It says that Putin was his best man at his wedding, unless I misunderstood things. In any case, it is interesting, and one can certainly easily believe that most if not almost all folks in the Donbass would feel betrayed and used by Russia.
If he had merely been a fellow student, this video would not have been made by Shariy, the famous Ukrainian blogger.
it might be that guy mentioned in Putin’s autobiography, written as an interview with journalists…who ‘used’ to be a friend of Putin…but abandoned him…read the book…not hard to find…
Wrong, I supported the idea of not intervening, and see the value of keeping Minsk. But I think many in Moscow and those I feel wear rose-colored glasses on Russian-oriented websites do not see the downsides of Russian policies. Just about all cunning plans from the Kremlin. I have read or heard on YouTube from many in the Donbass and they do all feel used and betrayed. I understand both the Kremlin’s perspective and theirs.
The fact that many are so sensitive on such a widespread and obvious point just illustrates what I am saying. There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do. And not much constructive criticism of how Russia has played its hand since the coup.
It is a brutal world, but how will Russia’s possible allies in places such as Iran or China view how the Ukraine was handled? I don’t know, but one wonders if they won’t say that Russia uses ethnic Russians, so you can’t really trust a promise. It is not exactly a radical idea that the Kremlin is rarely coherent because the different factions have totally different goals or views. Thus the endless games over things like selling weapons to Iran or whether to help or hurt the regime in Kiev.
There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do.
IMHO, Russian predicament is due to the geography of the place, having too large area means having to many borders and overextended communication lines. In this technology age it may seems to be not so important but in the Russian history it certainly was. In a way it has lot of similarity and is the result of the split of Roman empire to East and West, the two headed eagle is quiet symbolical too.
“There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do. And not much constructive criticism of how Russia has played its hand since the coup.”
^That’s a Bullseye right there, Paul.
Echo chambers did no-one any good, ever (unless, of course, you’re on the side of plutocrats, that is…)
Echo chambers stifle debate, it never encourages it.
What we need is brain-storming not endless sycophancy.
I wonder which year it was when they were “childhood friends” because few years ago I met a Russian immigrant who told me that he went to school No193 of Leningrad together with Putin and also was doing Russian type of judo together with him in sport club Spartak, He never said that they were friends but he had great respect for Vlad both as sportsman and human.
Did you watch the video? It has long descriptions and photos and so on. He is not anti-Putin. He was proud of having known Putin. He just says that Putin went from strongly supporting the Donbass to letting them be used as a tool and that the locals all feel betrayed. He suspects that the Russian oligarchs got to Putin, as Putin himself is way too strong of a person to back down in a case of injustice done by a bully.
All the things he says are pro-Putin, with two possible exceptions. One is that Putin was pro-establishment back in Communist times. The other was that someone or something got to Putin to make him change his approach to the Donbass totally.
I have a vague memory that year and a bit ago Putin actually advised people of Donetsk and Lugansk not to go ahead with the referendum, that was before Kiev regime has started the war called “ATO”.
I wouldn’t brag about that. Many felt it was too late at that point and that Putin was making an insincere move to pretend to be uninvolved in the decision.
In other words, the Kremlin tried to play it both ways. Either they wanted a unitary state or they wanted independence for various regions. What they probably wanted in practice was to use the Donbass as leverage to force a deal with DC. Thus the never-ending neither-hot-nor-cold approach to building a state in the Donbass. This means that independence for Novorossiya is a fall-back position if the West won’t agree to terms Moscow finds acceptable. This is understandable, but it does mean that your maneuvering is not really sincere. I am not complaining about that, as the West has been far more insincere in its maneuvers.
I am upset too. Hundreds perhaps thousands had to die because of scum nazi.
Some argue it was all about that Russia should not intervene in Ukraine.
That should be done in early stage, massive and quick take over Ukraine with arrest of Poroshenko and other criminals. If they were brought to Criminal Court ( Russian ) it would be a warning to future revolutionaries supported by fagg*ts. ( Sorry for my English )
And your English is perfectly fine. Language main purpose is communication. Most ‘grammar-Nazis’ * forget that…
You communicated your thoughts to others, that’s all it matters.
re: Minsk II …Bless Marc Slevoda for setting the tone of the program ( Minsk II is an illusion) and for stating the obvious which by the way gets picked up at the end by another panelist; that is, no one has plan B. Let us hope that Mr. Putin surprises everyone again and cuts to the quick quickly.
Top marks for Marc as always, one of the few Russophiles who never let me down through this whole mess (and I’m still waiting for his naysayers to prove him wrong, but that’s another matter).
“no-one has a plan B”
^ Technically; Minsk II IS the plan ‘B’, hence: the number two/II in it.
Plan A was the first Minsk.
.
Good show, and Kudos to Peter to keep inviting Marc to Cross Talk.
Testifying in September 1985 as a witness at the trial of three Bulgarians and four Turks charged with complicity in the papal shooting in Rome, Catli (who was not a defendant) disclosed that he gave Agca the pistol that wounded the pontiff. Catli had previously helped Agca escape from a Turkish jail, where Agca was serving time for killing a national newspaper editor.
In addition to harboring Agca, Catli supplied him with fake IDs and directed Agca’s movements in West Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for several months prior to the papal attack. Catli enjoyed close links to Turkish drug mafiosi, too. His Grey Wolves henchmen worked as couriers for the Turkish mob boss Abuzer Ugurlu.
At Ugurlu’s behest, Catli’s thugs criss-crossed the infamous smugglers’ route passing through Bulgaria. Those routes were the ones favored by smugglers who reportedly carried NATO military equipment to the Middle East and returned with loads of heroin. Judge Carlo Palermo, an Italian magistrate based in Trento, discovered these smuggling operations while investigating arms-and-drug trafficking from Eastern Europe to Sicily.
Palermo disclosed that large quantities of sophisticated NATO weaponry — including machine guns, Leopard tanks and U.S.-built Cobra assault helicopters — were smuggled from Western Europe to countries in the Middle East during the 1970s and early 1980s. According to Palermo’s investigation, the weapon delivers were often made in exchange for consignments of heroin that filtered back, courtesy of the Grey Wolves and other smugglers, through Bulgaria to northern Italy.
There, the drugs were received by Mafia middlemen and transported to North America. Turkish morphine base supplied much of the Sicilian-run “Pizza connection,” which flooded the U.S. and Europe with high-grade heroin for several years.
[While it is still not clear how the NATO supplies entered the pipeline, other investigations have provided some clues. Witnesses in the October Surprise inquiry into an alleged Republican-Iranian hostage deal in 1980 claimed that they were allowed to select weapons from NATO stockpiles in Europe for shipment to Iran.
[Iranian arms dealer Houshang Lavi claimed that he selected spare parts for Hawk anti-aircraft batteries from NATO bases along the Belgian-German border. Another witness, American arms broker William Herrmann, corroborated Lavi’s account of NATO supplies going to Iran.
[Even former NATO commander Alexander Haig confirmed that NATO supplies could have gone to Iran in the early 1980s while he was secretary of state. “It wouldn’t be preposterous if a nation, Germany, for example, decided to let some of their NATO stockpiles be diverted to Iran,” Haig said in an interview. For more details, see Robert Parry’s Trick or Treason. ] https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/27/on-the-trail-of-turkeys-terrorist-grey-wolves/ ” ”
“The Assassination Attempt on Pope John Paul II” http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread413669/pg1 this was written in Nov. 21 / 2008 “
Thank you, Terry, your post is a great contribution. JFK and RFK were trying to crack down on the mob not because they were hypocrites (because of their father’s life in organized crime) but because they realized that the all-powerful drug trade coupled with the enormous power of the Teamsters, was not only running America, but was poisoning and destroying the American public, much as the Opium War poisoned and destroyed China. These two men truly were heroes who cared deeply about the American people.
Joseph Kennedy warned his son not to touch the Mafia, but JFK was determined to end the terrible social scourge of drug addiction that was destroying American families and corrupting the entire society from the justice system and police on down the line. One of the main reasons JFK wanted to end the Vietnam war was to put an end to the drug trade coming out of the Golden Triangle. But the drug trade out of the Golden Triangle was the CIA’s pet project and major source of funding, so, it’s not hard to see why JFK was a big nuisance to the intelligence community.
Putin and Lavrov and the Russian Military are not going to suddenly change course away from or substitute for Minsk 2.
They never do anything like that. Never.
Minsk 2 is the geopolitical equivalent of the boiler/cauldron.
This one has surrounded Germany and France along with their puppet/stooge/murderer Poroshenko.
If you understand what it means for the Ukraine, for the junta, for the EU, for NATO, then you would know Putin and Russia are not changing course.
If the war breaks out, Minsk 2 is not to blame. If Minsk 2 becomes moot because the war is finally so large and threatening to Russia, then you have another Georgia-South Ossetia. Putin will hit them so hard, with nukes displayed, as they were in 2008, so NATO is frozen out of the fray.
Now, let’s look at the calculus for Porky. He launches another broad offensive and destroys the Minsk 2 regime completely, and the response from Putin is destruction of the junta government. The infliction of Russian firepower to devastate the 60,000-75,000 Ukie army and adjunct forces will be epic.
Now, Porky, thus, will continue to violate, to eschew compliance, to delay his denouement.
Meanwhile, Donbass grows stronger, more independent, and a threat to the surrounding remainder of Novorossiya which must be more and more repressed. That leads to an explosive situation in many cities. As the economy of Ukraine fails and government is no more than a repression of the millions of people, all it will take for Russia to light that fuse at the proper time is some explosive devices and supplies of small arms.
One thing we know, the militia is very good at scouting. That means they can get enough men into position to set off uprisings.
Combined with polite green men inserted in critical positions the Ukie army will panic. They are ripe for psy-ops manipulation.
So, Minsk 2 is not an illusion. It is very real. It is shield of time to build the next level of force structure, to lure the Ukies into their final cauldron, and it reduces the death and wounded totals by a factor of 10x.
This is a war. Minsk 2 is not a Peace Treaty. It is a device. Too many people think a ceasefire protocol should work because the alternative is more death. Very few wars have lasting ceasefires. The guns go quiet when one side sues for peace or has it imposed on them because they have been defeated.
It is interesting that some people blame Putin and the Kremlin for the state of things. Is that the Russia they want? Another Hegemon that imposes its military power on any people anywhere?
Putin is light years ahead of the roundtable group beating their chests.
Mark Sleboda would have 50,000 Russian wounded and 10,000 Russian dead if he was President. And NATO would have won its goal of isolating Russia.
By the way, not one person anywhere who complains about Putin not “winning this in 3 days” had a clue of how to take Crimea without a gunshot, without one lost life. None of them would have even tried anything other than a massive war across all Ukraine. In fact, none of them where even thinking about Crimea when he pulled it off. Their eyes were on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. They were beguiled by Strelkov.
Yet, they bleat about Putin.
Putin is a f**king genius, as is Shoigu and the GRU, and FSB. Trust them. They know more and they know how this is going to end.
Combined with polite green men inserted in critical positions the Ukie army will panic. They are ripe for psy-ops manipulation.
NAF know how to remove insignia, actually. They had some nice non-camo dark rain jackets, too.
Putin is serious when he says he wants a unified Ukraine. That is the only way it acts as a barrier for Russia. The people really don’t like what they saw of being European.
With the current management, if the republics get special status — as they are now or a larger Novorossiya — the war goes on. Imagine a war-torn area rebuilt on proper principles, everything getting fixed, everyone working, reasonable pensions paid……… how long before people from the mismanaged hungry part start coming in? to steal and rob? to just make trouble out of anger or revenge? to bludge on the free medical care? to sell at markets but not pay taxes?
The republics themselves would have to build a wall, to keep the marauders out. But if the whole country has good management, the whole could get equally developed and improved at once. Galicia I don’t know about, they may need a fence to keep them in.
Anyway Putin is thinking one country but with good management. The current one has to have enough rope to hang itself, and that rope is made in Minsk.
True, Mark doesn’t seem to realize that he wants Putin to do a Hitler, which is a big big mistake, whether it was last March or now. At the same time, it is only natural that when you are under fire, as in Donbass, the people feel abandoned and betrayed. Who wouldn’t feel that way? In any case, Putin simply cannot act on his own if the Chinese veto it, and China is still very careful in its relations with the United States, and Mark does realize that Russia is confronted by asymmetric war on all fronts: Iran, Syria, Macedonia, Belarus, Caucasus, etc. etc. all over the globe all at the same time. It’s like trying to play dodge ball with Shiva.
I think a better comparison would be the US than Hitler.But even here it would be a real liberation not a “conquest” (not that I think they will invade). As for China’s “veto”.As important as good relations are with China.The needs of Russia’s security trump anyone else’s interests except Russia’s.
The Russian public is worried about a successor to Putin doing a Tsar Nicholas II, and rightly so. Right now, they feel like they are in safe hands with Putin. Obviously, the Russian public is deeply torn since they have relatives in Ukraine, and that’s why they are deeply upset with the wimpy Europeans who are letting all this happen.
You have one grand perspective on the situation, and I hope you are right. The alternative view, which has quite a few believers, is that Putin and Shoigu were behind the actions in the Crimea, but the Western and Russian oligarchs showed Putin the price that Russia would pay if a more forceful approach had been taken in the Donbass or Kharkov or Kiev or Odessa. Thus the total language, body language, and mood change in Putin last year. Do you really think Putin wanted to be quiet after the pogrom in Odessa? Face it – he had no choice. And thus the contradictory actions and statements within the Russian establishment. Just a day or two ago, Putin announced the end of gas discounts for Kiev and then the next day Medvedev said they would continue. This struggle within the Kremlin is very dangerous, and certainly looks bad. Putin is not a dictator; he has to keep the oligarchs on board, and they have money and family in the West, and their businesses often get financing from the West as the rates in Russia are absurd.
This is not a complaint about Putin being weak and not winning in three days. It is an opinion about how power works in Russia. Putin is not a dictator and can’t get rid of the Western control of the Russian banking system, nor can he get rid of all the neoliberals all over the place who just want the Ukrainian situation to go away and do not care about the Donbass one bit.
Mark was really excellent in this Crosstalk. He kicks ass. “Most obvious and egregious” John Conyers, ha ha! that was great! That is vintage John Conyers, by the way; the most skillful “progressive” politician in Congress. Gawd, he’s so obvious!
More importantly; “we will learn from ‘our’ mistakes”.
.
Q: Hey! Got a question for you over here: ‘When should ‘we’ hold the culprits/criminals responsible for their so-called mistakes?’
A: ‘Errr… Aaaah… ‘As I said before; ‘we’ should move on [quit living in the past, you relic] and we shall learn from “our” mistakes and set everything right in an undefined future… (maybe, maybe not, who knows…)’
I understand that many people feel betrayed that Putin did not interfere in Donbas. However, you still underestimate how grave the entire situation is. This is not just about Donbas. The USA government has now started to talk about obligatory military conscription. The same goes for some EU countries. Do you know what that means? They really want that WWIII. People still can’t believe that this could happen? And is Russia ready to fight against the entire West? The modernization of the Russian army is supposed to end only in 2020. Would China help, if Russia was labelled as an aggressor? But more and more I see that unfortunately WWIII will indeed happen, so Putin is doing everything right. He is staying out of Donbas for now, because he is preparing for the real thing, when all the hell will break loose. We all should prepare as well. Until that talk about military conscription in the USA, you could still believe that they just play. No, they don’t. They are really that much insane over the ocean.
Hi Datura … really good comment…I hope you’re wrong about the WWIII…sometimes we can get tunnel vision by looking at just what happening in East Europe…I came across an interesting pair of videos by a woman named Karen Hudes…here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhTvsDuP-rg…she’s definitely a maverick….but sometimes people who are doing good things are not easy to get along with…she might be one of these….but good for ‘another viewpoint’
Not sure if the Western financial oligarchy actually wants a big war or simply wants to subdue Russia. Putting a big military on the borders of Russia would help to create tension and force tough choices for the Kremlin. Economic, diplomatic, and otherwise. And the US wants Europe to spend a lot more on the military in the first place. Don’t forget that Anglo-American strategy is to break the economic links between Russia and Europe.
The other question is whether Russia’s approach to the Ukraine in the Donbass is best if one expects a big war in a couple of years. Those controlling Kiev will have more time to brainwash Ukrainians and build a military, or at least try. They have probably already cleaned out anybody of a pro-Russian bent in things like the police. On the other side of that debate are those who feel that Kiev will fall apart at some point due to economics or factional infighting. So we get back to the question of who has time on his side.
I think this interview with a childhood friend of Putin who now lives in the Donbass is worthwhile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AQt-FuDShc
Interesting how life goes. On the downside, his view is that just about everyone in the Donbass feels betrayed, which should come as no surprise.
I’m not in the Donbass, and I feel betrayed too! So, I can only imagine how those brave souls must be feeling…
-TL2Q
Was the man really Putin’s “childhood friend” or just a fellow student at school?
It says that Putin was his best man at his wedding, unless I misunderstood things. In any case, it is interesting, and one can certainly easily believe that most if not almost all folks in the Donbass would feel betrayed and used by Russia.
If he had merely been a fellow student, this video would not have been made by Shariy, the famous Ukrainian blogger.
it might be that guy mentioned in Putin’s autobiography, written as an interview with journalists…who ‘used’ to be a friend of Putin…but abandoned him…read the book…not hard to find…
Paul…the Minsk is holding on the pro-Russian side…they are only defending…but you obviously want more bloodshed…as if that helps….
Wrong, I supported the idea of not intervening, and see the value of keeping Minsk. But I think many in Moscow and those I feel wear rose-colored glasses on Russian-oriented websites do not see the downsides of Russian policies. Just about all cunning plans from the Kremlin. I have read or heard on YouTube from many in the Donbass and they do all feel used and betrayed. I understand both the Kremlin’s perspective and theirs.
The fact that many are so sensitive on such a widespread and obvious point just illustrates what I am saying. There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do. And not much constructive criticism of how Russia has played its hand since the coup.
It is a brutal world, but how will Russia’s possible allies in places such as Iran or China view how the Ukraine was handled? I don’t know, but one wonders if they won’t say that Russia uses ethnic Russians, so you can’t really trust a promise. It is not exactly a radical idea that the Kremlin is rarely coherent because the different factions have totally different goals or views. Thus the endless games over things like selling weapons to Iran or whether to help or hurt the regime in Kiev.
There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do.
IMHO, Russian predicament is due to the geography of the place, having too large area means having to many borders and overextended communication lines. In this technology age it may seems to be not so important but in the Russian history it certainly was. In a way it has lot of similarity and is the result of the split of Roman empire to East and West, the two headed eagle is quiet symbolical too.
@ Paul II
“There are rather few discussions of how Russia got into this predicament in the first place. Not what the West did, but what Russia did and didn’t do. And not much constructive criticism of how Russia has played its hand since the coup.”
^That’s a Bullseye right there, Paul.
Echo chambers did no-one any good, ever (unless, of course, you’re on the side of plutocrats, that is…)
Echo chambers stifle debate, it never encourages it.
What we need is brain-storming not endless sycophancy.
-TL2Q
I wonder which year it was when they were “childhood friends” because few years ago I met a Russian immigrant who told me that he went to school No193 of Leningrad together with Putin and also was doing Russian type of judo together with him in sport club Spartak, He never said that they were friends but he had great respect for Vlad both as sportsman and human.
Ben and Ann,
Did you watch the video? It has long descriptions and photos and so on. He is not anti-Putin. He was proud of having known Putin. He just says that Putin went from strongly supporting the Donbass to letting them be used as a tool and that the locals all feel betrayed. He suspects that the Russian oligarchs got to Putin, as Putin himself is way too strong of a person to back down in a case of injustice done by a bully.
All the things he says are pro-Putin, with two possible exceptions. One is that Putin was pro-establishment back in Communist times. The other was that someone or something got to Putin to make him change his approach to the Donbass totally.
I have a vague memory that year and a bit ago Putin actually advised people of Donetsk and Lugansk not to go ahead with the referendum, that was before Kiev regime has started the war called “ATO”.
I wouldn’t brag about that. Many felt it was too late at that point and that Putin was making an insincere move to pretend to be uninvolved in the decision.
In other words, the Kremlin tried to play it both ways. Either they wanted a unitary state or they wanted independence for various regions. What they probably wanted in practice was to use the Donbass as leverage to force a deal with DC. Thus the never-ending neither-hot-nor-cold approach to building a state in the Donbass. This means that independence for Novorossiya is a fall-back position if the West won’t agree to terms Moscow finds acceptable. This is understandable, but it does mean that your maneuvering is not really sincere. I am not complaining about that, as the West has been far more insincere in its maneuvers.
anon..get a name.
I am upset too. Hundreds perhaps thousands had to die because of scum nazi.
Some argue it was all about that Russia should not intervene in Ukraine.
That should be done in early stage, massive and quick take over Ukraine with arrest of Poroshenko and other criminals. If they were brought to Criminal Court ( Russian ) it would be a warning to future revolutionaries supported by fagg*ts. ( Sorry for my English )
I, for one, agree with your post, noreply@thankyou.com :)
And your English is perfectly fine. Language main purpose is communication. Most ‘grammar-Nazis’ * forget that…
You communicated your thoughts to others, that’s all it matters.
-TL2Q
[*] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grammar+Nazi
re: Minsk II …Bless Marc Slevoda for setting the tone of the program ( Minsk II is an illusion) and for stating the obvious which by the way gets picked up at the end by another panelist; that is, no one has plan B. Let us hope that Mr. Putin surprises everyone again and cuts to the quick quickly.
Top marks for Marc as always, one of the few Russophiles who never let me down through this whole mess (and I’m still waiting for his naysayers to prove him wrong, but that’s another matter).
“no-one has a plan B”
^ Technically; Minsk II IS the plan ‘B’, hence: the number two/II in it.
Plan A was the first Minsk.
.
Good show, and Kudos to Peter to keep inviting Marc to Cross Talk.
-TL2Q
Here is some very interesting reading ”
Testifying in September 1985 as a witness at the trial of three Bulgarians and four Turks charged with complicity in the papal shooting in Rome, Catli (who was not a defendant) disclosed that he gave Agca the pistol that wounded the pontiff. Catli had previously helped Agca escape from a Turkish jail, where Agca was serving time for killing a national newspaper editor.
In addition to harboring Agca, Catli supplied him with fake IDs and directed Agca’s movements in West Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for several months prior to the papal attack. Catli enjoyed close links to Turkish drug mafiosi, too. His Grey Wolves henchmen worked as couriers for the Turkish mob boss Abuzer Ugurlu.
At Ugurlu’s behest, Catli’s thugs criss-crossed the infamous smugglers’ route passing through Bulgaria. Those routes were the ones favored by smugglers who reportedly carried NATO military equipment to the Middle East and returned with loads of heroin. Judge Carlo Palermo, an Italian magistrate based in Trento, discovered these smuggling operations while investigating arms-and-drug trafficking from Eastern Europe to Sicily.
Palermo disclosed that large quantities of sophisticated NATO weaponry — including machine guns, Leopard tanks and U.S.-built Cobra assault helicopters — were smuggled from Western Europe to countries in the Middle East during the 1970s and early 1980s. According to Palermo’s investigation, the weapon delivers were often made in exchange for consignments of heroin that filtered back, courtesy of the Grey Wolves and other smugglers, through Bulgaria to northern Italy.
There, the drugs were received by Mafia middlemen and transported to North America. Turkish morphine base supplied much of the Sicilian-run “Pizza connection,” which flooded the U.S. and Europe with high-grade heroin for several years.
[While it is still not clear how the NATO supplies entered the pipeline, other investigations have provided some clues. Witnesses in the October Surprise inquiry into an alleged Republican-Iranian hostage deal in 1980 claimed that they were allowed to select weapons from NATO stockpiles in Europe for shipment to Iran.
[Iranian arms dealer Houshang Lavi claimed that he selected spare parts for Hawk anti-aircraft batteries from NATO bases along the Belgian-German border. Another witness, American arms broker William Herrmann, corroborated Lavi’s account of NATO supplies going to Iran.
[Even former NATO commander Alexander Haig confirmed that NATO supplies could have gone to Iran in the early 1980s while he was secretary of state. “It wouldn’t be preposterous if a nation, Germany, for example, decided to let some of their NATO stockpiles be diverted to Iran,” Haig said in an interview. For more details, see Robert Parry’s Trick or Treason. ] https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/27/on-the-trail-of-turkeys-terrorist-grey-wolves/ ” ”
“The Assassination Attempt on Pope John Paul II” http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread413669/pg1 this was written in Nov. 21 / 2008 “
Thank you, Terry, your post is a great contribution. JFK and RFK were trying to crack down on the mob not because they were hypocrites (because of their father’s life in organized crime) but because they realized that the all-powerful drug trade coupled with the enormous power of the Teamsters, was not only running America, but was poisoning and destroying the American public, much as the Opium War poisoned and destroyed China. These two men truly were heroes who cared deeply about the American people.
Joseph Kennedy warned his son not to touch the Mafia, but JFK was determined to end the terrible social scourge of drug addiction that was destroying American families and corrupting the entire society from the justice system and police on down the line. One of the main reasons JFK wanted to end the Vietnam war was to put an end to the drug trade coming out of the Golden Triangle. But the drug trade out of the Golden Triangle was the CIA’s pet project and major source of funding, so, it’s not hard to see why JFK was a big nuisance to the intelligence community.
Terry,OT….. I’m reading the inconvenient Indian…really good….reminds me of Palestine somehow….
Have you read Howard Zinn ? “The People’s History of the United States”…its fabulous about the Natives in America
Zbigniew Brzezinski big plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpzJI9Yew90
Putin and Lavrov and the Russian Military are not going to suddenly change course away from or substitute for Minsk 2.
They never do anything like that. Never.
Minsk 2 is the geopolitical equivalent of the boiler/cauldron.
This one has surrounded Germany and France along with their puppet/stooge/murderer Poroshenko.
If you understand what it means for the Ukraine, for the junta, for the EU, for NATO, then you would know Putin and Russia are not changing course.
If the war breaks out, Minsk 2 is not to blame. If Minsk 2 becomes moot because the war is finally so large and threatening to Russia, then you have another Georgia-South Ossetia. Putin will hit them so hard, with nukes displayed, as they were in 2008, so NATO is frozen out of the fray.
Now, let’s look at the calculus for Porky. He launches another broad offensive and destroys the Minsk 2 regime completely, and the response from Putin is destruction of the junta government. The infliction of Russian firepower to devastate the 60,000-75,000 Ukie army and adjunct forces will be epic.
Now, Porky, thus, will continue to violate, to eschew compliance, to delay his denouement.
Meanwhile, Donbass grows stronger, more independent, and a threat to the surrounding remainder of Novorossiya which must be more and more repressed. That leads to an explosive situation in many cities. As the economy of Ukraine fails and government is no more than a repression of the millions of people, all it will take for Russia to light that fuse at the proper time is some explosive devices and supplies of small arms.
One thing we know, the militia is very good at scouting. That means they can get enough men into position to set off uprisings.
Combined with polite green men inserted in critical positions the Ukie army will panic. They are ripe for psy-ops manipulation.
So, Minsk 2 is not an illusion. It is very real. It is shield of time to build the next level of force structure, to lure the Ukies into their final cauldron, and it reduces the death and wounded totals by a factor of 10x.
This is a war. Minsk 2 is not a Peace Treaty. It is a device. Too many people think a ceasefire protocol should work because the alternative is more death. Very few wars have lasting ceasefires. The guns go quiet when one side sues for peace or has it imposed on them because they have been defeated.
It is interesting that some people blame Putin and the Kremlin for the state of things. Is that the Russia they want? Another Hegemon that imposes its military power on any people anywhere?
Putin is light years ahead of the roundtable group beating their chests.
Mark Sleboda would have 50,000 Russian wounded and 10,000 Russian dead if he was President. And NATO would have won its goal of isolating Russia.
By the way, not one person anywhere who complains about Putin not “winning this in 3 days” had a clue of how to take Crimea without a gunshot, without one lost life. None of them would have even tried anything other than a massive war across all Ukraine. In fact, none of them where even thinking about Crimea when he pulled it off. Their eyes were on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. They were beguiled by Strelkov.
Yet, they bleat about Putin.
Putin is a f**king genius, as is Shoigu and the GRU, and FSB. Trust them. They know more and they know how this is going to end.
I sincerely hope you are right.Even though I have some doubts.But if you are wrong,then I lose too.So as I said, I sincerely hope you are right.
Combined with polite green men inserted in critical positions the Ukie army will panic. They are ripe for psy-ops manipulation.
NAF know how to remove insignia, actually. They had some nice non-camo dark rain jackets, too.
Putin is serious when he says he wants a unified Ukraine. That is the only way it acts as a barrier for Russia. The people really don’t like what they saw of being European.
With the current management, if the republics get special status — as they are now or a larger Novorossiya — the war goes on. Imagine a war-torn area rebuilt on proper principles, everything getting fixed, everyone working, reasonable pensions paid……… how long before people from the mismanaged hungry part start coming in? to steal and rob? to just make trouble out of anger or revenge? to bludge on the free medical care? to sell at markets but not pay taxes?
The republics themselves would have to build a wall, to keep the marauders out. But if the whole country has good management, the whole could get equally developed and improved at once. Galicia I don’t know about, they may need a fence to keep them in.
Anyway Putin is thinking one country but with good management. The current one has to have enough rope to hang itself, and that rope is made in Minsk.
True, Mark doesn’t seem to realize that he wants Putin to do a Hitler, which is a big big mistake, whether it was last March or now. At the same time, it is only natural that when you are under fire, as in Donbass, the people feel abandoned and betrayed. Who wouldn’t feel that way? In any case, Putin simply cannot act on his own if the Chinese veto it, and China is still very careful in its relations with the United States, and Mark does realize that Russia is confronted by asymmetric war on all fronts: Iran, Syria, Macedonia, Belarus, Caucasus, etc. etc. all over the globe all at the same time. It’s like trying to play dodge ball with Shiva.
I think a better comparison would be the US than Hitler.But even here it would be a real liberation not a “conquest” (not that I think they will invade). As for China’s “veto”.As important as good relations are with China.The needs of Russia’s security trump anyone else’s interests except Russia’s.
The Russian public is worried about a successor to Putin doing a Tsar Nicholas II, and rightly so. Right now, they feel like they are in safe hands with Putin. Obviously, the Russian public is deeply torn since they have relatives in Ukraine, and that’s why they are deeply upset with the wimpy Europeans who are letting all this happen.
You have one grand perspective on the situation, and I hope you are right. The alternative view, which has quite a few believers, is that Putin and Shoigu were behind the actions in the Crimea, but the Western and Russian oligarchs showed Putin the price that Russia would pay if a more forceful approach had been taken in the Donbass or Kharkov or Kiev or Odessa. Thus the total language, body language, and mood change in Putin last year. Do you really think Putin wanted to be quiet after the pogrom in Odessa? Face it – he had no choice. And thus the contradictory actions and statements within the Russian establishment. Just a day or two ago, Putin announced the end of gas discounts for Kiev and then the next day Medvedev said they would continue. This struggle within the Kremlin is very dangerous, and certainly looks bad. Putin is not a dictator; he has to keep the oligarchs on board, and they have money and family in the West, and their businesses often get financing from the West as the rates in Russia are absurd.
This is not a complaint about Putin being weak and not winning in three days. It is an opinion about how power works in Russia. Putin is not a dictator and can’t get rid of the Western control of the Russian banking system, nor can he get rid of all the neoliberals all over the place who just want the Ukrainian situation to go away and do not care about the Donbass one bit.
Mark was really excellent in this Crosstalk. He kicks ass. “Most obvious and egregious” John Conyers, ha ha! that was great! That is vintage John Conyers, by the way; the most skillful “progressive” politician in Congress. Gawd, he’s so obvious!
It’s time to move on!
^LoL
More importantly; “we will learn from ‘our’ mistakes”.
.
Q: Hey! Got a question for you over here: ‘When should ‘we’ hold the culprits/criminals responsible for their so-called mistakes?’
A: ‘Errr… Aaaah… ‘As I said before; ‘we’ should move on [quit living in the past, you relic] and we shall learn from “our” mistakes and set everything right in an undefined future… (maybe, maybe not, who knows…)’
-TL2Q
interesting article on the effects of corruption/incompetence on supplying of the Ukie military
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-shot-in-back.html
I understand that many people feel betrayed that Putin did not interfere in Donbas. However, you still underestimate how grave the entire situation is. This is not just about Donbas. The USA government has now started to talk about obligatory military conscription. The same goes for some EU countries. Do you know what that means? They really want that WWIII. People still can’t believe that this could happen? And is Russia ready to fight against the entire West? The modernization of the Russian army is supposed to end only in 2020. Would China help, if Russia was labelled as an aggressor? But more and more I see that unfortunately WWIII will indeed happen, so Putin is doing everything right. He is staying out of Donbas for now, because he is preparing for the real thing, when all the hell will break loose. We all should prepare as well. Until that talk about military conscription in the USA, you could still believe that they just play. No, they don’t. They are really that much insane over the ocean.
Hi Datura … really good comment…I hope you’re wrong about the WWIII…sometimes we can get tunnel vision by looking at just what happening in East Europe…I came across an interesting pair of videos by a woman named Karen Hudes…here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhTvsDuP-rg…she’s definitely a maverick….but sometimes people who are doing good things are not easy to get along with…she might be one of these….but good for ‘another viewpoint’
Take care Datura…
Not sure if the Western financial oligarchy actually wants a big war or simply wants to subdue Russia. Putting a big military on the borders of Russia would help to create tension and force tough choices for the Kremlin. Economic, diplomatic, and otherwise. And the US wants Europe to spend a lot more on the military in the first place. Don’t forget that Anglo-American strategy is to break the economic links between Russia and Europe.
The other question is whether Russia’s approach to the Ukraine in the Donbass is best if one expects a big war in a couple of years. Those controlling Kiev will have more time to brainwash Ukrainians and build a military, or at least try. They have probably already cleaned out anybody of a pro-Russian bent in things like the police. On the other side of that debate are those who feel that Kiev will fall apart at some point due to economics or factional infighting. So we get back to the question of who has time on his side.
Not sure if the Western financial oligarchy actually wants a big war…
“nobody wanted war, war was inevitable”
I also wonder if timing of this confrontation to the centenary of the Great War was accidental???