Woops. Double post
[quote=agitating prop]The crucial difference in Russia and the former satellite countries is this–Putin is a grass roots populist who is trying to rein in the oligarchs, within their current legal system.
[/quote]
Hi agitating prop,
Continuing on the theme of trying to add bits of information to our provisional knowledge about what's going on in Russia and the Ukraine, here's a tidbit about Putin's rise to power:
In August of 1999, Putin was the head of the FSB, and he was still not very well-known to the Russian people. At that time, Yeltsin said publicly that he would like to see Putin succeed him as president. Putin became Prime Minister in that same month, which, under the Russian constitution, requires nomination by the president (Yeltsin) and confirmation by the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.
Then, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Yeltsin abruptly stepped down before the end of his term as president on the evening of December 31, 1999, and appointed Putin as acting President.
The picture here is Putin receiving the briefcase with the nuclear codes, from Yeltsin's administration, on New Year's Eve, 1999 while much of Russia was partyin' hard.
This meant that Putin was able to run for president for the first time as an appointed incumbent, which is a pretty big advantage. To my knowledge, Putin was never elected to any political office before being appointed as Russia's president. This doesn't really describe a grass-roots political leader.
Granted, Putin has won 3 elections since then, and I do agree with the statement that Putin is a populist. I am also against the neo-con agenda as well as the military adventures and manipulation of US foreign policy.
Cheers,
Hugh
I learned a new word today: Maskirovka.
Maskirovka is a Russian word pertaining to the business of military deception. Although the word is sometimes translated as 'camouflage', this belies its much broader meaning that includes all measures, active and passive, designed to deceive the enemy, which includes: concealment, imitation using decoys and military dummies, maneuvers intended to deceive and disinformation.Putin is a black belt in Judo. As a former judoka, I remember the basic strategy of competition (randori) includes lots of deception. Prior to a serious attempt to throw an opponent you precede the real move with pulls, nudges, twists, torques, sweeps, leaning back, leaning in, pulling down on left elbow, then on the right, straight arm the left shoulder, and every manner of combinations of these you can invent. When the moment for your throw comes, it is experienced as just another one of your 50 - 60 feints and is a surprise.
I assume intelligence agents do much the same (though my personal experience here is limited to a book case full of novels). Putin's early career was in the KGB, I understand.
Some Maskirovka from this morning:
PUTIN: RUSSIA PULLED BACK TROOPS FROM UKRAINIAN BORDER
....but ooops.....
Putin Pulls A Fast One: NATO Says No Russian Troop Withdrawal
And from recent days:
US F-15 Intercepts Russian Strategic Bomber Near GuamIt appears Russian military activities are picking up around the world. As AP reports, the commander of U.S. air forces in the Pacific is reporting a significant increase in activities by Russian planes and ships in the region; adding that "there had been long-range Russian air patrols to the coast of California ... and a U.S. F-15 fighter jet intercepted a Russian strategic bomber that had flown to Guam."Russian "Doomsday Plane" Spotted Flying By Finland Border
Russian "Doomsday Plane" Flies For 4th Consecutive Day
Russian Platoon Withdrawing From Ukrainian Border, Russian Defense Ministry Says
Here's another perspective of what's going on from Brandon Smith at alt-market.com. (I'm not sure how I originally got to this article, so if someone here has already posted it, my apologies). Whether it is right or wrong (i.e., what its truth value is) I do not know. But it is an interesting hypothesis on the motives behind events we're seeing, and I'd be interested in others' thoughts on it. JGritter had posted a similar notion (i.e., could there be more to this than we realize?) on one of the threads related to this article. I don't know if this is potentially very perceptive, or reading more into it than what is there.
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2126-false-eastwest-paradigm-hides-the-rise-of-global-currency
Despite popular belief, very few things in our world are exactly what they seem. That which is painted as righteous is often evil. That which is painted as kind is often malicious. That which is painted as simple is often complex. That which is painted as complex often ends up being disturbingly two dimensional. Regardless, if a person is willing to look only at the immediate surface of a thing, he will never understand the content of the thing.
This fact is nowhere more evident than in the growing “tensions” between the elites of the West and the elites of the East over the crisis in Ukraine.
I am continually astonished at the refusal of many otherwise intelligent people to consider the evidence or even the possibility that there is, in reality, no fundamental political or philosophical conflict between the power brokers of the East and the West. As I outlined in great detail in Russia Is Dominated By Global Banks, Too, the truth is they are both working toward the same goal; and both ultimately benefit from an engineered and theatrical display of international brinksmanship.
From zerohedge (and a German newspaper) this morning:
400 Blackwater Mercs Deployed In Ukraine Against Separatists, German Press Reports
More evidence that Ukraine's "internal affair" is a proxy conflict between power factions.
I think that more important than the content of headline itself, is the increasing trend of using PRIVATE SECURITY FIRMS in the global chess game. In the same way that Citizens United gave the rich a bigger voice in the electoral process, private security firms give the rich a more direct voice in global violence for power and profit.
Privately funded, organized, equipped and contracted, they answer to no one but the cartel that employs them. No nationality, no ideology, no morality, no need for those pesky Geneva Convention rules of warfare. They answer to only a corporate cartel whose only goal is profit. This is a formula for a great deal of human suffering.
From zerohedge this morning. Can you believe it?
The Farce Is Complete: Joe Biden's Son Joins Board Of Largest Ukraine Gas Producer
Corruption at its finest.
CGPMIC for short. Hey… can't you see he's wearing his flag pin Sandpuppy? How can you badmouth anyone wearing a flagpin?
Your kids can go here and learn all about 9/11 from Michael Bloomberg:
https://www.911memorial.org/lesson-plans-k-2
https://www.911memorial.org/board-directors
Gotta start educating those kids as young as possible. Teach them to learn to read good and do other things good too.
The only thing surprising here is that anyone finds this surprising. Nothing, absolutely nothing, should surprise anymore. They don't even try to hide it anymore.
the 21st of May, official cementing into the psyche of the masses for the big lie. I want to puke!
Pretty, pretty good.
Feel the fear. Listen to the old men speak.
This will get away from the arrogant fools in Washington.Dr. PC Roberts.
Well, this is unsettling…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u08j0JyeGM&feature=em-uploademail
Seems that good old profit-motivated greed trumps safety concerns. How surprising.
Dr Robert says that the Neocon plan is to encircle Russia with anti-missile missiles and thereby eviscerate Russia's nuclear deterrent.
Sounds like fun. Have they taken into consideration the subs? One of them can do a lot of damage, so they had better know where every one is.
The rats will be in some nuclear bunker when they press the button. (You are on your own Joe Sixpack) I don't think that they will enjoy the fruits of their labour when they emerge. Leukemia is not a fun way to die.
For those interested in developing an open-minded and multifaceted outlook to the Ukraine crisis, here's a bit about Poland's perspective, forwarded to me by a Polish colleague here at my school:
Poland stuck in the middle
…this is what it feels like to live through the eye of a economic collapse.
[quote=HughK]For those interested in developing an open-minded and multifaceted outlook to the Ukraine crisis, here's a bit about Poland's perspective, forwarded to me by a Polish colleague here at my school:
Poland stuck in the middle
[/quote]
When I run across an analysis that essentially frames Russia into the old cold war USSR model, I suspect I am reading something written by an older person. Possibly of Brzezinski's age and outlook.
Instead I find myself more drawn to this sort of a view, surprisingly found in Forbes, of all places. The basic argument is that Russia has no big aspirations to reform the USSR, it had just been pushed to the wall by NATO expansion:
Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong This article is by Vladimir Golstein, a professor of Slavic studies at Brown University. He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979. The mainstream American media has taken a nearsighted view of the Ukrainian crisis by following a script laid out by the State Department. Most reports have either ignored the truth or spun it in a way that paints only a partial picture. Here are seven things you should know about Ukraine. 1. Regardless of claims by some commentators like Forbes contributor Greg Sattell, the divisions in Ukraine are real, and violence unleashed by the Kiev regime is polarizing the nation further. While the differences between the Ukrainian west and the more Russian-facing rest of the country are widely acknowledged, what tends to be overlooked is that the culture, language, and political thinking of western Ukraine have been imposed upon the rest of Ukraine. Ostensibly this is for the sake of “unifying the country,” but in fact the objective has been to put down and humiliate Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population. The radical nationalists of western Ukraine, for whom the rejection of Russia and its culture is an article of faith, intend to force the rest of the country to fit their narrow vision. Western and eastern Ukraine do not understand each other’s preoccupations, just as Cubans in Miami and Cubans in Havana would not understand each other. Ukrainian conflict is not the conflict between the “pro-Russian separatists” and “pro-Ukrainians,” but rather between two Ukrainian groups who do not share each other’s vision of an independent Ukraine. Ukraine was joined to Russia only during Stalin’s era. For centuries it was under the cultural, religious, and/or political control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland. Hating Soviet occupation, western Ukrainian nationalists viewed Stalin as a much greater villain than Hitler, so that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists aligned themselves with Nazis and, led by their radical leader Stepan Bandera, proceeded to rid their land of other ethnic groups, including Poles and Jews. Western Ukraine is unified in its hostility toward Russians, whom they see as invaders and occupiers. During the last 20 years, as Ukraine tried to distance itself from its Soviet past and its ideology, it chose the nationalism of western Ukraine as the alternative. A necessary correction, perhaps, but the one that has generated its own dangerous myths. Easterners are angry that pro-Bandera banners, posters and graffiti are popping up all over Ukraine and with the rewriting of history in general, where violent nationalists who fought alongside the Nazis are treated as heroes while Russians, who suffered under Stalin no less than the Ukrainians, are denigrated. Following the exile of President Victor Yanukovich and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian nationalist rhetoric has become downright offensive and hysterical, ostracizing further the people in the east. The escalating violence will continue to radicalize both sides, so instead of finding a democratically acceptable solution they will resort to baseball bats and AK 47s. 2. The Western press was wrong about the massacre of Ukrainian citizens in Odessa on May 2, 2014, when as many as 100 (the officially accepted number appears to be 42) unarmed people were burned alive in an Odessa building. When telling the story, the Western press reported on the clashes between pro-Ukrainian soccer hooligans and pro-Russian protesters without any explanation as to why the results of these clashes were so one-sided. What happened in Odessa was something ominously familiar to Eastern Europe: an organized pogrom. At least the BBC got part of the story right: “several thousand football fans began to attack 300 pro-Russians.” And as in every pogrom, the victimizers blamed their defenseless victims for initiating it. In fact, pro-Kiev thugs armed with iron rods and Molotov cocktails attacked the camp of protesters, set it on fire, and forced the protesters to retreat into a building, which was set on fire. It was a blatant act of violence and intimidation. The current leaders of Ukraine promised an investigation, but so far their only response has been to blame the passivity of security forces. The truth is that the victims simply refused to share Kiev’s radical nationalist agenda. Should we call civilians “separatists” or “terrorists” only because their rejection of radical nationalism has resulted in Occupy-type protests? Why not call them moderate Ukrainians? Incompetent at best and vicious at worst, the Ukrainian government is failing its own population by condoning the intimidation and thus radicalizing it further. This is major news, a possible watershed in the unfolding drama of Ukrainian civil war, yet Western coverage has quickly forgotten the story. 3. The Ukrainian elections scheduled for May 25 would hardly solve the economic problems of Ukraine, since there is a glaring absence of good candidates. Current political contenders in the elections are either Soviet-style oligarchs like Petro Poroshenko, corrupt politicians like former Prime Minister Iulia Timoshenko, or former member of Timoshenko’s cabinet Arseny Iatseniuk. Corrupt as ousted president Viktor Yanukovich proved to be, he did win the role in the last election, with the country traumatized by Timoshenko’s own corruption. It is a sad feature of the Ukrainian political scene that its most independent and dynamic politician is Oleh Tyahnibok from western Ukraine, the controversial leader of the far-right nationalist party, Svoboda. His party is mired in Bandera-Nazi accusations, while Russia declared him a “fascist” and opened a criminal case against him for organizing the assault on the civilians in eastern Ukraine. 4. Politicians do not really matter in Ukraine, because Ukraine is the land of oligarchs. For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin’s inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin’s time: stay out of politics. Ukraine didn’t have this experience, and the politicians seem to be working in unison with, if not under the control of, oligarchs. There are frequent tensions among them or between them and politicians; for instance, the richest person in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, worked closely with Yanukovich, while others preferred Timoshenko or Victor Iuschenko. Akhmetov’s business interests are connected with the metallurgical industries in the east and he has organized his 300,000 employees to help him assert his control over eastern Ukraine and fend off military attacks on civilians, attacks which were encouraged by another oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky. 5. The Western press, including Forbes, has underestimated the extent of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky’s influence. Taking the concept “corporate raiding” literally, Kolomoisky has employed paramilitary units at his disposal for all kinds of hostile takeovers. Undoubtedly a shrewd businessman, he managed to wrestle various businesses from such powerful competitors as the current president of Tatarstan, and, if we believe Putin, from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Kolomoisky’s recent foray into politics has been carried out on the same grand scale. Even though he resides in Switzerland, he has been appointed the governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region. He has offered a bounty of $10,000 for any “Russian Separatist,” provided the Ukrainian army with necessary equipment, and armed nationalist volunteers. With the regular Ukrainian army reluctant to shoot its own population, Kolomoisky’s units have participated in various military attacks on the east, including the May 9 assault on Mariupol, where several civilians were killed. Russian sources connect him to the massacre in Odessa. Members of the new governor of Odessa, appointed after the massacre, are his close associates. Kolomoisky’s “pro-Jewish” activity has its own share of controversy. He gives money to various restoration or construction projects from Jerusalem to his native Dnepropetrovsk, serves as the president of the Jewish community in Ukraine, and in 2010 he became the president of the European Council of Jewish Communities, following his promise to donate $14 million for various projects. Other EJCJ members described his appointment as a “hostile takeover Eastern European style.” After several of them resigned in protest, Kolomoisky quit the EJCJ, but not before he set up an “alternative” committee called European Jewish Union. Jewish leaders subservient to Kolomoisky claim that Ukraine is now an open, pluralistic society, but in light of Ukraine’s tradition of anti-Semitism and pogroms, it is hard to be optimistic. The Western press complains about Putin’s state-controlled media, but Kolomoisky has no less information control. His business holdings include the largest Ukrainian media group, “1+1 Media,” the news agency “Unian,” as well as various internet sites, which enable him to whip public opinion into an anti-Putin frenzy. Andrew Higgins of The New York Times published a story with the headline, “Among Ukraine’s Jews, the Bigger Worry is Putin, Not Pogroms,” which praises Kolomoisky for adorning Dnepropetrovsk with “the world’s biggest Jewish community center” along with “a high tech Holocaust museum.” Higgins notes, however, that the museum “skirts the delicate issue of how some Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with Nazis…explaining instead how Jews supported Ukraine’s efforts to become an independent nation.” In other words, this high-tech museum is no more than a media project, as it focuses on issues unrelated to the Holocaust at the expense of honoring the victims and documenting the role of the Ukrainian collaborators. 6. Russia is weak. The country is losing population and shrinking geographically and economically. Russia is clearly overextended. Look at the Russian-Chinese border, where the concentration of population reveals a grim picture for Russia: there are about 100,000 Chinese per square kilometer on the south side of the border vs. 10 Russians on the Russian side. Only a fanatical Russophobe would imagine that Russia wants to expand. The Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia, and Poland, continue to prod Western media with the stories of Russian expansion, because NATO, the EU, and the USA are more than happy to “stand up to Russia” and provide financial aid. 7. President Putin has been accommodating to Western interests. Despite what you read in the Western press, he didn’t protest about NATO expansion, he gave up on a number of important Russian military bases, and acted aggressively only when he felt that Russia’s back yard was threatened. Annexation of Crimea, while responding to very strong popular demands both in Russia and Crimea, was a limited operation that enabled Putin to save his face after “losing” Ukraine. Since then he has given plenty of indications that he is ready to call it a day. His limited goals are acknowledged in the writings and interviews of such people as former ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock, or former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But what needs to be stressed is that the next Russian leader might not be that accommodating, especially in light of continuous and needless bullying on the part of the US. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s NATO representative and a serious political figure on the right, has already declared that next time he’ll fly into Ukraine and Moldova on military bomber after these countries didn’t allow his plane to use their airspace. What gave rise to Hitler was Germany’s continuous humiliation after World War I. The policy of public humiliation of Putin, the talk of “punishing” him or Russia for bad behavior, is insulting to the Russian leader and his countrymen. In contrast to Germany in 1939, Russia still has plenty of nuclear arms. Had Russia intended to enslave the US or its allies with its threat of nuclear bombs, I would be more than happy to repeat after New Hampshire: “Live Free or Die.” But is it worth it to taunt and threaten an already angry and frustrated nuclear power for the sake of handing Ukraine to the likes of Mr. Kolomoisky and his motley crew of oligarchs, nationalists, and subservient politicians? Those Western politicians and journalists, who confuse the issue of defending freedom with the power games that the current Ukrainian elite is playing, should be aware that they are not serving, but rather betraying, cherished American principles.
The short-term stability that Germany, other European countries, and the United States yearn for has already proven expensive.The Author, Judy Dempsey, is either naive, a fool or a propagandist.
If, as Dr Roberts suggests in the link posted by Arthur above, part of the America agenda is to blunt Russia's offensive nuclear capability by placing antiballistic missiles in Ukraine to deter or intercept a Russian nuclear strike it seems that a logical tactical move on the part of Russia would be to simply put their nuclear weapons in boxes and pay the postage. This is an idea that has been out there for decades. It seems that if you can move tons of illegal drugs into the country with little problem then nuclear bombs should be a piece of cake, especially as it has been shown innumerable times that you can deliver a very big bomb with a delivery system no more sophisticated then a truck.
If, as it appears, the oligarchs on the financial side of the Deep State are running amok with no checks to their power or to their disordered thinking, then I find myself in the awkward position of hoping for a military coup in the United States. Colon Powell as Emperor is looking pretty good right now. Of course if the threat of a coup has already been neutralized, it might explain some of the unbridled and bizarre behavior on the part of the neo-cons.
Ruminations from the dark side of the rabbit hole,
John G.
[quote=cmartenson]When I run across an analysis that essentially frames Russia into the old cold war USSR model, I know I am reading something written by an older person.
[/quote]
Hi all,
The reason I posted that piece is not because it's the key to understanding the Ukraine/Russia crisis. It's because a colleague of mine, from Poland, sent it to me. The reason she did this is because I forwarded the great map showing NATO's expansion that Chris included in the article at the top of this thread to our non-work-related teacher forum here at my school, as well as the 2009 Der Spiegel article that found that the US/NATO balked on its promise not to expand into the old Warsaw Pact countries. She, like many Poles, is somewhat afraid of being in Russia's sphere of influence, and she is glad that her country is now in NATO. That is not my perspective; it's hers.
So, whether or not people here find her article to be more or less enlightening than Russia Today clips or Paul Craig Roberts pieces, it's another perspective. When I mixed the waters by exposing her to the map and the Der Spiegel article, it seems to have raised her hackles a bit. But, I bet it also helped her see the conflict from a slightly broader perspective. Those data points challenged her beliefs about this conflict.
Mixing the waters is usually a good thing. When the right hand talks to the left, and vice-versa there is communication.
When, a few weeks ago, I tried to point out that Yanukovych was not the US' man, using specific, sourced arguments listed above, it also seems to have challenged some belief systems about this conflict. The mixing of the waters is needed both here and and with my Polish friend regarding this conflict. Here is an example of why I think this:
agitprop wrote: Neo-cons have to be brought under control and rather than a puppet presidency we need somebody more like Putin.Whatever one thinks about US intervention, it seems pretty extreme to call for a president who is more like Putin. Again, when just one side has a voice, it hears little but its own echo. I'm definitely not in agreement with a cold war mentality; on the other hand, my Polish friend may have some very real historical reasons to be concerned about Russia. Here are three that don't come from the Cold War Period. Two come from before that time and one comes after it, just four years ago. Examples: The Molotov-von Ribbentrop dismembering of Poland the Katyn Forest Massacre the 2010 Polish air force crash These events very much matter to my Polish colleague, and the reason that I am sensitive to the last of them, the 2010 Polish air force crash, is because I remember some former Polish students who were in my class in 2010 and were very concerned that the crash was a conspiracy by the Putin regime. That last event occurred in 2010; 20 years after the end of the Cold War. So, there still may be some wisdom in my Polish colleague's caution - even fear - of Putin's Russia. But, even if one doesn't agree with her, there is still value in hearing her perspective, and mixing the waters. Cheers, Hugh