Ukraine crisis

[ASIP]

Ukraine has always been known to be a tinderbox which will blow sooner or later.

This is not true. This is absolutely not true.

This current turmoil was initiated from outside in a very narrow window of opportunity.

Ukraine will be fine.

[jbg]

This is not true. This is absolutely not true.

This current turmoil was initiated from outside in a very narrow window of opportunity.

Ukraine will be fine.

Dead wrong. There have been poisonings of political candidates, a land of endless intrigue. But then again, Europe overall have been better about fighting over governance than getting down to serious work. That's why it's best people are now in the U.S. and Canada.

[Army Guy]

It's not Ukraine i'm worried about , it's all that NATO and Russian equipment on the ground, air and sea that is an accident waiting to happen.....

[eyeball]

The path to enlightenment is always painful...maybe a good hard look at the abyss is just what the world needs to help smarten it up. A smack upside the head is about the only thing that's ever worked before.

I just wonder how long it will be until us ordinary Earthlings finally figure out we have to do a far better job at reigning in the excess's and abuse of power because that's what keeps bringing us to this brink. There's nothing accidental about deliberately skirting the edge over and over again.

[bleeding heart]

I'm just a little bored by the fact that eyeball, myself, Big Guy, and several others--have been charged with "supporting Putin"--which means nothing more than reading the literal opposite of everything we say.

I take it that those making the "accusations" simply aren't eager to have a serious discussion...though their tone remains always serious as a heart attack.

So, the tone is combative and silly....and the content is empty.

I suppose totalitarians get piqued if you only agree with them 50% (ie that Putin is a thug, for example...an obvious truism). Disagreeing with them on their other (usually servile and inane) points is to render a person the enemy of civilization.

At least they're good enough to unwittingly prove the ideas on propaganda that I've been talking about. For that, my jaded thanks.

[Big Guy]

Unfortunately, discussion boards often become arguing boards and then deteriorate into insult boards when the topic is political and controversial. Every board has members who snipe and take cheap shots – usually when there is no intelligent rebuttal available to them.

It is always easier to belittle an opinion when you can categorize or assign that opinion into your own defined categories. It saves the individual from having to prepare a rebuttal based on a studied evaluation of the merits (or lack of such) of the individual opinion.

On this Ukrainian issue, I was watching a discussion where it was likened to a clash of two realities;

One that the Russians are the bad guys orchestrating this whole unrest with the intention of annexing .....?

The other that the Ukrainian nationalists are the bad guys and that the majority of those Russian speaking and Russian cultured people in Ukrainian controlled areas (East and South) want either to separate from what they consider to be an illegitimate government or be part of Russia.

The true “reality” is probably somewhere between those two. There have been incidents on the ground that play into both – depending on the reporting. The latest that I have read is that those separatists or pro-Russians or rebels or nationalists or terrorists who are now occupying those government building rationalizing that if the government in Kiev can be taken over by mobs then so can those in the East and South.

The other interesting news was that the latest cease fire was not being adhered to. The argument given from the occupiers is that it was the USA, Russia and the EU reps who signed that cease fire and none of those represents the people holding the buildings.

It sure would be nice to hear from any impartial journalists imbedded with the protesters.

[Argus]

Dead wrong. There have been poisonings of political candidates,

Uh, yes, by the Russians.

[ASIP]

Dead wrong. There have been poisonings of political candidates, a land of endless intrigue.

It seems you have just a faint idea what you are talking about. Hint: What poisonings? Give at least two examples.

There is no any significant division inside Ukraine. Neither cultural (linguistic) nor religious nor even rich/poor.

[ASIP]

It sure would be nice to hear from any impartial journalists imbedded with the protesters.

Yes, it would be really nice. But there is a big problem here. The occupiers of the government buildings in these two (just two out of 24) oblasts (regions) are marginalized people. Their number is in order of 1000. They are 50% thugs. There cannot be any journalists among them. Journalism is a feature of a normal society. Thugs and journalism are incompatible. I realize that I am telling shocking things, but that is the situation there.

In reality, there are tons of information from inside. Just go to local internet forums of the cities where the seizures happened. But you must speak at least Russian and it must be colloquial, not academic, language.

BTW, CBC reporting about Ukraine is pretty good. You can treat CBC, BBC and VoA journalist as impartial. Ukrainian sources (.ua) are not reliable. Russian sources (.ru) are 99.9% garbage.

I appreciate your interest in the Ukrainian events. FYI, the problems are in just two oblasts in the East. It's not even the whole east of Ukraine. And South has made its choice. Separatism is dead there. There is, actually no significant separatism in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. What we see is an attempt of a couple of local oligarchs to create their small kingdoms. Russia has no intention to annex them. Russia is just maintaining instability in Ukraine, with dreams to reverse democratic changes.

If you have questions, ask, don't do uneducated guesses. With no knowledge of the background, it is impossible to understand what is going on there.

Edited April 24, 2014 by ASIP

[bleeding heart]

To call CBC, BBC and VoA journalism as "impartial" is such an anti-intuitive and remarkable assertion, that I think the onus is on you to explain this and to expand upon it.

And, as I'm anticipating the typical response here, I hasten to add that I am not in disagreement about Russian media.

I also agree that Putin is a thug, and that Russia is instigating problems intentionally.

I am repeating this--for the umpteenth time--because you, Shady and a few others remain bizarrely unwilling or unable to read what I and many others have said....choosing the "Why are you defending Putin" line of "reasoning," the literal opposite of what is being said.

Having said that, the Western media reporting on the subject has been massively distorted and propagandized, both through commission and omission.

It's not unusual; it's the way they behave generally in international reporting.

[GostHacked]

It seems you have just a faint idea what you are talking about. Hint: What poisonings? Give at least two examples.

i'll give you one, Victor Yushchenko.

[bleeding heart]

And as for the propaganda emanating from powerful political figures in the West, notably the United States...what are we to make of the monumental elephants in the room when we hear the following?:

"You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext." --John Kerry

Oh, really, Mr. Kerry? And by "you don't," I take it you certainly don't mean "we don't."

To my knowledge, this incredible remark passed entirely without comment by the "combative" and "left-leaning" media...though perhaps there was a dissident here or there committed to the heresy of pointing out contradictions, hypocrisies, and falsehoods like Kerry's (and Biden's; and Obama's) that were uttered so baldly, and with straight faces.

[GostHacked]

BH that line from Kerry was priceless, and destroyed any moral ground the USA may have been able to work on.

[eyeball]

If behaving this way is good enough for the shiniest of beacons...

And what ever happened to the idea that imitation was the greatest form of flattery?

[Argus]

i'll give you one, Victor Yushchenko.

The general consensus is he was poisoned by Russian intelligence agents.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Argus

[ASIP]

i'll give you one, Victor Yushchenko.

See, there are two problems here for jbg:

1. It's a single case, not plural.

2. It has nothing to do to Ukrainian internal affairs.

[Rue]

Well since we are still discussing the Ukraine I once again would state its up to Ukraines not Russia or anyone else to decide their fate.The last time I looked they were an independent nation but Putin had made it clear he wanted to pull them back in as a satellite state under Russian control.

Its not rocket science. Russia is simply reopening its old KGB foreign policy and agitating using the pretext of Russian ethnics to justify invading the Ukraine and inciting a civil war. Its the same technique they used in Eastern Europe to create the Warsaw Pact of captive Soviet nations and its the sametechnique Hitler used to invade the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and Poland.

Putin is trying to use the Ukraine to signal the Western world now that he thinks the US is weak and unable to serve as world policeman, he is ready to step up and be world power no 1.

The young lion senses the old one is dying and wants to be leader of the pack. It aint rocket science. A young alpha male making noises to kill the old one.

The question is this though-is the US as weak and powerless as it now looks on the world stage or is that simply a reflection of its current government's disaster of a foreign policy.

Some argue the US has ceased to be a world power under Obama because of his foreign policy-others say his foreign policy is a reflection of an internal economic collapse brought on by the Iraq and Afghan wars.

There is absolutely no doubt Bush bankrupt the US over Iraq and the US today is much like Britain after WW2.

But is the US that weak?

Would a Republican President using a different approach change things? As much as I did not like Ronald Reagan's phony trickle down economic theory to justify allowing the rich in his country to avoid paying taxes on the foreign policy stage the Soviet Union collapsed.

I think the current conflict in Ukraine is tied to a foreign policy platform the last 6 years or so that has seen the US look weak and divided over Egypt, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian issues, Georgia, North Korea and now the Ukraine and I would argue each time the US floundered it gave signs to Putin to step up to the plate.

Now I would like to get back to Iraq. Some people have argued, the US is in no position to criticize Russia over the Ukraine since the US invaded Iraq.

To me that is illogical for two reasons. First off, even if that were true, since when do two wrongs justify silence in the face of a wrong? That is illogical.

Secondly there was no and there is no Sadaam Hussein in Iraq and so to suggest the two are the same is absolute nonsense.

The Ukraine was and is a democratic state and its leader was not engaging in gas warfare and massacres of Russian ethnics. Absolutely not.

In the Ukraine the people struggled with corruption on their governments particularly the last Russian puppet. The people rose and spoke,

Ukrainians did not gas one another. Their uprising did not attack ethnics and engage in genocide.

So please do not have the audacity to say its the same as with Iraq.

The US was wrong to remain in Iraq and set up a haven for Haliburton to entrench the nation with corrupt construction contracts to rebuild the nation bankrupting the US economy-that is one issue-but the decision to remove Hussein? Sure you can say its pay back for not finishing what Papa Bush never finished in the Gulf War.Probably. But Hussein was a genocidal maniac and the UN and world remained silent to his horrors and ridding the world of him I will always argue was a good thing.

Yes the US has meddled in nations just as China and Russia and other world powers have. Yes. World powers set up captive nations and a sphere of influence. Of course.It still does not change the basic fact that the Ukraine is an independent democratic nation and Putin illegally invaded it under false pretense and continues to use agitators disguised as civilians to try ferment a civil war.

Putin already tried to poison and kill one democratically elected Ukrainian leader.

You can use an anti American ideology all you want to justify what Putin is doing, but it does not make what Putin does acceptable.

If you do not like US foreign policy so be it but it makes no excuse for justifying what Putin has done.

I also could not agree more with Argus and Army Guy in their comments.

The Russian military on the ground is an accident waiting to happen.

As for Putin, if anyone wants to suggest he is on higher moral ground that George Bush was in Iraq I say to you, that is absurd.

[GostHacked]

See, there are two problems here for jbg:

1. It's a single case, not plural.

2. It has nothing to do to Ukrainian internal affairs.

The way you were framing it makes it seem that you thought there were no poisonings at all.

[GostHacked]

As for Putin, if anyone wants to suggest he is on higher moral ground that George Bush was in Iraq I say to you, that is absurd.

He is on equal moral ground.

[eyeball]

I think it would be more accurate to say they're in the same moral sinkhole.

[bush_cheney2004]

Anybody arguing from a "moral" perspective surely must have skipped history class.

[GostHacked]

Anybody arguing from a "moral" perspective surely must have skipped history class.

Yep, Bush should have stayed in school, but instead he hit the bottle.

[Argus]

He is on equal moral ground.

Though I am hardly a fan of Bush, the statement is bizarre and totally unrealistic.

Putin seems to be saying that anywhere in the world where there is a Russian speaker, that land belongs to him and he has the right to take it over using any force necessary.

[GostHacked]

Though I am hardly a fan of Bush, the statement is bizarre and totally unrealistic.

Putin seems to be saying that anywhere in the world where there is a Russian speaker, that land belongs to him and he has the right to take it over using any force necessary.

Thing is, Putin is not claiming the high ground either. His intentions were clearly laid out. Can't really say that for the actions in Iraq. First it was weapons, then humanitarian, then terrorism, then nation building, but was really about the oil and other resources. But the similarity here is this is about resources as well, the control of those resources that is.

[Argus]

Thing is, Putin is not claiming the high ground either. His intentions were clearly laid out. Can't really say that for the actions in Iraq. First it was weapons, then humanitarian, then terrorism, then nation building, but was really about the oil and other resources. But the similarity here is this is about resources as well, the control of those resources that is.

If Iraq was about securing resources they sure went about it in a strange way given the US currently has about ZERO control over Iraq's oil and resources.