Why the eruption in Kiev could set off a tsunami that will engulf us all...

The London Daily Mail ^ | February 22, 2014 | Mark Almond

[nathanbedford]

The Russian economy is essentially a corrupt kleptocracy based almost exclusively on extraction industries. The Russian economy, so long as it is dominated by a mafia headed by Putin, is destined to become another Venezuela. The Russian system today lacks the rule of law and therefore entrepreneurship is discouraged.

What is described as helping, "a friendly government stay in power and push Ukraine to embrace closer political and economic ties with Russia" is necessary only because Russia wages subtle economic warfare with the European Union and with former states of the Soviet/Russian Empire. There is no reason why Ukraine cannot become a member of the European Union and enjoy intimate economic ties with Russia except that Putin is waging a low-grade economic, political, cultural, and ethnic war to reinstitute the old communist/Russian czarist Empire. It is Putin who has forced Ukraine to choose when the choice was unnecessary.

A democratically elected government, like Hitler in 1933, does not justify instituting one man, one vote, one time as as happened in Russia and in Ukraine. The people of Ukraine are taking a dose of unpleasant medicine now so that they can look to a future with the Western world, with real economic growth and progress, not eclipse accuracy, under the rule of law, in harmony with their neighbors. None of this is possible so long as Ukraine is a satellite of Putin's Russia. While I do not predict this result, I do say that these advantages are not possible so long as Ukraine remains in thrall to Putin's Russia.

Finally, the idea of Russia bringing Kiev back to a more responsible direction is Orwellian. To the degree that Ukraine has pipelines running through it to the West, it has economic leverage over Russia. Putin can only go so far in waging economic war against Ukraine because he cannot afford to lose petroleum dollars. It is Russia that needs to reform its system from the rule of man to the rule of law and from a kleptocracy to a market economy.

[Monterrosa-24]

“...we are too comfortable sitting behind our monitors typing instead of doing...”

I plead guilty as charged. I’m addicted to trying to survive the next wave of cuts at work and maintaining my family’s second rate Aetna health insurance. But if a certain breakpoint came...

[Gen.Blather]

“I do not for one second believe the dimwit-in-chief has any authority to initiate war. “

The president can use the full might of the United States for 90 days before seeking the approval of Congress. This is why the holder of that office is frequently termed “The most powerful man on Earth.”

[knarf]

In a nutshell (perhaps to me only .. ), it appears the people, the before under a communist rule people, have decided they will no longer be under a communist rule and desire freedom.

Like the American Revolution ... a lot of factors and people/events went into OUR revolution, but it was simply ... we wanted freedom from England and self rule.

Not a difficult concept to grasp

[arthurus]

Both Moscow and Washington should make it clear they will not tolerate either side causing more violence. Nor will they stand by their self-proclaimed friends if they do.

Just how is the US going to "make it clear" about anything? President Soetoro has "made it clear" that what he says and the red lines he draws are nought but vapor and are not related to what he and the US do.

[arthurus]

the western boarder.

Is that the guy from Nevada sleeping in the guest room?

[Jim Noble]

It is remarkable - not surprising to a conservative, but still remarkable - how the borders of the Old Empire are holding up, a century later.

Galicia was never Russian. The Donets Basin was never not Russian.

Wilson’s fantasies about the “prisonhouse of nations” has led to nothing but trouble, from the Sudetenland to Sarajevo, from Syria to Baghdad on to Mecca.

It all comes down, in my opinion, to “where is the border between Germany and Russia?”

Stalingrad is too far East. The Elbe is too far West. Kiev? Who can say?

Obviously, the Bundeswehr has burned all its maps showing the roads into Ukraine, for good reason. I hope the “brave, plucky rebels of the Ukrainian nation” are not expecting help that will never in a million years come.

[867V309]

What could happen if we set up supply lines and had a million tea party people camped in washington for months instead of hours,and sang The Star Spangeled Banner every hour?

We both know what would happen, and don't bet against it. It is easy to be discouraged knowing the large number of ignorant yoots here, but they're largely pathetic drugies too lethargic to vote, much less organize. And even Dumbocraps are slowly awakening as obammydon'tcare hits their wallet.      Support your local Conservative.

[bert]

Watch this and say Drama Queen again.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSvj8F_Br4M

Yesterday was beginning....... that to follow will be the consequential actions that are unknowable.

[txrefugee]

Yes, the Socialist countries in Western Europe certainly are afraid that this freedom thing could be contagious. They don’t want their taxpayers getting any ideas that they should have a say in how their money is spent and how much freedom they should have.

Just look at the good old boy politicians in the USA and how afraid they are of the TEA Party. They don’t want anyone knocking them out of the cozy subsidized nest they’ve feathered for themselves by making deals with our own oligarchs over the years.

[arthurus]

The people actually elected Abel Muzorewa in Zim but the West led by the USofA forced a rerun of the election and made it known that Mugabe was unacceptable because he favored the West over the Soviets and communism. So the populace, understanding that their choice was unacceptable to the civilized world, elected the indicated USA choice. Zimbabwe is an American baby.

[arthurus]

There will be no “democratization” resultant from the events in Ukraine. A revolution of the sort that is under weigh there results only in a different set of oligarchs or a new dictator. South Korea is the exception to that rule.

[arthurus]

Tearing down Lenin is anti Russian, not anticommunist.

[Monterrosa-24]

“...antibiotics ,seeds, gas and rechargable batteries...”

What sort of antibiotics can one get for rough times and how long do they last?

[arthurus]

Old martial maxim is that once the shooting starts all the carefully formulated plans vaporize.

[arthurus]

I would not be terribly surprised if it ends in Sharia as the other springtime revolts have done. /sarc(somewhat)

[Monterrosa-24]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn did not like the term “anti-communist” because he said communists are anti-human and thus anti-anti-human is a double negative and not good form.

Solzhenitsyn was a Russian but smiled at the demise of Lenin statues.

[Zhang Fei]

Putin is many things but he is not looking for a bloodbath.

Putin does not have the ability - either economic or military - to inflict a bloodbath. He would find European markets closed to Russian raw materials. Ukraine isn't Georgia - it's the size of Afghanistan and has 45m people, thousands of tanks, and a real air force. Financial support from the West would enable Ukraine to push Russia out in a conventional war - no guerrilla war required. Ukraine doesn't need Russian financial aid - it needs to be free of corrupt deals signed by puppets of Russia that consign the country to a GDP per capita number that is 1/2 of China's, despite having a white European population in a country well-endowed with natural resources and being located right next to the EU.

I don't understand the adulation for Russia. This is the country that continues to have Lenin's tomb located in Red Square. Imagine if a mausoleum for Hitler were located in any German public place, let alone near the Bundestag. The Russians elected as president a guy who called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Imagine if the Germans had elected as chancellor someone who called the collapse of the 3rd Reich the greatest catastrophe of the age.

Without the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviets and the Nazis securing Germany's eastern flank, the Germans would not have dared to invade the West. Without that Russian deal, Austria and Czechoslovakia would have become German states, but there would have been no WWII, no Europe-wide Holocaust and no 400K GI's coming home in body bags. These people were the ideologists, paymasters and quartermasters for the Chinese, North Korean and North Vietnamese communists who, between them, killed 100,000 GI's, but we're supposed like them because they're slapping around a few gays?

Have we stepped into the Twilight Zone? Aren't conservatives supposed to conserve, meaning know a little about history, and how we got to where we are today? Because of their relentless appetite for territorial gain, by military conquest, if necessary, the Russians have always been our rivals, going back to the time when they tried to grab California in the early 19th century.

It's one thing to say we don't want to push the Russians to the wall because they have nukes, but quite another to call them the good guys in this imbroglio. They inflicted the Holodomor on the Ukrainians, killing millions. What they want today is the equivalent of making Israel a client state of Germany, despite the Holocaust. Maybe we should wash our hands of Ukraine for purely prudential reasons to avoid conflict with Russia. But to call the Russians the good guys is a real stretch.

[arthurus]

I have long expected that New York City is to be the seat of the revived Caliphate.

[jsanders2001]

Yes hmmmmm. We can always dream can’t we?