PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

[gwynedd1]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

And if Michael Hudson's observation is correct:

" If this is Obama’s “reset” with Russia, he is resetting the Cold War by setting the neocons loose in the former Soviet republics. If there is one thing that the CIA has shown its competence in, it is in setting one ethnic group against the others – Sunni vs Shiite, Kurd against Arab, Persian against them all. When other countries seek to defend a multi-ethnic secular state, the US foreign office has backed the fundamentalists for nearly the past half-century in all cases. This should be the sub-text for reporting on the Ukrainian uprising that seems to have been carefully timed to coincide with Sochi."

Then keeping Ukraine intact will insure their foreign rule. They now have nothing to show for 20 years because Ukraine has a big, fat red reset button that one can slam their palm on that has "ethnic tensions" written upon it.

[Woodsman]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

methinks this just another example of DISTRACTION...
'blaming the DOJ' for listening in on DiFi (why for she worried? would be my 1st question) is much mo better than having to explain why they arent being more aggressive on certain 'other issues' ?

Speaking of selective aggression...

---

EXCLUSIVE: FBI blocked in corruption probe involving Sens. Reid, Lee

Agents quietly working with Utah prosecutors to make case in DOJ absence

FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.The probe, conducted by one Republican and one Democratic state prosecutor in Utah, has received accusations from an indicted businessman and political donor, interviewed other witnesses and gathered preliminary evidence such as financial records, Congressional Record statements and photographs that corroborate some aspects of the accusations, officials have told The Washington Times and ABC News.But the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which normally handles corruption cases involving elected figures — rejected FBIagents’ bid to use a federal grand jury and subpoenas to determine whether the accusations are true and whether any federal crimes were committed by state and federal officials.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...=all#pagebreak

[vt]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

Well at least it's a bipartisan corruption coverup

[Chris Coles]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

This is a classic case where it gives no pleasure to find others agree with one's own point of view regarding the DOJ.

[don]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location… which in some cases gives them a special role in either defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player.

Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey and Iran play the role of critically important geopolitical pivots.

Eurasia is “the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played,” and that “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America."

If Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard

(especially like the use of the word pivot . . .)

[don]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question






The Western media has underscored that both the Crimean Tatars as well as the Ukrainian population of Crimea were against joining the Russian Federation. The Non-Russian population constitutes 41.7 percent of the Crimean population.According to official data, Russians constitute 58.32% of the population of Crimea, 24.32% are Ukrainians and 12.10% are Crimean Tatars.

The Guardian, in a slither of media disinformation intimated that the Tatars feared a wave of repression if Crimea were to join the Russian Federation:

Now, as Crimea faces a referendum that is likely to seal its fate as a province or satellite of Russia, ethnic tensions are reaching boiling point. In a chilling echo of history, Tatar houses in the Crimean city of Bakhchisarai have been marked with an ominous X, just as they were before the Soviet-era deportations. On Monday two Tatar businesses were firebombed.

…. The prospect of a return to living under Moscow’s rule is disturbing. “People are in panic. “We are trying to keep people calm but they are scared of the Russian soldiers and Cossacks that come here,” he said.” (Crimea’s Tatars fear the worst as it prepares for referendum | World news | theguardian.com

Contrary to the reports of 135 international observers from 23 countries, the Western media in chorus has suggested without a shred of evidence that the elections were rigged and that Crimea was under Russian military occupation.

The observer mission reports which include members of theEuropean Parliament have been casually ignored by the mainstream Western media:

Mateus Piskorkski, the leader of the European observers’ mission and Polish MP: “Our observers have not registered any violations of voting rules.”

Ewald Stadler, member of the European Parliament, dispelled the “referendum at gunpoint” myth: “I haven’t seen anything even resembling pressure… People themselves want to have their say.”

Pavel Chernev: Bulgarian member of parliament: “Organization and procedures are 100 percent in line with the European standards,” he added.

Johann Gudenus, member of the Vienna Municipal Council: “Our opinion is – if people want to decide their future, they should have the right to do that and the international community should respect that. There is a goal of people in Crimea to vote about their own future. Of course, Kiev is not happy about that, but still they have to accept and to respect the vote of people in Crimea”

.

Serbian observer Milenko Baborats “People freely expressed their will in the most democratic way, wherever we were… During the day we didn’t see a single serious violation of legitimacy of the process,”Srdja Trifkovic, prominent and observer from Serbia: “The presence of troops on the streets is virtually non-existent and the only thing resembling any such thing is the unarmed middle-aged Cossacks who are positioned outside the parliament building in Simferopol. But if you look at the people both at the voting stations and in the streets, like on Yalta’s sea front yesterday afternoon, frankly I think you would feel more tense in south Chicago or in New York’s Harlem than anywhere round here,” he said.





“On the 16 of March we choose”: neo-Nazi Ukraine “Or” the Russian Federation?

[flintlock]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

I don't have a dog in this fight, but arguments about ethnicity in the Crimea mean Mexico should be due to get Texas back any day now.

[Polish_Silver]

persecution in Russia

Mateus Piskorkski, the leader of the European observers’ mission and Polish MP: “Our observers have not registered any violations of voting rules.”


.





“On the 16 of March we choose”: neo-Nazi Ukraine “Or” the Russian Federation?

Russia has a poor record of protecting minorities. Putin's government tolerates skin heads who persecute homosexuals, ethnic minorities, etc.

Was there any complaint of ethnic persecution in Ukraine two months ago?

The BBC interviewed a Crimean man, who claimed that he was culturally and ethnically Russian, but wanted to keep living under a Ukrainian government, not a Russian one.
He also claimed the Crimean elections were rigged. It's quite possible that they track where the observers are going and hide the guns when the observers show up. That would be a very Russian thing to do. I've just heard so many stories from people inside the Soviet Union.

[gwynedd1]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

I don't have a dog in this fight, but arguments about ethnicity in the Crimea mean Mexico should be due to get Texas back any day now.

Hi Flintlock,

Its easy to put anyone claim to statehood on the defensive , given, that its unclear as to what specifically justifies a state at all. What justifies the United States?

[gwynedd1]

Re: persecution in Russia

Russia has a poor record of protecting minorities. Putin's government tolerates skin heads who persecute homosexuals, ethnic minorities, etc.

Hi Polish_Silver;,

That is because Russia is not a police state. In fact its police force is notoriously feckless. In the US, indeed, minorities are more protected as we increase the police presence and surveillance. Once drones and security bots become more ubiquitous, no ghetto will be off limits and racial harmony will increase just like there are no dog fights at the pound by virtue of the peace and security of separate cages. Vibrant minority communities often need to be a police state. After all, tribalism is the natural state of man before we believed so earnestly in ideologies, or so we are told.

Was there any complaint of ethnic persecution in Ukraine two months ago?

Do you actually know any? I know a hundred Russians and Ukrainians . In fact I know two living under the same roof, one from Western and the other from Eastern Ukraine. The ethnic Russian essentially took her in. Now they are in a great deal of discord. So in that case what was isn't what now is or what could be. If they resove the issue, then they will continue to live. If not, then they will separate. No one will tell them otherwise.

The BBC interviewed a Crimean man, who claimed that he was culturally and ethnically Russian, but wanted to keep living under a Ukrainian government, not a Russian one.
He also claimed the Crimean elections were rigged. It's quite possible that they track where the observers are going and hide the guns when the observers show up. That would be a very Russian thing to do. I've just heard so many stories from people inside the Soviet Union.

Well in my case I just actually speak with them directly. I have not encountered a single ethnic Russian who is giddy about the new regime in Ukraine. One called them fascists. Back here in the states one Russian I know claims to have been denied entry to a Ukrainian Orthodox church.

As I recall Yugoslavia finally decided to bloodlessly separate. India and Pakistan went their separates ways. Sometimes that is what works out best. Other times it does not.


However it is intresting how minorities are for some reason at risk in Crimea, but the ethnic minority Russians in the rest of Ukraine are not at risk. Fundamental inconsistencies imply that there is rather some other agenda behind it.

[gwynedd1]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

On another subject, I am sure many have noticed how Ukraine is being run by oligarchs either way including the government that was just ousted. What do you suppose a group of wealthy men can do with a good news bad news factory like the tensions in Ukraine? I suspect the same thing with Greece. These people can move the market.




http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26426341

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...rinat-akhmetov

About half a dozen oligarchs in Ukraine have made enormous wealth since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The situation is similar to that in Russia during the 1990s, when businessmen jostled for influence around Boris Yeltsin. When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, he told the oligarchs they could keep their money if they stayed out of politics. But no leader in Kiev has been strong enough to silence Ukraine's oligarchs. They retain huge influence, controlling a number of MPs, owning television stations, and staying extremely close to political leaders.

These people have tomorrow's head lines. Its better than owning the press. They can manufacture the news by fiery rhetoric on one day, and a calming voice the next via the puppets they have put in power.

[Woodsman]

Re: persecution in Russia

Russia has a poor record of protecting minorities. Putin's government tolerates skin heads who persecute homosexuals, ethnic minorities, etc.

Was there any complaint of ethnic persecution in Ukraine two months ago?

The BBC interviewed a Crimean man, who claimed that he was culturally and ethnically Russian, but wanted to keep living under a Ukrainian government, not a Russian one.
He also claimed the Crimean elections were rigged. It's quite possible that they track where the observers are going and hide the guns when the observers show up. That would be a very Russian thing to do. I've just heard so many stories from people inside the Soviet Union.

Russian propaganda taking its cues from Western propaganda. They learn fast, those Ruskies.

But you're absolutely right when you say Putin could give a rat's tail about this or that minority. He's authoritarian to his marrow and corrupt to the core. I feel like I need a breath mint every time I look at the guy. But none of that makes a whit of difference to the geopolitics and energy in play. Everything else you read is strictly for the papers.

Russia has a free hand in Crimea. It took Crimea, largely without meaningful cost, and no one is willing to do anything about it. And should Putin choose to take the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine either by guile or force, no one will stop that either. The Russians will go to the mattresses for Ukraine and the Europeans have no stomach for a cold and dark winter followed by another war in Europe.

I'm more interested now in how the propaganda plays out. But few seem to take much of an interest in it. I mean, other than taking the crude jingoistic moralism at face value. I suppose I can't be too critical of the people for swallowing it. Here the view of Russia has barely budged since the days of "Boris and Natasha."

I expect for the Russian version of J6P it's much the same - fat men in top hats with greasy hair, typical amerikanski.



The saddest part of this entire episode is more suffering for Ukrainians. The 20th century was a horrific, non-stop nightmare for Ukraine and I'm astounded that there's anyone left in the place who could leave voluntarily.

[don]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

[Slimprofits]

Re: persecution in Russia

Here the view of Russia has barely budged since the days of "Boris and Natasha."

I noticed the same thing after the initial reports of problems in Sochi reached the local airwaves.

[Chris Coles]

Re: PC Roberts on the Ukrainian Question

IMHO Dmitry Orlov is a classic agent provocateur sitting under a tropical awning, thousands of miles from Ukraine, nodding back and forth to ensure he remembers his script. Got a smooth answer for every question, each answer designed to foster uncertainty.