Russia vs EU vs NATO vs US (OT)

Lookie-look... EU needs SLAVES.

Where are they going to dump millions of migrants and refugees from all over former British Emipre? Europe has no jobs and no space...they need LAND. They're becoming Mulsim territory now too...Ukraine is big...good soil, black fertile soil. 50 million population of Ukraine = European slave labor force. Fools are being fed tales by CIA-paid provokators that "once you join EU we guarantee 2000 euro salary to everyone"...lol. They haven't seen minimum wage life of US slaves.

Where are they (EU) going to dump toxic refuge from "manufacturing infrastructure" sponsoring British pockets? Ukraine = future China, toxic landfill. They're doing it in Kazakhstan already, funding British pensions via polluting plants.

"Bama" didn't pull out the troops from Afghanistan yet, lol still quacking about Russian troops in Ukraine? Wipe the blood off your chin first, Euro Fashists.

"Galicia"...the ones who buried people alive (I had met witnesses personally), Nazi dogs-- back in the 1940, working for Nazi occupants--who burned down Khatyn and other Belarus villages and mass murdered all kinds of people in Western Urkaine...want Crimea now? Want to invite NATO troops to station and open bases in Sevastopol? Haha, try. Syria will seem like a nice resort to them if they try to grab Crimea.

Bammer, keep quacking....ya know what's gonna happen when documents showing how many Nazi West Ukrainian "executioners" had being given US citizenship and covered by the US? They're gonna love it when this gets published.

Ukraine has lawful, elected--via democratic process--government, which was overthrown via violent coup. Lawful president of Ukraine requested Russia to intervene and restore order. Russia will also protect Russian-speaking population of adjacent territories from lootings and genocide by Bandera--Neofashist armed bandit units. Bands of looters are all over Ukraine, stealing, stopping cars, terrorizing. Wait, Bama...is US gvmt going to support violent overthrow of US government too, since you like this stuff??? Never say "no".

On a more positive note, I heard that guns--masquerading as knives--had killed 27 and wounded 109 people in China today....Take the guns away. Turn population into slaves. Brainwash. Divide, control and rule=>profit.

Let us all cross our fingers that another war is not the consequence of the insouciant American public,
the craven cowardice of the presstitute media, Washington’s corrupt European puppets,
and the utter mendacity of the criminals who rule in Washington.

America's continued descent into the La La Land of pretending to be the defender of the free world
and the fountain of democracy is beginning to enter the 'Sarah Palin school of geopolitical fantasy' realm of delusion.

Socialist west against the capitalist east? Bluey are you on Crack?

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and all members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.

So ....?

After the Putinator and the Obminator duke it out in WW3 and kill everyone
on the planet will the price of my quart of oil go back to 59 cents @ quart???

i'm waiting for the president of the USA to take action!?!

Nope, oil and gas pipelines are the one and only issue, Western Media is confusing you.

The thin is, when it comes to international affairs, all the US diplomacy cares about is how it will play back home now. No long term strategy, nothing. The example of Benghazi attack is very symptomatic for all the US foreign policy making. The US ambassador has been killed, and all the administration cares about - the freaking elections! The next game in town!

but I suspect they can leverage the transport of Russian crude.

The Ukraine doesn't hold any cards other than the sympathy card.

the big scare in Washington at the moment

Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine?

Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine.

By Max Blumenthal

February 25, 2014 "Information Clearing House - As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.

An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. “They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists,” one of its members said. “There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult.”

Democracy Murdered By Protest — Ukraine Falls To Intrigue and violence
February 23, 2014 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article Print This Article

Democracy Murdered By Protest
Ukraine Falls To Intrigue and violence

Paul Craig Roberts

Who’s in charge? Certainly not the bought-and-paid-for-moderates that Washington and the EU hoped to install as the new government of Ukraine. The agreement that the Washington and EU supported opposition concluded with President Yanukovich to end the crisis did not last an hour. Even the former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko, who was riding high as an opposition leader until a few hours ago has been booed by the rioters and shoved aside. The newly appointed president by what is perhaps an irrelevant parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, has no support base among those who overthrew the government. As the BBC reports, “like all of the mainstream opposition politicians, Mr. Turchynov is not entirely trusted or respected by the protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square.”

In western Ukraine the only organized and armed force is the ultra-nationalist Right Sector. From the way this group’s leaders speak, they assume that they are in charge. One of the group’s leaders, Aleksandr Muzychko, has pledged to fight against “Jews and Russians until I die.” Asserting the Right Sector’s authority over the situation, Muzychko declared that now that the democratically elected government has been overthrown, “there will be order and discipline” or “Right Sector squads will shoot the bastards on the spot.”

Why Obama Shouldn’t Fall for Putin’s Ukrainian Folly


Russia and the West Have Conspired to Tear the Country Apart. Both Sides Must Stand Down Now or Face the Consequences.



BY ANATOL LIEVEN|MARCH 2, 2014


We’re now witnessing the consequences of how grossly both Russia and the West have overplayed their hands in Ukraine. It is urgently necessary that both should find ways of withdrawing from some of the positions that they have taken. Otherwise, the result could very easily be civil war, Russian invasion, the partition of Ukraine, and a conflict that will haunt Europe for generations to come.

The only country that could possibly benefit from such an outcome is China. As with the invasion of Iraq and the horrible mismanagement of the campaign in Afghanistan, the U.S. would be distracted for another decade from the question of how to deal with its only competitive peer in the world today. Yet given the potentially appalling consequences for the world economy of a war in Ukraine, it is probable that even Beijing would not welcome such an outcome.

If there is one absolutely undeniable fact about Ukraine, which screams from every election and every opinion poll since its independence two decades ago, it is that the country’s population is deeply divided between pro-Russian and pro-Western sentiments. Every election victory for one side or another has been by a narrow margin, and has subsequently been reversed by an electoral victory for an opposing coalition.

What has saved the country until recently has been the existence of a certain middle ground of Ukrainians sharing elements of both positions; that the division in consequence was not clear cut; and that the West and Russia generally refrained from forcing Ukrainians to make a clear choice between these positions.

During George W. Bush’s second term as president, the U.S., Britain, and other NATO countries made a morally criminal attempt to force this choice by the offer of a NATO Membership Action Plan for Ukraine (despite the fact that repeated opinion polls had shown around two-thirds of Ukrainians opposed to NATO membership). French and German opposition delayed this ill-advised gambit, and after August 2008, it was quietly abandoned. The Georgian-Russian war in that month had made clear both the extreme dangers of further NATO expansion, and that the United States would not in fact fight to defend its allies in the former Soviet Union.

In the two decades after the collapse of the USSR, it should have become obvious that neither West nor Russia had reliable allies in Ukraine. As the demonstrations in Kiev have amply demonstrated, the “pro-Western” camp in Ukraine contains many ultra-nationalists and even neo-fascists who detest Western democracy and modern Western culture. As for Russia’s allies from the former Soviet establishment, they have extracted as much financial aid from Russia as possible, diverted most of it into their own pockets, and done as little for Russia in return as they possibly could.

Over the past year, both Russia and the European Union tried to force Ukraine to make a clear choice between them—and the entirely predictable result has been to tear the country apart. Russia attempted to draw Ukraine into the Eurasian Customs Union by offering a massive financial bailout and heavily subsidized gas supplies. The European Union then tried to block this by offering an association agreement, though (initially) with no major financial aid attached. Neither Russia nor the EU made any serious effort to talk to each other about whether a compromise might be reached that would allow Ukraine somehow to combine the two agreements, to avoid having to choose sides.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of the EU offer led to an uprising in Kiev and the western and central parts of Ukraine, and to his own flight from Kiev, together with many of his supporters in the Ukrainian parliament. This marks a very serious geopolitical defeat for Russia. It is now obvious that Ukraine as a whole cannot be brought into the Eurasian Union, reducing that union to a shadow of what the Putin administration hoped. And though Russia continues officially to recognize him, President Yanukovych can only be restored to power in Kiev if Moscow is prepared to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and seize its capital by force.

The result would be horrendous bloodshed, a complete collapse of Russia’s relations with the West and of Western investment in Russia, a shattering economic crisis, and Russia’s inevitable economic and geopolitical dependency on China.

But Western governments, too, have put themselves in an extremely dangerous position. They have acquiesced to the overthrow of an elected government by ultra-nationalist militias, which have also chased away a large part of the elected parliament. This has provided a perfect precedent for Russian-backed militias in turn to seize power in the east and south of the country.

The West has stood by in silence while the rump parliament in Kiev abolished the official status of Russian and other minority languages, and members of the new government threatened publicly to ban the main parties that supported Yanukovych—an effort that would effectively disenfranchise around a third of the population.

After years of demanding that successive Ukrainian governments undertake painful reforms in order to draw nearer to the West, the West is now in a paradoxical position: If it wishes to save the new government from a Russian-backed counter-revolution, it will have to forget about any reforms that will alienate ordinary people, and instead give huge sums in aid with no strings attached. The EU has allowed the demonstrators in Kiev to believe that their actions have brought Ukraine closer to EU membership—but, if anything, this is now even further away than it was before the revolution.

In these circumstances, it is essential that both the West and Russia act with caution. The issue here is not Crimea. From the moment when the Yanukovych government in Kiev was overthrown, it was obvious that Crimea was effectively lost to Ukraine. Russia is in full military control of the peninsula with the support of a large majority of its population, and only a Western military invasion can expel it.

This does not mean that Crimea will declare independence. So far, the call of the Crimean parliament has been only for increased autonomy. It does mean, however, that Russia will decide the fate of Crimea when and as it chooses. For the moment, Moscow appears to be using Crimea, like Yanukovych, in order to influence developments in Ukraine as a whole.

It also seems unlikely that the government in Kiev will try to retake Crimea by force, both because this would lead to their inevitable defeat, and because even some Ukrainian nationalists have told me in private that Crimea was never part of historic Ukraine. They would be prepared to sacrifice it if that was the price of taking the rest of Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit.

But that is not true of important Ukrainian cities with significant ethnic Russian populations, such as Donetsk, Kharkov, and Odessa. The real and urgent issue now is what happens across the eastern and southern Ukraine, and it is essential that neither side initiates the use of force there. Any move by the new Ukrainian government or nationalist militias to overthrow elected local authorities and suppress anti-government demonstrations in these regions is likely to provoke a Russian military intervention. Any Russian military intervention in turn will compel the Ukrainian government and army (or at least its more nationalist factions) to fight.

The West must therefore urge restraint—not only from Moscow, but from Kiev as well. Any aid to the government in Kiev should be made strictly conditional on measures to reassure the Russian-speaking populations of the east and south of the country: respect for elected local authorities; restoration of the official status of minority languages; and above all, no use of force in those regions. In the longer run, the only way to keep Ukraine together may be the introduction of a new federal constitution with much greater powers for the different regions.

But that is for the future. For now, the overwhelming need is to prevent war. War in Ukraine would be an economic, political, and cultural catastrophe for Russia. In many ways, the country would never recover, but Russia would win the war itself. As it proved in August 2008, if Russia sees its vital interests in the former USSR as under attack, Russia will fight. NATO will not. War in Ukraine would therefore also be a shattering blow to the prestige of NATO and the European Union from which these organizations might never recover either.

A century ago, two groups of countries whose real common interests vastly outweighed their differences allowed themselves to be drawn into a European war in which more than 10 million of their people died and every country suffered irreparable losses. In the name of those dead, every sane and responsible citizen in the West, Russia, and Ukraine itself should now urge caution and restraint on the part of their respective leaders.

Putin did not start this. We did.

Putin is the biggest threat to the world peace

We have an immediate hand in instigating this. We should be working WITH Russia to counter China, not pissing them off.

The Ukraine is not going to fight Russia, period.

Americans are too damn stupid to understand WTF is going on.

If Crimea votes for independence (very likely as they already did that in 1994)

a Putin installed gangster

Telling people to "STFU" is rather Putinian

Putin is sometimes described as a revanchist, seeking to recreate the Soviet Union. That is a useful shorthand, but it is not really accurate. Putin and many of his gang may have once been Communists, but they are not that today. Rather, they have embraced a new totalitarian political ideology known as “Eurasianism.”

The roots of Eurasianism go back to czarist émigrés interacting with fascist thinkers in between-the-wars France and Germany. But in recent years, its primary exponent has been the very prominent and prolific political theorist Aleksandr Dugin.

The essence of Russia is that she produces more history than can be consumed locally: this has been true since Catherine the Great, and especially true for the last century. Part of it is geography, part cultural. She straddles Europe to the West, and Asia to the East. She holds the Northeast front of Christendom. She is not Catholic, not Protestant - but Orthodox. Her people do not understand, nor are they comfortable with, the fruits of the enlightenment - but in arts, sciences, and music fewer people are as skilled. She is a very big country in both population and geographic size. Insecure, yet strong. Sickly, but powerful. She will not be ignored.

No one should be shocked this is going on. What we have seen over the last week is easily somewhere between the Red Most Likely and Red Most Dangerous COA.

The end could be nearer than you think — Paul Craig Roberts
March 3, 2014

Readers:

We are having trouble today with the website. I do not know if it is problems caused by the typical incompetence of US business enterprises, including those who host websites and have offshored American jobs to foreign countries, or whether it is National Stasi Agency induced. Certainly, the propagandistic US government does not want any truth available to compete with Washington’s systematic lies. Washington is desperate to control the explanation of the situation in Ukraine that, as a result of Washington’s incompetence, has resulted in Ukraine falling under control of neo-nazi elements, whose rabid anti-semitic and Russophobic actions and rhetoric have caused Ukraine to split in half. If you were unable to access my column today, use this URL: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/03/03/washingtons-arrogance-hubris-evil-set-stage-war/

Eastern and southern Ukraine are Russian-speaking former Russian territories added to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Communist Party leadership of the Soviet Union. These provinces are agitating to be returned to Mother Russia where they certainly belong. They are determined not to be part of a neo-nazi regime that will be looted by Western bankers and corporations and be forced to host US missile bases that will make western Ukraine a target for nuclear annihilation, like Poland and Czech Republic.

The propagandistic rhetoric issuing from the mouths of the White House Fool and the excrement that the Fool placed in charge of the Department of State is designed to cover up the abject failure of the Obama regime’s plot to install its puppets as Ukraine’s new rulers. The Obama regime is too stupid to comprehend that its rhetoric is preparing the gullible and ignorant American population for war with Russia. The neoconservative ideologues, who have been lusting for war with Russia ever since the 1980s when I was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, will take advantage of the war preparation, which the White House Fool and his State Department excrement are creating with their rhetoric, to start a war that will destroy life on earth.

The neoconservatives are insane. They believe that nuclear war can be won, and that the US has the advantage to destroy Russia in a first strike.

Americans are so ignorant and gullible that they do not realize that their very existence is on the line, and that the insane neoconservatives who control the weak Obama puppet are determined to cross the line.

If any are still so gullible as to believe that the illegal deposing of the elected government of Ukraine was a “sincere indigenous revolt against a corrupt government,” the delusional should watch this video of the neo-nazi intimidating the US stooge who is a member of what Washington pretends is the government of Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV5Wm3qXfy4

God help the American people. Their ignorance and gullibility make them an enormous threat to life on earth.

Yes, I know. I have readers who have escaped The Matrix. But the majority of the American population is lost.

War will be the result of the ignorance, gullibility, and stupidity of the American population, its prostitute media, and the hegemonic ambitions of the evil neoconservatives. The corrupt rulers of Europe will sell out their peoples for American money until they are all vaporized in nuclear explosions.

The total corruption of truth, integrity, and morality that Washington has imposed on the Western world has aligned the West with the powers of Darkness and death. No greater evil exists than the government of the United States.

How many slaughters of Serbs have you not been told? What's my point?

You were sold a pile of sh#t. The whole conflict started just as I said, Serb cops getting gunned down and them retaliating. The Albanian Muslims did some nasty sh#t too, especially as they recruited Muslims from other countries.

They're pulling a page from the same book.

If Obama really was "The Man" (Commander in Chief) then he would stand up to all these criminals within the US govt.

But he won't because he said he doesn't want to end up as JFK.

The USA is run by criminals now .....

Are you saying that we intervened in Yugoslavia as part of the plot to ensure the return of Caliphate and Muslim supremacy Obammmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Worse is that this American politicians and statesmen seem to loose sense of adequate perception of the real situation in a rapidly changing multi-polar world of the XXI century .

"From my perspective, Putin may see six major geo-political weaknesses in the U.S. position. First, he recognizes that the U.S. military and the U.S. public have grown weary of ill-advised foreign interventions. Second, Russia's close trade and energy connections to Western Europe are causing dissension among NATO allies at the prospect of a Continental conflict. The potential for Putin to drive a wedge between the U.S. and wavering EU allies is a risk that Washington must consider.

Third, Putin is acutely aware that a "victory" of Ukranian interests at the expense of Moscow will further weaken Russia's ability to maintain the allegiance of the remaining scraps of its old Soviet empire.

Fourth, Putin knows that Obama needs Russian support over key U.S. initiatives in Iran, Syria and North Korea. Further confrontation of the Crimea may come at a very high price to other interests that are much more vital to Washington.

Fifth, Putin knows that the United States does not wish to see Russia revert to a closer relationship with China, just as China expands her maritime and territorial interests in the Pacific. It is no accident that Beijing has been eerily silent with respect to Russian policy in Europe. Putin knows that oil rich Middle Eastern rulers feel deserted by the U.S. over its proposed nuclear deal with Iran and are looking for new 'protective' allies. It is a power vacuum that China and Russia would be glad to fill.

For its part, Washington must be conscious of the possibility of Russia striking back at the U.S. economically through disruptive sales of its $138 billion war chest of Treasury bonds. Such a move could trigger a financial panic in the West, especially if the moves could be coordinated with Russian allies."

March 12, 2014
Obama Regime’s Hypocrisy Sets New World Record

Paul Craig Roberts

From the moment that Washington launched its orchestrated coup in Kiev, Washington has been accusing Russia of “intervening in Ukraine.” This propaganda ploy succeeded. The Western presstitute media reported (nonexistent) Russian intervention to the exclusion of coverage of Washington’s obvious intervention.

Having falsely accused Russia of invading Crimea, the Obama regime now demands that Russia interfere in Crimea and prevent the referendum set for next Sunday. Unless Russia uses force to prevent the people of Crimea from exercising their right of self-determination, John Kerry declared that the Obama regime will not discuss the Ukrainian situation with Russia.

So, Kerry has given Russia the green light to send in troops to prevent Crimean self-determination.

The presstitute Western media has not noticed that out of one corner of his mouth Kerry denounces Russia for intervening and out of the other corner of his mouth Kerry demands that Russia intervene in behalf of Washington’s interest and suppress Crimean self-determination.

What is the point of such an absurd demand on Russia?

The Obama regime claims that the Crimean vote is not legal, because all of Ukraine is not voting on Crimea’s future. When Washington stole Kosovo from Serbia, Washington did not allow Serbia to vote on Kosovo secession. In the upcoming Scottish vote on whether to secede from the UK, only the Scottish are voting, not the British population. But these normal processes established in international law cannot be permitted to Crimeans, because the vote will not support Washington’s agenda.

Clearly, an Obama regime this shameless has no shame.

The neoconservative warmongers who control the Obama regime are boasting that unless Russia prevents Crimean self-determination, Washington will use sanctions to
“badly damage the Russian economy.”

Sanctions are likely to backfire. Sanctions would damage economies of Washington’s NATO puppet states, making them think again about providing cover for Washington’s aggressive words and deeds. It is Europe that will pay for Washington’s aggressive actions.

Sanctions are likely to speed up the implementation of the BRICS negotiations to leave the dollar system and settle their international accounts in their own currencies. All countries with financial and economic links to the West can be intimidated, punished, and destabilized by Washington. National sovereignty is inconsistent with being part of the US dollar system.

From Washington’s standpoint, the importance of sanctions is not any economic effects.
The importance is the propaganda advantage of portraying Russia as an offending party who is punished by Washington. Not only does this propaganda put Russia in the wrong, it also portrays Russia as subservient to Washington.

The Crimean government is actually elected, whereas the Washington-installed government in Kiev is not. Here is a report on Global Research about the “democrats” who comprise the unelected government in Kiev: http://www.globalresearch.ca/whos-who-in-ukraines-new-semi-fascist-government-meet-the-people-the-u-s-and-eu-are-supporting/5372422

During the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes, Washington has established that whatever serves Washington’s agenda is legal. Laws inconsistent with Washington’s agenda are simply not applicable. They are dead letter laws. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that in violation of US law that prohibits giving financial assistance to governments whose leaders come to power via coup or other illegal means, Washington is offering its stooges in Kiev $1 billion to help the coup government get up and running.

Uh the reason we are even in this is we were part of the nato agreement to help the Ukraine defend its boarders if they were to give up their stock pile of Nukes. The Ukraine gave up their Nukes and its our duty with the European countries who also signed that agreement to help them defend their country from this type of illegal invasion.

Germany signed on the line as well and they are not upholding their end of the bargain.

I believe the Ukraine had the third or fourth largest collection of nukes at the time of the agreement.

If we did not sign on the to this disarmament we would not be having this discussion and the Ukraine would be nuking Moscow or Putin would not have sent his troops.

This has nothing to do with the U.S. There is nothing we can do.

I'm reading estimates that it will take 300 BILLION over the next few years to stabilize Ukraine. That's tax dollars we're talking about. And what have we stabilized? One of the most corrupt forms of gov't on the planet. I doubt that much of that money will end up helping the people, anyway.
It will end up in the pockets of various fascists.

How is that different than our current administration, or the former one, for that matter. We spent 3 TIMES AS MUCH MONEY on "shovel-ready jobs" and where did that get us? More food-stamps? More unemployment?

Even you can't tell us ( because, when given the perfect chance, you didn't ) what our trillion dollar "investment" got us.

For a trillion dollars, the benefits should be obvious. But reality is the exact opposite.

You or I could have spent those dollars more wisely.

Ken M has it right..Much like iraq and Afghanistan has drained our coffers , the Ukraine will do the same for Poo-in- a-tin...Bluering...? So now you're rooting for the Bolsheviks..? There's a twist...

Debating whether Putin is following the Hitler playbook displays a basic ignorance of history. Japan followed that same playbook in its invasion of Manchuria; a staged incident, a rapid invasion and a puppet regime. It didn't originate that playbook. It's probably as old as human history. Hitler's invasion of Poland made it notorious in a world that has managed to forget everything else that happened around that time.

Secretary of State John Kerry mumbled that Putin was guilty of 19th century behavior in the 21st century, but it's actually Kerry who is guilty of 19th century behavior. President Woodrow Wilson had lived through the Civil War. His father had owned slaves. Lord Balfour's godfather was the Iron Duke who had defeated Napoleon. Georges Clemenceau narrowly avoided being locked up by Napoleon III.

The League of Nations was the successor to a 19th century organization and the men who conceived it and built it had largely been born in the 1850s and 60s. They weren't 20th century men building a better world, but 19th century men inflicting ideas that were already outdated on the modern world.

Their ideas didn't work then and they don't work now.

The bewildered responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine are a naïve piece of theater that should have been retired in the 19th century, but somehow endures into the 21st as the lovers of peace insist on guaranteeing an end to aggression based on worthless pieces of paper that they have no intention of defending by armed force and then act surprised when their bluff is called and they frantically scramble to convince their own people that peace has been secured for our time.

Alexander Cadogan's blunt statement remains relevant today. The Pax Americana is over. We have been living on bluff and Putin called it.

Forget the reality...

Healyje, you are thinking old-school cold war.

Russia has secured her port in Crimea, and obviously the Northern ports are still there.

Venezuela, Cuba, and Vietnam are now securing bids to allow Russian bases for Russian aircraft (heavy bombers).

They don't need much more than that. Especially if they get naval ports in those countries.

We're getting played like a stratocaster by Jimi 'Putin' Hendrix.

I'm actually ashamed for my country. It's almost like we are being intentionally crippled. The incompetence is unbelievable. Almost intentional.

Ken, you're ignoring the FACT that the EU and our State Dept instigated this. It blew up in their faces.

The elected leader of Ukraine declined EU's offers and favored Putin's counter-offers to not join the EU. That is when all this started.

The EU just wanted Ukraine for their own raping.

The PEOPLE of Ukraine decided that they would rather be involved with the EU, rather than Russia. The elected leader of Ukraine DESERTED THE COUNTRY, after ordering the military to fire on his own people, and after emptying the treasury of the country into his own pockets.

SOME of the people of Ukraine, via mob demonstrations, overthrew their elected president. The elected president of Ukraine had to take refuge from a violent mob, but never stepped down. It wasn't pretty for either side. Kyiv is nearer to the western leaning West, so the eastern leaning East were less able to join their mob in opposing the western mob.

I liken this to the South, Texas and the Tea Party rising up and overthrowing our president and installing there own. How would that feel? Would you recognize them?

Kievan Rus' is the origin of Russian culture, so in the minds of most Russians (including Russian Ukrainians), Kyiv is Russian, and Ukraine itself is hard to differentiate or recognize as separate from Mother Russia.

Occasionally I agree with Bluey, and this is one of those occasions. The West's scheme blew up and it is a true crisis now.

Who hired the snipers and killed the people is to be investigated, AND the current Ukrainian government resists that investigation. Why would they?

I liken this to the South, Texas and the Tea Party rising up and overthrowing our president and installing there own. How would that feel? Would you recognize them?

Russia is corrupt all right. But Ukrainian corruption was out of control under the last president from what I hear. That was one feed to the protests, but Nazis rode the wave.
Nazis suffer almost no causalities from the bullets, curiously, even if they were the most aggressive on rallies. According to their explanations, they simply were not there when the main shooting happened. How convenient.
Peaceful protests, Ukrainian style:

You mean before, or after, they invited the Russians to come in and assume control of the country?

As in the entire history of the world, if an entity successfully overthrew the gov't, and established a new one that maintained it's control, it WOULD be the new gov't.

The neocon colonialists for a long time didn't recognize Castro's gov't. They all do now.

Nazi??????

How are the Germans involved. I'm positive that no Germans are involved.

The battle of Stalingrad is long since over.

I do not like the makeup of the new Ukrainian government, but I do not like Putin as well, nor obama, Merkel or the whole lot. Anyway, as I see it in my simple mind, it will be corporatocracy that wins the day.

Crimea was stripped of its native people by Stalin (and before) and the Russians flooded in.

Bluey you had me almost, in some funny way, agreeing with you up to a point. But then you sidetrack yourself. You spew out your right-wing crap.

I have been following this issue for a while, though it is not top of my list. But there have been some sensible comments on this thread.

Unfortunately Bluering, yours are colored by ignorance and pig-headedness. Your hatred of anything that to you smacks of liberalism makes you a bit perverse, IMO. I do not think that liberalism is really the main issue about the Ukraine. I could be wrong.

Now please Bluey, stay off the altar. Yeah, I was a (darn good) altar boy myself, in fifth grade beating out the seventh and eight graders to weddings over funerals (good money, the groom would give you a twenty and so would the bride's father - until Father Cosgrave caught me drinking sacramental wine).

But unlike you Bluering, it seems to appear (at least to me), when I was up on the altar, I did not think I was some righteous god, all knowing like you seem to. I let the priests think that.

Don't take it bad fellow, I am still a bit wondering what the heck is going on, having read a number of different views on the Ukraine. Never been there though. Prague anybody? Been there (but not in 1968).

Though I have my thoughts. Vlani, Healy, Coz and Ken M. have some of the more insightful posts, it seems. For better or for worse (til death do us part).

See if I have this straight.

Our Guy in Ukraine is in power due to the overthrow of a democratically elected president, and we're on record as standing in opposition to the result of a voter-approved referendum in Crimea.

Not all bandits are commies. Communism is a very specific flavor of bad guys, long extinct in Russia and Ukraine. It is a big mistake to assume that Russians are inherently commies. People of Russia where used by commies as a merely resource in achieving their major goal, the world power it was. As a result Russia does nor exist any more in it's pre-Bolshevik borders, loosing about half of it's territory. People of Russia suffered the most form the communist. Do not forget that.
People who call themselves communists in Russia are more of a loners of the 'good ol' times' when grass was greener and life was sweeter. Their average age is 65 or 70.

Ukraine was governed by a gang. Democratically elected. The previous government before the gang come as a result of previous revolt, and was populist, incompetent and corrupt. Then they elected gangsters. Now fascists control the government, as a result of another popular revolt. That is about how it is in Ukraine. And that fascist government is placed in a position of helpless looser begging for help, by Mr.Putin. The better the chance that they loose the next election - in May that is, and will never be legit.

I have difficulty judging Putin's actions. He is clearly a suppressor of democracy in Russia, he has built the state founded on corruption. But I do not have much believe in people of Russia. They would free-elect a real monster in a blink.

**Putin's actions in Crimea may be not more justified then Sarajevo bombing and Crimea referendum may be not more legal then Kosovo and South Sudan referendums. But calling it illegal is a hypocrisy. This country was founded illegally, after all. It would be interesting to know which country has a constitutional formula allowing alienation of a territory?
**
People of Crimea had spoken, that is settled. Even Kiev does not doubt the Crimea people will, so obvious it is. EU refused to send observers to that referendum and now they complain that it was not properly observed, looking totally stupid. Illegal is the only argument and it is funny. Of cause it is up to EU and US and Putin to pick which illegal government to favor - Kiev or Crimea's. Putin picked Crimea's to his convenience, what a surprise.

The Tatars were expelled from Crimea by the Russians for the Tatar's support of the Nazi's.

The Russians had millions of their people killed by the Nazi's in WWII. I don't blame them for having a low tolerance for fascism. And bullsh#t destabilization on their border.

I'd like to watch some of you guys play chess against a ten-year-old.

Those two minutes would be entertaining.

Riot police have deployed teargas and batons in Ukraine to repress a protest march against a new law that boosts the status of the Russian language inside the former Soviet country.

Hundreds of Ukrainians took to the streets of Kiev to protest against the law, which opposition deputies warn could divide the country in two and thrust one half of it into the arms of neighbouring Russia

"With this law, the Russian language will become a de facto government language for eastern Ukraine," said Ksenya Lyapina, an opposition deputy. "It's very dangerous for Ukraine. It can lead to the division of the country."

Opposition deputies called the bill a threat to Ukraine's sovereignty.

Many fear that the upgraded status will discourage the millions of Russian speakers inside the country from learning Ukrainian, prolonging their dependence on Russia. Around 15 deputies and activists, including Lyapina, have launched a hunger strike.

"Russia has big imperial ambitions," Lyapina said. "[The Russian president Vladimir] Putin has said several times that he sees a so-called 'Russian world'. This is the de facto formation of another nation."

From Benito Mussolini’s invasions in 1940-41 of France, the Balkans, and Greece to Argentine Gen. Galtieri’s attack on the Falklands in 1982 and Saddam Hussein’s entry into Kuwait in the summer of 1990, there are plenty of examples of weak states attacking countries who have alliances or friends far stronger than the attacker. Why then do the Putins of the past and present try something so shortsighted—as the Obama administration has characterized the Ukraine gambit?

Answer? Strength is in the eye of the attacker.

What might prove to be demonstrably stupid in the future, or even seems foolish in the present, may not necessarily be so clear to the attacker. The perception, not the reality, of relative strength and weakness is what guides aggressive states.

Obama looks to logic, reason, and morality in his confusion over why Putin did something that cannot be squared away on any rational or ethical calculators.

Putin, however, has a logic of his own. American intervention or non-intervention in particular crises is not just the issue for Putin. Instead he sees fickleness and confusion in American foreign policy. He has manipulated and translated this into American impotence and thus reigns freely on his borders.

Deterrence is an art, not a science. And it is transitory, often psychological, and as easily lost as it is hard to regain. Weak states invade others with strong backers because they are not deterred and feel they can get away with it—and thereby become stronger by their sheer success. If they fail, it is usually because they or their intended targets had originally misjudged relative power. Some sort of hostilities then ensue to correct those inaccurate initial appraisals. Peace follows when everybody again knows who was truly weak and who was strong in the first place.

EU refused to send observers to that referendum and now they complain that it was not properly observed

In a country with 50% of population calling the given language their native is'n it a good idea to have it been used freely? US does not have any language restrictions form what I know - or is that I live in super-liberal pro-Russian commie state of California?

Weren't the EU as well as UN officials blocked from monitoring the vote?

Weren't the EU as well as UN officials blocked from monitoring the vote?