Posted on 03/03/2014 2:16:39 PM PST by Pining_4_TX
What the USA and its European factotums ought to do is mind their own business and stop issuing idle threats. They set the scene for the Ukrainian melt-down by trying to tilt the government their way, financing a pro-Euroland revolt, only to see their sponsored proxy dissidents give way to a claque of armed neo-Nazis, whose first official act was to outlaw the use of the Russian language in a country with millions of long-established Russian-speakers. This is apart, of course, from the fact Ukraine had been until very recently a province of Russia’s former Soviet empire.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Yeah, that is a great line, and true.
But Kerry doesn’t have much responsibility for what’s occuring now in the Ukraine.
It was the years of incompetence by Hillary and Obama that set the stage for today’s event.
I’m going out on a limb, here, but I’m guessing this author is a lefty.
This whole thing in Ukraine is nothing but a regional civil war, with the Eastern part of the country wanting closer ties with Russia and the Western part wanting closer ties to the EU.
Complete bullshit.
It took Presidents Reagan and Bush almost 11 years to bring the USSR to its knees.
Obama has only been working to destroy the USA for a little more than five years and the nation is already starting to crumble.
So I’m starting to see pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine propaganda, including stuff from both sides assuring us that the other side is neo-Nazi.
I can think of good arguments for Russia to seize Crimea and for that matter, western Ukraine. And if they go that far, why stop there?
And I can’t think of any reason for us to get involved directly.
There is a lot of talk about international law and treaties and all the rest, and we are realizing that none of it matters if you aren’t prepared for the “what if”... What if they are prepared to shed blood and you aren’t.
Ukrainians have to decide and quickly how much their territory and sovereignty is worth to them. Are they prepared to shed blood for it?
I am sure that, as other articles have assured us, the Ukrainian military is no match for the Russians, at least on paper. But it really comes down to a willingness to fight. If they are willing to fight, they can turn it around albeit at a considerable cost. If they are not, its over already. They will have to settle for independence in a smaller territory, or settle for being a Russian province.
Closer tie, since Russia is now fully in control they definitely got “closer ties”.
Being ruled from Moscow is like that
Well darn!
It looks like every other era.
Or was there some era that didn't have failed states?
How in the world can you outlaw the use of a language ? By the stroke of a pen, I guess.
This constant railing that anyone wanting freedom in Ukraine is a neo-Nazi is an utter lie. Kuntsler and others seem to want Putin to take over Ukraine again like in the good old Soviet days. Screw him.
Isn't Russian spoken in this area because during USSR days, the soviets purposely settled Russian speakers outside of Russia just to set up this rationale?
Let’s not overlook Kerry’s self-inflated, oafish role in this entire episode
When Putin considers the American leaders arrayed against himself and Russia in this endeavor, Putin’s greatest fear is peeing himself from laughing so hard that he loses control of his bladder.
I also don't think that mere geographic proximity is excuse sufficient for the intervention into a state that is undergoing constitutional stress - an unstable state is not a failed state, after all, and the first resort should always be for a solution that stems from the citizens' self-determination, not from outsiders.
The accusation we're hearing that the EU destabilized the state deliberately by offering an economic arrangement is a little suspect, frankly, or at least if that were the plan it turned out to be pretty incompetent one. Russia has countered through Clausewitz's "politics by other means", which was not at all unpredictable. It's too late for the prevention that should have been the object of State Department policy had the 0bama administration bothered to pay attention to that. If now they look like fools, whose fault was that?
I don’t think Putin wants the burden of Ukraine’s terrible economy.
“Now, Gazprom is considering raising prices on March 1 unless Ukraine pays $1.55 billion for owed fuel costs”
Nothing of the sort. The new government repealed the 2012 law and returned the country to how it functioned for the previous 20 years. During that time, Russian language newspapers, TV channels, websites, books, and so on existed freely, forming more than half of all media. Nobody was forcing Ukrainian on them. The only thing the law asked was that government official business was to be done in Ukrainian.
You can tell the pro-Kremlin agenda of the article from the label "neo-nazi". Read with caution
IMO, I think the Ukraine will fight IF they can get some support. They have the manpower to create huge problems for Russia. They are certainly not unaccustomed to heavy loss of life, historically speaking.* But they don’t have the weapons.
* http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-29.html
That said, the Ukraine was foolish to not at least trade each nuke they gave up back in the ‘90’s for an equivalent monetary cost non-nuke weapon of modern (at the time) manufacture. They’d be armed to the teeth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
As for why get involved? Because if we don’t honor our security guarantees to the Ukraine, we have indeed shown such paper to be useless, and guaranteed nuclear proliferation in the next several years that will make Iran seem like a trifle. Putin might be well advised to take all of the Ukraine now, because otherwise, the Ukraine will join Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, and quite possibly several other nations with nukes. There is no way we can stop it.
Agreed. Also... has the Ukrainian Parliament actually changed members (and party affiliations) to any significant degree? Have the real powers in the Ukraine, the industrial and financial oligarchs who pull the strings, suddenly become a “claque of armed Neo-Nazis”?
(I know, those are mostly rhetorical questions.)
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