Posted on 05/10/2014 7:38:40 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
While Vladimir Putin, Stalin’s spawn, ponders what to do with what remains of Ukraine, remember: Nine years before the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the Nazis embarked on industrialized genocide, Stalin deliberately inflicted genocidal starvation on Ukraine.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I hope the Ukrainian people do win this, and finally get their liberation from the Russian oligarchs. But nothing I've seen so far, (including watching soldiers surrendering their firing pins to pro-Russian troops) indicates that the majority of Ukrainians want to fight for independence. I'm guessing that Ukraine will be split up.
But if you think your comments on an Internet site, and exchanging insults with your fellow freepers about the conditions on the ground will change things for the better for Ukrainians, well, man your post and have at it, keyboard warrior.
Thanks LJ, I appreciate the link. If I had my wish, I’d like to see Russia stay out of Ukraine. They’re good at pretending to be *anti-imperialist*, but are the most imperialist country of all. They’re not in Ukraine to stabilize it. They’re trying to section it off, IMO.
Caww has the most complete news. Also the link above I posted. It is not a “Putin is the Devil/Ukraine Gov are Saints” scenario. Despite some loud posters say, people like me and caww are not “siding” with Putin. But the truth is the truth, and the current Ukraine gov is even worse than the one they through out. The Svoboda party and Pravi Sektor, its paramilitary, are neo Nazis and butchers. And they have big influence in the current gov, holding many positions. It’s terrible in Ukraine and the US involvement taking the side of Svoboda only makes it worse.
Do you have any idea who those men are?
Apparently not, if you think they are pro-Russians.
Its RT, so I take it with a grain of salt, but when I see videos like this one, of ordinary Ukrainian people (including women) of Russian ancestry who are really opposed to Maiden rule, I realized this thing isn’t cut and dry at all. It’s a civil war, and getting uglier by the minute.
https://m.youtube.com/results?q=southeast%20Ukraine%20crisis%20diary&sm=3
...
It’s a civil war, and if the US and the EU had not funded the Pravi Sektor and Svoboda in the beginning, things might not have come to this pass.
Did you see the news today that Biden’s son is now head of some Eastern Ukrainian gas company? I think the biggest one in Ukraine.
Here it is:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3155271/posts
Hunter Biden [son of US VP Joe Biden] joins the team of Burisma Holdings [Ukraine gas producer]
Burisma website ^ | May 12, 2014 | media@burisma.com
Posted on 5/12/2014 8:45:51 PM by CMB_polarization
Yes of course it’s RT...did you expect the US media to report????....it was the same during Egypt’s Revolution with Aljazzera reporting..as much as we didn’t trust Aljazera at least we were informed ‘of happenings’ sufficiently enough to ‘search further for verification’...so to now with RT. Therefore I do check with RT along with several others...It does take time for the major US and EU news to even report , when permitted to do so, as all must go through the editing process and bias.
Currently is being reported from those on the ground in Eastern Ukraine...Nato helicopters confirmed now in the war zones and active..... and heavy fire enough to call it a battlefield as people seek basements to escape the artillery shooting as their homes are being also hit from fraying motors etc. Kiev Gov. confirms as well there are battles there.
To say this is messy...it was as such from the beginning.
Yes of course it’s RT...did you expect the US media to report????....it was the same during Egypt’s Revolution with Aljazzera reporting..as much as we didn’t trust Aljazera at least we were informed ‘of happenings’ sufficiently enough to ‘search further for verification’...so to now with RT. Therefore I do check with RT along with several others...It does take time for the major US and EU news to even report , when permitted to do so, as all must go through the editing process and bias.
Currently is being reported from those on the ground in Eastern Ukraine...Nato helicopters confirmed now in the war zones and active..... and heavy fire enough to call it a battlefield as people seek basements to escape the artillery shooting as their homes are being also hit from fraying motors etc. Kiev Gov. confirms as well there are battles there.
To say this is messy...it was as such from the beginning.
Our media is under specific orders from the administration what they can and cannot report on and how it's to be framed. Just as the Russian media and Germany particular are.
I believe for a complete picture you have to draw from all sources including those on the ground....also social media, where currently there's also a war as twitter and facebook ‘remove’ and “suspend” accounts which do not correspond to the Eu/NATO/US agenda regarding Ukraine.
However, while on the social media you get a grasp of the rhythm and can often see photos and videos before they take them down.
Meanwhile you have the Atlantic Council and EU Parliament people “think tanks” and various teams in the field attempting to continue with the EU expansion as they entice other nations to join such as Moldova, Georgia and others along the Baltic Sea. In midst of all these there are many "elections" soon for head officers in the EU Parliment, and across several nations as well...so the political arena is as much in chaos as those in Ukraine!
Those pictured in the photos have already been long identified as Maidin private sector and others opposing the citizens......this was already posted on another thread another thread....and then of course take a look at the fellow in the front with his firebottle ready to go....likly one of the nazi guys as they love fire.
I realize you’ve made it apparent you are totally anti-Russian but really, borrowing photos from other threads to twist to make your point is exactly what you have accused Russia doing...and here you are doing so.
As was state before.....Private Sector had been proven to have infiltrated the crowd that day and at that event..as well as those of the Kiev Nat’l Guard dressed in civilain clothes.
Those pictured in the photos have already been long identified as Maidin private sector and others opposing the citizens......this was already posted on another thread another thread....and then of course take a look at the fellow in the front with his firebottle ready to go....likly one of the nazi guys as they love fire.
I realize you’ve made it apparent you are totally anti-Russian but really, borrowing photos from other threads to twist to make your point is exactly what you have accused Russia doing...and here you are doing so.
As was state before.....Private Sector had been proven to have infiltrated the crowd that day and at that event..as well as those of the Kiev Nat’l Guard dressed in civilain clothes.
The water situation in Crimea is because the Kiev Gov. ha cut off their main water sources...though they deny it there is more than ample proof this is so with satellite photos showing so as well as on the ground showing the sandbags...and the former water levels clearly.
I really wish there was someway to get these old cold war guys from causing such problems, not only here on FR but as well in the leadership making decisions and creating tensions with those who need to do so.
As the military leaders have mentioned...difficult to communicate with them because they can't see Russia as it is today, nor it's people, nor Putin in the light he needs to be seen....let alone the situation in Ukraine and how the Eu/Nato/US is operating in the field. They are blinded by their mindset of the old cold war days...and prior.
Currently Nato and the Think tanks are attempting to arrive at a way diplomatically that will save face for Putin and the US and NATO...as they are keenly aware, and have from the start, that Russia is a sovereign power and needs to continue to be incorporated with International decisions in the future.
*** Interesting from "Sec of Defense Gates" who stated in his Memoir.....
..."Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching....... The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially "monumental provocation"......... Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia? Hardly...........NATO expansion was a 'political act', not a carefully considered 'military commitment',........ thus..... undermining the purpose of the alliance and recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”
The water situation in Crimea is because the Kiev Gov. ha cut off their main water sources...though they deny it there is more than ample proof this is so with satellite photos showing so as well as on the ground showing the sandbags...and the former water levels clearly.
I really wish there was someway to get these old cold war guys from causing such problems, not only here on FR but as well in the leadership making decisions and creating tensions with those who need to do so.
As the military leaders have mentioned...difficult to communicate with them because they can't see Russia as it is today, nor it's people, nor Putin in the light he needs to be seen....let alone the situation in Ukraine and how the Eu/Nato/US is operating in the field. They are blinded by their mindset of the old cold war days...and prior.
Currently Nato and the Think tanks are attempting to arrive at a way diplomatically that will save face for Putin and the US and NATO...as they are keenly aware, and have from the start, that Russia is a sovereign power and needs to continue to be incorporated with International decisions in the future.
*** Interesting from "Sec of Defense Gates" who stated in his Memoir.....
..."Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching....... The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially "monumental provocation"......... Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia? Hardly...........NATO expansion was a 'political act', not a carefully considered 'military commitment',........ thus..... undermining the purpose of the alliance and recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”
No holds barred in Russia’s propaganda war
The Russian media has shocked its audience with false claims about the Governor of Kherson – and all of us who find cynical abuse of the theme of the Second World War as a propaganda weapon profoundly offensiveA new Russian media heroine was born on Victory Day, May 9, Armed only with a child uncomfortably dangling from her arms, she was shown striding up to Kherson’s Governor, Yury Odarchenko, to shame him for his supposed support for Hitler. As confirmation of all Moscow’s claims about Ukraine’s new authorities, it couldn’t have been better. Or more contrived since Odarchenko did not say anything of the sort. The audience would have understood this immediately, had the Russian TV channels not carefully cut the speech and embellished it with absurd commentary aimed at showing how monstrous Odarchenko’s statements were while linking him closely with those now in power.
LifeNews, for example, informed that “Kherson’s governor called Hitler a liberator” and said that “people who had come to honour the dead in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ booed him and took the microphone away”.
Wouldn’t we all? The booing, however, came only from a contingent of Communist Party supporters under a Soviet flag and this is already an indicator that Odarchenko’s actual words should be examined. This is what he [the governor of Kherson] said (speaking in Ukrainian):
“We remember how people fought against aggressors who were trying to seize their land. These aggressors did not simply say that they wanted to seize others’ territory and enslave people. They also claimed to be liberating nations and peoples living on the land that Hitler was planning to seize. If you read history, you see that he most of all pushed the slogan about freeing people from the communist yoke, from the tyrant Stalin. That was the first cause for Hitler when he began his movement for a sovereign state, when he tried to seize territory. However people united in their wish to defend their homeland, they formed a single front and ousted the aggressor. Today the same thing is happening on Ukraine’s borders. Today the aggressor is on our border and trying, by supposedly removing alleged infringements, to justify aggressive action against our territory”....
The communists went crazy at the words “from the tyrant Stalin”. As they do at any criticism of the dictator...
A short flash of brilliance on the part of Robert Gates.
It's been my position from the onset of this conflict...and before. All the way back to bringing Romania and Bulgaria into the "Alliance" circa 2003.
Poland and the Baltics had some basis in culture and proximity. But the surge in NATO membership we experienced under the GW Bush administration made no sense at all. Our sons are likely to have cause to curse them for it.
You might find this interesting.....during a conversation recently at Atlantic Council I believe..
“NATO’s policy for defense is one of reinforcement in a crisis, not permanent forward deterrence as it was during the Cold War.... Nato enlargement advocates have been ‘driving’ the ‘NATO Agenda’ for two decades in Washington, D.C. and Brussels and will not be keen to close the “open door”.
NATO enlargement was not so much the first round (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic)—but rather a consequent logic of an “open door” that came with it. .....Enlargement advocates can rightly point out that the second round—to include the three Baltic countries along with Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria—also did not have as dramatic an impact on Russia as many opponents feared it would.
‘the open door approach’......... emphasized ‘principles’ and ‘idealism’ rather than hard geographic and military foundations.
....The process thus inevitably put NATO activity deep into Russia’s long-stated areas of vital interests (as Moscow saw it) and was, thus, eventually destabilizing. .......Many advocates of enlargement ‘underestimated’, and continue to’ misunderstand ‘the strategic implications of their “open door” agenda for NATO—culminating in “.......a dangerous 2008 declaration from NATO that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the alliance”......
Russians genuinely no longer trust NATO—and this is not just a Putin problem—it is a view widely held in the country..... Russians were continually told that as NATO was purely a defensive alliance, it would not threaten anyone. ...............Yet just days after the first round was completed in 1999, the Russians saw NATO commence its air war against their long-time friends the Serbs....... NATO was fighting for a humanitarian mission and to promote stability in the Balkans. .........But the Russian position hardened then as they saw declarations of intent and missions for the alliance evolving beyond earlier promises—exacerbated further by NATO’s 2011 war in Libya.
Multiple American administrations led the charge on NATO enlargement while failing to consider that we were doing things deep in the backyard of a nuclear armed and increasingly nationalistic Russia that the United States would never for a minute tolerate in its own.
The real problem came in (2008) when the “United States pushed hard”.. within NATO for invitations to negotiate a “Membership Action Plan” for Ukraine and Georgia to begin the process of entering NATO. But The European allies expressed little interest and thus the approach failed. ......As a compromise, the United States gained shallow agreement for a NATO declaration that at (an unstated future time), Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.”...... This was a dangerous and irresponsible false promise as ‘there was no agreement in NATO to actually do this’..... In Ukraine, popular support for NATO membership was scant.
Several months later Russia invaded Georgia; negotiations on sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program were deeply complicated; pro-Moscow reformers in Ukraine consolidated their position; and Putin commenced on a sustained campaign to heighten long-standing Russian fears of NATO to help consolidate his power at home. Ukraine subsequently withdrew its NATO application and opted for a formal declaration of neutrality.
Today, Russia has put its deeply troubling foot down on eastern Ukraine to make clear its point that it would not tolerate a Ukraine that is a future NATO member or even an aspirant to be one. To be fair, Ukrainian membership has not been on NATO’s agenda in the last several years—which is in itself a tacit recognition that the 2008 declaration caused serious damage to the stated goals of NATO enlargement.
There is no way to understand today’s crisis in Ukraine without factoring for the difficult spot that the NATO alliance is now in due to its expansive open door policy.
The dilution of the enlargement process ‘away from’ geographic and military foundations into “an idealistic open door” is raising questions about the credibility of NATO’s collective defense commitments and is thus provoking concerns among new NATO members as to the validity of security guarantees.
Long-time advocates of NATO enlargement have rushed to light up this crisis like a Christmas wish list with some using it to push for policies they have long sought—permanent basing of American troops in Poland and the Baltic states, reintroducing the Bush-era missile defense plans, rushing Georgia into NATO, and providing Ukraine with significant military aid.........There is no appetite for these ideas within NATO because the allies well understand that these actions could risk provoking the very outcome in eastern Ukraine that they are trying to prevent—further Russian escalation.
Moscow has made clear that it believes Russia’s interests require that Ukraine be permanently neutral and with no aspirations towards NATO membership. Ironically, this is the easiest thing for the west to give up, since there is no intention of bringing Ukraine into NATO anyway.
The new government in Ukraine has signaled it plans to remain outside NATO, the German foreign minister says there is no future NATO membership for Ukraine, and the United States hints at a future in which Ukraine has long term aspirations for association with the European Union, but will not be a NATO member.
America and its allies also have their sovereign right to help Ukraine best understand its interests in the context of neutrality and not NATO membership.
Was that also from the Gates book?
"An outcome of this crisis in which Ukraine embraces neutrality is a key element to achieving NATO’s common interest in de-escalation while also punishing Russia economically and politically for its illegal actions in Crimea. However, that outcome means that advocates of NATO enlargement should concede that their worldview did eventually run into the hard rocks of realism. So far as the impact of the 2008 Ukraine and Georgia declaration combines with questions and risks related to collective defense commitments for new NATO members—enlargement critics had it right. It would be tragic for NATO, and especially for the people of Ukraine, if enlargement advocates hold on to a failed idealism at the risk of diplomatic options that can build long-term stability for the Ukrainian people and help to de-escalate a dangerous situation"
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/understanding%E2%80%94-
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