Closer and closer to major-powers war

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, September 6, 2018 21:50
VIEWED: 21060
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SIGNYM

Thursday, November 27, 2014 10:24 PM

Quote:
NATO To Deploy Tanks In Eastern Europe Shortly After VP Of Europarliament Says Ukraine-Russia War Imminent

Of course, we know that a "Ukraine-Russia" war - if it occurs- will not remain Ukraine V Russia, but rather NATO v Russia.

Quote:
Just when global financial markets had shrugged off Ukraine as yet another 'storm in a teacup', it appears events are escalating rapidly once again. This morning saw European Parliament's Vice President Saryusz-Wolski warn "Russia's pressure on Ukraine is mounting high, further war imminent," to which Ukraine's President Poroshenko rapidly responded (via Twitter) rather ominously that a "third world war does not scare us," having noted earlier than Ukraine needs to achieve NATO membership.

This then prompted NATO's top military commander to warn, he is "very concerned" that Russia's military build-up in the annexed Crimean region could be used as a launchpad for attacks across the whole Black Sea region; leaving the alliance confirming that NATO plans to deploy tanks in Eastern Europe. The European Parliament Vice President Jacek Saryusz-Wolski tweeted (rather to the point)...

To which Ukrainian President Poroshenko replied -Roughly translated meaning

"A 3rd World War does not scare... in fact, nobody is going to start it," adding
*UKRAINE NEEDS TO ACHIEVE NATO MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA .... UKRAINE TO HAVE UKRAINIAN AS SOLE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

However, it seems the sabre-rattling continues... As Al-Jazeera reports, NATO's top military commander [Commander Breedlove] has said he is "very concerned" that Russia's military build-up in the annexed Crimean region could be used as a launchpad for attacks across the whole Black Sea region.

[REALLY??? Do you know that there are over 67,000 thousand American troops in the EU, and over 1 million NATO troops? The idea of Russia launching an offensive war in Europe is preposterous, and so is Breedlove.]

US General Philip Breedlove's comments late on Wednesday came amid fears in Kiev that Russian-backed rebels will try to grab more land in eastern Ukraine to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March.

"We are very concerned with the militarisation of Crimea," Breedlove said, following meetings with Ukraine's top political and military leaders in Kiev.
"The capabilities that are being installed in Crimea ... are able to exert influence over the entire Black Sea," he said, highlighting the influx of cruise missiles and surface-to-air rockets.

Russia's Defence Ministry said Wednesday that it had deployed a batch of 14 military jets to Crimea as part of a squadron of 30 that will be stationed on the peninsula.

Also on Wednesday, an OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in eastern Ukraine was reportedly attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft ammunition.

"These shots appear to have been fired from separatist-controlled territory," the US Department of State said n a statement on Thursday.
"Any attacks on, or threats to, OSCE monitors or equipment are unacceptable. We call on all parties to refrain from any actions that endanger the safety of the OSCE mission in Ukraine."

Which explains the decision to deploy tanks...And the Russians to respond...

The United States is pushing Ukraine into the abyss of a civil war which has claimed thousands of lives, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told Asian counterparts on Thursday.
“American and NATO military forces are moving closer to Russia’s threshold and the US has intensified activity in former Soviet republics," he told an inaugural meeting of the South and South-East Asian Nations Defense Chiefs’ Dialogue in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.

It appears the situation is anything but contained...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-27/nato-deploy-tanks-eastern-eur
ope-shortly-after-vp-euro

SIGNYM

Thursday, November 27, 2014 10:45 PM

More preparations for war?

Quote:
Kiev is enforcing an economic blockade on eastern Ukraine, where banks are closed and cash machines and credit cards aren’t working. Disrupted social payments to the elderly have become the most acute issue.

Only a handful of cash machines are still functional in the breakaway parts of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions, after local banks received an order from Ukraine’s central bank earlier this week to “suspend” operations.

This follows a controversial decree signed by Ukrainian President Petro Porishenko on November 16 that is now coming into effect. Kiev is cutting economic ties with rebel-held areas by freezing bank accounts and stopping social payments, including pensions.

And, more importantly

Quote:
Kiev has suspended the protection of human rights and ordered the withdrawal of its institutions from areas controlled by local militia in the nation's east. Rebels have branded the decree, which hits the population on winter’s eve, an ‘act of genocide.'

The move was prepared by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council last week and enacted by a presidential decree signed on Friday. It has yet to be ratified by the newly-elected parliament, but the decree explicitly says that this procedure must be expedited – so there is little doubt that the new governing coalition will adopt it next week.

Arguably the most controversial part of the decree is the suspension of the European Convention on Human Rights in rebel-held areas. The convention, which guarantees basic human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe, has a provision which allows some of its articles to be derogated by a signatory “in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation.”

http://rt.com/news/205919-ukraine-bockade-rebel-areas/

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. And Kiev? Well, Kiev isn't even trying to build a nation.

SIGNYM

Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:13 PM

Quote:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said 100 percent of Ukrainians opposed the idea of federalization, fighting against advice Ukraine adopt a federal form of government that would give its individual regions more authority. Ukrainian officials say it’s merely a method of making its eastern regions more vulnerable to Russian influence.

http://www.ibtimes.com/ukraine-conflict-update-ukrainians-oppose-feder
alization-while-russians-support-1730261

So, by definition, those who are for federalization aren't Ukrainians? Is that what he's saying?

I've been thinking more and more that what we're seeing is a set-piece: the parts have been pre-determined, nothing that is said publicly will make a difference. What I can't see is the end goal.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

AURAPTOR

Friday, November 28, 2014 12:01 AM

Well damn.

Can't we all just get along ?

1KIKI

Friday, November 28, 2014 12:55 AM

I've been thinking more and more that what we're seeing is a set-piece: the parts have been pre-determined, nothing that is said publicly will make a difference. What I can't see is the end goal.

You'd have to think like a neo-CON to see it, and they're some truly crazy-ass bitches.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Friday, November 28, 2014 1:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Well damn.
Can't we all just get along ?

Boy, I wish!

Hubby says that I tend to err on the side of optimism (and if you think I'm pessimistic, you should see him!). And there's always a bit of geopolitical huffing and puffing going on... posturing, repositioning, military exercises etc. but these actions look like real war preparations.

It seems to me there are several slow-motion processes going on, which are obfuscated by public statements and meaningless gestures.

The first is the western commitment to expanding NATO and encircling Russia. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, something like 13 nations have been added to NATO. The Ukraine "color revolution" fostered by the USA is just one more step in the process. The plan is to encircle Russia and then pivot to the east. USA admin wants total full spectrum dominance.

The second is the resurgence of the Russian economy and military. The Russians were not likely to just give up Sevastopol, which is their major access to the Mediterranean. And they probably don't want eastern and southern Ukraine, which would represent a huge money pit - geostrategically it would be far better for them to have a neutral united Ukraine than a divided one, but with Kiev displacing so many people, destroying infrastructure, cutting off pension payments and access to banking, Russia may need to provide alternate services to eastern and southern Ukraine on a purely humanitarian basis, which would provide yet another pretext for Kiev to declare war.

Also, Kiev has massed its troops forward to the dividing line AFTER the cease-fire was negotiated, with responding troop movements on the other side.

The third is the polarization of Europe. Some nations are swinging towards Russia (Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, possibly Bulgaria), others are openly pushing for aggressive anti-Russian militarization (Poland and the Baltic states). After Merkel visited Washington, where her role was explained to her by Obama, Germany swung towards the militarization camp (no matter what German FM Steinmeier says). This really showed up in the G20 meeting.

Russia, meanwhile, is isolating itself as much as possible from trade and economic fallout by reaching out to China, Brazil, and other nations with trade deals and banking systems, so there is worldwide polarization happening as well. Many of the nations formerly in the western camp are being wooed by Russia and China, this seems to include Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Alliances have become more fluid, it's almost impossible to tell who is on whose "side" now.

All of the pieces are being put in place for a military showdown. Overall, I believe the west is committed to war in the Ukraine.... that there will be statements and meetings and reassurances between Russia and the west, but that will occur only while troops and materiel are built up in Ukraine, which is occurring even as we "speak" with supplies, commitments, loans, training, and mercs from NATO members- the USA, France, Italy, Canada, and the Baltic states. Biden will be discussing providing lethal military aid to Kiev soon.

Now, possibly what will happen (and this is my hope) that once the tanks and troops and air forces are bolstered and re-arranged on both sides, this will all settle down to "watchful waiting" ... "frozen conflict" status. It may be that Kiev accepts de facto annexation of eastern and southern Ukraine by Russia, and contents itself with an enhanced military.

But there are two important indicators of immediately impending out-and-out war: the Russian cutoff of natural gas to Europe, and the acceptance of Ukraine into NATO.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, November 29, 2014 4:43 AM

Oh, BTW- if there is a war in Ukraine, the west won't start it until spring.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, November 29, 2014 6:04 AM

WAR: a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

ETA- But thanks for playing "Deflect the Topic!" You win the prize for completely avoiding the subject!

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, November 29, 2014 11:16 PM

Ukraine: EU Imposes Sanctions On Rebel Election Organizers

Quote:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has imposed sanctions on the organizers of rebel elections in eastern Ukraine this month, the bloc said on Saturday, hitting the separatists and their organizations with asset freezes and travel bans.

As reported by Reuters on Thursday, EU governments decided to add 13 Ukrainian separatists and five of their political organizations to a sanctions list that already covers 119 people and 23 entities.

Rebels in eastern Ukraine held their elections on Nov. 2, arguing that the vote was the next step after local referendums in May calling for independence from Ukraine.

The United States and European Union have denounced the vote as illegitimate, but Russia has said it would recognize the result, deepening a crisis that began with the popular overthrow of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president in February and Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March.

In its official journal, the European Union said Sergey Kozyakov, who was election commission chief in the Luhansk region, was "responsible for organizing the so-called elections ... in the so-called Luhansk People's Republic".

"He has actively supported actions and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine," the bloc said.

Others on the sanctions list are election organizers and separatist ministers in Luhansk and in the eastern region of Donetsk. They are accused of the same wrongdoing as Kozyakov.

The sanctions are the European Union's latest step in attempts to pressure Russia to halt its support for the rebels. They follow economic sanctions imposed on Russia in July.

EU governments are also discussing proposals for an "enhanced ban" on investments in Crimea.

http://www.ibtimes.com/ukraine-eu-imposes-sanctions-rebel-election-org
anizers-1730740

Because nothing says "democracy" like punishing referenda!

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But by god, Kiev keeps trying!

SIGNYM

Sunday, November 30, 2014 9:02 AM

Quote:
How is that not happening now?

Well, of course it's happening now. The only thing missing is that the media hasn't called it one.

Quote:
Nothing says antiquated dictator trying to steal another nation's land by use of force like Russia's latest action.
Nothing says "punishable offense" like Russia's latest action.
Nothing says "breaking international law" like Russia's latest action.

What has Russia done lately? It seems to me that all of the recent aggressive actions (removing eastern Ukraine from international law, forward positioning troops, sanctioning the vote organizers, stopping banking and other services, vowing to make Ukrainian the sole language), and actively seeking help from the West and admission into NATO, have been precipitated by Kiev and the west.

How do you not notice these things? These are real events fully reported by Kiev's media and backed up by Western media. Why do you keep pointing to ephemeral "Russian" events which may not even be happening - or happening to the extent that you fear - while ignoring provocations by Kiev and the west? I told you when it happened that Kiev announced its forward troop movements. I showed you that Kiev withdrew that announcement because they wanted to save it for the time when they could play innocent and claim it was "in response to" the responding troop movements on the other side of the border. I tell you again that the activities by Kiev (sanctions, banking and other services cutoffs) are a set-piece, precipitated by the west and designed to provoke even further action by Russia and the Donbass. When alternate banking services are provided by Russia, are you going to go all ballistic and blame Russia - again?

You seem to think that you "really want to know what's going on". Well, maybe it's time you started finding out.

G, is it possible to have a discussion and not a grudge match? How can we get back on-track?

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

1KIKI

Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:30 AM

you never were on track, b/c frankly he's a delusional nutcase as bad a rappy

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Sunday, November 30, 2014 8:51 PM

A discussion from a strategists' POV

Quote:
a) Is a Nazi regime in the Ukraine intrinsically viable? That is, in the best of external circumstances, could a Nazi regime remain in power in the Ukraine? In practical terms this means this: can the Nazis prevent the total "somalization" of what is left of the Ukraine? Could they, if given enough support from abroad, stabilize and somehow rebuilt some form of statehood?

b) Even if a Nazi regime in Kiev is viable, can the countries around the Ukraine accept a Nazi Ukraine as a long-term neighbor? After all, Hitler was never voted out of power, it took the Soviet military (with some late assistance by the Anglo powers) to get rid of him. I would argue that there are some regimes which are inherently so terrible that nobody can ever accept them (ISIS for example).

Now let's begin by the first question.

I don't think that anybody will deny that the Ukraine is a sinking ship. The Ukrainian economy is gone, finished, dead. There is no money left, no cash, no gold. Right now, the Ukraine is literally "coasting by inertia on an empty tank" and when it finally comes to a standstill things will get really, really ugly.

Right now, the regime in power is busy doing all sorts of very "patriotic" but utterly useless things. They are re-writing history books (even though they lack the money to print them), they are accepting non-citizens in top government positions (Americans, Poles, Germans, Lithuanians, Georgians, etc.) and they are changing the name of WWII. Great stuff, for sure, but it is painfully clear that they Junta has no plan to fix the economy and that it won't even pretend. So we are dealing with a sinking ship whose crew is not even pretending to make an effort to prevent her from going to the bottom of the ocean. How viable is that?

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/

Worth looking into.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Monday, December 1, 2014 12:03 AM

OK LOOK! RUSSIA'S RESPONSE TO KIEV CUTTING OFF ELECTRICITY, PENSIONS, PUBLIC SECTOR SALARIES AND BANKING!

Large, unauthorized convoy enters east Ukraine from Russia: Ukrainian military
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/large-unauthorized-convoy-enters-east-ukrain
e-russia-ukrainian-134642916.html

Now being presented by Kiev and kindly passed on by western press as an "invasion".

Did I not just predict this? Why is it that you can't seem to figure this out?

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Monday, December 1, 2014 9:51 PM

So, sending in humanitarian assistance is now considered (BY YOU) to be an "invasion".

This shows just how twisted you are: In addition to shelling civilian targets, Kiev cuts off money, electricity, banking services and any other support from the capital. Winter is approaching .... you may have noticed snow on the ground. The LAST time Russia attempted to send a humanitarian convoy through, they NEVER got permission. They were jerked around by Kiev for over two weeks, and finally went in without it. Do you think Kiev would grant permission now??? Kiev is taking every move to displace the population and the LAST thing they want is for people to have the resources to stay put.

If it were any other nation sending in humanitarian assistance into a war-torn area ... say, France sending assistance into Xtian communities of Mali, despite every attempt by Muslim leaders to isolate Xtian population centers... you would be whooping and hollering about how wonderful it was! The last thing you'd be thinking about is... geee, the French are "invading".

But your idea of "good and evil" is so very, very bendable. It has nothing to do with suffering and death, and everything to do with whether it's "for", "against", or "by" Russia. And rather than noticing that Kiev is targeting civilians, and the population as a whole, and their language (which some might think is part of a plan to scare away Russian-speakers from the region... ie a plan of ethnic cleansing) you're all twisted when the population is supported with food, water, fuel, blankets, and generators for the coming winter?

Yanno what, GEEWHIZ? You'd be a fuckuva lot nicer if you took that anti-Russian stick out of your ass. Sheesh, no wonder you're such a douche.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:31 AM

And here you are, claiming to 'know' what's going on though you have absolutely NO solid evidence. It's all bias and conjecture. I'm not sure you're capable of discussing reality. I'm not sure you understand what that is.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:57 AM

So Signy - I get where you're coming from. The pieces are being moved, no matter the blah blah blah. Once the pieces are in place, the US and UK WILL make sure to get their 'casus belli'. They've been working on it for over a year.

ETA; so I've been thinking about it. I think the reason why the US isn't gearing up the propaganda - yet - is b/c they really don't want a winter war. If that's the case, I expect to see that change come late Jan, early Feb.

I have to laugh though when I see articles about Russia 'threatening' with its non-incursions that are close to - though never in! - western territory. What do these western dipshits - thanks for that word 'G' - expect?

If the western powers are smart (never a safe assumption) they'll understand what it means: don't mess with Russia. But, nope, like the dopes they are, they'll keep on until it's full scale war. With Russia. Won't THAT be fun?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 6:43 AM

Quote:
Kiev cuts off money,

I love how the separatists declare an independent state, but still expect funding from Kiev.

Quote:
The LAST time Russia attempted to send a humanitarian convoy through,

You remember when the Russian aid convoy was going to be handled completely by the Red Cross, because the Russians had nothing to hide? Does anyone else remember that?

It's not personal. It's just war.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 7:26 AM

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/20/us-ukraine-crisis-banks-spec
ialreport-idUSKCN0J40FJ20141120

a steady stream of frustrated residents exited a government office, clutching folders of bank records and shaking their heads in disgust.

"They are not returning the money," complained Margarita Pobudilova, a 77-year-old retired factory worker who for months has been unable to access more than $3,000 of her life savings.

http://rt.com/news/209283-banks-cash-east-ukraine/

Only a handful of cash machines are still functional in the breakaway parts of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions, after local banks received an order from Ukraine’s central bank earlier this week to “suspend” operations.

This follows a controversial decree signed by Ukrainian President Petro Porishenko on November 16 that is now coming into effect. Kiev is cutting economic ties with rebel-held areas by freezing bank accounts and stopping social payments, including pensions.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 8:21 PM

They were deliberately shut off.

So there, G, I see you continuing to show all sorts of concerns for the civilians Kiev is targeting. Not. (Because that was sarcasm.)

Apparently Russia - who doesn't seem to have killed, well, anyone, is TERRIBLE. But Kiev - it's golden. You must really like governments that kill their own citizens - or hell, ANY civilians - by the thousands, and are actively trying to starve and freeze them out as well. The Warsaw ghetto was probably an all-time fav. And I'm sure the Germans had their reasons, too. What a guy. (That also was sarcasm.)

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 9:27 PM

Kiki, stop pretending that you care about civilians. When the separatists kill civilians, or use civilians as human shields, you are silent. Spare the world your shrill hypocrisy.

It's not personal. It's just war.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 9:56 PM

And yet I can show you reports - verified, by neutral observers - that Kiev kills civilians. But you - well, you have 1 unsourced video, and your claims, (which frankly are suspect), and no ACTUAL solid evidence that the separatists have killed civilians. Or have destroyed infrastructure like water and sanitary systems, fuel supplies, supply routes, hospitals, apartments, schools, or markets. Or shut off ATM and credit card lines.

So, go ahead, keep braying that Kiev was somehow MADE to do all that it's done. Be a real force for good. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha ha ha ha

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 10:20 PM

Quote:
And yet I can show you reports - verified, by neutral observers - that Kiev kills civilians. But you - well, you have 1 unsourced video... and no ACTUAL solid evidence that the separatists have killed civilians.

You blithering idiot, your very own source of 'neutral observers', the OSCE, refer to instances of separatists shelling civilian areas. I pointed this out to you in the other thread.

You still can't answer the question about who is to blame for civilians areas getting hit after separatists purposefully fire from them...

It's not personal. It's just war.

1KIKI

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 10:34 PM

refer to CLAIMS of separatists shelling civilian areas (not observed by the OSCE)

Fixed that for you. You're welcome.

And the infrastructure? Yanno, water, electricity, fuel, supply lines ... hospitals, schools, markets ... factories? Cutting off people's money? Encircling civilians areas and attacking those who try to flee?

You down with that? Try to say no, if you can.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Wednesday, December 3, 2014 6:17 AM

Quote:
refer to CLAIMS of separatists shelling civilian areas (not observed by the OSCE)

So what, you're claiming the OSCE actually physically observed Kiev shelling civilian areas and killing civilians? Please highlight those sections of the reports for me.

And what are you talking about 'CLAIMS' of separatists shelling civilian areas? The OSCE reported on areas controlled by Kiev forces that had been heavily shelled, with ensuing damage to civilian infrastructure. What 'claims' are you talking about?

Anyone who's not a brainwashed zombie can read those reports and glean that both sides are shelling and hitting civilian areas, and that the evidence against one side or other is the same - "this separatist-held civilian area was heavily shelled..." vs. "this Ukrainian-held civilian area was heavily shelled..."

I take it you can't answer my question about who's to blame when separatists use civilians as human shields. I should create a 'questions Kiki can't answer' thread.

It's not personal. It's just war.

1KIKI

Wednesday, December 3, 2014 8:52 AM

So, you down with everything Kiev is doing to civilians?

It's a simple question.

ETA: I forgot bombing, the old fashioned kind, with bombers. Since the independents don't have bombers, any bombing of civilians can be unambiguously traced back to Kiev.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Thursday, December 4, 2014 9:34 PM

Quote:
So, you down with everything Kiev is doing to civilians?

No, absolutely not. Be careful when you say 'Kiev' - one needs to make a distinction between what individual soldiers or battalions do or have allegedly done, and what has been ordered at the command level. But the use of cluster munitions for example, is something I would condemn Kiev for. As for general, reckless indiscriminate shelling as detailed by the OSCE, yes we can condemn both sides for that.

Are you down with what the separatists are doing to civilians according to OSCE reports Kiki?

It's not personal. It's just war.

SIGNYM

Monday, December 8, 2014 10:12 PM

From the very beginning, I thought this was all triggered by Russia's assistance to Syria. Let me be perfectly clear: I think the USA's plans to remove Assad are just one more example of the USA plans to turn yet another Mideast nation into a failed state. Not only is that plan horribly misguided for our future, it's EVIL. Yes, EVIL. The Russians were the good guys, and we were the bad guys.

Russian access to the Mediterranean and to the Russian naval station in Syria came from Sevastopol. And since the USA has destabilization groups all over the world (in Venezuela, Thailand, Brazil etc in the form of USAID and State Department-connected NGOs) all they needed to do was turn up the heat in Kiev. Clearly, Nuland, Pyatt, and McCain* were all behind the overthrow of the Yanukovich government, and they intended to steamroll the EU ("fuck the EU") to get behind their plan, no matter how Europeans or the various EU governments felt.

*McCain is a reliable indicator of a USA-sponsored "color revolution". He's like a fucking stormcrow, sitting on the shoulders of whatever President-cum-dictator-in-waiting we have on our roster.

As far as those sanctions are concerned, the USA has put considerable pressure on the EU. If you've been paying attention, you would have noticed that BNP Paribas came in for some spectacular fines before the Mistral ships were canceled, the Bulgaria suffered mysterious bank runs (even tho their banks were well-capitalized) before they withdrew from the South Stream pipeline.

There is thinking within the Russian government that this is more than about the Ukraine, which was only a set-piece in a larger plan. The thinking is that the USA sanctions are aiming for regime change in Russia itself. Although Putin has tremendous popular support, and the Parliament is solidly behind him, there are various government functionaries- such as the head of the Bank of Russia - who form a fifth column to the Russian economy. Their plan is to sell Russia out (the thinking goes) and bail out to the west. The fall of the price of oil and the collapse of the Ruble, as well as the inability to raise capital from the west, all speaks to that plan.

There was a great choice before Putin's State of the State address- whether to go the western/IMF route or to break away from the west as much as possible. Well, I listened to that speech, and Putin's address to the Federal Assembly and to Russia was a big EFFU to the west. And he canceled the South Stream pipeline, leaving all those wishy-washy invested EU nations (Bulgaria, Germany etc) holding the bag. Instead, the pipeline will take a minor change in direction and go to Turkey instead. EFFU indeed!

The heat is being turned up economically and politically, on both sides. You have to be paying attention to see it.

But one of the things that you should be noticing is that it's the west that has plans to destroy other nations and change other governments and impose its will (militarily, if necessary) on many parts of the world.

So much for democracy!

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But KPO and G sure think you can!

SIGNYM

Tuesday, December 9, 2014 6:11 PM

So, speaking of Stormcrow McCain, I hadn't known this when I posted, but was interested to see the following in "EU's Juncker Folds To Gazprom On South Stream Pipeline"

Quote:
As things stand, the previous Bulgarian government was badgered by the EU and visited by John McCain, whose primary mission was apparently to stop the pipeline from being built. The government announced that all construction on the pipeline would be stopped two hours after McCain left.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-08/eus-juncker-folds-gazprom-sou
th-stream-pipeline

That asshole never met a war he didn't like. The guy is sick in the head, and how he still remains in office says something about the sickness of the American people.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But McCain would love to build them on mushroom clouds!

SIGNYM

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 11:08 PM

China openly and officially backs Russia

Quote:
Well, now we have it from the most official source possible: Foreign Minister Wang Yi who declared on Monday. “If the Russian side needs it, we will provide necessary assistance within our capacity". Considering the US rhetoric and imperial mindset which proclaims that "you are either with us or against us" it is pretty clear what such a declaration really means: China is putting the US on notice that in the current economic war Russia will have the full backing of China.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/12/china-openly-and-officially-
backs-russia.html

Meanwhile, Kiev is continuing to do everything it can to start a full-scale war between NATO and/or individual NATO members, and Russia:
Ukraine votes to drop neutral status
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30587924

Time to tally up "who's got what" and start thinking about who is going to win this war.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 4:02 AM

Here is an excerpt from the 25-page post behind that snippet. It is (after the first two pages) primarily a list of trade, banking, communication, finance, military, education, cultural, technology, and energy agreements between Russia and China. It's quite a list!

Quote:
Full Spectrum Battlefield
The threat against China and Russia is a full spectrum battlefield: they are facing
potential AirSeaSpaceCyberElectromagnetic warfare, not exempting chemical,
biological and nuclear; soon to include laser and hypersonic weapons; economic
warfare; and war by proxy armies, NGO organizations, covert operators and
agents, with global media demonization and propaganda in psyops mode.
Each nation in the resistance partnership had to permit the other to look, touch
and feel deeply into one another’s most treasured defense secrets, once armed
against the other, now united with a new partner.
They knew they were in the same ‘foxhole’ facing the same enemy. And they
both understood, that in time, neither would survive without the other. There had
never been a hegemon so desperate or so fundamentally weak, yet so powerfully
equipped to destroy all normalcy, perhaps, most of humanity, if need be, for it to
survive. China-Russia had to protect one another and then try to save humanity
and world order. The initial attack was economic, not military. It hit Russia.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/k9w283j169ujuo6/China-Russia_Double_Heli
x.pdf

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Sunday, December 28, 2014 1:00 AM

Faster and faster.

Things are moving faster and faster, the pieces definitively moving to one side or the other. Kiev cut electricity, banking, and transportation from Crimea, just as they previously cut off water (in the summer). Crimea doesn't get these service for free, they pay for them. And although I can't find any information on whether Crimea is in arrears, the reason for the cutoff wasn't due to non-payment, but to "safety" concerns.

Ceasefire negotiations were broken off after an exchange of prisoners.

Meanwhile, Kiev managed to find that $1.65B owed, and so Russian gas keeps flowing to Ukraine and beyond. It would be so easy for Russia throttle back the flow of gas, tap some off for the Donbas region (since that is where the gas pipeline enters) and let Kiev and the EU fight over the remainder.

It's funny, but the only nation which seems to still be treating Ukraine (minus Crimea) as a single nation is Russia.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Sunday, December 28, 2014 2:55 AM

Quote:
SIG

It's funny, but the only nation which seems to still be treating Ukraine (minus Crimea) as a single nation is Russia.

Wow, and I mean wow are you delusional.

SOCIOPATH; look it up, 1kiki has a link. The two of you can read it together

SIGNYM

Sunday, December 28, 2014 4:22 AM

Quote:
It's funny, but the only nation which seems to still be treating Ukraine (minus Crimea) as a single nation is Russia.-SIGNY

Wow, and I mean wow are you delusional.- THUGR

Russia says to supply coal, electricity to Ukraine

Quote:
Russia has agreed on a new deal to supply coal and electricity to Ukraine, which is struggling with a lack of raw fuel for power plants due to a separatist conflict in the industrial east, Russian officials said on Saturday.

The move comes a day after Kiev said it would suspend train and bus services to Crimea, effectively creating a transportation blockade to and from the region annexed by Moscow in March this year. Kiev has briefly cut off electricity to Crimea before.

Russia will supply coal and electricity to Kiev without advance payment as a goodwill gesture from President Vladimir Putin, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/27/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-coa
l-idUSKBN0K508F20141227

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:35 AM

I've said all I need to.

SIGNYM

Sunday, December 28, 2014 8:43 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
I've said all I need to.

HAHAHAHAHA! I think you've said far more than you "needed" to, considering that you added nothing of substance to the thread.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Sunday, December 28, 2014 7:55 PM

By the way, your lack of reasoning power shows up with every post in your signature. Guns and bombs drove the British out of America and this country was built.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 5:09 AM

Quote:
By the way, your lack of reasoning power shows up with every post in your signature. Guns and bombs drove the British out of America and this country was built

At the moment, it's your lack of comprehension and grammar that is showing.

"Guns and bombs drove the British out of American and this country was built"
WTF does that mean?

Also, if you've read my tagline and my other relevant posts with just a little comprehension, I never said that you can't DEFEND a nation with guns and bombs. It's just that you can't BUILD one on the basis of constantly threatening your citizens with being shot or bombed (or jailed or tortured) if they don't fall in line.

It's a little like having overseers .... sure, you can stand with a whip over someone and make them do what you want them to, but it's a terribly ineffective way of getting anything done. It works much better of people are motivated along the same lines.

Nations and societies are the same way: You can sure destroy another nation with guns and bombs... clear other people out so you can take over their land and resources, or keep them out so that you can continue your progress. But a society and a nation are built when people believe in the same things together.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Friday, January 2, 2015 6:13 AM

If you don't get that I am certainly right. You are not an American. You're an import and my bet is from Russia. GO HOME COMRADE

1KIKI

Friday, January 2, 2015 6:40 AM

I happen to know you're wrong on all counts. And also, that your grammar - or your thinking - are so scrambled you can't put a coherent sentence together. "If you don't get that I am certainly right." Care to translate that into something resembling a coherent thought? A well-placed comma or a conjunction and verb would do it. My guess is that you'll come back with some idiocy that you're completely correct.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 7:35 AM

Quote:
If you don't get that I am certainly right. You are not an American. You're an import and my bet is from Russia. GO HOME COMRADE

Yanno, the funny thing is, I'm the one who is arguing for freedom: America was created because everyone agreed that (for a variety of reasons) they wanted more freedom from England. That was their core common belief.

YOU'RE the one who is saying that it's possible to whip people into obedience. That it's possible to build a nation by bombing people into line, that it's possible to create a society by shooting people until the rest submit.

Hey Comrade! You must be from Russia!

Please read my tagline again. If you keep reading it, eventually it may sink in.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Friday, January 2, 2015 7:47 AM

No SIDNYM, you are the one arguing against freedom. You either don't realize it or do not know what freedom means.

By Alan Cullison

Updated July 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law making slander of a public official a criminal offense, a move opposition and watchdog groups described as yet another blow in the Kremlin's unrelenting assault on beleaguered democratic institutions.

His approval of the measure on Friday is a fresh rebuke to Western leaders and civic groups who leaned on Mr. Putin at a Group of Eight conference in St. Petersburg this month to stop squeezing opposition parties and freedom of speech. Analysts say Mr. Putin's decision to sign the law is a harbinger for an even greater clampdown on Russian society as the government prepares for presidential elections in 2008.

"He is signing a law that erases all ability to criticize the authorities and to have any real discussion in the media," said Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at the Carnegie Foundation in Moscow. "The long-term trend is pretty clear: Russia is in the midst of an election campaign and the czar doesn't want any questions."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115413548494821152

THGRRI

Friday, January 2, 2015 7:53 AM

Here is some more of what you call freedom SIGNYM.

Eyes on Ukraine, Putin Tightens Curbs on Protesters
Reuters
May. 06 2014 20:30
Last edited 20:30

While all eyes are turned to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has quietly enacted laws which opponents say will strengthen his hand in a battle against dissent in Russia.

Putin signed laws on Monday envisaging tougher punishment for people involved in riots and imposing life sentences for various "terrorist" crimes. He also approved tighter controls on bloggers, some of whom have emerged as opposition leaders and have used the Internet to criticize Putin and arrange protests.

"All this tightening will be applied only for political ends," said Dmitry Gudkov, a member of parliament who helped organize rallies against Putin in several cities in the winter of 2011 to 2012.

The moves underline Kremlin concern that the unrest in Ukraine, where demonstrations caused the Moscow-backed president to , might encourage protests in Russia, even though the annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine has helped push Putin's ratings to their highest level since late 2010.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/499659.html

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 8:01 AM

This is an interesting read. It's very long, because it's an analysis of all the events around Ukraine in 2014 and a look ahead.

I don't agree with all of it, but it's by an (Russian?) ex-military analyst who currently lives in Florida, and I found his perspective interesting. But since it's so long, I've snipped the parts that I thought were the most interesting:
---------------------------

Quote:
Imagine this:

A full scale war between Russia and the Ukraine

The Ukrainians are told to attack Novorussia again. This time, they are more numerous, better equipped and their attack is fully supported, if not executed, by American "advisers" and retired US Army officers. Imagine further that the Ukrainians are given full intelligence support by US/NATO and that their progress is monitored 24/7 by US/NATO commanders who will help them in the conduct of the attack. Finally, let us assume that the Novorussians are overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude and speed of the attack and that Lugansk and Donetsk are rapidly surrounded. At this point the Russians will face a stark choice: either to abandon Novorussia to the Nazis or intervene ... If the Russians make the call that they have to openly intervene to save the Donbass from the Nazis, the Ukrainians don't stand a chance and everybody knows that...

Such a Russian victory would be a crushing military defeat for Kiev, but not for the USA. ... In the Ukraine and in Russia there is this black-humor joke which says that "the USA will fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian" and this is exactly what might happen as this option offers a lot of major advantages for the USA. For one thing, it is a win-win proposition: either the Ukrainians re-take Novorussia and then the very same plan can be repeated in Crimea, or they are defeated by Russia, in which case the resulting crisis offers huge benefits for US imperial ambitions.

... So far Russia stands undefeated by the AngloZionist empire, but she is far from having prevailed either. In fact, Russia is waging a much bigger war or, more accurately, a number of much bigger wars.

First, Russia is trying to survive the attempt by the AngloZionist Empire to economically blockade her.
Second, in order to survive that blockade, Russia is trying to reform her economy to make it less dependent on the export of raw materials, more autonomous and connected to new partners, especially in Asia and Latin America.
Third, Russia is trying to de-fang the Empire by pulling herself out from the dollar and the US/UK controlled international financial system.
Fourth, Russia is trying to prevent the USA from permanently installing a russophobic Nazi regime in power.
Fifth, Russia is preparing for both a major war in the Ukraine and a full scale US/NATO attack on Russia.

[But] the biggest threat for Russia is internal, not external. Nothing is more dangerous for the future of Russia then what I call the "Atlantic Integrationists" and which Putin even called the "5th column". And make no mistake here, we are not talking about Khodorkovsy in New York or Navalnii in the streets of Moscow. We are talking about powerful, rich, influential people who for decades (since Gorbachev's times, or even before) have infiltrated all the levels of government and who today are even in the government of Prime Minister Medvedev.

The single most important political development for Russia is the Russian-Chinese Strategic Alliance (RCSA) which fundamentally changes the entire strategic posture of Russia.

.... Russia desperately needs more time and I expect the Russian diplomacy to try every possible delaying tactic imaginable to buy as much time as possible before the inevitable Ukrainian attack on Novorussia. I am even willing to consider that the recent sale (really, a gift) of coal to Kiev might be such a delaying tactic. For Russia every month, week or day which can delay an overt confrontation with the Ukraine or the West is one day won for preparation internal

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

THGRRI

Friday, January 2, 2015 8:01 AM

(Reuters) - A Russian court found two protest leaders guilty of inciting mass riots on Thursday in a case that the opposition sees as part of a clampdown on President Vladimir Putin's foes while all eyes are on Ukraine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-russia-opposition-sentenc
e-idUSKBN0FT13L20140724

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 8:09 AM

Tell me, THUGR, what is the USA response to protest?

YOU CAN'T BUILD A SOCIETY ON THAT.
Neither here, nor in Russia.
You can cow people and brutalize people for so long, but if they don't have a common cause, a common belief, a common ethic they will not gel into a functioning society.

How can I possibly be any clearer?

THIS won't work to create a society

NOR WILL THIS

NOR THIS

In the meantime, please read the article that I posted (above) by a (Russian?) ex-military analyst currently living in FL, from what I understand.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

KPO

Friday, January 2, 2015 7:02 PM

Quote:
This is an interesting read. It's very long, because it's an analysis of all the events around Ukraine in 2014 and a look ahead.

I don't agree with all of it, but it's by an (Russian?) ex-military analyst who currently lives in Florida, and I found his perspective interesting. But since it's so long, I've snipped the parts that I thought were the most interesting:

I read as far as the first paragraph. I learned that the Ukrainian government are 'Nazis', but they still have to be 'told' to invade separatist-held parts of Ukraine by the USA and NATO.

It's not personal. It's just war.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 9:28 PM

Then you've managed not to learn anything at all, which is too bad because despite the parts that I disagreed with I thought that the Saker really tried to perform an objective analysis, at least from his military standpoint and Russian(?) background. It's not often that I get to read something from a viewpoint that is 180 degrees away from what I can find anywhere in the western press, and with what seems to me to be a detailed wealth of military knowledge*. (One of the points he makes is that Russia would tear through NATO as if it were wet tissue paper, which is not an assessment commonly found in western press.)

Can't you manage to suspend your bias long enough to read something interesting from the "other side"? If you can't, you'll remain in your bubble for your entire life, and I'm sure you don't want that, being so objective and fact-driven and all!

* I used to snicker at the idea of military academies. I thought that after learning how to march in step and shoot and clean a gun and run obstacle courses, anything else was just an excuse for some people to play with little tanks/ battleships on maps. But having watched how al Qaida bumbled its way through events, and how ISIS took so much territory in such a short time, I realized that (1) the heads of ISIS clearly had military command training and experience and (2) academic and problem-solving military training makes a difference. I may not know what they teach in military academies, but I can tell that those who're trained definitely do a lot better than those who aren't. It would be wise to learn from their insight.

-----------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Friday, January 2, 2015 10:30 PM

SIGNYM you are incapable of seeing anything for what it really is. In this country it is your right to protest. It is also the right of others to drive down the street or do business. The police are out there to protect both groups’ rights. So move off the road to the sidewalk and continue on with your protest, let the traffic pass by and businesses do business. It is when the protesters refuse to respect the rights of others (the rights of others) that the police are forced to respond. Mace is better than bullets. It keeps the two groups from making physical contact, the police and the protesters and leaves no long term damage.

I could go on but as I said, you are incapable of seeing anything for what it really is. Very sad

SIGNYM

Friday, January 2, 2015 11:10 PM

If you want to start a new topic, start a new thread

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 1:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If you want to start a new topic, start a new thread

Oh my god. You can't even remember what you posted two posts ago. I was responding to that. As for what I post in a particular threat you have zero control over that and how I chose to respond to what you write in these threads.

Bombs and guns build nations.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 1:35 AM

So sitting - peacefully - in a public space, where the public supposedly has the right to be - as an expression of the constitutional right to 'peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances' is a crime that needs to be stopped using mace? Because, in your mind, the only other possibilities are batons or bullets?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 2:51 AM

You post pictures of police brutality and the patch on the guys sleeve says world police. Who the fuck is that. You post brutality pictures from what appears to be third world countries as though there is no difference between them and America or the civilized countries of Europe. You post apocalyptic pictures as though they represent the same thing as the police dispersing protesters and rioters. Anything to make yourselves feel self-righteous.

You 1kiki and SIGNYM are two really sick women and you are fooling only the gullible.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 5:15 AM

First picture: UC Davis cop sprayed non-violent, non-threatening, non-reacting students with pepper spray. Perhaps UC Davis is the third world?

I don't know about the second picture - but the third one - that's Ferguson. Is THAT the third world?

Then of course there's the infamous Abu Ghraib brutality. That WAS the third world - but then, it WAS our troops and contractors.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 5:21 AM

cites please or was it staged

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 5:28 AM

First of all - I didn't post the pictures. But if >> I <<, the NON-poster, could find this, so could you. And second of all - now that you have a topic, and locations, you could just as easily look it up yourself. Or not. And stay - and look like - the ignorant asshole you are.

Your choice.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 5:44 AM

You say you found it but I see no CITES.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:35 AM

Cites?

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Quote:
SIG

It's funny, but the only nation which seems to still be treating Ukraine (minus Crimea) as a single nation is Russia.

Wow, and I mean wow are you delusional.

SOCIOPATH; look it up, 1kiki has a link. The two of you can read it together

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:35 AM

Cites?

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
I've said all I need to.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:36 AM

Cites?

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
By the way, your lack of reasoning power shows up with every post in your signature. Guns and bombs drove the British out of America and this country was built.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:36 AM

Cites?

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
If you don't get that I am certainly right. You are not an American. You're an import and my bet is from Russia. GO HOME COMRADE

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:39 AM

Cites? 'Cause yanno, this is an opinion piece.

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
No SIDNYM, you are the one arguing against freedom. You either don't realize it or do not know what freedom means.

By Alan Cullison

Updated July 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law making slander of a public official a criminal offense, a move opposition and watchdog groups described as yet another blow in the Kremlin's unrelenting assault on beleaguered democratic institutions.

His approval of the measure on Friday is a fresh rebuke to Western leaders and civic groups who leaned on Mr. Putin at a Group of Eight conference in St. Petersburg this month to stop squeezing opposition parties and freedom of speech. Analysts say Mr. Putin's decision to sign the law is a harbinger for an even greater clampdown on Russian society as the government prepares for presidential elections in 2008.

"He is signing a law that erases all ability to criticize the authorities and to have any real discussion in the media," said Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at the Carnegie Foundation in Moscow. "The long-term trend is pretty clear: Russia is in the midst of an election campaign and the czar doesn't want any questions."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115413548494821152

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:40 AM

Cites? 'Cause yanno, this is yet ANOTHER opinion piece.

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Here is some more of what you call freedom SIGNYM.

Eyes on Ukraine, Putin Tightens Curbs on Protesters
Reuters
May. 06 2014 20:30
Last edited 20:30

While all eyes are turned to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has quietly enacted laws which opponents say will strengthen his hand in a battle against dissent in Russia.

Putin signed laws on Monday envisaging tougher punishment for people involved in riots and imposing life sentences for various "terrorist" crimes. He also approved tighter controls on bloggers, some of whom have emerged as opposition leaders and have used the Internet to criticize Putin and arrange protests.

"All this tightening will be applied only for political ends," said Dmitry Gudkov, a member of parliament who helped organize rallies against Putin in several cities in the winter of 2011 to 2012.

The moves underline Kremlin concern that the unrest in Ukraine, where demonstrations caused the Moscow-backed president to , might encourage protests in Russia, even though the annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine has helped push Putin's ratings to their highest level since late 2010.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/499659.html

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 6:44 AM

And you still didn't address this. When members of the public sit - peacefully - in a public space to peacefully assemble and petition the government - is it a crime that needs to be stopped with mace, or batons, or bullets?

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
First picture: UC Davis cop sprayed non-violent, non-threatening, non-reacting students with pepper spray. Perhaps UC Davis is the third world?

I don't know about the second picture - but the third one - that's Ferguson. Is THAT the third world?

Then of course there's the infamous Abu Ghraib brutality. That WAS the third world - but then, it WAS our troops and contractors.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 9:31 AM

When you're done having a hissy fist I would appreciate those cites please.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 3, 2015 8:52 PM

Why are you asking KIKI for cites to one of my posts? Isn't that a little misdirected?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 3, 2015 9:57 PM

Quote:
Perfect example of how Signym has to create false equivalents to *try* make her point - and it's so f*cking obvious - clearly, she doesn't even care any more.

G, I take it you don't follow the USA news? Haven't seen anything of the widespread surveillance of the population by the NSA? Not read about the "free speech zones" set up so that people with an alternate POV can protest.... two miles way from anywhere? Not noticed the militarization of the police? Not read of the mass arrests of protesters because they were "blocking traffic" or "interfering with normal movement"? Nor the bill signed by Obama in May 2012 which would makes protest "near" Secret Service criminally illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in jail?

Quote:
For one thing, the law makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest. Period. It is a federal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. For another, it’s almost impossible to predict what constitutes “disorderly or disruptive conduct” or what sorts of conduct authorities deem to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”

The types of events and individuals warranting Secret Service protection have grown exponentially since the law was enacted in 1971. Today, any occasion that is officially defined as a National Special Security Event calls for Secret Service protection. NSSE’s can include basketball championships, concerts, and the Winter Olympics, which have nothing whatsoever to do with government business, official functions, or improving public grounds. Every Super Bowl since 9/11 has been declared an NSSE.

And that brings us to the real problem with the change to the old protest law. Instead of turning on a designated place, the protest ban turns on what persons and spaces are deemed to warrant Secret Service protection. It’s a perfect circle: The people who believe they are important enough to warrant protest can now shield themselves from protestors. No wonder the Occupy supporters are worried. In the spirit of “free speech zones,” this law creates another space in which protesters are free to be nowhere near the people they are protesting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/03/
the_anti_protest_bill_signed_by_barack_obama_is_a_quiet_attack_on_free_speech_.html

Heck, G, that thing that THUGR mentioned .... arresting protesters blocking the normal movement of people... that was EXACTLY the reason that the Hong Kong government just gave for arresting the umbrella protesters. How is anything in the USA not like China or Russia, when it comes to protests? They're just not tolerated, no matter which country you're in. From my angle, it looks exactly the same.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 10:16 PM

Quote:
SIGNYM
Heck, G, that thing that THUGR mentioned .... arresting protesters blocking the normal movement of people... that was EXACTLY the reason that the Hong Kong government just gave for arresting the umbrella protesters. How is anything in the USA not like Russia, when it comes to protests? From my angle, it looks exactly the same.

SIGNYM, Hong Kong had an agreement with China for free and fair elections within Hong Kong that was broken. Those protesting were representing a form of revelation not just a simple protest. Because of your lack of being able to see the truth of things you can’t tell the difference between that and a protest in this country.

Here is an example of your hypocrisy that has not gone unnoticed by some of us. You alwasys take the side of the protesters against governments except in the case of the Ukraine. You called it a coup and illegal because it goes against the interests of Russia.

Still waiting for those cites 1kiki.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 3, 2015 10:31 PM

Quote:
Those protesting were representing a form of revelation not just a simple protest.

Huh??? Almost ALL protests are a form of revelation! They're used to bring attention to issues that aren't widely-known or widely-acknowledged. Oh and BTW- the people of Hong Kong understand what the agreement was between Hong Kong and China. They're not as stupid as you make them out. There are other underlying issues between Hong Kong and China- the first being a terrible housing shortage, the second that the Hong Kong wealthy are suddenly being displaced (in housing, education, markets etc) by the mainland wealthy, and the third being that Shanghai is anticipated to overtake Hong Kong as the financial center and the future of Hong Kong is looking less bright.

Quote:
You alwasys take the side of the protesters against governments except in the case of the Ukraine. You called it a coup and illegal because it goes against the interests of Russia.

I called it a coup because it WAS a coup. Once you use guns to oust a government .... and in this case, it was an elected government... THAT is the difference between a protest and a coup (or revolution, however you want to frame it). YOU'RE the one who is misrepresenting what happened. HINT: Maidan may have started as a "protest" but it ended as a "coup".

My god, THUGR, the fact that you can't see that fact makes me wonder about your state of mind. Yanno, just to be polite, and so I don't leave you hanging, I'm letting you know right now that I'm not going to be responding to most of your posts bc you're just not worth it.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Saturday, January 3, 2015 10:35 PM

You're playing semantics here SIGNYM in order to encompass all acts of protesting into a single category. This is a subjective way of addressing what I said; garbage.

Cites 1kiki

Bombs and guns build countries and helps keep hostile forces out.

THGRRI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 2:54 AM

You are sick of me SIGNYM because I can show what you post to be bullshit with a short and simple response. The secret is to skip past all the subjective bull you fill your posts with (mostly copied and pasted shit from propaganda and conspiracy sites) and go right to the point.

While I do not mind you not acknowledging my posts in the least, I will still be poking you on occasion because of the joy it brings me.

Cites 1kiki cites, where are those damn cites???

Guns and Bombs build nations and keep aggressors out.

1KIKI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 2:58 AM

Still waiting for an answer THUGR. Yanno I asked first. After you.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So sitting - peacefully - in a public space, where the public supposedly has the right to be - as an expression of the constitutional right to 'peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances' is a crime that needs to be stopped using mace? Because, in your mind, the only other possibilities are batons or bullets?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.[/quote

1KIKI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 3:10 AM

SignyM to THUGR: Why are you asking KIKI for cites to one of my posts? Isn't that a little misdirected?

Because THUGR is very - no, make that pathologically - confused. About a lot of things.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 3:19 AM

I gave you an answer 1kiki. I needed cites to confirm what you were suggesting and you refuse to accommodate.

Simple.... Cites 1kiki show me the cities that collaborate the post in question. Have your hissy fits, call me anything you wish, but get the damn cites.

1KIKI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 3:25 AM

Then quote it.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 3:53 AM

That's what I thought. I never expected to get them, just wanted to remind all here what a...you are.

1KIKI

Sunday, January 4, 2015 11:07 AM

Saturday, January 3, 2015 5:19 PM
I gave you an answer 1kiki.

Let's recap - shall we?

The question:

Friday, January 2, 2015 3:35 PM
So sitting - peacefully - in a public space, where the public supposedly has the right to be - as an expression of the constitutional right to 'peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances' is a crime that needs to be stopped using mace? Because, in your mind, the only other possibilities are batons or bullets?

Was this your answer roughly four hours later?

Friday, January 2, 2015 7:21 PM
cites please or was it staged

How about this one roughly eight hours after the question?

Friday, January 2, 2015 11:31 PM
When you're done having a hissy fist (sic) I would appreciate those cites please.

This one?

Saturday, January 3, 2015 12:16 PM
Still waiting for those cites 1kiki.

Or this one?

Saturday, January 3, 2015 12:35 PM
Cites 1kiki

Or maybe this one?

Saturday, January 3, 2015 4:54 PM
Cites 1kiki cites, where are those damn cites???

You see, most honest people - obviously not you - understand that simply claiming you answered (after 24 hours of avoiding answering) doesn't constitute an answer. And now here you are - proven by a record of your own posts - to be the liar that you are. Because that answer you claimed you gave - is not in any of your posts.

And btw, I will happily provide the cites to anyone by PM - but not to you - who asks. Because, unlike you, I actually have answers. But you, sadly, have chosen to insist on remaining an ignorant asshole. So I will accommodate your choice. And now, by the record of your very own posts, you are proven liar as well. You've achieved a trifecta.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 4, 2015 11:39 PM

Quote:
I gave you an answer 1kiki.-THUGR
Then quote it.-KIKI

Well, of course he can't.

THUGR: Liar, liar! Pants on fire!

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

THGRRI

Monday, January 5, 2015 12:38 AM

Quote:
.1kiki

So sitting - peacefully - in a public space, where the public supposedly has the right to be - as an expression of the constitutional right to 'peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances' is a crime that needs to be stopped using mace? Because, in your mind, the only other possibilities are batons or bullets?

This is your original post. You are referring to the pictures of protesters SIGNYM posted. I addressed that with her and then asked you to cite it's source if you too wished to post it as fact. You still have yet to do so.

Reasonable people 1kiki can see I asked for a way to clarify what you were posting was accurate. Your last post shows you have yet to provide the cite to confirm it's authenticity.

As for how long it took for me to respond back to you, once again reasonable people will understand I was not logged onto the site and was busy doing other things. Your attempts to blur the issue is sad and void of logic. It is also over.

Bombs and guns builds nations and keep aggressors out.

SIGNYM

Monday, January 5, 2015 12:46 AM

THUGR< if you didn't have your head stuck up your ass most of the time, you would recognize the events from which those pictures were drawn. In fact, I daresay that most of the people here recognize where the pictures came from and remember the related events. Constantly demanding to be shown the origins of pictures which you should recognize automatically ... well, it doesn't say much for either for your general state of knowledge, your ability to do a web search, or your ability to "inspect element". If you're really, really stuck, I'll provide you with the cites later. Just remind me in a week or so. Far too much of this thread has been wasted pandering to your ignorance, and your constant demonstration thereof.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

1KIKI

Monday, January 5, 2015 12:58 AM

I addressed that with her ...

But you didn't answer MY question. So, are you going to answer MY question? People - not in the street. Not impeding anyone. Peaceful. Unresisting. Not even defending themselves against being maced directly in the face. Can you answer MY question?

So sitting - peacefully - in a public space, where the public supposedly has the right to be - as an expression of the constitutional right to 'peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances' is a crime that needs to be stopped using mace? Because, in your mind, the only other possibilities are batons or bullets?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Monday, January 5, 2015 1:49 AM

So THUGR - are you going to answer MY question? That question you never did answer, though that didn't stop you from lying and claiming you did ...

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Monday, January 5, 2015 2:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR< if you didn't have your head stuck up your ass most of the time, you would recognize the events from which those pictures were drawn. In fact, I daresay that most of the people here recognize where the pictures came from and remember the related events. Constantly demanding to be shown the origins of pictures which you should recognize automatically ... well, it doesn't say much for either for your general state of knowledge, your ability to do a web search, or your ability to "inspect element". If you're really, really stuck, I'll provide you with the cites later. Just remind me in a week or so. Far too much of this thread has been wasted pandering to your ignorance, and your constant demonstration thereof.

What a crock of shit. I'm speaking with and tell you friend 1kiki I think she has everyone fooled.

1KIKI

Monday, January 5, 2015 2:17 AM

So THUGR - are you going to answer MY question? That question you never did answer, though that didn't stop you from lying and claiming you did ...

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 6, 2015 2:25 AM

Find me that answer. THUGR certainly couldn't. Then it eventrually ran away.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Tuesday, January 6, 2015 9:42 AM

That's because all 1kiki does is lie and misrepresent the truth. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that's all she does. Apparently she is limited in intelligence and that's all she is capable of.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 16, 2015 6:00 PM

More and more happening on the economic war front.

Crimea joins Russia.

Sanctions ensue.

Russia, accused of shooting down MH17, on the basis little evidence. More sanctions ensue.

Russia inks giant gas deal with China, and counter-sanctions western food imports.

Capital sanctions are applied to Russia, and the EU throws barriers up around the South Stream pipeline.

Russia countermoves by redirecting its planned gas flow away from Bulgaria, and into Turkey.

Price of oil drops thanks to decreasing demand and Saudi commitment to maintaining production. Altho this looks like a political move, the Saudis insist this is purely market-share protection.

Havoc ensues in ALL oil-producing countries, especially those with high cost of production (USA fracking, Canadian tar sands) and those nations which rely on oil sales for a large part of foreign capital (Russia, Venezuela, Qatar etc).

The Russian ruble drops, thanks to speculation on the forex.

Russia starts implementing its own SWIFT alternate.

Russia offers a deal to the EU: back out of TTIP, join a Eurasian Union, and you can even keep your sanctions in place.

In the wake of no response, Russia informs the EU that it plans to eliminate ALL gas flow through Ukraine. Gas will be piped up to the border of Greece and Turkey, after that, the EU has to figure out how to distribute it.

EU blubbers.

Meanwhile, China has not left Venezuela out of the picture, offering them a $20 billion dollar loan.

Even more interesting, Qatar has ALSO offered Venezuela a loan, to improve their agricultural system.

---------------

I said in one of my previous posts that old alliances are breaking and new ones are forming. It's almost impossible to tell who is on who's side. I would have thought that China and Russia might step in to protect Maduro from his terrible economic strategies, but.... QATAR???

It seems to me like Qatar is trying to dump its dollars in some semi-productive way. Or maybe they just want to tweak the Saudis.

Sheesh, what next?
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 17, 2015 11:16 PM

So, looking at this from the Russian-Chinese angle, what is their next move?

Back to 2008.
... It's very difficult to know what's going on in China. I've read their press releases in the English-language version Xinhua, and they are ... inscrutable. *sigh* So all I can do is broad-brush Chinese economic development with observations tied together with assumptions.

China took off on the wrong foot under Mao. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution took economic development backwards, so somewhere along the way the Chinese Politburo decided to develop by the Japanese model: offer themselves as a cheap-labor source to the west, in return for investments in production facilities at home. With the caveats that there was the problem of prison labor being the initial fodder into this program, and the distortion of productive capacity being wrapped around western markets, and (in addition) the fact that Chinese themselves "have never aspired to be wage slaves in factory-dorms held in place by suicide netting" ... and the Chinese never did put their currency on the open market (it was always pegged to the dollar) nonetheless ... things went SWIMMINGLY(!) for 30 years or so. Until the bottom dropped out in 2008, and the Chinese found their western markets had suddenly evaporated, and along with it their export economy.

The Chinese made a post-haste decision to promote internal demand through expanded lending (I have yet to figure out how they did that w/o the PBOC) and infrastructural projects. There was apparently quite a bit of chicanery with that flood of money which Xi Jingping is now trying to clear up and claw back. But in addition to the policy adjustments, I think 2008 was a wakeup call to the Chinese leadership about the flaws of western financialism.

In addition, Obama's Asia Pivot (2009) was a clear signal to the Chinese that they were not only NOT considered economic partners by the west, but actual enemies. (The west had also been quietly subverting China's quest for oil via the maritime route: the "string of pearls" envisioned by China never got off the ground and their best source of sweet crude - Sudan- was destabilized by the USA. I find it interesting to note that the Chinese now have peacekeeping troops in the Sudan under UN auspices.)

Two years ago, hubby and I listened to a statement on Chinese TV (a TV channel otherwise filled with dreck) by a leading academic on China's new foreign policy approach: We will make allies of friends, and friends of neutrals. But if we cannot militarily protect our allies and friends, no one will take us seriously. I think I may have posted about it at the time. It was, hubby noted, absolutely pivotal. Whether it was 2008 or the Asia Pivot, the Chinese woke up to the fact that the USA would step on them as soon as possible. The TTP - which excludes China- is just another indication of the same direction.

China's ties to the west, and to the USA in particular, is that it is still has 60% of its foreign reserves, or about $2T of dollar-denominated holdings, of which about $1.3T are Treasuries. However, China is seeking to reduce its foreign reserves
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-11/-4-trillion-peak-for-china-s-
stockpile-of-foreign-currency-may-free-pboc-s-hands.html and to expand trade in its own currency (yuan/renminbi) You can see this here http://www.bis.org/publ/work446.pdf

In addition, China's main trading partners are Hong Kong 17.4%, US 16.7%, Japan 6.8%, South Korea 4.1

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/205
0.html ... but excluding Hong Kong, which re-exports Chinese goods elsewhere and re-exports foreign goods to mainland China (PRC) and is therefore listed as PRC's main trading partner no matter which stats you look at, China's main market is still the USA, its main source of oil is Saudi Arabia followed by Angola http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH. and it's main source of imports is still the EU.

So alt

SIGNYM

Friday, January 23, 2015 10:01 PM

Originally posed by KIKI here http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59018&mid=9
92512#992512

Quote:

Distortions, lies and omissions: The New York Times won’t tell you the real story behind Ukraine, Russian economic collapse
International papers will cover America's role in the world honestly. Only our best paper willingly blinds itself
Patrick L. Smith

A note arrived a few days ago from one of my best informants in Europe. He had just met across a hotel dining table with a senior German executive, and the topic quickly turned to the crisis in Ukraine and the sanctions regime Washington has imposed on Russia.

I can do no better than give you the pertinent passage in the note:

“… I spoke … breakfast time in Europe… with the head of one of the largest companies in Germany. This declaration was one of the first items he mentioned. I took notes—because it is one of my clients—and here is what he said: ‘It is urgent for Europe to bring Obama and the people making the decisions behind him back to reality. If not, this will spiral first into a financial collapse, which will slam into all of Europe, and then who knows where it goes after that? Everywhere, far-right nationalist forces are building. Look at the last U.S. Congressional elections, and think what is coming. Will America ever have had a more nationalist Congress? Le Pen would be right at home in this crowd. The course we are on now is folly. Can’t they see that?’”

I wish I could say the German exec’s question is a good one, but the grim answer is too obvious. They can see nothing in Washington. We witness the single most reckless, destructive foreign policy this administration has yet devised, comparable in magnitude to Bush II’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry wanted Middle East peace to stand as their legacy on the foreign side. Now they propose restored relations with Cuba as the bronze monument. Forget about it. The devastation of ties with a global power, the dissolution of Ukraine and very possibly the ruination of Europe’s barely beating economic recovery will be what we live with after this administration makes its exit.

I am awestruck as news of recent events unfolds. Ukraine is more than an economic, political and military mess: It is a major humanitarian tragedy now. As the German CEO wants to know, how can we possibly arm neo-Nazis in Ukraine while right-wing extremists and anti-immigration atavists rise all over Europe?

The body blows the State Department and Treasury are dealing Russia in response to the Ukraine crisis—as precipitated by State, of course—would be irresponsible under any circumstances for the risks they carry. In the current global environment, this starts to shape up as monomania.

Thoughtful readers point out that this is a standoff between two nuclear powers, and, indeed, this has to be on our minds. But for the moment, and thank goodness, that is in the background. The very immediate menace is a global economic calamity that could make the 2008 crisis look like a blip on the chart.

Last week Fitch, the credit-rating agency, downgraded Russia’s status to BBB, putting it a few notches away from junk status. This is hardball, we had better recognize: You cannot shove the world’s No. 8 economy into the gutter and expect it to land there alone. A lot of suffering beyond Ukraine’s borders, where it is awful enough already, is frighteningly near.

Before I go any further: No, you are not reading much about this in the American press. You can read about it in the German press, the French press and elsewhere on the Continent, in the Czech press, the Russian press (obviously), some of the British press, and even the Chinese press. But all those journalists and all their readers are in a propaganda bubble, the world’s greatest newspaper wants us to know.

It is crowded inside the propaganda bubble and lonely here outside of it, it seems. To this topic we will return.

* * *

At year-end I predicted in this space that one of two key r

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SIGNYM

Friday, January 23, 2015 10:34 PM

Just to make few comments on some especially-salient points

Quote:
At year-end I predicted in this space that one of two key relationships stood to fracture in the course of this year: These were either Europe’s ties with Russia or America’s with Europe. I continue to think the latter would be the breach that will leave us all better off.

I have no idea when or if that fracture will take place. So far, Merkel is behaving like her tits are in a vise. Looking at the various pressures that are being brought to bear on her government, her security and intelligence services are completely compromised by the USA. Not only were the telephone calls of German citizens scanned by the NSA, Merkel's personal phone was tapped, and Germany's satellite-to-high-speed internet links (the ones they use to connect to their own armed forces and to large businesses and financial interests abroad) were also tapped. Germany just arrested a number of USA spies that they found in their foreign service and internal security operations. Meanwhile, Germany has reactivated its gold repatriation, which had been stalled by the Fed two years ago. I can't tell if Merkel is trying to safely wriggle out from under the USA's ass, or if it's preparing to leave the EU and the Euro and reconstitute its Deutschemark. Or maybe a little bit of both. Or neither!

Quote:
In my read Washington has drastically overplayed its hand with the Europeans from the first round of sanctions onward. Now those overly courteous Europeans are at last taking the kidskin gloves off. We had hints of this before the holidays, when Matteo Renzi, the Italian premier, said at a European summit in Brussels, “Absolutely no to more sanctions.”

Now François Hollande asserts that, no, Moscow has no desire to annex eastern Ukraine, no, there is no need for more sanctions, and yes, sanctions now in place must be lifted if, as Hollande and other European leaders continue to anticipate, what you may read notwithstanding.

There is a question as to why Kiev (which is only nominally in charge of its fighting forces, since right wing "national guard" refused Poroshenko's offer to be regularized) launched this latest attack in eastern Ukraine. The attack was followed by Kiev's commitment to enlarge the draft in stages, by something like 70,000 in the first wave, to an eventual total of 250,000 armed men. But that's bass-akwards: First the attack, THEN the draft? Either the rightwing just "went off" prematurely and unplanned, or their schedule was rushed along by outside events. I vote for the latter; this sequence of events has happened twice before: Rightwing irregulars attack eastern and southern Ukraine, then Kiev claims that Russia is "invading" (again!), then NATO dutifully echoes the claim.

Quote:
Washington’s ambitions have been grander from the first. This is the context of Victoria Nuland’s infamous “F the E.U.” remark last February. And we now witness the love act as Nuland and her colleagues at State seem to like it. Rough sex after the seduction, let us say.

What a metaphor!

Quote:
“The country [Ukraine] is clinically dead…. There is nothing government or the central bank can do to stop the decline. The population is being pushed further and further into poverty. Food prices are up 25 percent and rent, electricity, gas and water by 34 percent…. This is the picture of a Ukraine that is looking an economic collapse in the eye. But its government is still attempting to channel money into the military to fend off the big bear’s aggression…. The danger for Ukraine is not Russia. It is its own demise….”

Yep

Quote:
Connect a few dots in the Bloomberg piece. Further tranches of the IMF’s $17 billion bailout, launched last April, are now blocked until Kiev makes more and very deep cuts in public spending.

O.K., $17 billion from the IMF, once the government savages its budget. Against this, Kiev has payments of $10 billion in debt service alone due this year—that is in

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THGRRI

Friday, January 23, 2015 10:58 PM

rusian troll

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 24, 2015 1:43 AM

Are you calling the author of the article a Russian troll?

HAHAHA!

What a troll you are! Useless for anything except... hey, thanks for the bump!

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 25, 2015 10:47 AM

Quote:
Yesterday, the German newspaper Handelsblatt published an interview that has yet to be printed in any English-language newspaper with the head of Russia’s second largest VTB-Bank (Foreign Trade Bank), Andrei Kostin. Mr. Kostin stated: “Of course, there is a plan B [in the case of shutting Russia off from the SWIFT bank system], but in my personal opinion it would mean war—if this type of sanction will be introduced. America and Europe did that against Iran but with Iran at that time there were no diplomatic relations, only military containment… If Russian banks’ access to SWIFT will be prohibited, the US ambassador to Moscow should leave the same day. Diplomatic relations must be finished. Banking is the most vulnerable part of the Russian economy because the system is based so strongly on the dollar and the euro.”

Read more at http://observer.com/2014/12/top-russian-banker-and-putin-confidante-th
reatens-us-with-war/#ixzz3PoEgfmC8
Follow us: @newyorkobserver on Twitter | newyorkobserver on Facebook

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 25, 2015 10:57 AM

This is who THUGR claims is a Russian troll

Quote:
Distortions, lies and omissions: The New York Times won’t tell you the real story behind Ukraine, Russian economic collapse

International papers will cover America's role in the world honestly. Only our best paper willingly blinds itself
Patrick L. Smith

A note arrived a few days ago from one of my best informants in Europe. He had just met across a hotel dining table with a senior German executive, and the topic quickly turned to the crisis in Ukraine and the sanctions regime Washington has imposed on Russia.

I can do no better than give you the pertinent passage in the note:

“… I spoke … breakfast time in Europe… with the head of one of the largest companies in Germany. This declaration was one of the first items he mentioned. I took notes—because it is one of my clients—and here is what he said: ‘It is urgent for Europe to bring Obama and the people making the decisions behind him back to reality. If not, this will spiral first into a financial collapse, which will slam into all of Europe, and then who knows where it goes after that? Everywhere, far-right nationalist forces are building. Look at the last U.S. Congressional elections, and think what is coming. Will America ever have had a more nationalist Congress? Le Pen would be right at home in this crowd. The course we are on now is folly. Can’t they see that?’”

I wish I could say the German exec’s question is a good one, but the grim answer is too obvious. They can see nothing in Washington. We witness the single most reckless, destructive foreign policy this administration has yet devised, comparable in magnitude to Bush II’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry wanted Middle East peace to stand as their legacy on the foreign side. Now they propose restored relations with Cuba as the bronze monument. Forget about it. The devastation of ties with a global power, the dissolution of Ukraine and very possibly the ruination of Europe’s barely beating economic recovery will be what we live with after this administration makes its exit.

I am awestruck as news of recent events unfolds. Ukraine is more than an economic, political and military mess: It is a major humanitarian tragedy now. As the German CEO wants to know, how can we possibly arm neo-Nazis in Ukraine while right-wing extremists and anti-immigration atavists rise all over Europe?

The body blows the State Department and Treasury are dealing Russia in response to the Ukraine crisis—as precipitated by State, of course—would be irresponsible under any circumstances for the risks they carry. In the current global environment, this starts to shape up as monomania.

Thoughtful readers point out that this is a standoff between two nuclear powers, and, indeed, this has to be on our minds. But for the moment, and thank goodness, that is in the background. The very immediate menace is a global economic calamity that could make the 2008 crisis look like a blip on the chart.

Last week Fitch, the credit-rating agency, downgraded Russia’s status to BBB, putting it a few notches away from junk status. This is hardball, we had better recognize: You cannot shove the world’s No. 8 economy into the gutter and expect it to land there alone. A lot of suffering beyond Ukraine’s borders, where it is awful enough already, is frighteningly near.

Before I go any further: No, you are not reading much about this in the American press. You can read about it in the German press, the French press and elsewhere on the Continent, in the Czech press, the Russian press (obviously), some of the British press, and even the Chinese press. But all those journalists and all their readers are in a propaganda bubble, the world’s greatest newspaper wants us to know.

It is crowded inside the propaganda bubble and lonely here outside of it, it seems. To this topic we will return.

* * *

At year-end I predicted in this space that one of two key relationships stood to fracture in the course of this year:

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1KIKI

Sunday, January 25, 2015 11:22 AM

Yesterday, the German newspaper Handelsblatt published an interview that has yet to be printed in any English-language newspaper with the head of Russia’s second largest VTB-Bank (Foreign Trade Bank), Andrei Kostin. Mr. Kostin stated: “Of course, there is a plan B [in the case of shutting Russia off from the SWIFT bank system], but in my personal opinion it would mean war—if this type of sanction will be introduced. America and Europe did that against Iran but with Iran at that time there were no diplomatic relations, only military containment… If Russian banks’ access to SWIFT will be prohibited, the US ambassador to Moscow should leave the same day. Diplomatic relations must be finished. Banking is the most vulnerable part of the Russian economy because the system is based so strongly on the dollar and the euro.”

Just great. Now I guess we get to see if Obama will draw the line at overt war despite his neo-con masters. Or is he so stupid he thinks he'll be able to outbluff Russia.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 25, 2015 9:02 PM

Obama is an idiot, but he's following the Brzezinski-flavored neocon policy - the one that's focused on Russia and China instead of Israel and the Mideast. Remember that Brzezinski was the one who first thought to arm and fund jihadists in Afghanistan to counter the Russian threat.

WAY TO GO, ZBIGGY! You planted the seeds of jihadism sweeping the globe!

On the topic of world domination

Quote:
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/03/10/what-happens-to-ukraine-will-b
e-a-model-for-the-rest-of-us/

Quotes from The Grand Chessboard - Zbigniew's rationale for USA total dominance of Eurasia (a document of offense, not defense)

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... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources. (p.31)

The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea. (p.125)

In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last. (p.209)

Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization. (p.35)

Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. (p. 211)

http://www.takeoverworld.info/grandchessboard.html

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, February 7, 2015 1:10 AM

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Angela Merkel and François Hollande are to meet Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible peace plan for Ukraine, as fears rise that failure to secure a breakthrough could trigger an escalation in a conflict that has already cost more than 5,000 lives.

Before leaving for Moscow, the French president said securing a ceasefire for eastern Ukraine was just a first step and that a “comprehensive agreement” must be sought.

On Thursday, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, said Washington was weighing up whether to supply arms to the Ukrainian government.

This is probably the real reason for Hollande's and Merkel's emergency meeting with Putin. The fact that the two EU-founding members are together on this makes me think that they desperately want to get off the USA track.

Quote:
Hollande and Merkel were expected to hold talks with Putin at 5pm Moscow time (2pm GMT), though there was significant uncertainty over what ideas they were bringing to the table. They undertook the hasty and unusual mission after Putin put forward his own plan and they responded with counter-proposals, amid an upsurge of fighting and growing European fears that a US decision to supply arms to Kiev could trigger an uncontrollable rise in violence.

Or, as Hollande put it, "total war". That means nuclear too.

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Merkel and Hollande met the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in Kiev on Thursday evening.

Telling him what he has to accept?

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Ukraine’s foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, said on Twitter that the leaders had discussed “steps so that the Minsk agreement can start working”. A ceasefire signed in Minsk in September froze the frontlines at their positions at the time, but never held.

Kerry sounded lukewarm about Merkel and Hollande’s visit.

Russia has been the target all along. The EU should get with the program, damnit!

Quote:
He said Putin had sent “a couple of ideas” to France and Germany, and the pair had come up with a response but he did not give details. Kerry also said the US wanted a diplomatic solution but was reviewing all options, including “the possibility of providing defensive systems to Ukraine”.

Soundly rejected by France, Germany, and other NATO members.

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US officials are concerned that Putin will use European eagerness to stop the fighting to consolidate his hold on Crimea and eastern Ukraine and shrug off the obligations Russia undertook in Minsk to cut off the flow of arms and manpower to the pro-Moscow separatists.

Hollande, however, has insisted that the Franco-German proposals were based on a guarantee of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. He warned “the diplomatic option cannot be extended indefinitely”.

The chances of a breakthrough hinge on establishing a durable ceasefire and the prospect of that looked slim, according to senior officials and diplomats briefed on the initiative in Brussels.

Putin was said to be refusing to negotiate with Poroshenko, after making fresh proposals to Kiev 48 hours ago. While senior officials in Brussels said the “new initiatives” in the “Putin plan” were worth exploring, the little that was known suggested they would be very hard for Kiev to swallow.

Up to a point, time is on Russia's side. Sending arms to Ukraine will entail training people on entirely new unfamiliar systems. It's something of a race: will Kiev collapse before America steps in?

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Putin wants to redraw the “demarcation line” showing pro-Russian rebel-held territory, expanding it by around 500 sq km from that agreed last September in Minsk. Merkel has always insisted that the Minsk deal is the only basis for a settlement. While seizing a bigger chunk of eastern Ukraine, Putin also insisted that the “autonomous” areas beyond the control of the Ukrainian government nevertheless continue to benefit from central government budget funding.

Currently, the "autonomous regions" are paying into central funds such as pension funds. I don't see what that can't

SIGNYM

Saturday, February 7, 2015 11:40 AM

Even as talks are planned to continue, Kiev intensifies its shelling of Donetsk.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Saturday, February 7, 2015 10:49 PM

So, there was one brief flash of info on Russian press, quickly withdrawn. What it said was very interesting, but since it's now disappeared and may have been inaccurate, I can only describe approximately what it said but can't even provide a link: A new "line of contact" would be drawn which would give the DPR-LPR an additional 1500 km^2, and the cease fire would start from there.

However, there is now a total news blackout on the state of negotiations in all media (Russian, British, American, European) so nobody knows anything.

Furthermore, since Kiev is shelling Donetsk under the policy of "break Donetsk at all costs", using (according to the DPR) cluster bombs and incendiary devices

and the DPR-LPR is pressing ahead with taking Debalstseve, everyone is acting as if the boundaries have not yet been set, but may be determined by where the line of contact is when the clock stops (whenever that is).

Just as an exercise in speculation, I'm going to try to think my way through the various interests, pressures, and options.

UNITED STATES: The USA has been angling for this war ever since Russia stopped us from bombing Syria (which, as you may recall, was based on the entirely specious "reason" that Assad gassed his own people - eventually undercut by UK lab finding that the Sarin was "kitchen-grade". But like the MH17-precipitated sanctions, we never let evidence get in the way of policy!) It seems as if the USA is ready to go "balls to the wall" against Russia, using Kiev as its proxy. The calculation was, I think that sanctions would bring the Russian economy down in three years. But the USA can't wait three years, because Kiev is crumbling rapidly, and the EU is breaking apart under austerity (Greece, Spain), and Russia isn't crumbling at all, even with a currency and oil price war added to the sanctions war, so NOW the plan is to put in USA arms and actually, officially draw Russia into a proxy war. Perhaps the idea is that a proxy war will turn into a long drain on the Russian economy, and eventually lead to the overthrow of the Russian government.

And then what?

RUSSIA
First of all, Putin has said that if USA arms Kiev, he will consider it a direct threat to Russian security and will respond appropriately. I don't think that Putin would limit his actions to a "proxy" war. I think that for all of the cries of "Russian invasion", there really WILL be a Russian invasion: unmistakable and swift.

Furthermore, he has to do this BEFORE or VERY SHORTLY AFTER American arms reach Ukraine. (From a political standpoint, waiting until just after the USA officially arms Kiev is preferable). As long as the actions directly against Russia remained primarily economic and political

(1) sanctions
(2) currency war
(3) oil price war
(4) South Stream Pipeline war
(5) Ukraine as economic money-pit (gas and coal loans etc)

Russia's responses could remain in the political and economic sphere (counter-sanctions, de-dollarization, economic Asian pivot, etc). There are other economic pressures Russia COULD bring to bear on Kiev or the EU, such as shutting off the gas, demanding immediate repayment from Ukraine, and defaulting on its loans from the EU, but once the USA escalates this to a military situation, I think Russia will respond militarily.

This is not an option they would choose. They would still like a unified, neutral, federalized Ukraine (minus Crimea). They really don't want a Novorossia, they have discouraged it at every turn in the political realm, refusing to recognize the new Novorossian governments while recognizing the Poroshenko government. When the DPR-LPR started to seriously gain ground on Kiev, Putin forced them to accept a cease fire that simply allowed Kiev to regroup. Russia's indirect/ covert assistance to DPR-LPR has been mostly in the realm of helping to prevent people from being totally overrun by the Kiev government, but not

1KIKI

Saturday, February 7, 2015 11:39 PM

This looks like the US deep-state run amok.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Sunday, February 8, 2015 1:55 AM

"... the plan is to put in USA arms and actually, officially draw Russia into a proxy war. Perhaps the idea is that a proxy war will turn into a long drain on the Russian economy ..."

Because Afghanistan and Iraq did such wonders for the US economy? And China is no longer buying US 'dollarized' debt to fund these debt-heavy policies. Where would the US turn to borrow money for this?

I agree with you on another point with a different emphasis: when you see who benefits and who's the target you can see who's running the country and what are their goals.

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SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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