40 replies to this topic

[I_Download_Stuff]

Thank You MattTheLegoman

[duke_Qa]

Nostradamus... yeah-no. Anyway.

 

Same can be said in China and their growing tensions in naval territory claims with other countries in the Southeast Asia

 

Well, certainly China has been showing off their new-found power in naval questions with Japan. Those are a bit worrying but nothing compared to the situation up here. China is actually a competitor for Kazakstan and the other former USSR nations. Except where Russia uses threats and dominant tactics like making sure gas-lines go through Russia before they get to the EU, China has a tendency to invest with an attitude of equal partners. So in this case, China is doing a good job in showing the Stan's alternative economic partners that won't tie them up in the dungeon and put things up their butts. Even if all sides are pretty dictatorial from nature.

[duke_Qa]

Also, by the looks of it, some Russian politician mentioned now that they want to annex Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine.

 

If this proves to be the truth, I'm afraid we're going to have a conventional war between Nato/EU and the Russian Coalition over the 1996 Nuclear memorandum that promises all parties fight for the integrity of Ukraine's borders. If its just Crimea it might not go there, but if Russia starts annexing the land-bound parts as well, they are doing the same thing that Nazi Germany did to Austria, Switzerland and Poland in the beginning of world war 2. Russia will lose a war against the west, but it will push our economies back at least a decade, so it's quite annoying if we have to do that to keep this authoritarian strain of Russian fascism from setting root.

 

Then again, Putin understands military power. He's playing the military chicken game and he's hoping the west is too fat and afraid to go along with him. I'm suspecting he might have miscalculated our desire for that 'fat' that we call freedom and democracy, but I guess we'll see if our own oligarchs have other things in mind to protect their investments

[Hostile]

http://www.foxnews.c...d-in-lithuania/

 

Interesting read on what the US is doing...

[Mathijs]

This situation is getting more worrying every hour.

[OmegaBolt]

"We are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders," says Obama.

 

So much irony. If this was in Africa no one would give a monkey's.

 

Apparently there is going to be a referendum on the 16th March on whether Crimea wants to join the Russian Federation or not. Now of course that would be far more reasonable if there weren't Russian troops holding the place.

[Mathijs]

The referendum has been cancelled in favor of a decree that proclaims Crimea as part of Russia, starting today. 

[Gen.Kenobi]

Things could go haywire any time now.

 

That's the cold war going hot people.

[Gen.Kenobi]

[Mathijs]

Enough with the terrible music already, geez.

[Hostile]

http://www.cnn.com/v...-marks.cnn.html

 

interesting video clip from CNN.

[duke_Qa]

duke_Qa
:

(30 April 2014 - 10:35 AM)   also, found this interesting in the Ukraine situation. I wonder if Russia is going to get cut off any time soon. http://www.thedailyb...aine-spies.html
 OmegaBolt
:
(30 April 2014 - 10:50 AM) Unless it's anything like their previous "evidence" that has all been disproved. The recorded US phone calls have been incriminating so far, this is just an attempt to get back credibility, even if they are correct about Russian operatives.
OmegaBolt
:
(30 April 2014 - 10:54 AM) At least so far we haven't heard Russia say "f*ck the EU", unlike US.
MattTheLegoman
:
(30 April 2014 - 11:42 AM) https://www.facebook...0138043/?type=1
MattTheLegoman
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(30 April 2014 - 11:43 AM) Like this OmegaBolt. =p
duke_Qa
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(30 April 2014 - 11:51 AM)   I'd say that getting caught inciting civil war and bloodshed in a neighbouring country is just as much an act of war as directly invading it. I'm worried that letting Russia do as they please in this case will make their authoritarian way of governing more acceptable in the west as well, which would be a very, very bad thing
duke_Qa
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(30 April 2014 - 11:53 AM)   If you keep criminals for friends, you can't be surprised if you become more criminal yourself
OmegaBolt
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(30 April 2014 - 12:26 PM) Duke, all I've heard is the phone taps of US officials discussing who should be in the Ukrainian government (just before they were put there). I don't see Russia inciting anything. Also I don't mean a metaphorical f*ck you, I mean a literal one:

Spoiler

OmegaBolt
:
(30 April 2014 - 01:05 PM) It's a Cold War outside, come in and warm your feet says Kerry: http://rt.com/news/1...ssia-challente/
duke_Qa
:
(30 April 2014 - 04:38 PM)   I don't really take RT serious after this thing: http://www.politico....awn-104888.html
duke_Qa
:
(30 April 2014 - 04:38 PM)   Though this seems to be inflamed enough for a thread of its own to discuss it in

So, it seems this war of opinions actually have managed to sway people in here, that Russia might have the right to act all douchey and mighty because Putin's grand imperial project hit a snag when Ukrainians predictably revolted against their overly corrupt pro-Russian leader in the third major regime change the last decade.
 

I notice that OB seems to be of the opinion that this is a "tit for tat" situation we put ourselves into and that we should take it like a man. I'm sure that's what the Russians would prefer the West to do. After all, things could get mighty uncomfortable if we boycott Russia and strangle our western gas-dependent-nations-whom-have-terrible-buildings-that-leak-heat-like-a-volcano-because-energy-saving-costs-more-money-than-hundreds-of-dollars-in-gas-every-month.
 
I disagree. Sure, we can blame Bush and the neocons and their cronies for starting wars unilaterally(IMO Afganistan was understandable), which is a horrible thing to do and should be avoided at all costs. That does not mean we should allow Russia to have their way in metamorphosing into the new german reich of the 21st century. We don't need a situation where every indignant idiot with a gun can claim exceptionalism and start shooting the savages. It's been tried before less than a hundred years ago and rarely leads to prosperity for either side.
 
So, I'm wondering. Why do we bitch so much about our own military mistakes and then suddenly flip 180 when foreign nations make them? Annexation is much more troublesome in a legal manner than occupation, as it speaks volumes of your nation's opinion about itself when it begins to chomp up its neighboring nations under some vague "This is our destiny" bullshit that would extremely easy throw all pretense of civil behavior into the nearest well.

Edited by duke_Qa, 30 April 2014 - 03:04 PM.

[Mathijs]

I was going to reply to this, but my opinion seems to align exactly to yours.

 

The amount of leeway and benefit of the doubt we're giving this blatant warmongering is becoming a little excessive.

 

As for Russia Today? Don't make me laugh. A Russian government-sponsored news channel *not* being full of shit about this issue? 

[OmegaBolt]

That does not mean we should allow Russia to have their way in metamorphosing into the new german reich of the 21st century. We don't need a situation where every indignant idiot with a gun can claim exceptionalism and start shooting the savages. It's been tried before less than a hundred years ago and rarely leads to prosperity for either side.

I don't know how you, but particularly the US and the 'west' in general, can say that without going red. Every idiot with an entire country has claimed exception to precious international law for decades and now they don't like it when it's happening at home.

I don't think either side are good but so far I've only seen reasonable actions from the Russians, including reasonable dialogue. I don't see evidence that they've been insighting the violence, though sure there is increased pressure now considering Russia's forces are there. Similarly there is pressure on the new government from the West. Contrary to that I've only seen evidence against the EU and US. Most of the news channels are just filled with vague "Russia's bad" messages that don't seem to include any hard information. That report you posted where John Kerry stated they recorded Russian spies? Where is that recording? Remember those photographs of 'maybe Russians in somewhere that might be Ukraine' where the US told the public to 'make up their own minds' and admited that it wouldn't hold up in court? Even the photographer said it proved nothing.

Though RT is of course heavily influenced by Russia they're still bringing up stuff that no one else is and at least, seemingly, presenting more hard information on the subject than other news channels (which must also be biased in some other direction). Presumably they're not completely misquoting people or fabricating evidence which means even if their reporting is biased, what theyre presenting is still essentially factual. As long as you're looking at multiple channels it's really foolish not take in all sides. The weird thing is that there is little overlap between any channels. John Kerry criticised RT for misrepresenting the situation by calling the anti-Kiev demonstrators as 'terrorists' (which they don't) when hasn't he been doing that to non-Whites for years? Why doesn't he criticise CNN for broadcasting about dumb celebrity stories when 10 'terrorists' are killed by a US drone strike in the middle-east?

What pissed me off further was John Kerry (after that recording of the Assistant Secretary of State saying "f*ck the EU") telling European countries to increase military expenditure even further, despite the fact we're all suffering from greedy politicians, bankers and corporations, and basically called for war stating that NATO should resume it's original purpose of containing Russia. Well haven't they already been building up forces for the last 20 years? Building all these anti-missile defences to encircle the country? He also stated that the EU should 'move away from Moscow and toward the US' as if we can't stand alone.
 

So, I'm wondering. Why do we bitch so much about our own military mistakes and then suddenly flip 180 when foreign nations make them?

Maybe it's proximity. Russia intervening in south-east Ukraine, when there ARE a large majority of Russians living there seems a lot more reasonable and understandable than invading countries half-way around the world on falsified information and vague assumptions ending in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, then leaving the countries more corrupt and unstable than before. If you were Russia and the government of your neighbouring historically and culturally tied country is suddenly ousted in a coup, wouldn't you be alarmed and want to get involved? Specifically to protect those who are Russian? I know the previous leader of Ukraine was corrupt as hell but those who were put in charge (seemingly by the US if you do believe the recordings of officials discussing who should be allowed in power) are not representative of anyone as far as I can tell, hence the country is now falling into civil war.

Surely it's just playing grand theft auto with a nation. It takes several hundred people to overtake a government, then you hijack the military. Well many police and military men are giving up arms instead of fighting, so doesn't that tell you who's leading Ukraine is definitely not who they wanted?

If this was Mexico or Canada the US would jump in and they don't even share a history. If this was Ireland we'd get involved I'm sure.
 

"This is our destiny" bullshit

Sounds more like China to me who definitely ARE aggressors.

Edited by OmegaBolt, 30 April 2014 - 11:10 PM.

[Pasidon]

All I'm going to say is, since the Russians will probably become our imperial overlords of space and time, I will agree with any opinion and decision they make.

[duke_Qa]

 

I don't know how you, but particularly the US and the 'west' in general, can say that without going red. Every idiot with an entire country has claimed exception to precious international law for decades and now they don't like it when it's happening at home.

Because:

• We don't shoot our journalists,
• we don't ban/murder our queers,
• We don't nationalize and censor our media in such apparent fashion(Murdoch and other capitalist media conglomerates are worrying though, but;)
• we don't actively hunt down web-based sources of information and brand them foreign agents,
• our nations have large ethnic minorities that aren't hunted down like dogs(Try to find Blacks, Arabs and Asians in heartland Russia),
• When gross misconduct is discovered, we actually take 99% of them to court and to prison(I leave Bush and neocons and those biggest Wall-Street sharks in the 1%, embarrassments that will be black stains on our history, but still doesn't defend us rolling over and collectively die because of their mistakes.),
• when gross government misconduct (in internet surveillance for example) is discovered, laws gets altered to stop if from happening again.

 

As long as we have governance run by humans, there will be corruption and trouble and unequal distribution, but most western nations have come so much further in developing our systems to something just. Russia, on the other hand, have shown their hand. They are not interested in making life better for their 99%. They are more interested in blinding them with nationalism and build up an empire that allows its rich to remain rich, its secret police to suppress/murder the dissenters, and to allow their authoritarian, corruption-friendly, oligarchic and nepotistic system to thrive by spreading its ideology as far and wide as it can. China is close to it, but 1 billion people are much more volatile than 150million, and it's more concentrated, so they have their own, more patient and introverted way of spreading their ways.

 

Russia is today where Germany was in the 1920s. The west remembered what they did wrong back then, and have done as much as they could the last twenty years to aid Russia in getting back on its feet to avoid their fury, and it might have worked, but Putin got tired of getting put out in the cold all the time and decided after a decade that rebooting the Russian empire and to rule through fear was more effective for his wallet and to beg and grovel at the feet of the EU and the US. 

 

 

 

Maybe it's proximity. Russia intervening in south-east Ukraine, when there ARE a large majority of Russians living there seems a lot more reasonable and understandable than invading countries half-way around the world on falsified information and vague assumptions ending in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, then leaving the countries more corrupt and unstable than before. If you were Russia and the government of your neighbouring historically and culturally tied country is suddenly ousted in a coup, wouldn't you be alarmed and want to get involved? Specifically to protect those who are Russian? I know the previous leader of Ukraine was corrupt as hell but those who were put in charge (seemingly by the US if you do believe the recordings of officials discussing who should be allowed in power) are not representative of anyone as far as I can tell, hence the country is now falling into civil war.

 

Still, occupation < annexation. China is not very pleased with Russia redrawing borders. Putin's ambitions of a trade union that resembles the borders of the USSR is our prime concern here. I saw a documentary on television about this a month or two back, very interesting perspective from Kazakhstan and other post-USSR countries perspective on these things. Many of these nations prefer to cooperate with China, as China puts itself into a partner role, not a master-role as the Russian federation does. China might be a big goon as well, but compared to Putin's neighborhood policy of divide and conquer.

 

China at least uses the philosophy "The tide rise all boats" and have helped/traded with their neighboring countries like Myanmar, Vietnam, Phillipines, s/n-Korea etc. etc., even if they're in a bit of a political turmoil about sea-borders these days. With the exception of the fate of North-Korea, China has been a relatively amicable neighboring super-power.

 

The Russian Federation on the other hand, cares little for its important neighbors and former minions if they don't kneel to it. And, like China with North Korea, it is afraid to get a westernized nation on one of its highly populated borders. If East Ukraine departs, it might easily become a Russian/Ukrainian version of North Korea: A border nation meant to scare the Russian population into believing "This is what the west does to our glorious people." West Ukraine might even become a new South-Korea in thirty-fourty years time, if it gets the same treatment as many other EU-enrolled former Soviet republics have gotten. Poland has developed greatly the last twenty years and probably will become a power-house akin to France or Germany in the next thirty years. If Ukraine's markets open up, Poland might use their recent experience they've gotten from the EU to rebuild Ukraine, seeing how the two nations have one of the closer relationships beyond the Russian one.

 

 

Surely it's just playing grand theft auto with a nation. It takes several hundred people to overtake a government, then you hijack the military. Well many police and military men are giving up arms instead of fighting, so doesn't that tell you who's leading Ukraine is definitely not who they wanted?

 

Ukraine has a big cultural problem: It has never had a honest political system independent of the USSR or Russia. Its local government has since the fall of the wall, been highly, extremely inefficient. The GNP of Ukraine is 5% smaller than it was in 92, the time of the deepest abyss of the economic collapse of the USSR.

 

This has turned most Ukrainians very cynic and closely resembling American republicans: Very distrusting of governance. Whenever a political movement happens, the entire nation usually jumps with both feet into the new movement. The orange revolution was widely popular, the return of Janukovic was also "widely" popular. This time, for some reason, it seems Russia was done keeping their mouth shut when it appeared that Ukraine once more had flipped the west/east switch. Putin, tired of western bullshit overall and the smearing of the olympics specific, decided that it was no-more-mr-nice-guy, and raged. His grip on the media and well-funded oil-wallet filled the airwaves of Ukrainian Russians with easy to chew propaganda, perfectly adjusted to a nation of people who flip from political black to white if there's a chance to get a pension out of it.

 

I guess I could continue, but that is pretty much what happened. This could have happened back in 2004 as well, but Putin neither had the economic power nor the "internal-affairs" iron fist he does today to go through with it. We invested and bought what we needed from Russia, filled the wallets of the corrupt elites which now are using that money to rebuild a mafia empire that fits them perfectly.

 

I'm glad the west doesn't bend over because they've done some mistakes themselves. Accepting Russia's behavior here is to accept their way of governance. And that would be a grave mistake for ourselves and our children, considering the capitalist system is always looking for the smallest of excuses to take our rights away from us. If it wasn't for the fact that most western billionaires and the likes would not like to live in such an insecure nation, they wouldn't have batted an eye to turning every western nation into a mafia-state in the vein of Russia if it earned them 50% more money.

 

 

 

Dunno if I got all points covered, but I'm stopping now to keep this within reason.

Edited by duke_Qa, 02 May 2014 - 04:35 PM.

[duke_Qa]

Also, this article is a nice review of what Putin has to worry about: Be strong, invade and get hobbled by western sanctions, or see his reign come to an end as his mindless nationalist followers see he doesn't dare oppose western sanctions.

 

http://www.aljazeera...5315414502.html

 

Of course, we're not without sin in the west about this, as this article shows. We've been playing the democracy & development card on former eastern-bloc nations since the fall of the wall. Millions have been injected into Ukraine to make it less corrupt and more pro-western, so Russia can claim that the west is doing a land-grab in their backyard.

 

Problem is, Russia's backyard is pretty damn close to Europe's backyard, and most of the nations that we've "stolen" and inserted into the EU/NATO have been more than willing to have a safety net against the resurfacing of the Russian bear. Very few from the Baltics have any respect for the way that Russia treated them during the cold war. We have a lot of contact with Latvians that work with us, and they have one of the bigger Russian minorities in their country. Two years ago they had a national vote that Russian can no longer be used in their schools. If that vote happened now, it would probably have caused a proper political crisis.

Edited by duke_Qa, 07 May 2014 - 10:26 AM.

[Graion Dilach]

Every time US attacked, they did by the name of the US. On the other hand, Russia sneaks in, with claiming that "Russians are in danger" and "Nazis, nazis" and such. Please if you want to purge the nazis, then bomb Hungary. We have 'em. And too many of 'em. And if their popularity rises the amount it did in the last 4 years, they'll win the next election (unless our local PM... I mean, Putin decides we don't need elections anymore, just build another football stadium).

I so far have not seen any reason why Russia's aggression is justified. Basically the West doesn't give a fuck, becauser they still couldn't decide what to do with the situation... they are letting Putin to win via this. Way to go, West, way to go.

I'm too tired to actually voice my reasons, albeit I don't support Russia here. Putin went too far now. During the times the Crimean referendum happened, I was like if Crimea is the cost to stabilize the situation then let it be, but it looks so much escalading over it. Pro-Russians are better armed than pro-Ukranians and it's totally legit considering that every people I look around is pro-Ukranian Ukranese and there's nowhere a pro-Russia Ukranian.

It totally seems like Russians are moving in disguised as Ukranian people, and only reveal themselves after the job is done. And they're proud of it.

footnote: Duke, get in contact with some Serbs. You can't believe how patriotically can they support Russia.

Edited by Graion Dilach, 07 May 2014 - 11:35 AM.

[OmegaBolt]

Well that second article seems to fit what I'm seeing elsewhere.

 

 

The West has concentrated on mocking the latter while conveniently ignoring the legitimate gripes Putin raises - the possibility that the West, through meddling and provoking incessantly, may have caused this crisis.

 

The first article's quotes from Russian commenters saying Putin is weak for not acting... well that's what you're seeing from plenty of Americans too, even senators saying Obama is weak for not pushing harder. This happens in all situations. Putin is likely acting on personal, political interest. Afterall he IS a politician and that's all they do, it's their life and career.

 

It just can't read any of this and see any difference between our countries' governments.

Edited by OmegaBolt, 07 May 2014 - 11:39 AM.

[duke_Qa]

Considering how much better off the majority of the former eastern-bloc nations the west have supported since the fall of the wall are doing, I'd say the alternative of never having tried to help these nations out would have been the doom of the West.

 

Europe would have been half the size, most of the Nato-recruited bloc nations would have been assimilated much sooner by a hungry Russian Federation. Western democracies would slowly have been tainted by the authoritarian ways of running a nation, leaving us stuck on a track towards servitude to corrupt elites, much closer to what we see in Russia, Belarus, China, Iran, Saudia Arabia etc etc.

 

The main reason Russia triggered on this is that they are doing the same. Russia doesn't want successful economic giants on their borders with Ethnic Russians seeing how things can be done, South-Korea style. If Ukraine was allowed a peaceful and prosperous development, Russia would be tainted by "Western decadence and fascism" as they call it.