Posted on 10/12/2016 1:33:53 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Moscow — Leaders of Turkey and Russia signed a long-delayed deal Monday to build the TurkStream gas pipeline under the Black Sea to deliver Russian gas to Europe's doorstep within three years.
The rapid warming trend in Russo-Turkish relations holds deep implications for Syria's immediate crisis, which dominated the talks and the subsequent headlines, but the fallout from that pipeline deal is a potentially crushing blow to struggling pro-Western Ukraine and may be rearranging strategic realities around the region for many years to come.
Analysts say that if TurkStream goes ahead it will enable Moscow to cut its former main gas transit partner, Ukraine, completely out of the loop when current contracts expire in 2019. For Ukraine, it spells the loss of about $2 billion in annual transit fees paid by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, which will make a huge hole in the struggling country's state revenues. More importantly, it will also upend Ukraine's strategic dream of integrating with the European Union (EU) as the key energy hub that mediates Russian energy to the continent's thirsty markets. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
“THEY HAVE DELIBERATELY DEBILITATED THE MILITARY TO THE POINT the USA can not confront either Russia and or China and win.”
Sorry FRiend! Missed the “and/or” the first time around. :)
Ezekiel 38:1-7 reveals who Gog and its allies are. The first names mentioned are “Gog, the land of Magog… Meshech and Tubal…” The term “Gog” comes from the Hebrew word “Rosh” which means “head” or “chief.” It means either the individual who is the “chief” or leader of this alliance or the nation which “heads” it. The “land of Magog” is identified with the region of Asia which is within the modern territory of Russia. Gog is identified as “the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” These entities have long been identified by Christian teachers as designating Russia in the modern world.
I’ll have to put the Ukrainian klepto-Fascist puppets on my “to cry for” list.
OK, I won’t quibble.
Anyhow “Gog and Magog” appear (or appears if they are a unitary entity) at the end of time thus:
“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the Earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.”
I’ve studied scriptural Hebrew (sentences and paragraphs, not just terms) and conversational Hebrew, so I have some kind of view into it, whether or not right on a recollection of a particular meaning of Gog.
Is it possible that Gog and Magog are rivals though living in unity? That’s what I was trying to get at before being told that I had come up with a whopper.
Everyone who has advocated using the military for any purpose other than to defend the territory of the United States itself has an ownership stake in this mess.
There’s not one conflict we’ve been in, this side of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which has been either wise or just.
Or at the end, has the whole world, in essence, turned into an anti-God entity headed by Russia?
Well, the model of using US forces to “defend US interests abroad” has been a commonality in the 20th century.
So anyhow what was this war in Iraq about. We were told that we needed to smash Al-Qaeda which had just smashed the Twin Towers. Never mind that they were mostly Saudi citizens, the enterprise was reportedly based in Iraq.
The problem with conquering is that you then have to do something sensible with what you conquered. I wouldn’t fault the conquest of Iraq nearly as much as the follow up plan. A liberal democracy is not going to be able to hold up to Islamic forces. It needs a forceful kingdom.
The reason I ask is because what your Russian friend is saying is almost the exact opposite of what the Russian ‘game’ in the Middle East has actually been, and I thought perhaps something got lost in translation.
In fact, Russia has been trying very hard to prevent pipelines from being built in the Middle East, and specifically pipelines from Qatar and Saudi Arabia that would traverse Syria to a terminus in Turkey.
Assad turned down the Gulf state Sunnis offer to let them use his country, which led to a civil war (plan a) and the rise of ISIS (plan b), as the Sunnis with support from their Western allies pursue other means to achieve their objectives.
I’m not stripping them of any agency; no moreso than conservatives strip their own nation of agency when they rightfully complain of media bias, fixed elections, etc.
Yes, it’s a lot more complicated than this; there are two sides to the current struggle in the Ukraine. I’m not saying one side is comprised of angels, the other devils. But I am saying there is another side than the Soros/Obama/EU side:
The Ukrainian people elected a Russian-friendly government, which was overthrown by a violent minority. Even that Western-backed government now acknowledges that the media narrative of the precipitating crisis — the government allegedly firing on its own people — makes no sense. And now, we’re witnessing that same government use utter scorched-Earth tactics fighting a war against ethnic Russians in the Ukraine.
The Ukraine was split almost down the middle, between Russian-leaning and West-leaning forces. The reason why this split was so sharp, with most regions leaning either 90% Russian-leaning or 90% West-leaning, was that the nation was almost split 50-50 between people who were more Russian; and people who were linguistically, culturally, religiously and socially closer to Polish, and politically closer to the EU.
The “Western” government’s discrimination was so severe that they banned the native language of half of the people from any public usage, including in the schools. And for the most part, this wasn’t like the Spanish “Reconquista” of the U.S; most speakers of Russian at home were learning “Ukrainian,” and supported uniform learning of Ukrainian; it was simply the abolition of all things Russian-sounding.
Again, there are two sides. There was a good reason that even Russians supported moving towards a Ukrainian language society; The Soviets had committed atrocities, and even most of the Russians didn’t want to identify with Russia afterward. But this unity could have been the basis of trust and compromise; instead the Ukrainian gov’t smelled weakness and saw it as a way of gaining dominance over the industrial base which was settled and henceforth largely populated by ethnic Russians.
The biggest misunderstanding most Americans have is that these Russians had been invaders. The Ukraine had long been part of Russia before the Soviet Union, and these Russians were crossing into largely unpopulated land within their own nation, as mining and manufacturing grew in importance.
They made a deal about Syria, it is the 2016 version of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
However, both are thinking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople , but Erdogan is thinking about continuing with what happened after 1453 when it was conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.
and Putin is thinking about Constantinople from the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, when Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe and it was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times as the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and as the guardian of Christendom’s holiest relics such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross.
Both will fail.
Remember the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
To encourage a coup in Turkey would fit with Obama’s disastrous Arab Spring interventions. Erdogan seems convinced the White House was involved.
Amen.
Russia doesn’t want Qatari and Saudi Arabian funded and controlled pipeline via Syria and Turkey to Europe. That makes sense, because it’d be under U.S., Qatari and Saudi control. But not if Russia continues its original deal with Turkey to build a pipeline, in which case Russia will have significant political and economic influence at least. We don’t know all the ‘fine print’ in resuming this deal.
Way I see it, it’s a smart counter move on Russia’s part against U.S./Qatar/Saudi efforts in Syria to topple Assad.
The Turks may not be big fans of Assad, but equally & historically there has never been any love lost between Turks, Saudis and Saudi satellites ie the Gulf states.
Plus the energy sector is a key one for both Russia & Turkey. And, the building of the pipeline in Turkey was always a very lucrative deal for Russia and Turkey, before it was temporarily halted due to that tit for tat that ensued when the Turks shot down the Russian plane several months ago.
I venture to say concessions were made by Turkey before this agreement was signed by both parties.
Yanukovych campaigned and won the 2010 election with the promise of making that EU deal. That was his key election promise.
>> Yanukovych campaigned and won the 2010 election with the promise of making that EU deal. That was his key election promise. <<
It was certainly his key concession to pro-Western Ukrainians. But you can’t think of anything that happened in 2010 that might have legitimately made Ukrainians rethink joining the EU? Like maybe the EU’s response to the Greek, Italian and Spanish credit crises?
Besides, supposed he actually did straight-up lie about a major campaign theme. That justified insurrection? How about the Crimeans, who were told they’d have autonomy if they joined Ukraine in secession from Russia, only to have their parliament banned and end up placed under direct rule of Kiev?
I’ve been following the Ukrainian thing even when the killing of people hadn’t started. I think you have read some Russian propaganda and believed it, but I think I know the answer to everything you wrote.
I’ll post them later.
I think this is how it was: Ukraine chose poorly already in the 90s. Maybe they had their reasons, but they chose not to lustrate their communist rulers and switch to free market capitalism like Poland did. Future was uncertain at that time, but now we see Poland is tremendously successful while Ukraine laggards. With president Yushchenko they got on to that track, but his popularity was crushed by the 2007/2008 economic crises. In most countries with two major parties the one holding power during the crises lost it in next elections. Yanukovych made double sure he is the favorite in 2010 by being from the east, but giving promises of EU trade deal, that was popular in the west. 2010 elections were fair. Yanukovych’s background was having been a street gangster imprisoned twice by the way. Once he got to power of restricted presidency of 2005 constitution he started to switch key personnel and institute corruption. 2012 parliamentary elections weren’t fair any more and he used his administrative power to favor his own party. That wasn’t enough to give him the votes to change the constitution, but he somehow managed to stack the constitutional court with his cronies and they abolished the 2005 constitution that had been voted in by 90% of the members of parliament.
Now he was able to rule by the post soviet constitution that gave him large power. He started to secure his power with appointing his loyalists everywhere and his son taking over the Ukrainian economy by winning more than 50% of state procurement contracts. He failed to make the EU trade deal he had campaigned on though. EU would have offered aid in the form of carrot and stick with carrot being promise of closer integration and favorable contracts if Ukraine keeps on reforming path. That had worked rather well with countries like Poland and Romania.
Support for EU deal had stronger correlation to age than to east-west. Majority of under 50 people supported it everywhere.
When Yanukovich failed to sign the EU deal there was initially a small protest. What he did, and what I think is influenced by his gangster background, was that he sent his new riot police (created for Euro soccer cup 2012 and filled with his loyalist) to beat them up.
After protesters had been beaten more protesters showed up. It had gone from protest in support of euro deal to protest against beating. Then Yanukovich thought to turn on the heat and passed a set of laws making protesting illegal. That only brought more protesters and it was now about Yanukovich having to step down. The protests were truly massive. Army said they are not going to go against the people and Yanukovich stupidly ordered some of his enforcers to shoot people.
That is what I believe happened.
Oh, and I believe Greek debt crises happened because Greek governments had been commies. They had cheated and taken debts while cooking their books and then Greeks elected radical commies who in their entitled mentality demanded that Europe must give them billions of euros and forgive their debts. It was absolutely the fault of Greek governments.
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