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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
(a) Ukraine's mulish refusal to negotiate about anything
(b) NATO's reluctance to support Ukraine with anything more than tough talking
(c) NATO's nervousness at the prospect of what to do if talking is not sufficient
so we arrive at
(d) "Oh, all right, I'll call the dogs off if you persuade the Ukrainians to turn the taps on."
(e) "Youbetcha." |
I still think that Russia is worried that NATO missiles will arrive in the Ukraine on their border. Coz following a revolution the idealists get in and start talking nonsense to rival superpowers rather than realpolitik to the local one. Ask the Cubans. In fact ask the Russians.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I just can't see it. The whole point about Cuban missiles was that, at the time, Russian missiles fired from Russia mostly didn't have the legs to reach the USA and vice versa -- and why they were swapped for US missiles sited in Turkey. Nowadays, missiles in the Ukraine are no different from missiles anywhere else in NATO Euroland.
The whole business about being worried about the propinquity of NATO is bogus. Putin talks about going back to the old days... what, when the Russkies beggared themselves making sure they were adjacent to NATO in East Germany, Czechoslovakia et al?
It is actually being stated on official Russian telly that the shifting of troops from all over the country to the Ukraine borders and Belarus is because NATO is threatening to invade. Whether the Russian people actually believe that a Lithuanian marching band and a troupe of dog handlers in Poland will actually invade Russia is something you will have to ask them.
But just to make the point. Suppose NATO does promise that Ukraine will never be a member. They said that about Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria etc etc in the 1990's. There's only one way to guarantee Ukraine is not part of NATO and that's by being part of Russia.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Russians have built a mighty defensive shield of missiles armed with nuclear tipped warheads (they don't plan to shoot em down, they sort of plan to bomb em down but hopefully high enough up....) to stop attacks on Moscow. This might seem crazy to us but they have invested heavily on these defences, so a western attack on Moscow is clearly a possibility for them. Anything that would seem to make the defence of Moscow impossible is a worry. Putin keeps on going on about that the Ukraine will be given defensive missiles by US that then will become offensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_system
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As the submariners call it, Crazy Ivan. I've never understood (a) nuclear policy in general other than MAD which always seemed sensible, and worked or (b) Russia's actual as opposed to declared nuclear paranoia. You might be right.
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Grant
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The Russians are right to fear the Americans. In 1990 they were snubbed by Europe and the US, which have spent the last thirty years spreading lies about them. Putin genuinely doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO.
This problem, which has been created by the US neocons, could be solved by telling Putin that Ukraine will never join NATO and by showing the Russians a little respect. How hard would that be?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The Russians are right to fear the Americans. |
What, now?
| In 1990 they were snubbed by Europe and the US |
In 1990 Germany was snubbing Europe, the US and Russia by unifying. Russia was falling apart.
| which have spent the last thirty years spreading lies about them. |
Are we to have a list of these lies? I only ask because we live in an open society which makes official lying difficult.
| Putin genuinely doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO. |
Putin does not genuinely want anything apart from Putin's success.
| This problem, which has been created by the US neocons |
Who haven't been heard from since Iraq and Afghanistan blew up in their faces
| could be solved by telling Putin that Ukraine will never join NATO |
Except as you yourself have pointed out there is no reason for Russia taking such promises seriously.
| and by showing the Russians a little respect. How hard would that be? |
Hard.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I remember the 2012 Panorama screening of Stadiums of Hate......... filmed in Ukraine and Poland. At that time the BBC was presenting a less rosy picture of things in Eastern Europe.
| BBC wrote: | | Panorama spent a month filming at matches in both the joint host nations and witnessed Nazi salutes from the terraces, black players being taunted with monkey chants, rampant anti-Semitism and a vicious assault on a group of Asian students. |
Panorama then showed their footage to former England captain, Mr Sol Campbell, who advised them that Uefa should not have chosen the countries as hosts of such a prestigious event in the first place.
| Sol Campbell wrote: | | "Stay at home, watch it on TV. Don't even risk it… because you could end up coming back in a coffin." |
| Panarama wrote: | On 14 April at the Metalist stadium in Kharkiv in Ukraine - one of the host cities for Euro 2012 - massed ranks of as many as 2,000 fans in the terraces for a match between two of Ukraine's biggest teams gave the Nazi salute to their team.
Some fans at the match told the BBC that they were saying "Sieg Heil" because Hitler hated "Jews and blacks" and that is how they support their team. |
You can see why Sol was a tad worried.......
Anyway, where is Kharkiv situated? It was a predominantly Russian-speaking city about 30 miles from the Russian border and 300 miles from Kyev. Cripes, just behind the front line. The BBC has just been there again!
"People have joined the territorial defence, volunteers continue to go the warzone, all this is working," said Svitlana Gorbunova-Ruban, the deputy mayor of Kharkiv. "We are ready to defend our city in any situation and by all means."
Borys Redin has operated a kind of pro-Ukraine protest tent opposite the local government building since 2014
There is a lot here to defend - 38 universities, museums, a thriving tech sector and vibrant contemporary arts scene. The celebrated Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko just finished a three-week residency here.
"There was an explosion of art in Kharkiv when the war began," said Natalia Ivanova, director of the city's institute of contemporary art. "It was art of resistance, protest, non-acceptance."
Displaced artists and opera singers from Donetsk and Luhansk were invited to join theatre companies and opera productions in Kharkiv, said Svitlana Oleshko, a local theatre director. "They were welcomed in Kharkiv," she said. "This is a city of young people and they are more and more pro-Ukrainian and less and less Russian. They can see life in Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea and they don't want to live that way." |
They forgot the football stadium......with the fascists. Let's take another glimpse of a bar just outside.
| Panorama wrote: | | The whole bar was a shrine to far right extremism. They had Celtic crosses, swastikas and white power symbols. There was also an unhealthy obsession with Nazi Germany. |
It really depends on when your BBC report is filed, it's either a hotbed of patriotic Ukranian fascists or full of trendy arty opera goers signing up for heroic resistance.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I only discovered that Ukraine's second city has a Russian majority about a week ago which says something about the coverage. The western media ignores such things, not from any wish to mislead but because it 'spoils the story'.
One of the major Russian propaganda themes is that Ukraine is a hotbed of 'fascists'. The western media does go along with this because fascists are always good copy. And it is true as far as it goes because all anti-Soviet activity either was, or was on the same side as, fascism for so long and the Ukraine has been anti-Soviet for a very long time. Neither Russian nor western media ever mention that Far Right parties poll a couple of percentage points in Ukrainian elections.
As for football hooligans they are, as with all aspects of life, subject to the iron rule: social trends travel ten miles a year in an easterly direction [© M J Harper]. Ours were sieg heiling in the nineteen-seventies.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It seems to me that the big blunder from Ukraine was giving up the nuclear missiles that they had when Russia withdrew. Of course they had solid assurances from all, both East and West, that their sovereignty would be fully recognised and safeguarded if they got rid of the missiles. Perhaps something was missed in the small print.
Don't mention this at your CND meetings.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Not sure this is right. The Ukrainians then, like the British now, might have the nuclear hardware but not the software codes to fire them. I agree though on their general value. My position for the UK is to keep The Bomb but leave NATO. The opposite of the Ukraine position so it must be right.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Russians have announced troop withdrawals. This presumably means the sabre-rattling phase is over. (It may be a feint but Russians don't go in for subtlety.) Western commentators are all a-buzz with "Putin has got what he wanted/the world paying attention to him/succession of world leaders coming to Moscow to pay court/blah blah." What piffle.
If the sabre rattling phase is over, the Ukrainian crisis is over. Putin doesn't have anything else to rattle. Not only has he failed but he has failed perilously -- for Putin. Populist/nationalists don't last long after marching their troops to the top of the hill and marching them down again.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The most interesting development is the evacuation of the civilian population of the Donetsk pocket 'to Russia'. One need not take this to be an actual event but the discovery, after eight years of desultory shelling, of the dangers of desultory shelling, can only be on Russian instruction, so why?
Why now? Removing the civilian population from harm's way is not a Russian habit so it does not directly presage a Russian attack through the Donestsk pocket. As a card to be played in the war of nerves it hardly seems worth playing. The stuff about Ukrainians committing genocide on Ukrainian Russians has not been taken seriously even by the Russian media.
But it must mean something. Unusually, I am baffled.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Ukrainian refugees are waiting for up to twelve hours to cross the Polish border France 24 |
They've had months to get their tourist visas so they've only got themselves to blame.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Which reminds me. Whither Belarus? It is a clear act of war permitting another state to invade a third country from one's own territory so poor old President Lukashenko had better apply to rejoin the motherland while he's got the chance. What with Ukraine's application being processed as we speak, it's
All together shout it now
There's no one who can doubt it now
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Quite an interesting exchange over on medium.com. It started with a piece entitled
| War Is Bad I think it’s worth repeating, forever |
and went on to list how awful it is with special reference to Ukraine. Up popped an Applied Epistemologist of my acquaintance
| This is complete nonsense. War is neither good nor bad. It is a method of conflict resolution. If we didn't use it from time to time we would still be living up trees. |
to which somebody brightly and loyally opined
| I mean, as far as conflict resolutions go...I'd say it's pretty bad method. Logically, emotionally, financially, spiritually, pretty much all the ways. |
To which I replied (yes, it was me all the time)
| Again this is wrong (sorry, I’m just trying to resolve our dispute). It is a very good method when ‘who is prepared to suffer the consequences most’ is the way to decide. You’ll see. |
back he came
| Yea, that's the bad part. If things have gotten to the point where real violent suffering is on the table as an option at all, it's on the bad side of the scale that weighs decisions. There is no shortage of more civilized options. |
back I came
| Nope. They all ran out. I don’t make the rules. |
and it all finished with me getting my comeuppance
| You also lack imagination. | |
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