-TSS-

It never ceases to amaze me how people wank themselves into ecstasy over this issue even in a country like Finland. You should see the Finnish news or the comments on the Finnish social media about this conflict, The thing I'm amazed with is wtf has this got to do with Finland so much to get all those people's knickers in a twist. Nothing whatsoever. The way I see things is that we are happy in our little periphery next to Siberia. Why do some people want to spoil that happiness by taking sides in a conflict that has nothing to do with us?

Israel has the mowing the grass-ideology against Hamas: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/22/5926275/israel-gaza-mowing-the-grass "Obviously, Israel recognizes that the threats from groups like the Gaza-based militant group Hamas aren't the same as the Cold War-era threats it faced from Arab invasions. So it's developed a new version of its long-held threat management strategy, which is often called "mowing the grass." It's a pretty creepy term, as it implies that periodically killing people is the same as keeping your lawn groomed. But that's the basic analogy: Hamas, like grass, can't disappear, but it can be regularly cut down to size. And, like mowing the grass, it's implied that this is a routine that will be continued forever. According to Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, Israeli academics based at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, the basic difference between "mowing the grass" and Israel's old strategy is that the end-goal has changed. In the era of wars with Arab conventional armies, Israel hoped that eventually "a long and violent struggle, punctuated by decisive battlefield victories, could eventually lead Arab states to accept the notion of Israel's permanence." In other words, Israel believed that its threat-management strategy would eventually lead to peace, which in cases such as Egypt it did. Israel does not believe the same thing today about applying this strategy to non-state militant groups. Israel sees Hamas and other militants as "implacable enemies, who want to destroy the Jewish state and there is very little Israel can do on the political front to mitigate this risk." That thinking points to regular Israeli military assaults, like the Gaza invasion, designed to "cripple" Hamas' military capabilities such as its ability to launch rockets, without any regard to finding a political solution. Mowing the grass attacks are also, according to Inbar and Shamir, designed to make future wars less likely. The idea is that if Hamas is afraid of Israeli retaliation, it'll voluntarily reduce its rocket fire into Israel, thus requiring fewer "mowing the grass" attacks by the Israeli military. Inbar and Shamir see this week's Gaza incursion as a textbook example of this strategy. Sasley sees things similarly. Israel, according to Sasley, wants "quiet." He believes that Israel would actually tolerate a number of rockets out of Gaza, so long as those rockets are not from Hamas, "they don't cause any damage, certainly don't kill any Israelis, and there's nothing else that requires a bigger response." Once that's happened, Israel will see — here's that stomach-churning metaphor again — the grass as cut down to an acceptable length (until it grows back, anyway)."

There can be no peace without a two state-solution but more probably the reality of any two state-existence would be exactly like what we are seeing today. However, it is demographically necessary for Israel to agree to a two state-solution because the birth-rate of the Palestinians is much higher than that of the Jewish people in Israel.

Borders can indeed be drawn in wrong places but surely we dont want to solve the problem of borders in the wrong places by allowing the stronger countries just march in and take what they want.

This is going to be something along the lines that Russia withdraws the support for the rebels of Eastern-Ukraine and leaves the rebels to their own devices but Russia can keep the Crimea. What a wonderful compromise? yes, except that the Crimea is the only thing the Russians wanted anyway. They can show how compromising they are for withdrawing the support from the rebels. No can do! Russia must give the Crimea back to Ukraine or face sanctions. However, I doubt the EU-leaders have any balls to push Russia.

My suggestion is that instead of sanctioning Russia of bread we should first sanction Russia out of circus like suspend their membership of the IOC and any other international sporting organisations. Similarly, suspend from any international entertainment. That kind of sanctions would not bite the civilian population, only piss them off.

Hamas will always win the PR-war and that's the most important thing and that's why we see these headlines at regular intervals every few years. Every time treated by the media as if it were the first time. These two conflicts, Gaza and Ukraine, are competing for attention. Gaza will always be a hotspot but it will always remain regional. I wouldn't say the same thing about Ukraine.

Watching tonight's main news broadcast on YLE, our equivalent of the BBC, they left absolutely no doubt which side their sympathies are on. Heart-breaking pictures of bleeding children at Gaza-hospitals, pictures of destroyed buildings and people walking amid the rubble looking for their belongings. After that, in the studio-section some "expert" was interviewed and was asked some question such as: Why doe s Israel have no regard for civilian death-toll. He answered something along the lines how Israel wants to show how strong it is and even the children who died could be future suicide-bombers. Oh, goddamit YLE! You are a tax-funded organisation. At least try to pretend to be impartial especially when reporting on news which have nothing whatsoever to do with Finland!

Your last point on immigration. It is always an interesting point. As The US and Canada are absolute magnet-countries where most of the people of the third world would like to enter it is easy to say that both countries have very rigorous immigration-systems in place. If they hadn't both would be inundated with poor illiterate third worlders in no time. I'm sure that to an average Joe in the US or Canada the sight of many third worlders on their streets must make them feel that their border-control and immigration-system must be leaking like a sieve but after all even if 1% of the willing people were admitted even that number would show on the streets of either country because the overall number of people who wanted to move into North-America is so massive. Most Europeans can just about forget about being allowed to move into either country if they are too old, don't have any special skills or don't have relatives already stationed over there.

Each of the topics you raised is worth a separate thought but for me the issue of Ukraine-crisis and the sanctions on Russia remains the most important and interesting topic. I would wholeheartedly support anti-Russian sanctions if I were convinced that it would either topple Putin or at least teach him a lesson of leaving his smaller neighbours alone, which in itself is an unbelievably naive hope. However, what if Putin is toppled? Why do we seem to think that in that case some nice guy would come and take over? You dont get to power by being nice and least of all in Russia.

What a co-incidence that the Brits are reopening investigations into the Litvinenko-murder. I guess they must have suddenly discovered new evidence.

I just spoted news that Bolivia has declared Israel as a terrorist-state. Oh dear! I guess Israel can just and just scrape by without the support of the mighty Bolivia.

Sorry but commercial airliners are totally defenceless against military actions. Similarly as are commercial trains, buses, boats and cars. In this insecure world you just can't guarenteed a 100% safety. 99% will have to do.

As demographics like to place people into three different age-brackets and that is: 0-14 15-64 65+ a couple of years ago the Finnish statistical bureau said that the number of 65+-people had exceeded that of the 0-14. That really is a demographic disaster as a no country can cope in the long run if the number of 65+ people is higher than the 0-14. However, doing anything about it is a forlorn hope as those 65+ people are a large proportion of voters who don't like to be told that they are a nuisance. What could you do about that situation anyway? In Canada increase immigration. Yes, a good idea. In Finland increase immigration. No, a very bad idea even though our political establishment are pushing for that exact solution. Namely, Canada, Australia, the US, Britain they are magnet-countries which attract the best people from all over the world. They can pick and choose the ones they want and reject the ones they dislike. Finland is a backwater somewhere near Siberia which attracts no-one with real skills but as we do have a very generous welfare-system we do attract a lot of illiterate third world peasants who contribute nothing to the economy but are a drain on the social services. Importing people like them to tackle the problem of ageing population is like curing hangover by having another drink.

I kind of sit on the fence concerning this issue of the Middle-east conflict but I have to say that every time anyone rants about "Zionists" doing this or that I lose the will to listen to that person, which could be a shame because amid all the biased hatred there could be even some valid points..

Even though an error is the likeliest explanation for the catastrophe even that doesn't sound all that plausible given that sophisticated missile-systems can spot the difference even at 10km between a commercial airliner and a military plane. The only explanation I can think of that makes any sense is that the guys were so drunk that they didn't think what they were doing. Probably couldn't even remember the next day what they had done.

Even though acts of this magnitude always lure all kind of tin-foil hat conspiracy-theorists out of their caves I don't think anyone seriously believes anything else than that this shooting down of the plane was a huge error because of a mistaken target; an error which could have easily been avoided for example if the perpetrators had been sober.

Gaddafi and Europe had a deal that there were no illegal immigrants coming from Libya starting from the ports of Libya. Under Gaddafi that deal was honoured. Now that Gaddafi is dead and there's a new regime in Libya we constatntly get the news how so and so many people drowned while they attempted to traverse the Mediterranean on their unseaworthy vessels. However, the very premise that mass-immigration is like a force of nature which can not be tackled, only adapted to, was proved as BS under Gaddafi. It's a totally another thing that the elite in Europe wants our continent to be inundated by millions of Africans. Cheap labour and all that. All this "unstoppable" immigration stops the very moment when it no longer benefits the elite.

Gaza is nothing else than a pit of sand. Therefore it was easy for Israel to give it up and remove its settlers from their by force as the place has no religious significance whatsoever. It is a different story with West-Bank and especially East-Jerusalem.

The future of Ukraine looks very bleak. The rebels will definitely be defeated, which is a good thing but at the same time only sows the seeds for another conflict in the future. Partition would be the only way to avoid a future conflict but that is out of the question. After all, that is what the rebels want and they are going to lose this civil war. More importantly, though, partition is out of the question because most of the natural resources of Ukraine are located in East-Ukraine.

The media? The political elite for sure but the media? No, I don't think so.

Does anyone know how much the death-toll in the fighting in Ukraine has been since the downing of the plane?

We must remember the old adage about how the first victim of any war is the truth. We know it too well that Russians broadcast lies and bullshit all the time but we would be foolish not take the Ukrainian side of the story with a pinch of salt as well. This war is difficult for the media because there is no clear good guys vs bad guys-position. The Russian separatists are clearly the bad guys but the current Ukrainian government are not particularly angels themselves either.

The shooting down of the plane was not a military operation but an act of terrorism and should be treated as such. Anyone who harbours terrorists is complicit to terrorism. Having said that I couldn't help smiling when the Dutch PM Mark Rutte was talking tough at a press conference saying that he will personally see to it that the ones behind this crime are punished. Sorry Mr.Rutte but you and your country just don't have the muscles for that. I don't think Putin is feeling terrified now that the Dutch PM is very angry.

More confusion: http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-knew-of-separatists-air-defense-capabilities-say-officials-1405781508