Posted on 07/01/2015 7:45:57 AM PDT by annalex
Bringing back the Struggle... lol
"Prosecutor General's Office only stated a fact, namely, that the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in the days of Nikita Khrushchev did not occur on a constitutional basis, since the relevant decisions are not taken by the competent authorities", - said the agency. According to him, "in the present circumstances and realities that no authoritative body that could reverse this decision.Although such a need has not. Crimea is again a part of Russia, and the question went to the political plane," - said the source. However, he believes that the answer to the request of the Prosecutor General should be "more balanced". "Recognizing the illegal or that fateful decision, one can go too far - until the problem of the legitimacy of the Soviet Union and other countries" - said the source. Because, he says, when making such decisions on a deputy's request "should take into account not only the legal but also the political aspect of the issues raised."
Putin is sending a message to the Baltic States that he is not happy about them allowing NATO (US) military buildup on Russia's borders. A few tanks and artillary pieces is one thing, but strategic missiles or an ABM system would be quite another is how I read it.
That's why I always laugh when Putin and his ilk glorify themselves as supposedly single-handedly defeating the Nazis..
That statement is true, why laugh, be thankful.
Hey, being called a Nazi by a known Russkie bootlicker-- a regime currently slaughtering Christians and raping women at will, and all done under Communist flags in Ukraine-- is the true joke here.
Even if we wanted to assist the Ukraine militarily it would be difficult as we don’t have much access to them. However, with the Baltics it’s a different story as we have plenty of access to them via the sea. The biggest battle of this theoretical war would take place in the Baltic Sea. Once the Russian naval forces were wiped out in the area, there would be nothing the Ruskies could do once we brought to bear our Naval forces into the area. The Russian Army would be destroyed.
Finland did pretty well using that model.
While the President sabotages every effort to improve the geopolitical situation, there are institutional forces in the US and NATO that propel him to do the bare minimum. That is the strength of the US: we are a country of institutions, and not every one of them has been destroyed yet.
Yes. The best thing to do is to show Putin that the West is not afraid of him. All chekists are cowards.
It can happen.
A nuclear war may be initiated from the Russian Federation, yes. However, so far the belligerence was all cowardly: they are even afraid to show their insignia. For us, the meaning of bravery is to know that we can be hit and yet fight them, with God's help. Then, we'll prevail.
Decorum, please.
The question is not the strength of the Wehrmacht but the bravery of the Soviet man. With NKVD machine guns at their back and American food and equipment supplies, and the allied bombing of the German heartland, the Red Army won the war. It did not win it on bravery though.
Why would the left protest about the Soviet Union rising? They liked the old one, too.
Remember, the Left likes the sexual revolution not because they like sex more than the conservatives do. It is primarily because the sexual revolution destroys capitalism and freedom. So when in the Soviet Union sex revolutionaries are put in jail, that is just fine by the American Left.
I mean, the Left also has fellow-travelers: typically, young college kids with hormones and government-subsidized tuition. They are there for the fun of it. But the ideologues of the Left know exactly what they want from the sexual revolution.
Your quote is at best an opinion of some unnamed “source”. But even as an opinion it is little more that babble. “[I]n the present circumstances and realities [there is] no authoritative body that could reverse this decision” does not say anything about tomorrow’s circumstances.
The fact remains that Crimea, according to the neo-sovs, was transferred to Ukraine illegally and so Russia took it back by force. The Balt republics, according to the neo-sovs, received sovereignty illegally and so X.
Any guesses what X could be?
Do you have a link to the Interfax article?
Sure we do. Poland borders Ukraine and is, like us, a NATO member.
The real problem, both with aiding Ukraine and with aiding the Balts, is asymmetry of will. Russia has a greater stake in the region than we do. See this:
Want to escalate U.S.-Russia tension? Arm Ukraine..
I don't agree with that, but he makes some valid points.
Our politicians, the members of our Parliament, could turn to our Prosecutor General with the query regarding the legitimacy of Russia. Most likely, Russia isn't legal - they murdered the Czar, killed him with his children. What kind of state is that?
Right on. The last legitimate government of Russia was in 1917.
I just went to the interfax link in your article, got the url, punched it into google search, then the "translate" part of the first link that showed up.
At least among the American people (as opposed to our "think tanks" and strategic thinkers from the CIA - see the wikileaks concerning this) there is little interest in going to war with Russia over Ukraine. Even less will among the Western Europeans (both the people and their governments).
It did not win it on bravery though.
True. They did it by giving the ultimate, their lives, while we 'tried' to supplied them with 'equipment'. Who sacrifices the most, the soldier with the gun, or the man who gave him the gun?
I sometimes wonder how much and when our equipment got to the Russians prior to the Nazi attack. And how much later.
The "source" is not named in the entire article. He is simply described as "source familiar with the situation". The opinions that follow are his. He also notes, correctly, that if this legitimacy business goes too far, then the legitimacy of the USSR and other states is questionable as well.
But the issue here is not the quality of the General Prosecutor's decision, but the fact that the review is taking place, alongside with the decision that the transfer of Crimea in 1954 was illegitimate, and we know what happened to Crimea.
True. A re-assembly of the Soviet Union is not by itself a primary threat to American national interest. Secondarily, however, it is a great threat because if the Soviet Union 2.0 occupies the Balt republics we either defend them as NATO members or dissolve NATO, and with the dissolution of NATO our credibility as a world power dissolves.
The job of pundits is to see beyond the immediate, so naturally they see a situation where appeasement is a losing strategy. That the general population does not yet see it that way is to be expected. It is though the job of governments to educate the citizenry of geopolitical realities.
The public opinions can change. At least in the US and Britain the wrongheadedness of appeasing Hitler in 1938-39 has become an article of faith. It is not hard to draw parallels to Putin in 2014-2015, and appeal to the Anglo-Saxon sense of justice.
So, I think that the necessary will is not there now, but it can be summoned.
I wasn’t surprised about Crimea, there was no way Russia was gonna give up its only warm water port and large naval base there, especially with the Crimean population being 75% Russian.
As far as the rebel held areas to the east, I doubt at this point Putin will settle for anything less than some sort of at least limited autonomy. He knows Western Europe doesn’t have the stomach for bringing NATO into a serious confrontation there, which is why I believe Obama has been holding off despite pressure from Congress to ramp this thing up. There will be some transfer of weapons, but probably not enough for Ukraine to achieve a decisive victory, leaving a smoldering conflict that doesn’t do much to change the current status quo but keeps Russia and Europe at odds, which the US wants anyway. I think this is just a signal from Putin that if the US goes all in, he won’t hesitate to bring in Russian troops and permanently sieze control of that region.
The Soviets took enormous casualties, no question about that. It shows you what low price human life is to a Soviet man. The outcome of the war was, however, not salutary: half the Europe was under Soviet occupation till 1991, and is facing a similar threat again. This is why our opinion of the Soviet people is not based exclusively on the casualties they took, but also on the purposes they served and on the aggressiveness of their posture today.
The Lend-lease program was enacted in March, 1941 and ended in September 1945. However, the protocol on shipments to the USSR was signed on October 1, 1941, three full months after the Nazi attacked the USSR. We can assume there was a gradual buildup. Of course, prior to the Lend-lease there was technical assistance in the Soviet industrialization drive; it can be said that the Soviet military complex was in great part built on American technology transfer.
Regarding the shipments, some data are here: US deliveries to the USSR. If you read Russian, here is a good analysis of the role of the Lend-lease program in the Soviet victory: Марк Солонин "Как Советский Союз победил в войне".
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