News from Ukraine Conflict

[Gusington]

And the neighbors always take it in the keister.

[LongBlade]

Putin gave a (largely unnoticed) speech a few days ago. Personally it sounds more like BS than any real vision, but he is attempting to sound relevant.

The Russian blogger chipstone summarized the most salient points from Putin speech as follows:

1. Russia will no longer play games and engage in back-room negotiations over trifles. But Russia is prepared for serious conversations and agreements, if these are conducive to collective security, are based on fairness and take into account the interests of each side.

2. All systems of global collective security now lie in ruins. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all. And the entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.

3. The builders of the New World Order have failed, having built a sand castle. Whether or not a new world order of any sort is to be built is not just Russia's decision, but it is a decision that will not be made without Russia.

4. Russia favors a conservative approach to introducing innovations into the social order, but is not opposed to investigating and discussing such innovations, to see if introducing any of them might be justified.

5. Russia has no intention of going fishing in the murky waters created by America's ever-expanding "empire of chaos," and has no interest in building a new empire of her own (this is unnecessary; Russia's challenges lie in developing her already vast territory). Neither is Russia willing to act as a savior of the world, as she had in the past.

6. Russia will not attempt to reformat the world in her own image, but neither will she allow anyone to reformat her in their image. Russia will not close herself off from the world, but anyone who tries to close her off from the world will be sure to reap a whirlwind.

7. Russia does not wish for the chaos to spread, does not want war, and has no intention of starting one. However, today Russia sees the outbreak of global war as almost inevitable, is prepared for it, and is continuing to prepare for it. Russia does not war—nor does she fear it.

8. Russia does not intend to take an active role in thwarting those who are still attempting to construct their New World Order—until their efforts start to impinge on Russia's key interests. Russia would prefer to stand by and watch them give themselves as many lumps as their poor heads can take. But those who manage to drag Russia into this process, through disregard for her interests, will be taught the true meaning of pain.

9. In her external, and, even more so, internal politics, Russia's power will rely not on the elites and their back-room dealing, but on the will of the people.

article and speech in full: http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2014/10/putin-to-western-elites-play-time-is.html?m=1

[BanzaiCat]

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Putin's about as non-sinner as they come in that case.

[GDS_Starfury]

you asshole!  you broke my sarcasm-meter.

[Gusington]

I for one welcome our new/old Soviet Overlord. It's sad on all counts, really. The fall of the USSR was a golden opportunity for the world and it's just been squandered by everyone.

[LongBlade]

Our current leadership has left the world in a vacuum.

Nature abhors a vacuum and something always tries to replace it.

Russia, however, is not up to that task.

Putin has forgotten that every four to eight years US foreign policy gets an overhaul. The last time the world was left in flames by a US president was Carter. What happened after that?

Putin had best tread lightly.

[Steelgrave]

I wish I saw a Reagan on the horizon. Then again, someone may rise up. Either way, it has to be an improvement over our current administration.

[LongBlade]

I wish I saw a Reagan on the horizon. Then again, someone may rise up. Either way, it has to be an improvement over our current administration.

Reagan was a two-bit washed up actor.

Patience, and shuffle the cards.

[Centurion40]

Reagan was a two-bit washed up actor.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

The nice thing about actors, they can follow their script.

The question is what will be on the next script?

[Centurion40]

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-05/ukraine-truce-in-peril-as-russia-is-warned-on-sanctions.html

Ukraine's east was lurching back toward open war as the government in Kiev and pro-Russian rebels accused each other of launching major offensives in the region.

The Ukrainian government said there were 26 outbreaks of fighting today between its forces and pro-Russian separatists in the country's east, while the rebels said the Kiev government had launched a major offensive there.

Ukrainian troops are sticking to the cease-fire worked out two months ago and are "staying at their previous positions," the military press office said in a statement on its Facebook page. It said three Ukrainian servicemen were killed in today's fighting.

Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency quoted Andrei Purgin, deputy premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, as saying that Ukraine had begun a large-scale offensive against the separatists in the eastern part of the country. Purgin said he sees "all-out war" and claimed Ukrainian forces had broken the Sept. 5 truce, according to RIA.

[Steelgrave]

I think LB is just trying to get our goat  ::)  Either that or he's more butt-hurt over the Aquaman jokes than we thought  ;)

[BanzaiCat]

The nice thing about actors, they can follow their script.

The question is what will be on the next script?

Why, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, porn star and five-time ultimate smackdown wrestling champion!

[LongBlade]

I think LB is just trying to get our goat  ::)  Either that or he's more butt-hurt over the Aquaman jokes than we thought  ;)

No, I'm not really either one of those.

Reagan, at least to my young eyes at that time, wasn't well known as a national player. Yeah, he'd been governator but his seriousness as a player (at least earlier in the primaries if my faded memory serves correctly) was being questioned and sometimes mocked.

My point is less to disparage Reagan than it is simply to say this: Reagan didn't look too much different in 1978 than the current crop of hopefuls. I'm not saying that a Reagan-like leader is destined to emerge, but I am saying that one *could* emerge from the current crop of prospects.

So don't despair.

[Con]

I dont get this Reagan foreign policy love fest

I was over in Europe and the middle east at the time Reagan was president and believe me it was not good to see what he was doing. 

He escalated the cold war to dangerous levels with a nuclear power (only thorough some claim divine intervention did we not have WWIII due to flocks of birds lighting off the NORAD system or Able Archer 1983)
Vetoed the anti-apartheid act against S. Africa
Supported a notorious strong man Suharto in Timor with arms sales despite huge revelations of torture and genocide on his own people (est 500,000 killed)
Circumvented congressional proscription to provide aid to anti communist mercenaries in the Iran Contra affair by selling arms to the Iranians (who were burning our flags etc)
Offered to provide the UK navy a loan out of the USS Iwo Jima to the British during the Falkland invasion and violated the US Monroe Doctrine all while keeping his own state department in the dark about this.

The point here is to not say that any president makes bad choices (they all do its the nature of the beast) but to deify Reagans foreign policy is looking at it with rose colored glasses and revisionist history.  Give it 30 years from now and I bet that the vitriol, rhetoric and opinion on Obamas policy will be very different from what you hear and see right now in our 24 hour echo chamber of everyones an expert and wants instant answers and solutions to all of the worlds problems.  Just like it was with Reagan then versus now.

Con