Ukraine crisis

[eyeball]

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

Yeah they probably say the same thing about arguing from a "historical" perspective over in ethics class.

[dre]

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

ROFLMAO!!!!!

[bleeding heart]

But Rue, I wasn't referring to a matter of "two wrongs making a right," or that Iraq isn't democratic.

As was perfectly obvious to Dre, and, I assumed (perhaps mistakenly), everybody else , the hypocrisy of Western international policy is quite beautifully summed up in Kerry's remark...a remark that is obviously an outright lie.

Because, as we all know, Kerry does in fact believe that it is acceptable to "invade[..] another country on completely trumped-up pretext" [sic].

Of course, I understand why the powerful people would indulge in the masturbatory and laughable self-righteousness...criminals don't tend towards honesty, for obvious reasons.

I just don't quite get why educated members of the public are so eager to play sniveling sycophant, and pretend that Kerry et al are serious and sincere in such comments....even to the point of applauding their promiscuous hypocrisy and deceptions.

Edited April 25, 2014 by bleeding heart

[Argus]

I just don't quite get why educated members of the public are so eager to play sniveling sycophant, and pretend that Kerry et al are serious and sincere in such comments....even to the point of applauding their promiscuous hypocrisy and deceptions.

Maybe we're just not as intellectual as you in terming the invasion of a brutal dictatorship by a democracy as the equivalent to the invasion of a democracy by a brutal dictatorship.

Iraq's only problem is its own people can't stop hating each other, even absent all outside force. Absent that its people would be vastly better off than they were under Sadaam. Ukraine's only problem IS the outside force which wants to take over their territory to the benefit of no one but the little dictator trying to assuage his small man syndrome.

[bleeding heart]

I said nothing about "equivalence."

I pointed out that John Kerry's remark--which makes none of the distinctions you do, nor implies any--is beautifully symbolic of the lies and hypocrisy that we are dealt from our political elite.

And yes, you've already been perfectly clear that the people who invade a country--despite grave and precise warnings which predictably came true--hold zero responsibility for any of the horrors they unleash while playing their grand geostrategic games. (Russia being the an apparent exception to your support for such actions.) I see no need to revisit it, as I see little point in debating the sort of educated Creationists who have no excuse not to know better..

I'll just add that I think Russia's behaviour is deplorable...because it is deplorable.

Not out of some misguided servility to US-led geostrategy.

[ASIP]

Thing is, Putin is not claiming the high ground either.

In reality, it's vice versa.

Putin's appeal to Russian mob is exactly on the perceived "higher" morality ground than the "rotten West". This is a corner stone of the modern Russian state doctrine.

[Argus]

I pointed out that John Kerry's remark--which makes none of the distinctions you do, nor implies any--is beautifully symbolic of the lies and hypocrisy that we are dealt from our political elite

And yes, you've already been perfectly clear that the people who invade a country--despite grave and precise warnings which predictably came true--hold zero responsibility for any of the horrors they unleash while playing their grand geostrategic games. (Russia being the an apparent exception to your support for such actions.)

Yeah, that's bullshit. What I don't get is this adoration of the rule of ownership that so many people play with regard to dictatorships. It's like, take a given territory. Anyone with enough guns who takes control of that territory by killing anyone who opposes him must now be acknowledged as rightful king of all he surveys. He is now the legitimate owner of that territory, and anyone who attempts to interfere with his ownership or what he does there is "violating international law". We 'violated the sovereignty of Iraq' did we? Well piss on that. As far as I'm concerned Iraq had no rightful or legitimate government. That was open territory and anyone who wanted to invade was, as far as I'm concerned, free to do so. And yes, the same goes for Syria. Dictatorships have no sovereignty over anything, and I grant them no rights or protection whatsoever.

Pardon me if I feel differently about a democracy with a democratically elected parliament which is clearly expressing the will of the majority of the population being invaded by a throwback to Stalin.

As for the violence in Iraq. That was inevitable, just the same as what happened in Yugoslavia when Tito died. What? You wanted to prolong the dictarship? You think they'd have been better off staying a dictatorship on a permanent basis, perhaps? Or maybe you know of a way for that dicatorship to have ended without massive intercine violence?

Edited April 25, 2014 by Argus

[-TSS-]

Good points on Ukraine by Vaclav Klaus:

http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3553

Excerpt from the link:

Introduction: The difficult heritage of the past

The state of Ukraine today is a sad outcome of Stalin's attempts to mix up nations and boundaries, disrupt natural historical ties and create a new Soviet man by turning original nations into mere ethnic residua and historical leftovers. Taking it into consideration is the starting point of our thinking, something that is sadly missing in the political debates today.

The cacophony of commentaries and statements to recent Ukrainian developments misses the point that the first and foremost contribution to the current dramatic situation there is the obvious political, economic and social failure of Ukraine as an independent state. This failure, in our view, has been caused by the following factors:

1. Ukraine as we know it today, has no historical tradition of statehood, and in over twenty years of its existence the country failed to create a state that would be accepted by the bulk of its population. The state was not born out of its people's efforts to gain self-determination and sovereignty, it came into being through the dissolution of the Soviet Union by its political leadership, and emancipation of the artificial Soviet republics, created by Moscow in their then valid borders.

2. The largely passive population's anti-Moscow sentiment was exacerbated by Gorbachev's perestroika and its catastrophic results. The local Soviet party nomenklatura also feared Yeltsin's policies aimed to crush the old system.

3. At the beginning of its independence, Ukraine functioned under the leadership of the Russian-speaking Soviet elite from the eastern part of the land as a sort of a Russian B-state, a part of the vast post Soviet space with enormous potential. At least on paper: 52 million people (second to Russia), its industrial base in the Donbas, the biggest agricultural potential on the European continent, the key ports of the Black Sea, Crimea, a relatively well educated elite and central Europe next to its door.

4. The new state emerged from an essentially artificial administrative portion of the Soviet totalitarian Union that wanted to show the world how the national issue can be resolved once and for all by replacing individual nations with the „Soviet people“. The Russian and russified areas of the east and south of Ukraine (with three hundred years of Russian history behind them) were artificially linked to the originally Polish Galicia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia acquired by Stalin after World War II, lands that had never belonged to any of the old Slav states in the East.

5. The independent Ukrainian state did not exist before 1991, unless we consider as such the brief period of civil war after the 1917 October revolution, when unsuccessful attempts at Ukrainian independence featured such controversial figures as general Skoropadsky, atamans Machno and Petljura, or Stepan Bandera in World War II. Their legacy (anti-semitism, affinity to German Nazis), is considered very controversial outside the nationalistic western Ukraine.

6. Older historical traditions speak in favor of strong ties to Russia – the Kievan Rus period, the acceptance of orthodox Christianity, or the tradition of the Zaporozhian cossacs who fought the Turks and the Poles and brought Ukraine of the time into tsarist Russia. The common Russo-Ukrainian experience of the Soviet times as well as World War II created strong human, social, economic and political bonds that cannot be easily replaced.

7. More than twenty years of Ukrainian independence that followed, were not enough to create a common Ukrainian identity and convince the people of this very heterogenous land that independent Ukraine is the right social formation, fulfilling their national aspirations. Such ambition is seen in especially among ethnic Ukrainians living in the west (Galicia, Volhynia) who accentuate the tragic experience of the Soviet era (deportations, gulags, famine), harbor anti-Russian feelings and wish to build Ukraine as a Ukrainian nation state. The position of a „second“ Russian state as sought by Presidents Kravchuk and Kuchma is unacceptable to them. It is no coincidence that this backward and weak western part of Ukraine was the moving force behind the 2004 Orange Revolution as well as the Maidan protests in 2014. By overthrowing Janukovych, the nationalist western part of the land assumed exclusive power attempting to disrupt the long, traditional Ukrainian ties to Russia, and replace it with exclusive orientation on the West, the EU and the United States. However, experience shows that western Ukraine is not strong enough to fulfill these plans – the economic weight of its eastern part so far prevailed every time.

Ukraine's Russians – members of a great cultural nation, formerly dominant throughout the region – do not and cannot share the nationalist ambitions of western Ukrainians. The disruption of close ties with Russia, generally wealthier, more successful and orderly today, is unthinkable to them. They do not see the Soviet era as an occupation by a foreign power, they consider themselves as victors of World War II, not victims. Bandera's sympathizers are traitors and fascists in their eyes, a state built on such legacy is unacceptable. Like Russians, they mistrust the West and do not want to be part of blocks aimed against Russia. Militant anti-russism of western-Ukrainian nationalists is insulting and threatening to them. Due to the Soviet tradition, this part of the population has long been indifferent to national issues. However, present developments make this group more aware of national feelings and the mood among them is more and more antagonistic in that respect.

After twenty years of independence, Ukraine is a divided country on the threshold of economic bankruptcy. It is home to two nations with different and probably antagonistic visions of the future, two nations growing apart every day. Both these nations look up to the world outside with unrealistic expectations – one to the West, the other to Russia.

Ukraine in its current shape could have been saved by several decades of peaceful development with a modest and sophisticated foreign policy, respecting the geopolitical position of the country and gradually improving its economy and standard of living. None of that was in the cards for Ukraine. Attempts at radical change represent a fundamental threat in such a fragile, heterogenous and politically sensitive country. Unfortunately that is what is happening in Ukraine today, with all the risks it entails for Europe and the world.

[Topaz]

Do you think this is about Putin actions or is it about natural resources, like huge natural gases deposits for one or both??

[jbg]

Putin's appeal to Russian mob is exactly on the perceived "higher" morality ground than the "rotten West". This is a corner stone of the modern Russian state doctrine.

Russia under Putin is no different than Russia under the czars. An expansionist, aggressive, unproductive state.

[Rue]

I acknowledge your remarks and points Bleeding Heart. I do get your points. I was debating with you so I know you understand I was not trying to twist your words too much out of context just challenge a bit on how far we go with saying the US can not say a thing now because of Iraq. I hear you.

As much as the US can be criticized for many things, I will argue of course Bleeding that it openly allows this criticism and reacts to it and tries painfully to hold itself accountable through open debate but we can not say the same about Russia and Putin?

I say like Argus that the bottom line is the US whether we like it or not is the only force left that can counter Putin. Who would you want living next to you-the US or Putin at this point? He is next door. He is on our border. You think Putin the way he is acting will be cooperative and recognize our borders in the North? You think a man this belligerent over the Ukraine I establishing himself as a peaceful man one wants to live next door to?

He is a thug. He needs to be stopped and I just keep seeing the story of Stalin and Hitler unfolding in this one man.

[GostHacked]

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.

Actually they had much control over it. During the sanctions it was sold for food. You know, the UN's Oil for Food program? Then after it was not so much about the control of the resources as it was the control over how those resources are paid for and distributed. I keep needing to bring this up that Hussein was about to introduce another oil market that would trade oil under another currency other than the US greenback/petro-dollar.

[GostHacked]

Do you think this is about Putin actions or is it about natural resources, like huge natural gases deposits for one or both??

Partly because Putin wants to resurrect a form of the Soviet Union in a modern twist.

Partly because of the gas lines that flow through Ukraine to the EU. Which has been a source of tension between Russia and the EU with negotiating gas prices.

[jbg]

I say like Argus that the bottom line is the US whether we like it or not is the only force left that can counter Putin. Who would you want living next to you-the US or Putin at this point? He is next door. He is on our border. You think Putin the way he is acting will be cooperative and recognize our borders in the North? You think a man this belligerent over the Ukraine I establishing himself as a peaceful man one wants to live next door to?

One thing that many Canadians forget, when they express animus at the U.S., is that the U.S. is for most purposes a good neighbor. Are there problems with gun smuggling or fisheries disputes? Sure. But compared to living next to Russia at most times in its or the U.S.S.R.'s history? Not even close.

Russia regularly expanded its empire at the expense of just about every bordering land, and overseas during the Communist era.

He is a thug. He needs to be stopped and I just keep seeing the story of Stalin and Hitler unfolding in this one man.

What I advocate is restarting the medium-range missile projects in Poland and the Czech Republic, and perhaps moving a NATO division, or maybe even an installation, to those countries and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I suspect that Ukraine is a lost cause and trying to rescue it is quixotic and perhaps not worth the trouble.

[Big Guy]

Good points on Ukraine by Vaclav Klaus:

http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3553

Excerpt from the link:

Introduction: The difficult heritage of the past

The state of Ukraine today is a sad outcome of Stalin's attempts to mix up nations and boundaries, disrupt natural historical ties and create a new Soviet man by ...

Thanks for the link and the post. It goes a long way to explain what is currently happening on the ground.

[ASIP]

Russia under Putin is no different than Russia under the czars. An expansionist, aggressive, unproductive state.

That is true.

Definitely, Putin is making a model of old Russia czars. In terms of "higher" moral ground, the concept of Moscow being "the third Rome" is revitalized today.

[ASIP]

Good points on Ukraine by Vaclav Klaus:

http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3553

This is a good analysis.

The only missing point in it (in at least cited part) is a new generation of young Ukrainians who do not know Soviet Union. They see Ukraine differently.

[jbg]

This is a good analysis.

The only missing point in it (in at least cited part) is a new generation of young Ukrainians who do not know Soviet Union. They see Ukraine differently.

Except that there is no real "Ukraine identity" to speak of. It's either Polish or Russian based.

[ASIP]

Except that there is no real "Ukraine identity" to speak of. It's either Polish or Russian based.

This is complete nonsense. Come to Ukraine and see.

[jbg]

This is complete nonsense. Come to Ukraine and see.

Not with the number of Russians Stalin and Khrushchev shuffled in.

[ASIP]

Not with the number of Russians Stalin and Khrushchev shuffled in.

This is a myth.

The number of ethnic Russians arrived to Eastern Ukraine in 1940s - 1950s is not overwhelming, they are still minority. Whose people gladly accepted Ukrainian culture, which is very close to Russian. Ukraine is a much more comfortable country to live (compared to Russia), and always was. Now you deal with grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of whose people. They do speak Russian, but they identify themselves with their native country - Ukraine.

Crimea is a different story. It was a desired retirement destination of Soviet military. Thus staffing of Crimea with Russians who are complete strangers to Ukraine continued until mid 1990s, and, in lesser extent, even later. Plus presence of Russian Navy and large military personnel with members of their families there.

And from the logical point of view, presence of Russian "diaspora" does not cancel existence of Ukrainian selfidentity. And saying that Ukrainian identity is based on Polish one is ridiculous. It's a confusing of borrowing some Polish words in the borderland with national identity.

[jbg]

This is a myth.

The number of ethnic Russians arrived to Eastern Ukraine in 1940s - 1950s is not overwhelming, they are still minority. Whose people gladly accepted Ukrainian culture, which is very close to Russian. Ukraine is a much more comfortable country to live (compared to Russia), and always was. Now you deal with grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of whose people. They do speak Russian, but they identify themselves with their native country - Ukraine.

So comfortable a country that 1/4 of my ancestors fled therein the late 1890's.

[Big Guy]

It will be interesting to see where the allegiance will lie with the soldiers in Ukrainian uniforms if/when the shooting starts in the East and South. Ukraine 's forces are made up of 40% conscripts and 60% contract soldiers. Many of these soldiers are from the East and South, Will they take arms against their friends and family?

In Crimea, the overwhelming majority of some 18,800 service personnel who the Ukrainian defence ministry says stuck out the month-long siege of their bases in Crimea ignored orders - unswayed by purse-strapped Kiev's lacklustre offer to uproot their families and move them to the mainland. Only about 4,300 continued their service and moved North, the rest chose to stay in Russian Crimea, Ukrainian defence ministry officials said.

Now, Kiev has all but lost control of its police forces in parts of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian activists have seized buildings in the region's second biggest city of Donetsk and several smaller towns.

Can Kiev depend on its army to be loyal to Kiev and take up arms against their fellow Ukrainians in the East and South?

Interesting article at;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/us-ukraine-crisis-military-idUSBREA3710L20140408

Edited April 29, 2014 by Big Guy

[Big Guy]

Looks like Kiev is beginning to give up on Eastern and Southern Ukraine. More and more administrative buildings are being occupied with little or no resistance from the populace. In fact, now even Kiev admits that “Ukrainian” security forces are switching sides.

“Ukraine's police and security forces are "helpless" to quell unrest in two eastern regions bordering Russia, and in some cases are cooperating with pro-Russian gunmen who have seized scores of government buildings and taken people hostage, the country's acting president says. Oleksandr Turchynov said on Wednesday his goal now was to prevent the agitation from spreading to other territories.

"I will be frank: today, security forces are unable to quickly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control," Turchynov said at a meeting with regional governors. "The security bodies ... are unable to carry out their duties of protecting citizens. They are helpless in those matters.

"Moreover, some of those units are either helping or cooperating with terrorist organisations," he said.”

Under the current conditions, what will the coming election mean when very few areas which are considered pro-Russian will be allowed to vote?

What are additional sanctions against Putin supposed to do? Does the West think that Putin will now “advise” the security forces to switch sides again and support Kiev? Does the fact that those administration buildings are being occupied without any significant resistance mean that the locals support the actions? I do not know.

I wish there was some way to verify the wishes of the majority of those Ukrainians in the East and Southern regions.

[GostHacked]

Looks like Kiev is beginning to give up on Eastern and Southern Ukraine. More and more administrative buildings are being occupied with little or no resistance from the populace. In fact, now even Kiev admits that “Ukrainian” security forces are switching sides.

The information coming out on this is very little. Hard to really gauge the situation and what a proper response should be. But is it a matter of little resistance or are we simply not getting the true picture from the media? Seems that it would be strange with all the recent violence in Ukraine that the takeover would be that easy with little resistance.

But the population is most likely tired of the conflict already, which may lead to less resistance. It's going to get more ugly before it gets better. I hope that can be avoided.

What are additional sanctions against Putin supposed to do? Does the West think that Putin will now “advise” the security forces to switch sides again and support Kiev? Does the fact that those administration buildings are being occupied without any significant resistance mean that the locals support the actions? I do not know.

I do not think the sanctions will amount to anything tangible that will hurt Russia in any way. We've seen the West's response to the crisis in Syria, a direct contrast of the response to Crimea or Ukraine. The easiest thing is sanctions. But globalization means that many countries are dependent and interdependent on each other to maintain a way of modern life. A war on China for example would mean the end to cheap overseas manufacturing. North America does less and less manufacturing while shuffling that to China and other countries with very cheap labour and lax laws in other areas. So sanctions could end up backfiring on the west as Russia could be the only supplier of a certain material, product, or service that the rest of the world depends on. So thanks to globalization, sanctions could do more harm to us than it would on Russia.

I wish there was some way to verify the wishes of the majority of those Ukrainians in the East and Southern regions.

The message is being filtered, and the only way to really know is to go yourself and talk to the people. Which could be problematic.

Edited April 30, 2014 by GostHacked