Posted on 02/28/2014 4:19:10 AM PST by Zhang Fei
Russian soldiers have occupied two key airports in Ukraine’s restive pro-Russia region of Crimea, Ukraine’s acting interior minister said Friday.
Soldiers wearing camouflage and bearing automatic weapons have taken up positions at Belbek Airport in Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and at the airport in Simferopol, the region’s capital, Arsen Avakov said.
He said the soldiers’ uniforms bore no identifying marks “but they do not hide their affiliation with the Russian armed forces.”
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
For the best part of two hundred years people have assumed Russia was washed up and would be a pushover in a war.
Ask Napoleon and Hitler how that worked out for them.
Russia has a nasty habit of turning round and handing out a god-awful smackdown to enemies who have pushed it too far. Trying to oxter the Crimea out of Russian hands would be an absolute red line and insanely foolish.
I don’t like Russia and I am certainly not one of the Putin fan-boys who pop up here regularly but any western intervention in the Ukraine would be a foolish, foolish mistake. If the Ukrainians are that insistent on holding on to Crimea let them fight for it themselves. The rest of us don’t have a dog in that fight.
“For what it’s worth, the Mirror is a far-left wing paper formerly headed up by CNN’s Piers Morgan. Whining about the latest Tory outrage is its bread-and-butter.”
Your analysis and subsequent statement is on target. Regardless, 31,000 deaths, true or not, will sway people to attack the current government and throw them out on their ear. That makes your math, although correct, incorrect. You won’t be able to save Osbourne’s or Cameron’s butts.
Nonetheless, I’m enjoying this FR conversation.
OMG thank you for posting. I had no idea that 25k british died in the winter of 2012 and 31k died winter of 2013 because they could not afford heat. Sad that this happens in a “civilized society”. The global warming crowd still has no clue.
“OMG thank you for posting. “
My pleasure, SisterK. If I can be of further service, call my illegal, immigrant curry chef. If you have a problem with that, see PM Cameron at the British Curry Awards ceremony at Battersea.
As always, love and kisses, sweet SisteK.
Sweeeeeeet
I eat tumeric everyday, myself.
I make killer chocolate fudge to attract females to my barbecues. May I invite you, sweet lady?
“How did that work out?”
Czechoslovakia didn’t win over Germany.
Without the strenght of the American, British, Canadian and Soviet Union armies , the entire Europe would speak German now.
“Hasten the Ukraine’s entry into the EU”
The problem is that EU DOESN’T want Ukraine in.
They already have to pay big time for Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and other bankrupted states.
Not a single GI was involved in pushing the Russians out of Afghanistan. All the Ukrainians need is food, money and equipment.
I love chocolate but I won’t be able to leave the farm for the next eight months. Can I take a rain check?
“Can I take a rain check?”
As long as you bring a bag of radishes, everything plods along as God planned.
>>Not a single GI was involved in pushing the Russians out of Afghanistan. All the Ukrainians need is food, money and equipment.<<
In 1985 Soviets has planned to withdraw from Afghanistan by 1989 and they did. BTW, they were a primary source of food, money and equipment for the majority Afghans, including Afghan military which actually fought on Russian side.
2) The US should immediately start flying C-17s into Kiev (the Ukraine Capitol) loaded with advisors, provisions, trainers, and a a security force for those people. We cannot get enough people there to stop Putin at this point, but we can show him that the price for taking the Ukraine has now gone up and would be too steep for him.
3) Have the NATO and Euopean countries (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain) do the same thing (Number 2) at other critical points throughout the Ukraine.
4) Immediately move to make the rest of the Ukraine a part of NATO.
5) Hasten the Ukraine’s entry into the EU.
I think 1, 2 and 3 are way too risky because of the possibility of a direct clash with Russia. However, we should arrange with the Ukrainians to have a strong force guarding parts of the border with the EU as we truck huge amounts of material across the Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish borders. As to making Ukraine a NATO member, I think we need to wait until after they've turfed the Russians on their own, with our material support. Ditto with EU membership. Finland hasn't ever been a NATO member, and it's not been threatened by the Russians since the Winter War.
The hell with that. Crimeans WANT to be a part of Russia again. As for the rest of the Ukraine, we’re nuts if we get involved militarily, even if it’s only sending weapons. We have no business getting involved, even though military service dodging Hannity is pounding the war drums, as usual.
How long before parts of the US “want to be part” of Mexico and we’d be nuts to get involved?
No US troops necessary. The Afghans outlasted the Russians without a single GI going into combat. We sent food and equipment and the Afghans did the rest.
And that really worked out well. The Taliban took over and al Qaaadea was born.
You said: “........EU will do nothing. They are too dependent upon Russian petroleum.........”
We have no real reason to “do” anything neither.
Regards from Europe
Andreas
You said: “........EU will do nothing. They are too dependent upon Russian petroleum.........”
We have no real reason to “do” anything neither.
Regards from Europe
Andreas
The original al Qaeda was born the day Muhammad conquered Arabia and sent his victorious armies across North Africa, Persia and Central Asia, extinguishing Christian, Zoroastrian and Buddhist communities in its wake. Its revival sprang from Sayyid Qutb's observations after a visit to America in the late 1940's, from which the modern al Qaeda drew its inspiration:
Even if you assign blame from the revival of al Qaeda to our support for the Afghan mujihideen, it was a worthwhile price, given that the war demoralized the Russians and sped up the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. Note that we sent huge amounts of material aid to the Soviets during WWII, which they repaid by helping to kill 100K GI's during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. But it was worthwhile helping the Russians kill the Nazis despite the price we would later pay at the hands of the Russians via their aid to Korean and Vietnamese Communists, just as it was worthwhile helping the Afghans kill the Russians despite the rise of a faction (the Taliban) that later aided al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. The bottom line in international strategy is that you fight one enemy at a time, you ally with lesser enemies to fight the bigger ones. The broader principle was described by Lord Palmerston, vis-a-vis British foreign policy:The turning point in Qutb's views resulted from his visit to the United States, where he aimed for further studies in educational administration. Over a two-year period, he worked in several different institutions including what was then Wilson Teachers' College in Washington, D.C., Colorado State College for Education in Greeley, as well as Stanford University.[22] He also traveled extensively, visiting the major cities of the United States and spent time in Europe on the return journey to Egypt.
On his return to Egypt, Qutb published an article entitled "The America that I Have Seen." He was critical of many things he had observed in the United States: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, "poor" haircuts,[4] superficiality in conversations and friendships,[23] restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling,[23] "animal-like" mixing of the sexes (which "went on even in churches"),[24] and strong support for the new Israeli state.[25] Hisham Sabrin, noted that:
As a brown person in Greeley, Colorado in the late 40s, studying English he came across much prejudice. He also felt quite appalled by what he perceived as loose sexual openness of American men and women (a far cry by any measure, from Musha, Asyut where he grew up). But, in fact this American experience was not truly a crisis for Qutb, but rather a moment of choice and fine-tuning of his already Islamic identity. He himself tells us on his boat trip over “Should I travel to America, and become flimsy, and ordinary, like those who are satisfied with idle talk and sleep. Or should I distinguish myself with values and spirit. Is there other than Islam that I should be steadfast to in its character and hold on to its instructions, in this life amidst deviant chaos, and the endless means of satisfying animalistic desires, pleasures, and awful sins? I wanted to be the latter man.”.
Qutb noted with disapproval the sexuality of American women:
the American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs—and she shows all this and does not hide it.[4]
He also commented on the American taste in arts:
The American is primitive in his artistic taste, both in what he enjoys as art and in his own artistic works. “Jazz” music is his music of choice. This is that music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as well as their desire to be noisy on the one hand and to excite bestial tendencies on the other. The American’s intoxication in “jazz” music does not reach its full completion until the music is accompanied by singing that is just as coarse and obnoxious as the music itself. Meanwhile, the noise of the instruments and the voices mounts, and it rings in the ears to an unbearable degree… The agitation of the multitude increases, and the voices of approval mount, and their palms ring out in vehement, continuous applause that all but deafens the ears.[23]
I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow...Russia's policy is one of unreconstructed imperialism, which seems strange in a country that has about twice the land area of the second largest country in the world (Canada), but it remains unchanged from the Tsarist or Bolshevik eras. It is in America's interest to keep Russia from becoming any bigger, for the same reason as the Brits sought to ward them off during the Great Game - to prevent them from gradually becoming too powerful to resist in their future land grabs.
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