Ukraine

[enrico514]

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[woolybug25]

Anybody forget about our good friend the "patriot"?

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, made that clear when he told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast Friday how U.S. officials must plan for the possibility that Vladimir Putin's Russia has access to American battle plans and other secrets possibly taken by classified leaker Edward Snowden.
"If I'm concerned about anything, I'm concerned about defense capabilities that he may have stolen from where he worked, and does that knowledge then get into the hands of our adversaries — in this case, of course, Russia,"

Military spy chief: Have to assume Russia knows U.S. secrets - CNN.com

 

[Buster Bluth]

Anybody forget about our good friend the "patriot"?



Military spy chief: Have to assume Russia knows U.S. secrets - CNN.com

This is crap because the Russians aren't sitting on their thumbs, they're spying too. Of course they know secrets. But when that is revealed the NSA and all the folks shitting on our Constitution will say "See! Snowden is the bad man! Disregard everything he says!" And then resume the incorrigible spying.

 

[woolybug25]

This is crap because the Russians aren't sitting on their thumbs, they're spying too. Of course they know secrets. But when that is revealed the NSA and all the folks shitting on our Constitution will say "See! Snowden is the bad man! Disregard everything he says!" And then resume the incorrigible spying.

Doesn't change the fact that anything Snowden knows… Russia knows. Bad timing to say the least.

I didn't post that to emphasize our spying or Russia's spying… I posted that if we had secrets that Snowden knew… Russia clearly now knows.

 

[IrishLax]

This is crap because the Russians aren't sitting on their thumbs, they're spying too. Of course they know secrets. But when that is revealed the NSA and all the folks shitting on our Constitution will say "See! Snowden is the bad man! Disregard everything he says!" And then resume the incorrigible spying.

What does any of this have to do with what wooly actually posted? He simply illustrated that Snowden is a lot closer to your typical treasonous spy than your "patriot" working for the good of the American people a lot of idiots out there have made him out to be.

 

[IrishinTN]

I cant believe koon hasn't posted one of his pics yet. He is shirtless in most of them. Hey Vladamir, how about Putin a shirt on?

 

[enrico514]

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[enrico514]

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[IrishLax]

No need to call people who don't agree with you names...

That's obviously not directed at anyone on this board and was used as an infinitive towards the media, etc. who glorified him.

 

[Emcee77]

Thought this brief comment was interesting:

David Remnick: Will Ukraine Be Putin’s Undoing? : The New Yorker

The beginning is especially fascinating. That a Nobel Prize-winning author, Soviet dissident, and enemy of authoritarianism like Solzhenitsyn believed that Ukraine was not a separate nation from Russia really shows that this dispute is more complicated than just a nation's failure to respect the borders of another sovereign nation (not that anyone really doubts that, I'm sure). Indeed, according to this New Republic article, the concept of Ukraine is a separate nation from Russia is almost unique to millennials raised in post-Soviet Ukraine:
Eastern Ukraine's History Under Stalin Is Holding It Back | New Republic.

The other interesting point in the Remnick piece is that it's too simplistic to say (as I may have seemed to suggest earlier in this thread) that the pro-Russian leaders of Ukraine are corrupt and the pro-Europe leaders aren't. Yulia Tymoshenko was plenty corrupt herself. Ukraine's leaders need to ditch their mafia mentality if Ukraine is going to solve its economic problems.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Thought this brief comment was interesting:

David Remnick: Will Ukraine Be Putin’s Undoing? : The New Yorker

The beginning is especially fascinating. That a Nobel Prize-winning author, Soviet dissident, and enemy of authoritarianism like Solzhenitsyn believed that Ukraine was not a separate nation from Russia really shows that this dispute is more complicated than just a nation's failure to respect the borders of another sovereign nation (not that anyone really doubts that, I'm sure). Indeed, according to this New Republic article, the concept of Ukraine is a separate nation from Russia is almost unique to millennials raised in post-Soviet Ukraine:
Eastern Ukraine's History Under Stalin Is Holding It Back | New Republic.

The other interesting point in the Remnick piece is that it's too simplistic to say (as I may have seemed to suggest earlier in this thread) that the pro-Russian leaders of Ukraine are corrupt and the pro-Europe leaders aren't. Yulia Tymoshenko was plenty corrupt herself. Ukraine's leaders need to ditch their mafia mentality if Ukraine is going to solve its economic problems.

This is also an interesting read on the upcoming vote.

Crimea Referendum Offers Taste of Democracy ‘Under Guns’ - Bloomberg

 

[enrico514]

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[chicago51]

Does anyone have any knowledge how much money the transnational economic royalists can make off a westernized Ukraine?

I assume since corporate elite usually drive the agenda that this is a question that needs answering.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Does anyone have any knowledge how much money do the transnational economic royalists can make off a westernized Ukraine?

I assume since corporate elite usually drive the agenda that this is a question that needs answering.

I doubt there's anything specific to Ukraine that would make it's "westernization" especially lucrative for special interests here in the States. Though war, against anyone, is very profitable for a lot of such interest groups.

 

[Irish#1]

From Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabe...-soft-nyet-to-russias-ukraine-intervention/):



Also:



EDIT: Now, I do follow the 'never say never' saying so there is always a possibility but Russia would be close to standing alone against the rest of the world.

Beat me to it. China can't make a lot of waves like they used to 20-25 years ago. Their economy is so dependent on the rest of the world buying products made there they have to tip toe very carefully.

 

[ND NYC]

No offense dude. The USSR was done before Carter or Reagan took the office.

Here are my top eleven in terms of World leaders/movements that ended the Soviet way of life :

1. John Paul II (Never in modern times has a religious leader stood up to a government and used moral authority to a better and more devastating end.)
2. George Marshal (The Marshal plan stopped Soviet expansion cold, if the Far east version had not been tabled by partisan political bickering in the US, China may have stayed democratic, Ho Chi minh, would have installed a democracy, and Vietnam probably wouldn't have even happened.)
3. Charlie Wilson. (His vision and effort are legendary.)
4. Various freedom fighters including the Mujahidin in Afghanistan.
5. Nguyễn Ái Quốc, or Ho Chi Minh (The North Vietnamese Constitution written by Minh takes whole portions from the writings of Thomas Jefferson. Minh begged the US for financial support after WWII. Instead, we turned Indo-China back to the French. He represented a huge resource drain to first the Soviets, and then to China, as well as an affront to their authority.)
6. Josip Broz Tito (Another leader communist in name that had much better economic policy and tied the west and the east together. Singlehandedly he stopped Soviet Balkan expansionism and showed the myth of Soviet economic policy.)
7. Mao Tse-tung (The Soviets could never overcome 1 billion Chinese on their doorstep usurping their ideology.)
8. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (any chances of Marx's teachings working were sabotaged by his shortsighted interpretation of everything he read.)
9. Joseph Stalin (his purges were the end of the ideal, and taught the people that there was no reason to be loyal to the state.)
10. Lech Wałęsa/Solidarity (had his stage been more central, he could have been further up the list.)
11. Our Founding Fathers. (Not revisionist versions. The radical beyond liberals that dreamed up a new system of government and found a way to make it work. It out distanced Soviet communism in every sense.)

You left out the most important one:

Oil going from $40 a barrell...down to $10...quickly...and staying there for some time.

its all about the benjamins

 

[chicago51]

Beat me to it. China can't make a lot of waves like they used to 20-25 years ago. Their economy is so dependent on the rest of the world buying products made there they have to tip toe very carefully.

Wow I can't seem to fall asleep tonight so I figure I'd post a few things.

Let me start out by saying I don't think the US and China are going to war.

I don't think we should fall to the trap that because the US are so economically dependent on each other that war couldn't happen.

I am big on looking for historically parrellels. If we look at history at the time before WW1 Britain and Germany were very economically dependent on each other were major trading partners. At the time Britain was the largest naval power similarly to the US being large naval/air power of today. Germany at the time had the largest land army but was looking to be taken seriously and started a big naval build up which made Britain nervous. Similarly China has begun building its navy and has done a lot its research in using ballistic missiles to destroy air craft carriers. Plus we have the same types entangling alliances that caused WWI. Now we growing tensions with China and Japan in the South China sea and the air space. You have China like Germany back in 1914 looking to be taken more seriously as well. Now because our agreements with Japan and S Korea if they get attacked the US is automatically at war. History shows that we need is a small spark to ignite a full scale war.

Again I highly doubt the US and China go to war but it would be a mistake I think that because of the economic relationships that exist that it is completely impossible.

BTW the US right now can't make a cruise missile with rare earth metals that we import exclusively from China. The largest rare earth metal mine is in California but it is not in commission currently. The supply is still there and maybe we should open that mine up again just for national security insurance.

I got some good stuff on Ukraine I'll be posting links tomorrow.

 

[GoldenToTheGrave]

Seems to me like Putin is actually playing the hand he was given exceptionally well. The upcoming referendum should keep Ukraine out of NATO's sphere of influence for years/decades to come.

It could work out on both sides. Have Russia annex Crimea, permanently get a hold of their Black Sea port, let the rest of Ukraine become a full member of NATO and create a backstop against Russian imperialist tendencies in Eastern Europe. Hell, even put back the anti ballistic missile systems for good measure.

 

[chicago51]

I doubt there's anything specific to Ukraine that would make it's "westernization" especially lucrative for special interests here in the States. Though war, against anyone, is very profitable for a lot of such interest groups.

Interestingly enough wars tend to follow economic crashes. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I do believe dark forces exist that see power to be gained from war.

I was reading a last weekend that while the Civil War mainly had to do with slavery there is evidence that elites of the time played up both sides to trust us into the war ironically just shortly following the Great Panic of 1957 a big economic crash.

 

[enrico514]

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[enrico514]

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[dublinirish]

Interestingly enough wars tend to follow economic crashes. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I do believe dark forces exist that see power to be gained from war.

I was reading a last weekend that while the Civil War mainly had to do with slavery there is evidence that elites of the time played up both sides to trust us into the war ironically just shortly following the Great Panic of 1957 a big economic crash.

nothing generates gun/ammunition/all things military sales like a good old war.

 

[FLDomer]

Interestingly enough wars tend to follow economic crashes. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I do believe dark forces exist that see power to be gained from war.

I was reading a last weekend that while the Civil War mainly had to do with slavery there is evidence that elites of the time played up both sides to trust us into the war ironically just shortly following the Great Panic of 1957 a big economic crash.

WWII helped get the US out of the depression

 

[Bogtrotter07]

You left out the most important one:

Oil going from $40 a barrell...down to $10...quickly...and staying there for some time.

its all about the benjamins

Of course I was talking about people and their actions, not events. On the surface, I included Stalin and Lenin to show how the system was gutted, and rendered ineffectual, and included Mao, Tito, and Minh to show how others incorporated some working economic model to perpetuate their flavor, as an explanation.

On another level, if the system weren't already gutted and decrepit, ready to fall, cheap oil would have had at worst a recessionary effect. Which is why part of my thesis is that "they were run by bigger idiots than we were," gives my overall thesis the practical believability it needs to stand on its own merit.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

WWII helped get the US out of the depression

What about WW I? Just a family dispute, the exception that proves the rule?

 

[ND NYC]

Of course I was talking about people and their actions, not events. On the surface, I included Stalin and Lenin to show how the system was gutted, and rendered ineffectual, and included Mao, Tito, and Minh to show how others incorporated some working economic model to perpetuate their flavor, as an explanation.

On another level, if the system weren't already gutted and decrepit, ready to fall, cheap oil would have had at worst a recessionary effect. Which is why part of my thesis is that "they were run by bigger idiots than we were," gives my overall thesis the practical believability it needs to stand on its own merit.

i hear you Bogs...i was really just looking for a way to get that stat in.

it is the #1 reason for the fall of the former soviet union.

bringing it into the current crisiis wiith Putin...imagine what would happen to world politics if oil today went from $100 a barrell down to $25 a barrell quickly, and stayed at that level?

everything would change. russia, the middle east, china, iran, even the US.

King Oil is always the most important player in the Game of Thrones...

 

[FLDomer]

What about WW I? Just a family dispute, the exception that proves the rule?

I didnt mention WW I, I just said WW2 helped the US out of the dperession, did it not?

 

[Ndaccountant]

I didnt mention WW I, I just said WW2 helped the US out of the dperession, did it not?

There is a book that came out recently documenting how the US got involved in WW1. The premise of the book is that Germany set up the first terrorist cell in the US in NYC and how they were responsible for some bomb attempts and the assignation attempt on JP Morgan. Can't think of the title of the top of my head, but based on the interview I heard with the author, it sounded like an intriguing read.

 

[Grahambo]

It could work out on both sides. Have Russia annex Crimea, permanently get a hold of their Black Sea port, let the rest of Ukraine become a full member of NATO and create a backstop against Russian imperialist tendencies in Eastern Europe. Hell, even put back the anti ballistic missile systems for good measure.

A country cannot even be considered for NATO membership if they are involved with any territorial and/or political dispute.

Ukraine is attempting to join the European Union, not NATO. They are two different organizations despite having a lot of the same countries.

 

[Grahambo]

There is a book that came out recently documenting how the US got involved in WW1. The premise of the book is that Germany set up the first terrorist cell in the US in NYC and how they were responsible for some bomb attempts and the assignation attempt on JP Morgan. Can't think of the title of the top of my head, but based on the interview I heard with the author, it sounded like an intriguing read.