossing the Mexican border, dressed as Osama Bin Laden, and there are no border patrol agents in sight. Yet somehow this doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves.
Tell me HA, do you really think it is more important for NATO to expand to Russian borders, or for the United States to defend ours?Replies: @HA
Now explain how that is helpful. When the Cold War ended in 1991, there was supposed to be a ‘peace dividend’ and everyone was going to de-escalate. Expanding NATO and interfering in Eastern European politics has served to escalate the tension in the region. How is that good for a dying people that the chances of war and conflict are still on the horizon?
The fact that NATO isn’t forever fixed by some vague verbal agreement 30 years ago is in no way an argument that it should be expanded. See the previous comment to Hundson about not assuming too much. Besides, this was all about an EU agreement anyway, and I haven’t had much good to say about that, either, except to say I see no reason why the Ukrainians shouldn’t be allowed to do what they choose with it. (That being said, if they at some point decide they want to rip off a chunk of a neighboring state, like some other country I could name, I’d be against that as well.) Likewise, I tire of people repeatedly tossing around claims that ten seconds of clear thinking would reveal to be an obvious fiction. This ghost document is an example of that, as is the automatic assumption that it is Russia that needs protection from NATO instead of, say, the other way around.
More generally, no one should assume I’m gung-ho about anything that has happened in Ukraine or in Russia the last year, but cheering Putin on is just going to make things worse precisely because it hides the fact that nothing he’s done lately is worth cheering. I don’t need to have all the answers to argue that Putin and his ilk aren’t one of them. But since I don’t have all the answers, I’ll start by trying to drain away the swamp of conspiracy theories and imagined histories that pervade this part of the world, just a little bit.
All the Ukrainian Cossacks are in the southeastern portion of the Ukraine because that’s where the steppes, the former “wild fields” are. And Southeastern Ukraine is less enthusiastic about the Ukrainian idea than Western Ukraine is.
Sadly, the hundreds of thousands of Cossacks who died as a result of Stalin’s Holodomor are unavailable for comment on that point.
Way too long a time. The fact that something that fundamental isn’t at the top of your search results, the fact that the only documents that could be found require Mr Fatuous’s bizarre-world translation skills to find anything remotely resembling what he apparently regards as obvious – all of that indicates, thankfully, that neither the Soviets nor the West were stupid enough to stake the entire future of NATO on some vague verbal agreement more suitable for determining who brings the pizzas to the next kegger. If it were that important, it wouldn’t be that hard to dig up, (unless of course you fall down the rabbit hole of thinking “it’s ‘not implausible’ that the NSA hacked Google to remove all traces of…” and so forth, and there’s been enough of that already.)
As for your challenges to Art Deco, he can speak for himself, but just as with this document, you shouldn’t assume views and claims when there is in fact no evidence that they exist. Several people, I among them, have expressed considerable irritation with Putin and his supporters (in much the same way, I’d wager, as those same people sneered the coming of the great and powerful Obama). I will likely continue to do so. But that doesn’t mean that any of those who agree with me are eager to nuke Russia. Nor does it mean that they like Nuland, or deny that she’s a weasel. I, for one, wouldn’t hesitate to affirm that Ukrainians kicked out their President like a bunch of soccer hooligans, and I would regard it as obvious that Russians – not to mention Poles and Hungarians – have legitimate concerns with the Ukrainian right that needed addressing. But all that could have been done like adults. Given what happened instead, cheering on (and blinding yourself to) what Putin is doing simply out of some perverse desire to smack it to Obama or the neo-cons, is lunacy, because it means that Ukrainians are acceptable collateral damage, and as primitive as that place is (and Russia is no different, by and large) I don’t go along with that.
As for the rest, Sam Haysom at #94 says it about as eloquently as needs be said. I would only add that the right-leaning useful idiots of today are pretty much the same as the useful leftist idiots of yesteryear, as far as I can determine. Both claim that Russia embodies characteristics that America somehow lost (though older useful idiots would spew out some Tom Joad babble to justify why America needs to be more like Moscow, where today’s fools focus on much more substantive matters, ahem, such as Obama’s inability to dismantle an AK-47.) Ultimately, the leftist ones never did much good for anyone, and based on what I've seen so far, I don’t hope for anything better this time around.Replies: @Hunsdon
Ah, and by sleight of hand and a reference to Sam Haysom, it all comes back to our love of the shirtless man on horseback.
HA said: Given what happened instead, cheering on (and blinding yourself to) what Putin is doing simply out of some perverse desire to smack it to Obama or the neo-cons, is lunacy, because it means that Ukrainians are acceptable collateral damage, and as primitive as that place is (and Russia is no different, by and large) I don’t go along with that.
Hunsdon said: WHAT PUTIN IS DOING? Ah, yes, well, if you rely on the WaPo and the Slim Times. It rather seems to be Poroshenko and Kolomoisky who regard Ukrainians (of whatever origin) as acceptable collateral damage, as the Kiev regime seems to be the one using close air support/ground attack aircraft, artillery and ballistic missiles on population centers. Could have been handled like adults? Oh my yes. That would have been an optimal solution.
Who declared an anti-terrorist operation? Would you say that the Ukrainian government, post-Yanukovich, has handled the situation in an adult manner? Whether under Yatsenuk’s caretaker government, or after the election of Poroshenko? Would you say that the private armies of, say, Kolomoisky, are being used in a responsible and adult manner?
Yes, HA, I think we are all in agreement that Joseph Stalin was a very bad man. Relevance?
“Nathan, above, said WW3 would leave the Western hemisphere physically unscathed. This is a comment so stupid that it must have been written with a sense of hipster irony.”
Nope, they’re serious.
“Are you saying that if Russia was attacked with nukes coming from Europe, they wouldn’t hit both Europe AND the US with ICBM’s and Sub-based nukes? Why wouldn’t they?”
The neocon idea is if they get Ukraine and build ABM sites around the Russian border they’ll be able to nuke Russia and although Russia could respond by taking out Europe with nuclear cruise their ICBMs targeted at the US will be taken out by the ABM shield leaving both Europe and Russia completely destroyed but the US unscathed.
Now obviously this makes no sense but they believe it so why do they believe it?
They *want* to believe it.
(It’s quite important people understand how psychopathic these people are.)
Any time people want to start talking about real grievances, like Marc Rich or crazy Bandera-ites, or anything else like I’m fine with that, so long as it connects with reality. (I.e., easy on the RT links.) But nonexistent documents on NATO, and how Ukrainians have to lose as part of a payback for what happened to the Serbs in Kosovo? Not so much.Replies: @David R. Merridale
HA,
I’m going to end my contribution here; I think anyone who’s following this can read the NATO and Spiegel articles and decide which of us is full of it. But first I’d like to unpack your phrase “in the context of German reunification”, which deployed a few times without really acknowledging what it implies.
You concede that the West was willing to address Soviet concerns about stationing NATO troops in East Germany, through a formal agreement even; yet you argue, straight-faced, that this had no political implications for extending NATO power even farther East.
“Yes, we fully understand your sensitivities about the former DDR, but how were we to know you’d get all hot and bothered about putting forces in Poland and the Baltics? It’s inexplicable! Admittedly, at the time, we all thought NATO expansion was about as likely as the restoration of the Romanovs, and we did tell you we wouldn’t expand eastwards, but you know what they say about verbal agreements. Also, let’s be clear about this: we are the good guys, and everything we do is either pure altruism or a worst enlightened self-interest, while you… let’s just say we’re keeping an eye on you. BTW, do you need some more economics advisors?”
Regardless of how much you agree or disagree with the assumptions of that little sketch, do you seriously not understand the concept of provocation?
It’s really easy. Either stop acting like a chubby girl defending her first boyfriend when Putin is so much as mentioned, or accept that you are crushing on a foreign leader with the result that it hurts your impartiality. The Russophiles seem to want to argue with the vigor, slipshod logic, and spittle-specked chins of a SEC football fan will demanding the deference of due an English earl. No, sorry as long as your interest are more aligned with a foreign power, and as long as it remains so delightfully easy to get your goat I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing Hundson.
I didn’t make Putin take his shirt off before he got on that horse. WASP culture produces Ronald Reagan, a man who can ride a horse looking alert, poised, and conjuring up memories of the archetypal American cowboy. Slavic culture produces Vladimir Putin, a balding, short man so who apparently thinks its acceptable for a world leader to pose for pictures shirtless on a horse. From those choices you decided for the more Jersey option. don’t get mad because we WASPs gleefully point that out.
Most sensible people will understand that Putin is a thug, but at least he never calls us "white male", never talks about our "tired blood", never advocates for moar immigration into our countries, for "immigration reform", never denied the right of our cultures to be less equal vis-à-vis immigrant cultures, etc. He also never lectures us about the values of USYou couldn't possibly sound more WASPish than that.Replies: @Hunsdon
I'll be surprised if you can find it. I don't remember writing it, but hey, every so often I'll post after a Scotch or two.
Or do you just do invective? C'mon, man, engage!
I am glad you liked my comment.
You seem to have missed the fact that Obama is very much like the useful idiots of yesteryear.
You also seem incapable of understanding that someone who knows how something like an AK-47 works might also know how something really complicated works.
I certainly cannot trust someone who does not know how machinery works, but I am happy that you do.
Are you sure that they believe that their Anti Ballistic Missiles can take out Russian ICBMs during their boost phase? That seems like a tall order.
You also seem incapable of understanding that someone who knows how something like an AK-47 works might also know how something really complicated works.
I’m pretty sure John McCain knows how an AK-47 works. John Kerry might also remember. ‘Nuff said.
WHAT PUTIN IS DOING?
Well, for one thing, there’s this. And in response, I again refer you to Haysom’s posts. I ask only that the same mental effort required to see through Obama’s lies (i.e., not very much at all) be applied to Putin. That hasn’t happened. When it does, the rest will, if not take care of itself, will at least be a little easier. Likewise, two generations of Eastern Europeans had to deal with tanks in the streets every now and then, in order for Moscow to feel secure. And now, here we again. Granted, it’s a smaller cut of Eastern Europeans who are asked to make that sacrifice, but I say enough already. Maybe it’s time to roll the tanks in some other direction, or better yet, find another way of feeling secure and playing up his macho image.
You concede that the West was willing to address Soviet concerns about stationing NATO troops in East Germany, through a formal agreement even; yet you argue, straight-faced, that this had no political implications for extending NATO power even farther East.
Let me offer this in parting. Consider your citation that pointed out that the Soviets never voiced their concerns (to Genscher, Baker, et al) nor followed up on any (unspecified) words with regard to NATO expansion (however constrained). It’s there in black and white — you cited it. Consider the possibility that they failed to do all this because they understood that even two highly placed foreign ministers such as Genscher and Baker do not get to decide between themselves what the limits of NATO are. Especially not forevah, forevah evah, as the song says and as some are now implying. They might be able to promise to use their influence to the extent possible, they might even realistically torpedo any moves for a little while (which is what they agreed to, though there is no evidence even that was asked for). But anything beyond that — pipe dream. Anyone who would even ask for more substantive assurances would have shown himself to be an amateur. And that, I submit, is the reason for the Soviets’ conspicuous silence and lack of documentation regarding the matter. And it’s another reason why these perpetual agreements and assurances Putin’s supporters are invoking are really just smoke and mirrors. Make of that what you will. But I think anyone who disagrees has read maybe a few too many conspiracy theories about the Trilateral commission, or protocols of whatever.
Hunsdon said: Oh, the assertions that I'm crushing on Putin? Dude, I get so tired of homo-erotic ad hominems. Engage with my arguments, please, I'm begging you. Show me where I'm wrong. Don't run around like Zoidberg squirting squid ink.
C'mon. I asked questions you didn't answer. Do you think the Ukrainian government is handling this in an adult manner? Are they handling it in a manner calculated to de-escalate and defuse the situation? Are they using ground attack aircraft and ballistic missiles against population centers?
Is that calculated to help, or to hurt the situation?
HA said: Likewise, two generations of Eastern Europeans had to deal with tanks in the streets every now and then, in order for Moscow to feel secure.
Hunsdon said: Yes, and then Russia pulled back. Russia let Germany reunify. Russia relocated their troops back to Russia. Russia did not go all Hungary '56 on everyone. A generation after the NSDAP set out to conquer Europe (if not the world) the US was happy to get along with West Germany. A generation after Pearl Harbor Japan was a valued ally. Your point, sir? (Or ma'am?)Replies: @HA
The Russophiles seem to want to argue with the vigor, slipshod logic, and spittle-specked chins of a SEC football fan will demanding the deference of due an English earl. No, sorry as long as your interest are more aligned with a foreign power, and as long as it remains so delightfully easy to get your goat I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing Hundson. ……
Quit projecting! You are trying to describe the so-called Russophiles in the same manner that people on this blog describe the neocons when it comes to Israel. But there is no equivalence between them. The so-called Russophiles don’t want anything, ANYTHING, other than to leave Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe ALONE. No one is advocating that the USA GIVE money to Russia, give weapons to Russia, make loan guarantees for Russia or even send troops to support Russian interests in the region. No sir, what you have described is more applicable to neocons and their rabid support of Israel than any so-called Russophiles on this blog.
Additionally the so-called Russophiles are not advocating disastrous domestic policies in the USA like the neocons. It is not Russophiles who have defined the USA as a ‘propositional’ nation. It is not Russophiles who believe that we have to make the USA as diverse as possible to make it safe for ethnic Russians.
I can’t believe you either can’t, or won’t, see this critical difference. The so-called Russophiles would just as soon not have the word Russia even mentioned, and instead have 100 percent of our political energy spent defending OUR borders and developing a repatriation program to start undoing the damage. Can the same be said about neocons?
Hunsdon said: Yup. Pretty much exactly what iSF said. (Hey, how about we get together for some vodka tonight? There's this great new place on the Ring Road . . . ) (Note: that's a joke, yolks!)
It’s becoming clear that Paleocons desperately want to argue only against neo-cons because when conventional, traditionalist conservatives call them out for their Russophila they have nothing but point and sputter tactics and fulminations about the neo-cons. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work with me. My interests are only those of the good ole’ USA. Yours aren’t. Where are my calls for intervention? I simply take great pleasure tweaking the Putin fanboys. I’ll add I don’t recall addressing you by name. If you aren’t a Russophile them I’m not really addressing so I don’t understand your complaints. If every time neo-cons were criticized on this board a commenter were to leap to the defense of neo-cons Id be very surprised if you wouldn’t accuse him of being neo-con. If you aren’t a Russophile then feel free not to respond. Moreover, why shouldn’t Paleocons be held to an extra rigorous standard for foreign loyalties if you are going to complain about Israeli firsters you better not have an outside loyalties.
I want Eastern Europe left alone too. Currently only one nation has massed its tanks on Ukraine’s border and is actively fomenting insurrection in Ukraine. Only one nation sent tanks into Ukraine to seize the Crimea. You don’t want to see Eastern Europe left alone you want to see Russia prevail in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately,for the Eastern European are too tough to allow that to happen.
My interests are only those of the good ole’ USA. Yours aren’t.
That is completely false. If you did have the interests of the good ole’ USA, you would oppose the immivasion and the cultural rot that has permeated our nation and is sapping our vigor. Paleocons have been on the forefront of fighting against the immivasion and the rest of the cultural rot. It is the neocons who advocated for the proposition-nation notion nonsense, and for not fighting on the cultural front. There is no American interest in Ukraine or Eastern Europe that trumps the domestic events taking place in our nation. If you were for America, I wouldn’t have to explain this to you.
Remember, it is the paleocons who are routinely called ‘America Firsters’. Neocons and others use that term as a term of derision because we don’t support the immivasion and nation-building
I want Eastern Europe left alone too. Currently only one nation has massed its tanks on Ukraine’s border and is actively fomenting insurrection in Ukraine. Only one nation sent tanks into Ukraine to seize the Crimea. You don’t want to see Eastern Europe left alone you want to see Russia prevail in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately,for the Eastern European are too tough to allow that to happen.
No you don’t. You want to mess around and have the USA play the great game and achieve political hegemony in that part of the world. You and the neocons still look at the world as a great power struggle between nation-states. You are playing a game that is no longer relevant.
The real danger out there are the non-state players in the realm of 4G warfare, and the mass of humanity bursting at the seems in the global south. The combination of that third world horde, 4G warfare, and open borders that ONLY paleocons seem to opppose BTW, is the greatest threat to every European nation-state, from North America to Europe, Russia and Australia. Yet neocons fail to see this. As Pat Buchanan aptly stated about George Bush, he was busy saving Anbar province while losing Arizona.
As far as having tanks on the border, I want them on my border with Mexico along with at least 2 infantry divisions. Tanks along the Ukraine border do not affect me.
As far as who controls Europe, I am more concerned about the EU. The EU is far more damaging than a dying Russia. Russia has neither the demographics, military might or economic might to take over much of anything besides Russian-speaking enclaves THAT WELCOME THEM.
If you were really concerned about Europe, the font of American civilization, then the EU would be more of a villain than Russia. For it is the EU that is destroying Europe through third world immigration. Yet, neocons seem to like the EU. Go figure, they like the one entity intent on flooding the continent with third worlders. I guess that explains why they show such little concern with flooding America with third worlders.
Moreover, why shouldn’t Paleocons be held to an extra rigorous standard for foreign loyalties if you are going to complain about Israeli firsters you better not have an outside loyalties.
I still don’t understand why you are having such a hard time understanding what appears to be a simple concept. Paleocons are not advocating positive action for Russia. Neocons advocate positive action for Israel. Neocons pledge undying American support for Israel. Neocons will attack anyone who tries to end the $3 billion annual subsidy to Israel. Neocons have even spoken of taking Palestinian muslim refugees into the USA to help Israel.
Where have any paleocons advocated anything like that for Russia? Paleocons simply don’t want America to intervene against Russia. What the Paleocons advocate won’t cost Uncle Sam a dime.
Please tell me that you understand this simple comparison, namely between one side wanting America to simply not get involved, versus the other side wanting America to give billions in dollars, weapons and anything else on behalf of their favorite state. There is no equivalence,
Meanwhile the census bureau reports a new immigrant legally arrives in the USA every forty seconds. So in the time I wasted on this response, another 10 third worlders have come to my country to help replace the tired blood of the people who built the place. Don’t blame Paleos for that. Blame the neocons. And if you are a neocon, you should hang your head in shame over that.
I didn't make Putin take his shirt off before he got on that horse. WASP culture produces Ronald Reagan, a man who can ride a horse looking alert, poised, and conjuring up memories of the archetypal American cowboy. Slavic culture produces Vladimir Putin, a balding, short man so who apparently thinks its acceptable for a world leader to pose for pictures shirtless on a horse. From those choices you decided for the more Jersey option. don't get mad because we WASPs gleefully point that out.Replies: @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
There are some Russophiles on this thread, for example people who are arguing that Putin is no thug.
Most sensible people will understand that Putin is a thug, but at least he never calls us “white male”, never talks about our “tired blood”, never advocates for moar immigration into our countries, for “immigration reform”, never denied the right of our cultures to be less equal vis-à-vis immigrant cultures, etc. He also never lectures us about the values of US
You couldn’t possibly sound more WASPish than that.
Hunsdon said: Hell yes he's a thug! Him and Netanyahu both. And Andrew Jackson, today he'd have had "THUG4LIFE" across his back he was such a thug. Someone pulled a gun (actually two) on Jackson, and the old man beat him half to death with his walking stick.
My take on Putin (and, of course, I could be wrong) is that he's a tough nationalist who's trying to maximize Russia's position in the world. Plus, while he's a thug, he's not a stupid thug. I don't think we could or should be BFFs with Russia, but I see plenty of areas where the US and Russia could cooperate.
I didn't make Putin take his shirt off before he got on that horse. WASP culture produces Ronald Reagan, a man who can ride a horse looking alert, poised, and conjuring up memories of the archetypal American cowboy. Slavic culture produces Vladimir Putin, a balding, short man so who apparently thinks its acceptable for a world leader to pose for pictures shirtless on a horse. From those choices you decided for the more Jersey option. don't get mad because we WASPs gleefully point that out.Replies: @reiner Tor, @Hunsdon
Ah-ha. I’m just crushing on Putin, I’m like a fat girl with her first boyfriend. Nice assertion. Presumably you picked it up from my comments here. Can you show me any of them? Don’t worry, you won’t have to quote the whole thing, just point out where I said something crushing on Putin.
I’ll be surprised if you can find it. I don’t remember writing it, but hey, every so often I’ll post after a Scotch or two.
Or do you just do invective? C’mon, man, engage!
Quit projecting! You are trying to describe the so-called Russophiles in the same manner that people on this blog describe the neocons when it comes to Israel. But there is no equivalence between them. The so-called Russophiles don't want anything, ANYTHING, other than to leave Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe ALONE. No one is advocating that the USA GIVE money to Russia, give weapons to Russia, make loan guarantees for Russia or even send troops to support Russian interests in the region. No sir, what you have described is more applicable to neocons and their rabid support of Israel than any so-called Russophiles on this blog.
Additionally the so-called Russophiles are not advocating disastrous domestic policies in the USA like the neocons. It is not Russophiles who have defined the USA as a 'propositional' nation. It is not Russophiles who believe that we have to make the USA as diverse as possible to make it safe for ethnic Russians.
I can't believe you either can't, or won't, see this critical difference. The so-called Russophiles would just as soon not have the word Russia even mentioned, and instead have 100 percent of our political energy spent defending OUR borders and developing a repatriation program to start undoing the damage. Can the same be said about neocons?Replies: @Hunsdon
iSteveFan said: Quit projecting! You are trying to describe the so-called Russophiles in the same manner that people on this blog describe the neocons when it comes to Israel. But there is no equivalence between them. The so-called Russophiles don’t want anything, ANYTHING, other than to leave Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe ALONE.
Hunsdon said: Yup. Pretty much exactly what iSF said. (Hey, how about we get together for some vodka tonight? There’s this great new place on the Ring Road . . . ) (Note: that’s a joke, yolks!)
HA said: And in response, I again refer you to Haysom’s posts.
Hunsdon said: Oh, the assertions that I’m crushing on Putin? Dude, I get so tired of homo-erotic ad hominems. Engage with my arguments, please, I’m begging you. Show me where I’m wrong. Don’t run around like Zoidberg squirting squid ink.
C’mon. I asked questions you didn’t answer. Do you think the Ukrainian government is handling this in an adult manner? Are they handling it in a manner calculated to de-escalate and defuse the situation? Are they using ground attack aircraft and ballistic missiles against population centers?
Is that calculated to help, or to hurt the situation?
HA said: Likewise, two generations of Eastern Europeans had to deal with tanks in the streets every now and then, in order for Moscow to feel secure.
Hunsdon said: Yes, and then Russia pulled back. Russia let Germany reunify. Russia relocated their troops back to Russia. Russia did not go all Hungary ’56 on everyone. A generation after the NSDAP set out to conquer Europe (if not the world) the US was happy to get along with West Germany. A generation after Pearl Harbor Japan was a valued ally. Your point, sir? (Or ma’am?)
File this one under “admission against interest.”
I am a Russophile. I like Russia. I like Russian culture, I get a huge kick out of speaking Russian, one of my favorite movies if “White Sun of the Desert,” a Russian “Eastern” that paralleled American Westerns. (“Said, I was counting on you.”)
I am also an American citizen, a (to quote Bill Blizzard) a Native Born White American Citizen. I learned Russian to oppose the machinations of the Soviet Union to impose World Communism on an unwilling world.
Sometimes, yes, it seems that Russia is on a path that I wish America was on. Russia has Orthodox priests training to jump into combat with the VDV (Vozduzhnovo-Desantnie Voiska or paratroops). America seems to be intent on purging the Christianist menace from our military. Russia intervenes militarily in its sphere of influence. America intervenes militarily, it seems, in places where no good can accrue to America as a result of the intervention. Russia does not seem caught up in WWT or WWG. America . . . well, there you go.
Does any of this make me a traitor? Does any of this mean that, as Sam Haysom so winsomely suggests, I have transferred my tribal loyalties to another tribe? Does not the very assertion smack of Bill Clinton’s statement that you cannot love your country and hate your government? (You can substitute “distrust” or “despise” or “have serious doubts about” for “hate” if you wish, all of which seem fairly applicable.)
I expect much squid ink, and very little in the way of reasoned argument, in response to this post.
Hunsdon said: Oh, the assertions that I'm crushing on Putin? Dude, I get so tired of homo-erotic ad hominems. Engage with my arguments, please, I'm begging you. Show me where I'm wrong. Don't run around like Zoidberg squirting squid ink.
C'mon. I asked questions you didn't answer. Do you think the Ukrainian government is handling this in an adult manner? Are they handling it in a manner calculated to de-escalate and defuse the situation? Are they using ground attack aircraft and ballistic missiles against population centers?
Is that calculated to help, or to hurt the situation?
HA said: Likewise, two generations of Eastern Europeans had to deal with tanks in the streets every now and then, in order for Moscow to feel secure.
Hunsdon said: Yes, and then Russia pulled back. Russia let Germany reunify. Russia relocated their troops back to Russia. Russia did not go all Hungary '56 on everyone. A generation after the NSDAP set out to conquer Europe (if not the world) the US was happy to get along with West Germany. A generation after Pearl Harbor Japan was a valued ally. Your point, sir? (Or ma'am?)Replies: @HA
C’mon. I asked questions you didn’t answer. Do you think the Ukrainian government is handling this in an adult manner?
I did answer. Search the comments for the phrase ‘soccer hooligans’. Also look right past that where I said all of that could have been handled in an adult manner. It wasn’t. If Russia were on the right path, they’d have handled things a little differently.
Russia pulled back. Russia let Germany reunify. Russia relocated their troops back to Russia.
And what happened in response? Did German tanks swarm out past the Don, or seize Crimea for themselves, or wherever? They did not. And yet, shirt-o-phobic Fearless Leader still wants to rile up the faithful against Nazis. Not buying it. Within living memory of most people reading this site, Russia barely survived a military coup. And yet, Putin would have us believe Russia is the one that needs to fear the West, and not the other way around. Again, not buying it. If you can see through McCain’s hogwash when he tells us we ought to be up in arms against this and that, then good for you, but then you also ought to be able to see what Putin is up to. But you don’t, so don’t be too surprised when people call you out for being a fool and a hypocrite. And that’s actually the part of Haysom’s posts I was referring you to, though I do also see what he’s talking about with regard to your man-crush.
Sometimes, yes, it seems that Russia is on a path that I wish America was on. Russia has Orthodox priests training to jump into combat
Well color me shocked. I’m supposed to be aroused by this, too? Like say, the amazing fact that Russia pays it women to have extra babies (like, basically, half of Europe)? Why don’t you stick the words “chaplain parachute” into your favorite search engine and see what other amazing things you find there and get back to us? (Hint: not all the entries will be about Russian Orthodox priests.) But like the saying goes, if you love Russia that much, I’m sure there’s a way to fit the two of you together. Don’t let the back door hit ya, and so forth. Like I said, it’s all been done before, except now, it’s being done from a different corner of the left/right spectrum. But do be careful of which flight path you choose, or you might be in for a very unhappy landing.
Hunsdon said: So what's Putin up to? Spell it out for me. Rebuild the Soviet Union? Take Georgia back? Marry two green eyed women and rule the universe from beyond the grave? Break it down. You can insult me along the way, if it makes you feel better. Say, you, umm, have any evidence of this man-crush, or are you just pulling it out of the playbook?
HA said: I’m supposed to be aroused by this, too?
Hunsdon said: As my logic professor (an Army brat growing up) used to say, "Sounds like a personal problem, maybe you should talk to the chaplain about it." Do you always associate sexual arousal with geopolitics, or is this something just between the two of us?
About the jumping chaplains----the surprising thing is that it's happening in Russia, you know, the former USSR. I'd assume that most normal countries include priests/rabbis/pastors in their militaries.
HA said: Don’t let the back door hit ya, and so forth.
Hunsdon said: You know Merle Haggard wrote "Okie from Muskogee" as a gag, right? Despite being a Russophile, I am an American. If it comes to a shooting fight, I'm on the American side.
I think they would claim that you are simply a useful idiot and are possibly happy they no longer are.
Dude, I could be a useful idiot. I mean, I don't think I am, but then, that's what all useful idiots think. I'm open to having my mind changed, to having my eyes opened. Instead I get accused of being queer for Vlad. (Umm, "not that there's anything wrong with that.")
HA said: . . . then you also ought to be able to see what Putin is up to. But you don’t, so don’t be too surprised when people call you out for being a fool and a hypocrite. And that’s actually the part of Haysom’s posts I was referring you to, though I do also see what he’s talking about with regard to your man-crush.
Hunsdon said: So what’s Putin up to? Spell it out for me. Rebuild the Soviet Union? Take Georgia back? Marry two green eyed women and rule the universe from beyond the grave? Break it down. You can insult me along the way, if it makes you feel better. Say, you, umm, have any evidence of this man-crush, or are you just pulling it out of the playbook?
HA said: I’m supposed to be aroused by this, too?
Hunsdon said: As my logic professor (an Army brat growing up) used to say, “Sounds like a personal problem, maybe you should talk to the chaplain about it.” Do you always associate sexual arousal with geopolitics, or is this something just between the two of us?
About the jumping chaplains—-the surprising thing is that it’s happening in Russia, you know, the former USSR. I’d assume that most normal countries include priests/rabbis/pastors in their militaries.
HA said: Don’t let the back door hit ya, and so forth.
Hunsdon said: You know Merle Haggard wrote “Okie from Muskogee” as a gag, right? Despite being a Russophile, I am an American. If it comes to a shooting fight, I’m on the American side.
Fourth Doorman:
Dude, I could be a useful idiot. I mean, I don’t think I am, but then, that’s what all useful idiots think. I’m open to having my mind changed, to having my eyes opened. Instead I get accused of being queer for Vlad. (Umm, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”)
Most sensible people will understand that Putin is a thug, but at least he never calls us "white male", never talks about our "tired blood", never advocates for moar immigration into our countries, for "immigration reform", never denied the right of our cultures to be less equal vis-à-vis immigrant cultures, etc. He also never lectures us about the values of USYou couldn't possibly sound more WASPish than that.Replies: @Hunsdon
reiner Tor said: There are some Russophiles on this thread, for example people who are arguing that Putin is no thug.
Hunsdon said: Hell yes he’s a thug! Him and Netanyahu both. And Andrew Jackson, today he’d have had “THUG4LIFE” across his back he was such a thug. Someone pulled a gun (actually two) on Jackson, and the old man beat him half to death with his walking stick.
My take on Putin (and, of course, I could be wrong) is that he’s a tough nationalist who’s trying to maximize Russia’s position in the world. Plus, while he’s a thug, he’s not a stupid thug. I don’t think we could or should be BFFs with Russia, but I see plenty of areas where the US and Russia could cooperate.
So what’s Putin up to? Spell it out for me.
We’ve gone through this before. Right now, if you haven’t noticed, Putin is tearing off a chunk of a neighboring state, and justifying it with lame propaganda that only the most naïve and heart-struck would find convincing. Yet no one can explain why Russia’s need to be secure outweighs Ukraine’s right to its integrity, other than claiming that only Russians matter, essentially, which doesn’t really count.
Given that the search for this mythical NATO-stoppage agreement that the West supposedly violated is proving to be elusive – i.e. is one more Putinista lie — and given that Ukraine did undeniably give up its nukes in order to secure its borders, it is Russia, as I see it, that is in flagrant breach of its obligations, and I see no sufficient reason why tanks and bogus “independence movements” are the proper means to address what were initially understandable concerns. Instead, as noted, all I see as justification is crazy conspiracy theories, not to mention howls of indignation when I so much as point out the obvious presence of paid (yet amateurish) flakking for Putin. To top it all off, just a few days ago, you and others expressed genuine puzzlement and consternation over the lack of Western media attention to all these massacres by the Kiev junta you’ve been hearing about in RT, and news agencies out of China, Iran, and so forth. Genuine amazement! How about you read that link and try to come up with a rationale for why real media might be leery of that kind of reporting?
In any case, enough already. It’s been less than a generation since nuke-filled Russia barely made it past a military overthrow. How’s that for a genuine threat? So, until Russia manages to stop being a global threat on that basis alone, it needs to keep the tanks at home and hold off any militaristic ‘solutions’ until it has absolutely no other choice. When Angela Merkel unleashes Operation Barbarossa 2.0, that will be the time to reconsider, but sorry, an EU agreement with Ukraine does not engender the required degree of bloodlust to warrant that codename.
I get why Ukrainians might want to fight off those trying to tear off a chunk of their country, though in true form, I wouldn’t be surprised that they’re botching royally as they fumble along. I would think that Russia’s behavior towards Chechen separatists (and missteps along the way) should make it likewise sympathetic towards those trying to keep their borders from being shifted about. Whereas, again, the only rationale for Putin’s behavior involves crazy claims about nonexistent NATO agreements, or how Tymoshenko, fresh out of prison, is going to nuke Ukraine’s Russian speakers (not sure where they’re gonna get those nukes at this point, but whatever), or else how Ukrainians don’t really exist, or how Brezhnev’s “drunken” decisions should be ignored while population-altering Moscow-induced famines should be regarded as bygones at this point. Find me arguments that do not devolve to those chestnuts, or to weird segues into how we should want the Ukrainians to lose so that the race-replacing neo-cons can be stopped, or so the Serbs can be avenged, and then we’ll talk further. Those on your side who simply yell “neo-con” anytime they can’t be bothered to counter-argue are not fooling anyone who doesn’t want to be fooled.
I’m still not saying it’s our battle (I have yet to find anyone on this site who says it is) but I’m not going to pretend I don’t have reason to be concerned or that American and world interests aren’t served by, at the very least, telling it like it is, so that’s what I intend to do.
Finally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ukraine also has a few paratrooper chaplains. Next time, try and work that into your world-view.
Hunsdon said: That is a lie. You, sir, lie reflexively. You lie like a rug. You lie like a dog in the hot sun. You lie like a politician in front of a grand jury. You indulge in base ad-hominem attacks and accuse your opponents of a homoerotic infatuation with Vladimir Putin. It is pointless to engage in good faith argumentation with a faithless interlocutor.Replies: @HA
sorry, that should’ve been “Kruschev’s drunken decisions…”
HA said: To top it all off, just a few days ago, you and others expressed genuine puzzlement and consternation over the lack of Western media attention to all these massacres by the Kiev junta you’ve been hearing about in RT, and news agencies out of China, Iran, and so forth. Genuine amazement!
Hunsdon said: That is a lie. You, sir, lie reflexively. You lie like a rug. You lie like a dog in the hot sun. You lie like a politician in front of a grand jury. You indulge in base ad-hominem attacks and accuse your opponents of a homoerotic infatuation with Vladimir Putin. It is pointless to engage in good faith argumentation with a faithless interlocutor.
HA said: “Yet no one can explain why Russia’s need to be secure outweighs Ukraine’s right to its integrity, other than claiming that only Russians matter, essentially, which doesn’t really count.”
How about, for the same reason that the Monroe Doctrine justified U.S. interventions in Latin America? I don’t recall us asking for permission from, or justifying to, anyone in numerous cases when U.S. troops or special ops intervened on foreign soil to protect perceived U.S. interests.
Now it seems like we’re beyond the Monroe Doctrine, as the U.S. government can invoke “responsibility to protect” (RtoP) as a fig leaf to intervene anywhere for any reason, common sense be damned.
So if we can project our power far outside of our borders to protect our claimed interests, why can’t Russians do the same in their near abroad? Will you say “because we have nuclear weapons, so we can”? Thank you.
Also regarding your comments about ‘search for the mythical NATO-stoppage agreement’; I believe you have proven your case that nobody can point to the document. So be it. I’m guessing it was probably just a verbal agreement, as you seem to agree in your comment #132. Where we seem to disagree is, you believe that because we didn’t sign anything, we don’t owe anything to the Russians. However they have been observing our actions and feel threatened, as I’m sure we would if China were fomenting unrest in Tijuana and trying to put missile defense in Toronto and Jamaica. You may think that’s unreasonable, but the point is, what do they think? Not understanding your opponent is not a way to win a war, last time I checked.
Anyway, back to the verbal vs. written agreement. You seem to think that only signed written agreements matter. Do I need to give you a list of historical events where we acted without a written agreement in place? How about U.S. entering WWI? Why did we do that, since we didn’t owe anything to anyone? Why does anyone do anything without a signed written agreement? If your answer is “because it’s the right thing to do”, then thank you again.
Hunsdon said: That is a lie. You, sir, lie reflexively. You lie like a rug. You lie like a dog in the hot sun. You lie like a politician in front of a grand jury. You indulge in base ad-hominem attacks and accuse your opponents of a homoerotic infatuation with Vladimir Putin. It is pointless to engage in good faith argumentation with a faithless interlocutor.Replies: @HA
Calm down, Princess. Here’s a few of the quotes, I was referring to, including one or more of yours:
From the beginning, the Kiev regime has referred to this as an anti-terrorist operation—and you can’t negotiate with terrorists! They have used artillery and SU-25 ground attack airplanes (the Soviet equivalent to the beloved A10 Warthog) on these cities . . . and we just ignore it.
The Western media drops the subject every so often to point to something else happening. This is generally when either a) the Kiev regime is doing something truly atrocious…
BTW the Ukrainian downing of a Russian civil airliner over the Black Sea has been dropped down the memory hole either. [admittedly, this one is about Ukraine in general, not the Kiev junta, but close enough]
Although there has been much concern in the media about how the government in Syria has been putting down urban insurgents, and some about how the government of Israel has been treating its opponents in Gaza, the government of the Ukraine has largely come in for a pass
If none of those are a close enough, I’m sure you can find plenty more examples, should you ever manage to unclench your little fists long enough. Again, I’ll leave it to others to judge — perhaps someone else (other than you and Bureau-speak) can explain what prevarications would justify such a hissy fit on your part. Granted, I’m sure there’s things in any post I would rephrase differently in hindsight, but I do have other things going on in addition to churning out what I manage to churn out, so that’s inevitable. In this case, based on just these quotes, I see I did overplay the amazement factor, but as I said, there are other posts that capture that better, and again, I still don’t see the reason for your hysteria on the matter. I suppose I should have explicitly noted that the great Hundson is way too sure he knows how the world works to ever admit genuine amazement at anything — would that have helped?
In fact, if anyone should be amazed and puzzled, it is me, having just realized that even though I pay very little attention to your posts, you apparently pay even less attention to them than I do. As such, I think you’re right concluding in that productive conversation between the two of us is fruitless, however much we differ on the exact reasons for that. I particularly see no sense in attempting to explain to something to those who resort to on-screen meltdowns when faced with arguments they can’t seem to answer.
How about, for the same reason that the Monroe Doctrine justified U.S. interventions in Latin America?
First of all, I commend you, Sir, for managing to respond to a comment without scenery-chewing dramatics or conniptions, unlike some other people I could name. In reply to your question, I would tell you that since Moscow agreed to respect Ukraine’s borders in return for relinquishing its nukes, that very explicit agreement is the more clear and pertinent violation here, more so than some doctrine, so if anyone has a right to feel aggrieved, it is Ukraine.
Moreover, I’m not sure which of America’s special ops ever resulted in tearing off a chunk of a neighboring country for ourselves, though I’m guessing you have Noriega and Panama in mind. Without arguing in favor of that operation, I still don’t think there’s any equivalence. (For one thing, Panama’s borders post-Noriega are pretty much where they were previously.) There is also that business about how America obtained California, and I’m sure there are similar such acts of skullduggery, but I myself do not consider those ventures to be America’s finest moments, or find in them sufficient justification for any large country to brutalize a smaller neighbor, especially when there are very clear agreements between the two. I think Putin knows this too, which is why he’s whipping up poor dumb yokels in Eastern Ukraine into fear-frenzies with propaganda (such as what I linked to above) alleging that the neo-Nazis are coming to extinguish them. That tactic worked pretty well for Yugoslavia’s Milosevic, too, for a while…until it didn’t. Kiev did bungle badly in how they removed their President, but they’ve since made moves to rectify things, crack down on their extremists (perhaps with excessive brutality), and so forth. Regardless, as I said, if anyone has a right to feel violated at the moment, it is them.
You seem to think that only signed written agreements matter.
I think in the case of permanently arresting NATO’s expansion, then yes, some kind of substantiation must accompany such changes. If we’re talking about who has to bring pizzas to the next kegger, a verbal agreement will suffice. Two foreign ministers don’t get to decide NATO’s boundaries in perpetuity, even when they happen to be the foreign ministers of America and Germany. Did England want to bargain away the future of NATO in order to secure Germany’s reunification? That seems awfully generous of them, given that they can’t have been so very enthusiastic about that reunification to begin with.
Obviously several people have searched the records diligently, they’ve found nothing that says NATO’s boundaries were to be fixed forever. Moreover, as I said, Russia’s boundaries continue remain intact. There were plenty moments of weakness and near overthrow in the last few decades where Germany or neo-Nazis could have decided they were going to tear off a chunk of Russia. That never happened. The same cannot be said for Ukraine. I understand why the Ukrainians are fighting (just as I understand why Russia fought its Chechen separatists). I find Moscow’s rationale for its behavior consists exclusively of claims and conspiracies that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
To continue the previous post regarding this sasquatch NATO document — if SALT (with its truckloads of documentation) is too formal an agreement to be a fair analogue, consider Yalta. Back then, things were definitely more loose in the sense that a few men could basically handshake things between themselves, juggle boundaries pretty much on the fly, etc. The very exacting documentation that would eventually become the norm for East/West negotiations had yet to be established. And yet, we have detailed documentation of what went on there – photographs, notes, signatures. Why is there nothing comparable for this NATO agreement?
Mr. Incredibly-fatuous was kind enough to dig up documents upthread that specifically indicated that at the time, any questions on who else could join NATO would be held off for the time being only, not indefinitely. He subsequently went on to claim (absent any evidence) that these notes referred to what Baker and Genscher told each other, whereas they told the Soviets something else. So, according to him, even though there’s careful documentation for the Baker-Genscher exchanges, no one apparently bothered to take similar notes during their meetings with the Soviets. Does that make any sense to anyone?
Or is the fact that a politician schooled in Soviet propaganda tells bald-faced lies now and again when it suits him just too mind-boggling to be believed by his devotees, like telling a six-year-old something about Santa that he really doesn’t want to know?
NATO expansion needs consensus. Theoretically even Estonia could veto a NATO expansion, but the US and Germany together could certainly do that. So if these two were to agree to no further NATO expansion, then there would be no further NATO expansion, period.
Yes, I understand why the Ukrainians are fighting. If I were Ukrainian, I would also fight. But I also understand why the Russians attacked. I wish the Ukrainians will prevail in the so-called Novorossiya region but the Russians will keep the Crimea.
My guess is that the West Germans (and Americans) were worried that Mrs. Thatcher would try to stop German reunification by taking a stand in favor of Poland’s right to joint NATO as finally rectifying the events of 1939 and 1945. If a formal public agreement had been undertaken regarding no NATO expansion, that would have given Mrs. T an opening to try to form a de facto alliance with the Soviets to sabotage German reunification in the name of Poland. I suspect some of that was the background for the argument I witnessed from 3 feet away in 1999 between Mrs. Thatcher and the pro-German General Odom.
“I wish the Ukrainians will prevail in the so-called Novorossiya region but the Russians will keep the Crimea.”
Well, your wishes notwithstanding, there is that agreement regarding Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for Russia respecting its territorial integrity. Presumably, the anticipation that Russians would invoke a Monroe Doctrine with respect to Ukraine was one of the reasons the agreement needed to be made in the first place. Having agreed to it, Russia ought to live by it. If it does not, then the rest of us should accept the fact that it is NATO that needs security against Russia, and not the other way around. Not sure why that is such a radical concept for some people. Note also that the US managed to enforce the Monroe Doctrine without that much boundary rewriting (not always admirably, mind you), so it can be done.
“Theoretically even Estonia could veto a NATO expansion, but the US and Germany together could certainly do that. So if these two were to agree to no further NATO expansion, then there would be no further NATO expansion, period.”
I already noted above that one of the things Baker and Genscher could do was torpedo any additions for a while, and according to one of the links, that is apparently sort of what they agreed upon, though there is no evidence that even this was asked for. (Also note, with regard to Steve’s point about Thatcher, that the discussion of any such delay is in the British records, though I guess it could have been from secret wiretaps or something – the article didn’t say.) So, even though you make a good point, it does not have any bearing on the larger argument I am making, which is that Jim Baker does not get to decide the future of NATO indefinitely, even when America is concerned. Same goes for Genscher. Rational people, Soviets included, knew this already, which is perhaps why no one can find evidence that these (nameless, so far) Soviet negotiators even asked for the kind of agreement that some are saying they managed to strike — at least, not in what Incredibly-fatuous was able to dig up for us.
Less rational people, who are more used to thinking that every single thing that happens in the world is decided by a couple of Jews shaking hands in a back room, or the like, have a tougher time understanding. Some of them, apparently, will flounce away in indignation rather than admit that dear, dear Putin put one over on them.
Speaking of which, I see that I did not correctly link to one of Hundson’s quotations above, about how Western media supposedly drops the subject whenever the Ukrainian government does something “truly atrocious”, so let me correct that here. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was falsely quoting him or her, or anything like that.