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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Mar 11, 2014 10:39 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | Barack Obama thinks Vladimir Putin isn't such a smart guy. "There's a suggestion somehow that the Russian actions have been clever, strategically," Mr. Obama said last week about Moscow's bloodless coup de main in Crimea. "I actually think that this is not been a sign of strength."
"Is not been a sign of strength" is not been a sign of grammar. Good thing it wasn't George W. Bush doing the talking.
Let's get to Mr. Obama's main point about Mr. Putin's alleged dumbness: "Countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling and, if anything, it will push many countries further away from Russia."
Terrific. Maybe Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can slip their Baltic moorings and row themselves west once Mr. Putin starts agitating on behalf of ethnic Russians in those once-Soviet, now NATO-member states. Kazakhstan, where ethnic Russians are in a majority in several districts bordering Russia herself, is also ripe for a Crimean-type caper. Has Mr. Obama worked out a plan for the Kazakhs to get away from Russia, other than by launching themselves en masse from the Baikonur Cosmodrome?
It's funny, almost, to watch Mr. Obama and his friends in the media talk themselves into the conceit that they've gained the upper hand against Mr. Putin. "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake," writes one of those friends, citing Napoleon. Really? Perhaps Mr. Putin will oblige us by seizing eastern Ukraine, too. Given this logic, by the time the armies of Vlad the Bad reach the Vistula, our victory will be all but complete.
Enlarge Image
Vladimir Putin leads a meeting at his residence outside Moscow, March 5. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
As Mr. Obama and friends see it, by seizing Crimea Mr. Putin has lost the battle for global public opinion. "I think everyone recognizes that although Russia has legitimate interests in what happens in a neighboring state, that does not give it the right to use force as a means of exerting influence inside that state," scolded Mr. Obama.
This is of a piece with the notion that geography no longer matters; that borders, resources, the high ground, the warm-water ports and everything else that nations have fought over since time immemorial are superfluous in our 21st-century world.
What a wonderful thought. But not all countries are blessed with oceans for borders. Not all leaders get to live in magic kingdoms where Nobel Peace Prizes are bestowed before they are earned. And not all leaders want to live in those magic kingdoms, either.
So Secretary of State John Kerry accuses Mr. Putin of engaging in 19th-century behavior. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? In 1814, Czar Alexander I led the Russian army into Paris and accepted the keys to the city from Talleyrand. Mr. Putin surely won't make it that far, but achievement is almost always measured as a fraction of ambition. The easy seizure of Crimea is almost certainly enlarging Mr. Putin's ambition.
Another theme of recent days is that whatever else the Crimean incursion signifies, it's not a new Cold War. Russia does not have the power of the Soviet Union. Its economy is inextricably linked with the West's. Its aims are national, not ideological. And so on.
I've been thinking about this line of argument and there's something to it. Perhaps the right historical analogy isn't to the four decades that followed World War II. It's to the two decades that preceded it.
Then, as now, liberal democracies were both burned and burned out by war. Then, as now, economic problems and the thirst for "normalcy" made them turn inward. Then, as now, American presidents believed in the necessity of disarmament, the sanctity of international law and the importance of leading by moral example. Then, as now, the liberal democracies were consumed by a sense of guilt over their own past supposed misdeeds. Back then it was the "Carthaginian Peace" of Versailles. Today, it is the witless argument that we have no standing to criticize Mr. Putin's seizure of Crimea after our own invasion of Iraq. (On this point: Who exactly is Crimea's Saddam ?)
Then, as now, too, the rogue regimes of the day soon figured out that the liberal democracies weren't interested in policing the world order. In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria. A year later, a fact-finding mission sent by the League of Nations reported that Tokyo probably hadn't been acting in self-defense when it took northeast China. Japan walked out of the League, and it was on to Nanking. Meantime, Italy developed a taste for Abyssinia.
Here is the connection between the U.S. capitulation in Syria and the invasion of Crimea, which Mr. Obama and his defenders are so eager to deride. The connection isn't necessarily causal. It's environmental. America is in retreat; in his speech last September on Syria, Mr. Obama explicitly endorsed the view that "we should not be the world's policeman." So now we're living in the broken-windows world of international disorder. The rogues look around. When they sense an opportunity they seize it, calculating that they will pay no price.
They have paid no price.
Mr. Obama might think that in the 21st century, moral opprobrium (from him) is punishment enough. But Vladimir Putin isn't playing by Mr. Obama's idea of 21st-century rules. The right response to a Russian power play is a power play of our own. Ballistic missile defenses on NATO's eastern flank would be a good place to start
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I don't know why it links to subscription. Full article is free via google search.
Anyway.
Last sentence would be his answer to your question, I would guess. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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jt09 Ladies Man
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin
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Posted: Mar 11, 2014 10:52 am Post subject: |
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it's also a ridiculously stupid answer. |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Mar 11, 2014 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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So what would your solution be?
I have said all along in this thread that a sternly worded note isn't going to get anywhere. The last 10 days proves that very clearly.
Maybe the answer is he can have Ukraine. It would be incredibly naive to think that would be an endgame though. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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chavez Ladies Man
Joined: 22 Sep 2003 Posts: 27375 City: Roseville
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Posted: Mar 11, 2014 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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If that is his answer, he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed and needs to exit the 1980's.
Things like economic sanctions take time. The parties imposing the sanctions need to draw them up and come to an agreement on how they will be imposed.
Saber-rattling is useless. Taking Ukraine by force would equate to Russia becoming a highly isolated country in very quick order and it would cause them unbelievable economic hardship. They would not just get to "have" Ukraine.
Crimea is a different story. Russia is already in violation of its agreement to observe the sovereignty of Ukraine. Sanctions for these actions are on their way. Their actions in Crimea have also all but guaranteed that Ukraine (with or without Crimea) joins the EU and likely NATO thereafter. _________________
Quote: | That's Mr. Gingermex to you a$$hole. |
RIP MHL 04/25/1958 - 01/11/2006 |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Mar 17, 2014 6:44 am Post subject: |
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Vlad 1 Sternly Worded Note 0
Not good. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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goofyboy Wakeboarder.com Freak
Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 4463 City: Houston
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Posted: Mar 17, 2014 10:30 am Post subject: |
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If the people of Crimea want to join Russia, why not let them? They are very different than the rest of the Ukraine. Also, Russia already has naval ships there. _________________ Work SUX! |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Mar 17, 2014 11:32 am Post subject: |
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That may be true.
Do you honestly think Vlad stops at Crimea though? Where is, if any, your line in the sand in regars to the former Russian States? _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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jt09 Ladies Man
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin
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Posted: Mar 17, 2014 11:47 am Post subject: |
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goofyboy wrote: | If the people of Crimea want to join Russia, why not let them? They are very different than the rest of the Ukraine. Also, Russia already has naval ships there. |
they are different from the rest of ukraine because stalin deported all tatars, killed half of them and banned the rest from ever returning.
Quote: | On 18 May 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported in the "Sürgün" (Crimean Tatar for exile) to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin's Soviet government as a form of collective punishment on the grounds that they had collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces.[3]:483 An estimated 46% of the deportees died[citation needed] from hunger and disease. On 26 June of the same year Armenian, Bulgarian and Greek population was also deported to Central Asia. By the end of summer 1944, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete. In 1967, the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated, but they were banned from legally returning to their homeland until the last days of the Soviet Union. |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Apr 14, 2014 8:09 am Post subject: |
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So this clusterfuk keeps getting worse and worse.
The "sanctioning" of the oligarchs has done nothing material to stop Putin. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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Okie Boarder Ladies Man
Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond
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Posted: Apr 17, 2014 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting new development...
Quote: | Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk where pro-Russian militants have taken over government buildings were told they have to "register" with the Ukrainians who are trying to make the city become part of Russia, according to Ukrainian and Israeli media.
Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website.
Donetsk is the site of an "anti-terrorist" operation by the Ukraine government, which has moved military columns into the region to force out militants who are demanding a referendum be held on joining Russia. The news was carried first by the Ukraine's Donbass news agency.
The leaflets bore the name of Denis Pushilin, who identified himself as chairman of "Donetsk's temporary government," and were distributed near the Donetsk synagogue and other areas, according to the reports.
Pushilin acknowledged that fliers were distributed under his organization's name in Donetsk but denied any connection to them, Ynet reported in Hebrew.
Emanuel Shechter, in Israel, told Ynet his friends in Donetsk sent him a copy of the leaflet through social media.
"They told me that masked men were waiting for Jewish people after the Passover eve prayer, handed them the flier and told them to obey its instructions," he said.
The leaflet begins, "Dear Ukraine citizens of Jewish nationality," and states that all people of Jewish descent over 16 years old must report to the Commissioner for Nationalities in the Donetsk Regional Administration building and "register."
It says the reason is because the leaders of the Jewish community of Ukraine supported Bendery Junta, a reference to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement that fought for Ukrainian independence at the end of World War II, "and oppose the pro-Slavic People's Republic of Donetsk," a name adopted by the militant leadership.
The leaflet then described which documents Jews should provide: "ID and passport are required to register your Jewish religion, religious documents of family members, as well as documents establishing the rights to all real estate property that belongs to you, including vehicles."
Consequences for non-compliance will result in citizenship being revoked "and you will be forced outside the country with a confiscation of property." A registration fee of $50 would be required, it said.
Olga Reznikova, 32, a Jewish resident of Donetsk, told Ynet she never experienced anti-Semitism in the city until she saw this leaflet.
"We don't know if these notifications were distributed by pro-Russian activists or someone else, but it's serious that it exists," she said. "The text reminds of the fascists in 1941," she said referring to the Nazis who occupied Ukraine during World War II.
The Jewish community in Donetsk issued in a statement saying the flyers distribution "smells like a provocation."
"Who is behind this is an open question," Rabbi Pinkhas Vishedski said in the statement, according to CNN. Vishedski said they are a provocation "and should be treated accordingly ... full stop and end of topic."
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, the oldest pro-Israel group in the USA, said the leaflets should be seen in the context of a rising tide of anti-Semitism across Europe and the world, and that it should prompt a strong response from the White House.
"This is a frightening new development in the anti-Jewish movement that is gaining traction around the world," Klein said.
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called the leaflets "the real deal," and not representative of the Ukraine's government in Kiev.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the incident "grotesque."
"It is beyond unacceptable," Kerry said. "And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of — there is no place for that."
Kerry participated Thursday in a conference on the Ukraine crisis with his counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and the European Union. The parties issued a statement saying "The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-semitism."
Michael Salberg, director of the international affairs at the New York City-based Anti-Defamation League, said it's unclear whether the leaflets were issued by the pro-Russian leadership or a splinter group operating within the pro-Russian camp.
But the Russian side has used the specter of anti-Semitism in a cynical manner since anti-government protests began in Kiev that resulted in the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych. Russia and its allies in Ukraine issued multiple stories about the the threat posed to Jews by Ukraine's new pro-Western government in Kiev, Salberg said.
Those stories were based in part on ultra-nationalists who joined the Maidan protests, and the inclusion of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party in Ukraine's new interim government. But the threat turned out to be false, he said.
Svoboda's leadership needs to be monitored, but so far it has refrained from anti-Semitic statements since joining the government, he said. And the prevalence of anti-Semitic acts has not changed since before the Maidan protests, according to the ADL and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, which monitors human rights in Ukraine.
Distributing such leaflets is a recruitment tool to appeal to the xenophobic fears of the majority, "to enlist them to your cause and focus on a common enemy, the Jews," Salberg said.
And by targeting Donetsk's Jews, they also send a message to all the region's residents, Salberg said.
"The message is a message to all the people that is we're going to exert our power over you," he said. "Jews are the default scapegoat throughout history for despots to send a message to the general public: Don't step out of line." |
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/jews-ordered-to-register-in-east-ukraine/7816951/ _________________ If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Jul 21, 2014 6:19 am Post subject: |
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John Kerry: "We won't rush to judgement"
Lindsey Graham: "He gave the most ridiculous and delusional summary of American foreign policy I could imagine"
On Meet the Press. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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Neognosis Ladies Man
Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 17617 City: Webster
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Posted: Jul 21, 2014 6:45 am Post subject: |
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Okie, head in hands if that is true.
Seriously... it's 2014 FFS. _________________ I walk 47 miles of barb wire, I got a cobra snake for a necktie, a brand new house up on the road side, and it's made out of rattlesnake hide |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Sep 02, 2014 9:47 am Post subject: |
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eeven73 wrote: | So this clusterfuk keeps getting worse and worse.
The "sanctioning" of the oligarchs has done nothing material to stop Putin. |
Bumped because still true. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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ohsix PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 6837
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Posted: Sep 02, 2014 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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Charlie Rose had someone on a few weeks ago discussing the subject of Putin and the oligarchs. Apparently there was one oligarch who stood up to Putin after he first rose to power and Putin ruined him. I don't know all of the oligarch's sources of wealth, but from other reports, most of them made their money through less than ethical deals during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It sounds like they're losing money the same way they made it.
What's Putin's end game with Ukraine? It's currently a broke country that acts as a buffer between Russia and Western Europe. I understand Russia is afraid of Ukraine becoming part of Western Europe and that is why they're fighting for it, but if Russia takes over Ukraine they no longer have the clusterfuk separating them. Is the end game just to make sure Ukraine stays in limbo? |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Sep 02, 2014 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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I think Putins end game is more power. He will take as much as he can while he can. We can all go 15 rounds on the hows and whys. He is playing western Europe and the US as chumps. IMPO the real danger is somewhere downline when we determine we HAVE to stop him.
Kinda like where we are with ISIS except Nuclear. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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goofyboy Wakeboarder.com Freak
Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 4463 City: Houston
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Posted: Sep 02, 2014 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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The end game is control of the pipelines that roll through the Ukraine. _________________ Work SUX! |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Sep 03, 2014 8:01 am Post subject: |
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Anyone hear clips of Baracks speech from Estonia?
God, did he sound lethargic and out of touch. Spent 5 min lecturing Putin on contributing to the world economy. WTF, as if Putin will slap his head and say, "you know what we really should play nice and toe the line". _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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jt09 Ladies Man
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin
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Posted: Dec 16, 2014 9:52 am Post subject: |
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let's pick this back up....
oil prices are absolutely killing russia's main export right now. they are about to hit a national recession. their central bank just raised interest rates from 10.5% to 17%.
Quote: | The ruble collapsed by 10 percent against the U.S. dollar Monday earning the Russian currency the dubious laurels of the world’s worst-performing currency this year.
The Russian currency has now fallen 49.3 percent against the greenback since January, according to data from the Moscow Exchange. The drop takes it below the Ukrainian hryvna, which has weakened 47.9 percent in 2014. |
edit - the ruble just dropped another 15% today
putin has been rattling sabers again - and this time pointed at the baltics, which means nato. we just sent 100 abrams & bradleys to lithuania. understand what this means - if putin goes after lithuania, a member of nato, americans will die, and we're going to war. not kinda going to war, but full-fledged congressional act of war. and the rest of nato is coming w/ us. it's not negotiable.
of interest is father time and the broken processes that the soviet union once held together so well. from a poster on reddit, so take it w/ a grain of salt, but he raises some very interesting points on where the intellectual power is going to come from in years to come.
Quote: | In five years Russia's demographic profile plunges. The number of males available for military service plunges 50% over two years. It declines another 10% to 20% over the following ten years. Russia is facing a catastrophic decline in military manpower in immediate terms. They have five years to secure their geopolitical position, then they won't be able to act at all. They simply won't have the men to act.
Amplifying this trend is the collapse of their engineering and technical education after the Soviet system imploded. The process of recruitment, training, and OJT of engineers collapsed and never recovered. The average age of Russian engineers and technicians is 54. The average life expectancy of Russian males is 59. In five years Russia is going to have to start shutting down major infrastructure systems.
To be blunt, in five years they will have to choose between keeping their energy infrastructure running, or the transport grid, or the electric grid, or the ICBM force. They will have enough engineers to keep one of these systems going. Perhaps two if they run both systems with skeletal staff on perpetual 12 hour shifts.
There is also the problem that these engineers are not going to die in any uniform way. You may loose half your nuclear engineers, then the petro engineers, etc. Severe disruption in basic systems is dead ahead for the Russian Federation. Disruption in day to day operations, and disruption in the export of nuclear and military technology that pays for much of the government's budget.
In addition to all the above, Russian scientists are actually expecting global cooling to hit Eurasia. Western scientists are expecting global warming. If either are correct, if there is even a two degree shift in temperatures, the arable belt will move radically to the north or the south.
A radical shift where there is no infrastructure what ever. Infrastructure that will take twenty plus years to build, when they have no engineers to build it. To cut to the chase, Russia is looking at the imminent loss of 80% plus of their food production. This makes the Ukraine look mighty interesting to them.
Russia needs to secure itself from these looming realities. The generals want to advance to the 9 geographic choke points that would secure the Russian interior for this time of dislocating change. They also want the Ukraine as a food reserve against all the possible ecologic threats proposed by the scientists.
I think Russia is going to go for it. Not a World War Three into Western Europe. By no means. Russia is going to try to secure the Ukraine and the Baltic states. If they can they will advance all the way to Poland, or even into Poland if they can get that far.
The West needs to decide what it is going to do in the face of Russia's desperate need. Most of the major wars in history have been initiated by the nation that was sliding towards collapse. America in particular needs to most carefully weigh it's options before committing to a course of action and policy. |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Dec 16, 2014 10:37 am Post subject: |
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Scary stuff that a nuclear power is backed into a corner, which is exactly where they are with fall of oil/collapse of ruble.
For Putin the choice becomes revolt from starving citizens or act of war.
That is sensational, but not fantasyland. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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ohsix PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 6837
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Posted: Apr 14, 2015 6:51 am Post subject: |
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To answer the original question in hindsight; Evil Genius.
The longer this goes on, the better Putin looks. |
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eeven73 PityDaFool Who Posts This Much
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 5377 City: Halfway
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Posted: Apr 14, 2015 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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He really knows his opponent. So pathetically weak its comical.
This is a two middlefingers high in the air Bubb Rubb you to Barry. _________________ Is President Obama a Keynesian? |
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