[radon1]

There are no troops---no missiles---no worries----just trust me!

You think?

[radon1]

Stumbled across this tidbit about Mr. Kerry's subtle threat about going after the ruble with sanctions:

A cheaper ruble and more expensive oil could actually go a long way in improving Russia's economy, possibly offsetting other potential aftershocks of the Ukraine crisis.

Have been also thinking that it could be blessing in disguise. The economic policies in Russia are controlled by the liberoids, i.e. guided by "Washington consensus" and otherwise managed from the west in everything but name. As such, they are already essentially a set of sanctions on the Russian economy detrimental to its development, and these existing sanctions can be cancelled in whole or in part due to the "real" formal sanctions.

In addition to cheaper ruble, the "real" sanctions may give a pretext to countering WTO-style western protectionism or building own protectionist measures, from mild to tougher. Shorter term this may reduce households' real income, but longer term it would make the economy more resilient and diverse.

[radon1]

How are some of those newly liberal countries you know Libya, Egypt, Tunisia doing, ya know. Or do you have a better example of a newly liberal country, Iraq, perhaps Afghanistan?

Seems like this point is totally failed to be appreciated. The views of mayhem, death and destruction in Kiev or other "revolutionary" destination totally horrify ordinary people in relatively well-off neighboring or any other non-western countries (and even in Ukraine itself), and actually lead to their people rallying behind their "dictators", real or imaginary. No one really wants this kind of a disaster on their streets (despite Six & Co's wishful thinking to otherwise). The fact that the western observers seem to be continuously failing to appreciate it is close to incomprehensible.

[Sixstrings]

If Hillary is tough on Putin, then I'd keep my Dem party registration and vote for her in 2016:

Hillary Clinton compares Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s in Nazi Germany

LONG BEACH >> Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday compared recent actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine to those implemented by Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s.

Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she said.

Putin has been on a campaign to give Russian passports to anyone who has Russian connections, Clinton said.

The Russian leader has recently done so in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which, Clinton said, is similar to what happened in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Hitler resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in parts of Europe to Nazi Germany.

Clinton made her comments at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.

“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” she said. “All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”
http://www.presstelegram.com/general-news/20140304/hillary-clinton-compares-vladimir-putins-actions-in-ukraine-to-adolf-hitlers-in-nazi-germany

If she doesn't run, Wesley Clark would be good though there's no talk of him running. I don't need a russophobic candidate, just *competent* and able to handle it. Clark fits that nicely. NATO commander. A military man knows what this is all about. We definitely need foreign policy expertise, and someone from the cold war era that just knows wtf they are doing.

[radon1]

If Hillary is tough on Putin, then I'd keep my Dem party registration and vote for her in 2016:

Indeed, why don't you focus on your internal issues. The latest US data has been a disaster, all blamed on "bad weather".

You know who loved to continuously blame failing economic performance on "bad weather" last time? The Soviet leadership at the time of the approaching Soviet collapse.

Ukrainian crisis, what a nice distraction from the things that do really matter. Probably give an illusion of being powerful over things far and away, at the time when own troubles are totally out of control.

[Plantagenet]

If Hillary is tough on Putin, then I'd keep my Dem party registration and vote for her in 2016:

Hillary is so naive that she flew to Moscow and curtsied and handed Putin a reset button and thought she had just made Russia into a friend of the US. She's not exactly a deep thinker.

-----------------

It may well be the main legacy of the O administration will be restarting the cold war. Some of the bungling occurred while Hillary was at State.

[Subjectivist]

If Hillary is tough on Putin, then I'd keep my Dem party registration and vote for her in 2016:

Hillary is so naive that she flew to Moscow and curtsied and handed Putin a reset button and thought she had just made Russia into a friend of the US. She's not exactly a deep thinker.

-----------------

It may well be the main legacy of the O administration will be restarting the cold war. Some of the bungling occurred while Hillary was at State.

Thinking about that, hen the first Cold War started both the US and USSR had plenty of oil that they used both domestically and as an export resource. Russia today still has that ability, however the USA no longer does, and all the Saudi Amerca fantasys won't change that reality.

[AndyA]

Another conspiracy theory becomes FACT.

Earlier today an even more shocking recording has been "leaked" this time one between the always concerned about human rights EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet, in which it is revealed on tape that all those photos of horrifying deaths of Ukrainians by snipers during the last days of the Median stand off, were in fact caused not by Snipers controlled by Yanukovich, but that the snipers shot at both protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Maidan leaders!

Here is the key exchange, just after 8 minutes into the conversation :

Paet: "All the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides. ... Some photos that showed it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it is really disturbing that now the new coalition they don't want to investigate what exactly happened. So there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition."

Ashton: "I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh."

Paet: "It already discreditates (sic) this new coalition."

As for at least one of the affected parties, Estonia, it has just confirmed the authenticity of the recording, and the ministry of foreign affairs has organized a press conference to answer media questions today at 5 pm. From the Valisministeerium:
No. 84-E Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton uploaded to the Internet today, a phone call is authentic.
Paet and Ashton conversation took place on 26 February, following Estonia's Foreign Minister's visit to Ukraine, and immediately after the end of the street violence.
Foreign Minister Paet communicate what he had said about the meetings held in Kiev last day and expressed concern about the situation.
"It is extremely regrettable that such an interception is occurring at all""said Paet., Including its call for today's photos are not random," he added.

Yes, it is truly regrettable that the people know the truth.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-0 ... eals-truth

Peace prize winner Obama was humiliated over Syria, tried to stir up some shit in Ukraine with a textbook regime change uprising. Thinking he could ride in on a white horse with shining armour. Gaining a prize with a new Nato member, and stealing Russia's warm water port. Putin was obviously one step ahead of him, and has gained Crimea without bloodshed. He just needs to sit back and wait for a few more states to defect. Doesn't need to fire a shot. He doesn't want radioactive Kiev, he can leave the Western powers with all the Ukranian debts, as they fall over themselves to bailout the remaining bankrupt states.

[AndyA]

Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she said.

Nice try Sixstrings, except Russians in Crimea are not the minority. The false flag attack was by the Ukranians at best, the US most likely, NOT the Russians.

In any case, it is a mistake to think Churchill could have stopped WWII by being tougher on Hitler at the start, it would have just made WWII a certainty, not a possibility. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think Churchill's actions were wise, at the time.
In this scenario Russia losses if it were to abandon Crimea would be huge. Even a peaceful country /s like the US couldn't sit on it's hand if one of it's hundreds of foreign bases was in the middle of a revolution. You are too hot headed to realise this, sadly.

[Quinny]

If this is true it would be dynamite. I have seen nothing on MSM (BBC/Sky). I would not be surprised.

[dissident]

After Kosovo, NATO has no moral or legal authority to yap about territorial integrity. If NATO can move in to help a local Albanian majority in a Serb province, then Russia can do the same in the case of Ukraine. It's Ukraine's own fault for destroying the Crimean Autonomy's rights over the last 23 years. Crimea was a gift from Khurschev to Ukraine and not some indigenous part of it. The gift was not as empty territory with no legal constraints. It was an Autonomous Region and Ukraine has abrogated its rights to this Region.

But now the regime in Kiev is starting to sing a different tune and talk about "granting" Crimea more rights. Rights which previous Ukrainian central governments removed, illegally. The only reason that the new regime is talking this way is because the facts on the ground render it powerless to impose its will on Crimea by sending in Right Sector goons. If the regime in Kiev could organize some snipers to shoot at Crimean protestors it could invoke the excuse that local Crimean authorities are illegitimate and have them removed. And NATO would give its full blessing. But some ebil foreign power is getting in the way.

[dissident]

If this is true it would be dynamite. I have seen nothing on MSM (BBC/Sky). I would not be surprised.

The Estonian foreign minister has confirmed the conversation is authentic. But the Olga mentioned in the discussion is claiming she said something else. Anyway, the UK offered to investigate the sniper incident and the new regime in Kiev refused and still refuses to conduct an investigation. That says it all.

[Keith_McClary]

[Sixstrings]

Ukrainian crisis, what a nice distraction from the things that do really matter. Probably give an illusion of being powerful over things far and away, at the time when own troubles are totally out of control.

We Americans and you Russians are too much alike. That's what worries me.

Meanwhile in Russia
How To Start A Car With A Dead Battery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ7fkAGzpHg&feature=c4-overview&list=UUDSPhnsO1gJwR4l3oVGuSKA

Now THAT's redneck.

Ukraine matters. And the other stuff does too. Domestic policy is really party based, we haven't had a good domestic policy president in my whole lifetime to tell the truth. I thought the world was safe and all the wars and big problems were over and I voted O. I was wrong. Next time around, I'll have to vote for foreign policy competence -- if that's Hillary ok, if that's a Wesley Clark then great I like him, if that's a Republican then that's how it'll have to be then.

Here's the thing, Rad: it's not that I want to be distracted by a world crisis, I'd much rather not be and just feel confident in our leadership, so I don't have to bother thinking about it. I just want to turn on the TV and see the news and think "oh, president so and so has this thing handled he's on top of this."

National security is so critical, that it's actually better to be wrong than be incompetent.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . .

. Even a peaceful country /s like the US couldn't sit on it's hand if one of it's hundreds of foreign bases was . . . . . . . .

The US a peaceful country . . . . ? You live in an alternative reality mate.

Cheers

[Sixstrings]

Here ya go, Keith:



(it's funny, but not really true: crimea will be a Russian satellite state, and Russia will not set it free and allow the Chinese in and whoever else, as we did with Iraq)

[AndyA]

Yair . .

. Even a peaceful country /s like the US couldn't sit on it's hand if one of it's hundreds of foreign bases was . . . . . . . .

The US a peaceful country . . . . ? You live in an alternative reality mate.

Cheers

/s

[dissident]

Yair . .

. Even a peaceful country /s like the US couldn't sit on it's hand if one of it's hundreds of foreign bases was . . . . . . . .

The US a peaceful country . . . . ? You live in an alternative reality mate.

Cheers

So did they find the WMD in Iraq yet? How about Saddam's alleged responsibility for 9/11? Someone is sure living in an alternative reality and that would be you.

[drgoodword]

If this is true it would be dynamite. I have seen nothing on MSM (BBC/Sky). I would not be surprised.

The Guardian has an article on it, along with a link to a YouTube copy of the conversation.

Another interesting element of this leaked conversation is how casually the EU foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, talks about "suggesting" that Olga Bogomolets, the main doctor for the Maidan mobile clinic when protests turned violent in Kiev, should be Health Minister.

It is precisely this kind of shameless political meddling from the West that prompted such an aggressive pushback from Russia.

[SeaGypsy]

Yair . .

. Even a peaceful country /s like the US couldn't sit on it's hand if one of it's hundreds of foreign bases was . . . . . . . .

The US a peaceful country . . . . ? You live in an alternative reality mate.

Cheers

So did they find the WMD in Iraq yet? How about Saddam's alleged responsibility for 9/11? Someone is sure living in an alternative reality and that would be you.

WTF is going on here? The guy's agreeing with you and you diss him go drink some coffee or something and wake up.

This whole thing is nuts. Bloody 6 harping on his CNN MSM propaganda line, Dorlormin with his 'we're all doomed from AGW- but America is god Russia is bad and our reactions to 9_11 were rational and justified at the time' as with 6. Bunch of blind crazy people armed with nuclear weapons. Russia is defending one of it's most important bases from a very suspicious new government and has ,not even drawn blood doing so, while you idiots call for war.

Calm the fuck down and get real. The US government is in the hands of a bunch of stooges. The rest of the world hopes you choose better next time.