NP - Krugman: Petrothoughts (Via Kevin Drom)

[alice malice]

While Mr. Putin exaggerates, so too do the West and the US, all are
fibbing about the Russian military invasion.

All these lies will play into the Ukraine hand and into the plan of the US

 as the Ukraine will get, from a US that has just elected a Right of
center government and is further shifting right, more military,
economic, and political support from the US and the West.

 Kiev knows that the US and Europe are selling the Ukraine as
important and that the perception of a hostile Russia is a step
towards Ukraine's integration into European economic and security
structures, into a client state of the United States. Ukraine is our
new South Korea.

Welcome back Cuba! We missed you.

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:56 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> It doesn't much matter anyways, the Ukraine is not important and the
> Crimea less so, what matters is that the US has decided to end the
> stranglehold Russia has on  European Energy and Europe and quite a few
> other areas of the globe, including Africa and Japan, have agreed to
> the US plan. And it will work. All else is just Mr Putin playing his
> domestic Russian popularity card at this point.
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:09 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thomas,
>>
>> Annexing, invading, or just being neighborly, Russia has been thus very
>> active in spades in Crimea.
>>
>> Russian invasion of Ukraine is fact beyond semantics in the reality I see.
>> Good or bad, it is fact.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, December 18, 2014, Thomas Eckhardt
>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for the olive branch, David. I am sure that we can
>>> discuss this in a civil manner, keeping in mind that one person's truth
>>> is another person's propaganda.
>>>
>>> I don't expect you to reply to this. Just had to get it off my chest once
>>> more and practice my English.
>>>
>>>> Resolution 758 is a statement against Russia's annexing Eastern
>>>> Ukraine. Any further analysis is nitpicking.
>>>
>>>
>>> Except, of course, Russia did not annex Eastern Ukraine.
>>>
>>> You are mixing up the two talking points which are
>>> ceaselessly being rammed down our throats: "Russia's annexation of Crimea"
>>> and "Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine".
>>>
>>> One cannot understand any of this without looking again at what happened
>>> in Kiev in February.
>>>
>>>
>>> Maidan
>>>
>>> There were legitimate pro-European
>>> protests against a corrupt, albeit democratically elected
>>> president.
>>>
>>> The support of various Western politicians,
>>> among them members of government, for the protesters,
>>> however, amounted to meddling in the internal affairs of
>>> another country in violation of international law.
>>>
>>> The protests were then hijacked by ultra-nationalists and
>>> right-wing extremists, mainly under the black and red
>>> banner of the "Right Sector" (a group consisting
>>> of various paramilitary right-wing organisations including the neo-Nazi
>>> "Patriot of Ukraine").
>>>
>>> These people escalated the
>>> protests, and it is almost certain that some of them committed the mass
>>> murder of about 70 peaceful protesters and policemen alike by snipers in
>>> order to
>>> sabotage the agreement of February 20 (there can be no absolute certainty
>>> because the Ukrainian government has
>>> obstructed the investigations from the beginning).
>>>
>>> It worked. The incensed crowd rejected the agreement
>>> negotiated between the opposition parties (including the fascist Svoboda),
>>> Yanukovich and the foreign ministers of France,
>>> Poland and Germany and witnessed by the special envoy of
>>> the Russian Federation. The militias then took over government
>>> buildings and adorned them with wolf's hooks, Celtic
>>> crosses and posters of their hero Stepan Bandera. Yanukovich fled in fear
>>> for his life.
>>>
>>> What would the agreement of February 20
>>> have provided for? Amongst other things:
>>>
>>> -The formation of a national unity government within 10
>>> days by the Signatories.
>>>
>>> -That the authorities and the opposition refrain from the
>>> use of violence.
>>>
>>> -Presidential elections no later than December 2014
>>>
>>> -The handing over of illegal weapons within 24 hours.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/agreement-on-the-settlement-of-crisis-in-ukraine-full-text
>>>
>>> Sounds sensible to me.
>>>
>>> The mass murder on Maidan nixed that agreement. Yanukovich was impeached
>>> in violation of the Ukrainian constitution. A new,
>>> interim government was established and immediately acknowledged by the
>>> West.
>>>
>>> New Prime Minister Yatseniuk had been Victoria Nuland's candidate all
>>> along as is evidenced by the famous "F*** the EU" phonecall.
>>>
>>> The interim government was a Banderist government
>>> including right-wing extremists (Svoboda). I use the term
>>> "Banderist" because nowadays it seems to include the more
>>> moderate nationalists as well as the neo-Nazis. If you want to know more
>>> about Stepan Bandera and, more generally, about relations between the U.S.
>>> and Ukrainian Nazi collaborateurs, I recommend:
>>>
>>> http://www.archives.gov/iwg/reports/hitlers-shadow.pdf
>>>
>>> The common denominator of Banderists, from Tymoshenko's "Fatherland"
>>> party to the fascist Svoboda, is hatred for Russians and
>>> Russia.
>>>
>>> Eastern Ukraine is very close to Russia culturally and
>>> geographically, and there are huge ethnic Russian majorities.
>>> These people had voted Yanukovitch and his "Party of
>>> Regions" into office. Despite this fact, as far as I can see, they were
>>> for the most part as fed up with him as their compatriots in Western
>>> Ukraine. I suspect they would have been able to live with a
>>> government of national unity. They could not live with a
>>> Banderist government.
>>>
>>> Especially not after the
>>> events in Odessa on May 2 where at least 48 peaceful
>>> federalists/separatists were murdered by nationalist
>>> hooligans and neo-Nazis.
>>>
>>> You may have heard of this. It was called "a tragedy" in every respectable
>>> Western news outlet. The culprits were rarely named.
>>>
>>> So people in Eastern Ukraine began to occupy town halls etc. In this
>>> they were supported -- and here is some gratis information for you,
>>> to use at your convenience -- by Russians, among them quite unsavoury
>>> characters and even Russian fascists.
>>>
>>> Whether these people came on orders from the Russian
>>> government or not is debatable. They deny it.
>>>
>>> None of which should take away from the fact that the course of action
>>> taken in Eastern Ukraine was a direct result of events in Kiev. It was a
>>> reaction.
>>>
>>> And because it was a reaction to a coup/revolution it obviously had more
>>> moral legitimacy to it than the violent protests on Maidan against a
>>> democratically elected president. In other words:
>>> If you think the ouster of Yanukovich was legitimate despite violating
>>> the constitution you need to grant at least this kind of moral
>>> legitimacy to the Eastern Ukrainian rebellion as well.
>>>
>>> The Ukrainian government rejected the Russian suggestion
>>> to negotiate with the rebels, probably on the initiative
>>> of the U.S., and started its so-called anti-terror
>>> operation, meaning that it began killing its own people.
>>>
>>> This seems to be a serious crime when Assad does it
>>> but the only sensible course of action when Poroshenko does it.
>>>
>>> From then on, when Western media and politicians talked about
>>> "Ukrainians", "territorial sovereignity" "the will of the Ukrainian people"
>>> etc. they only referred to the ones who supported Maidan, mainly Western
>>> Ukrainian nationalists etc. But the people in Eastern Ukraine are also
>>> Ukrainians.
>>>
>>>
>>> Crimea
>>>
>>> After the Banderist coup/revolution in Kiev, the autonomous republic
>>> Crimea decided to have a referendum. The overwhelming majority voted for
>>> secession from Ukraine and accession to the Russian Federation.
>>>
>>> From a legal perspective, this course of action violated the
>>> principle of territorial integrity enshrined in
>>> international law but was in accordance with the right to
>>> self-determination also enshrined in international law. Kosovo might
>>> serve as a comparison -- only that there was no referendum in Kosovo
>>> even though Obama has falsely claimed there was.
>>>
>>> Russian soldiers from the Black Sea Fleet stationed in Crimea under
>>> long-standing contracts with the Ukrainian government prevented the
>>> Ukrainian army from interfering with the process. This was illegal, but it
>>> prevented bloodshed.
>>>
>>> From a non-legal perspective, which is the perspective you have on Maidan,
>>> the matter is clear: The overwhelming majority of the people in Crimea
>>> agreed with the secession/accession --
>>>
>>>> Bottom line, the invasion was not justified by any real threat to
>>>> anyone.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- and they certainly did not regret their choice when
>>> they saw what happened to the civilians
>>> of whatever persuasion in Eastern Ukraine (the remains of
>>> a football-playing teenager in a bucket, anyone? clusterbombs?).
>>>
>>> Most importantly, from my perspective, there were only two
>>> casualties on Crimea. One Ukrainian soldier and one pro-Russian
>>> activist were shot, probably by a young sniper from Maidan.
>>>
>>> If you want to call this "Russia's annexation of Crimea", so be it. But
>>> you should at least acknowledge the circumstances I addressed: the right to
>>> self-determination, the undisputable fact that the majority was in favour of
>>> secession/accession, the lack of bloodshed.
>>>
>>>
>>> Eastern Ukraine
>>>
>>> As for "Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine", I point you
>>> to this nice piece by Dmitri Orlov, "How can you tell
>>> whether Russia has invaded Ukraine?"
>>>
>>>
>>> http://cluborlov.blogspot.de/2014/08/how-can-you-tell-whether-russia-has.html
>>>
>>> You do not believe that Russian troops have marched into
>>> Eastern Ukraine with tanks and air support, do you?
>>> Because this has not happened.
>>>
>>> What has happened and continues to
>>> happen is that Russia supports the federalists/separatists
>>> by means of Russian soldiers "on holiday", logistics,
>>> intelligence, certainly also, though as yet unproven, tanks
>>> and heavy weapons. All in all, Russia is conducting a covert war in
>>> reaction to the Western-backed coup/revolution in Kiev. Putin has stated
>>> frankly on German television that Russia will not allow the rebels to fail.
>>>
>>> Not nice, but certainly no reason for the U.S., of all nations, to get its
>>> knickers into a twist.
>>>
>>> Especially so, I repeat, as Russia only reacts to what it perceives as an
>>> existential threat. The outcome of the anti-terror operation of the
>>> Ukrainian government could be the stationing of nuclear missiles along
>>> Russia's borders.
>>>
>>> Russia has also consistently, from the agreement of February 20 to this
>>> day, stated that it does not want to annex Eastern Ukraine and supports
>>> federalisation. Russia has also consistently been arguing for talks between
>>> the rebels in Eastern Ukraine and the government in Kiev.
>>>
>>> Of course, Russia may be lying.
>>>
>>> Kiev did not want to negotiate. Instead the government sent troops and
>>> "volunteer battalions" against the rebels. When Poroshenko at some point
>>> seemed inclined to prolong the then existing ceasefire, the neo-Nazis
>>> threatened him with another Maidan. The slaughter continued.
>>>
>>> Now more than 4,000 people are dead, among them many civilians, and a
>>> million people displaced (800,000 of them went to Russia).
>>>
>>> One has to stretch the meaning of "invasion" beyond breaking point to be
>>> able to claim that Russia has invaded Eastern Ukraine. But certainly
>>> Russians have been meddling in Eastern Ukraine from the start, and certainly
>>> the Russian government does support the separatists. Still, the aggression
>>> against Eastern Ukraine did not start in Moscow, it started in Kiev.
>>>
>>>
>>> So, West good, Russia bad? I don't think so. It is a difficult and
>>> dangerous situation which should be de-escalated as quickly as possible in
>>> order to save lives and prevent further escalation.
>>>
>>> Resolution 758 does exactly the opposite. Along with Obama's and Cameron's
>>> unbelievable statements that "Ebola, Russian aggression and ISIS" are the
>>> greatest threats to world peace, the resolution is an example of
>>> particularly reckless warmongering.
>>>
>>> As far as the media coverage of the conflict is concerned: We have always
>>> been at war with Eastasia.
>>>
>>> Thomas
>>>
>>>
>>> P.S. I don't fear Nazis, I hate them. The Western media have constantly
>>> downplayed the neo-Nazi threat in Ukraine. But these people are not on the
>>> sidelines, no matter what the media tell you. It was them that toppled
>>> Yanukovich, and it is them that spearhead the "anti-terror operation" --
>>> which was originally directed by Andriy Parubiy, co-founder of the, yes,
>>> Social-Nationalist Party.
>>>
>>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l