'I can take Kiev in two weeks', Vladimir Putin warns NATO leaders

[Matej]

While I generally agree with you, I do believe there are next to zero balanced articles. We have to accommodate the idea of balance by reading both extremes and use our own logic skills to figure out where in the middle the truth actually is. The problem usually has to do with our individual biases. The hardest aspect to this kind of problem solving is to remove biases such as nationalism which just get in the way. For example, I don't like Russians in general and Putin in particular, but, I get what he is trying to do. No matter how much I dislike Putin, there are many others that I dislike a lot more. The hard part is to factor out the likes and dislikes and focus on what makes the most sense on a grand scale.

If I focus on my dislike for Russia, my opinion becomes really worthless. Of course, it may be worthless anyway.

I think the problem here is like the US. Many don't like the US. Not the US people, but the government. Same is true here. It's not the Russian people who are causing the problems, it's their maniac leader.

Saying NO to Putin's regime and its propaganda is not Russophobia.

I love Russian literature, food ,especially borsch and many other things

[Matej]

There was a discussion about BRICS countries, on previous page. I don't want to start it again, here.

The West mainstream media informed about situation in IMF, WB ... many times.

Do you want NY times, The Economist, Washington Post crying, because the West is not listening to Chinese clan communist?

Putin has issues with IMF, so he attacked Ukraine and started war in Europe. Yes, I see logic in this, civilized approach.

And then he/you are wondering why no one listen to him.

[BATHIK]

From stratfor to our local strategists:

The Western View of Russia

In short, current US policies towards Russia are run by myopic fools, better informed approach is needed.

[watcharacters]

Take Kiev? Of course they can. But hold Kiev? Not a chance.

It's funny watching the news. "Is Libya threatened to be a failed state?" "Is Ukraine close to war?"

Fighter jets shot down everyday, commercial jet shot down (with no consequences), fighting in the streets, people executed, ambushes, soldiers captured, countries invaded. That's just in Ukraine/Russia.

ISIS destroying everything in it's path. America funding Israel to fight Hamas and Egypt. Ethnic cleansing across Africa.

All these years after world war 2, what do we have to show for? Fancy iPhones to update our statuses about how shit the world is.

World wide recessions, riots, kidnappings, beheadings and uprisings.

At what point can we say that we are living WW3?

I think most Ukrainians would like to live in Russia. Because the salaries are way higher and there is a lot social security.

Just Ukraine is economical complete rotten and it is complete corrupt. Putin don't want to finance it, or he would have to take so much money out of Russia that the Russians would be upset.

Adding the Eastern/Russian ethnic parts of Ukraine and leave the west with the debts is a lot smarter.

.

WOW,

What an interesting and totally unsubstantiated post.

Would you please validate it by a few links?

TIA

Edited September 12, 2014 by watcharacters

[Matej]

Modern anti-americanism has root in OSN, sadly.

Dag Hammarskjöld in 1953 - 61 and especially in seventies when African and South Asian dictators became members of OSN,

Bandung generation, for example Gamal Nasir, Moammar Kadafi and many others, not so knowm and famous ...

It has very little to do with American foreign policy

Edited September 12, 2014 by Matej

[lovetotravel]

From stratfor to our local strategists:

The Western View of Russia

In short, current US policies towards Russia are run by myopic fools, better informed approach is needed.

Agreed. And Russia is run by one individual. A megalomaniac.

[Publicus]

From stratfor to our local strategists:

The Western View of Russia

In short, current US policies towards Russia are run by myopic fools, better informed approach is needed.

The Russians lost the Cold War which not only was a fall, it was a hard and fast fall. The Russians splattered on the deck Wiley Coyote. Then the ruble collapsed, Russia defaulted and on top of that it snowed some more.

George Kennan and his generation set the goal posts and the goal lines for the Cold War policy of containment. Prez Kennedy and his generation in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 provided the steel. Prez Ronald Reagan put the USSR at the precipice. A strong gust from Poland blew the Russians off of it, into the abyss.

The Russians lost.

Maybe the Russians lost it or maybe America won it.

The bottom line however is that the Russians didn't win it.

If RasPutin doesn't blow us all up first, the end result of the Brics will be reforms of the global institutions of trade and finance.

Ukraine and Syria are inextricably linked and Syria is the better place to be decisive.

[BATHIK]

The Russians lost the Cold War which ...

A perfect example of people stuck in the Cold War - Post Cold War time warp Stratfor was talking about.

[Matej]

Russia is run by one individual. A megalomaniac.

So says you.

Putin champions a multipolar world, USA insists on its privileged status and dictates its wishes to everyone else in the world.

And the part about "run by one individual" is just ignorance. Yesterday Strelkov gave a press conference, read a statement and answered a few questions, 23 min video might be too long but anyone thinking that Russia is run by one man, Putin, is just wrong.

Igor Girkin is an outlaw, a fool separatist. No one cares what is he talking about or what he thinks.

His words mean nothing.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Matej

[BATHIK]

Igor Girkin is an outlaw, a fool separatist. No one cares what is he talking about or what he thinks.

Yeah, except he is an iconic figure who put the rebel army together and has a lot more authority among their fighters than anyone else. This is even more so for Russian public support where he is seen as an exemplary patriot and occasionally polls even higher than Putin.

As for "no one cares what he thinks" - he knows situation around Novorossia better than anyone else and he shared his insights. You, obviously, know everything better than google already and do not need any new information but some people might at least be curious.

[Matej]

Igor Girkin is an outlaw, a fool separatist. No one cares what is he talking about or what he thinks.

Yeah, except he is an iconic figure who put the rebel army together and has a lot more authority among their fighters than anyone else. This is even more so for Russian public support where he is seen as an exemplary patriot and occasionally polls even higher than Putin.

As for "no one cares what he thinks" - he knows situation around Novorossia better than anyone else and he shared his insights. You, obviously, know everything better than google already and do not need any new information but some people might at least be curious.

Igor Girkin is a Russian nationalist sanctioned by the West for his role in the insurgency in eastern Ukraine, a doll controlled by the FSB, GRU and the 'Ministry of Truth', which makes him nobody, really.

Novorossia? There's no such thing.

This word revived Vladimir Putin, but today it has no meaning.

Someone should finally tell Putin that there's a huge difference between nationality and ethnicity. Maybe his fascist counsellor Aleksandr Dugin.

Interesting thing is that Vladimir Putin helps to consolidate Ukraine, NATO and EU-USA relations, exact opposite of what he wanted.

BTW, Google is American company, it may bite you.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Matej

[Publicus]

The Russians lost the Cold War which ...

A perfect example of people stuck in the Cold War - Post Cold War time warp Stratfor was talking about.

You have missed that U.S. and Russian diplomats and assorted globalists have been interacting with each other since the latter 19th century partitions of China among the European Powers which of course included tsarist Russia..

Relations between the two countries go to the mid-19th century purchase of Alaska by Lincoln's Secretary of State (which is how the U.S. acquired most of its continental and extra-continental territory). For the USA that's a pretty deep history with a foreign government, especially for two countries that are actually remote from the other.

The U.S. with the Europeans sent forces to Russia to fight with the Whites in the civil war. FDR officially recognized the Soviet Russian state when he took office in 1933 to interact with Stalin to include WWII and up to the Cold War, which I happened to touch on in my post in the interests of saliency and brevity (so now look what you've done!).

Throughout the Cold War there were continuing voices hollering the Russian Soviets had outsmarted the USA and had hoodwinked Washington, London, Paris, that the crafty chess playing Russians had once again bamboozled the naïve USA and its puppet Europeans once again -- that Moscow took Washington to the cleaners in this and in that, and yet again in something else.

The fact is however when one examines each country's modern history, the Russians get the short end of the stick and decidedly so. The only rough parity between the two is in nuclear weapons, after that the Russians have to keep looking up at the horizon and strain themselves to do it.

Over the longer haul each country's leaders and its people have performed heroically and with great sacrifice, the Russians with far more suffering, far more personal and national pain and for a much longer time. Russia as the USSR was particularly odious. So it very clearly is a tough cycle for Russians to break and maybe someday they will break it. Unfortunately, present developments in this respect are just not encouraging.

Obama and Putin did manage to develop a working relationship to include Iran's nuclear programs and the Syria chemical weapons event just a year ago. Then factions in each country pursing their own agendas put Ukraine between them.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Publicus

[Publicus]

A doll controlled by three different masters? No aliens, though, so he got that going for him.

Novorossia was a Russian province until communists incorporated it into Ukrainian SSR. Putin resurrected that word for you, everyone in the region has been talking about it for months.

Here's an interesting comparison from early post-Maidan era between US hand in breaking up Yugoslavia and current situation in Ukraine. There's also a bit about communists arbitrarily drawing up borders.

Ukraine Bosnified, Putin Hitlerized

You know that one of google's founders, Sergey Brin, is Russian, right?

Right.

Saw the movie.

A little nationalism sometimes combined with ethnocentrism is a natural human impulse best given out in small doses, as in this instance.

Russian-American.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Publicus

[BATHIK]

Bla bla bla, something something, tl;dr, mnoga bukav, as they say in Russian, and then BOOM!

Obama and Putin did manage to develop a working relationship to include Iran's nuclear programs and the Syria chemical weapons event just a year ago. Then factions in each country pursing their own agendas put Ukraine between them.

Exactly. Current confrontation doesn't serve any country's interests. When Romney in 2012 suddenly called Russia America's biggest enemy no one took him seriously and then he lost the election but people who put this on his agenda somehow carried it through, it seems.

In all this Ukrainian mess Obama looks like a clueless guy was "also there" while the whole policy is formulated by someone else.

Example - Russian "invasion". First it was announced on Ukrainian Foreign Ministry twitter account. An hour later their president checked his twitter and declared it officially - Russian army is in Ukraine! Next day everyone was talking about it as a fact, and then Obama came out and quietly said "we haven't seen anything that wasn't there before" but no one listened to him - it has become a full scale invasion by Russian army, everybody knows.

For all the vitriol poured on Russia in the press and Nato summits and by all kinds of "world leaders", Obama himself remained remarkably restrained.

Sanctions are real though, one day someone will get his servings of karma for that.

Oh, and Soviet Union lost like half of its population and its most productive and industrialized western part in the WWII, which created an unequal start for the Cold War. The price of US victory, otoh, is runaway debt and it hasn't been paid, one day someone will come to collect. Russia, meanwhile is already back on its feet.

[doctorproc156]

Putin is turning out to be a dangerous crackpot and could easily provoke a serious world conflict that may also involve China jumping on the bandwagon with the Russians

IMO very dangerous indeed

I predicted a couple of years ago during the so called western financial crisis that a large scale war is a reset button - I would not be ruling it out - these things can escalate very quickly to a point of no return

I think you need to reconsider who the crack pot country really is.

[Publicus]

Putin is turning out to be a dangerous crackpot and could easily provoke a serious world conflict that may also involve China jumping on the bandwagon with the Russians

IMO very dangerous indeed

I predicted a couple of years ago during the so called western financial crisis that a large scale war is a reset button - I would not be ruling it out - these things can escalate very quickly to a point of no return

I think you need to reconsider who the crack pot country really is.

The Russia centric map is indeed bold. A Russian could get paranoid looking at it (if RasPutin hadn't made him/her so already....which Ras has In fact done).

I don't see a source, so where'd it come from? Who put it out, the Russian General Staff? There are three groups in Russia RasPutin has to keep reasonably happy and the Russian General Staff is one of them, as evidenced by Ukraine and Crimea to start with, not to mention the constant mention by Putin of Russia's huge nuclear arsenal on land and under the sea.

Aren't there a batch of new nuclear weapons subs currently being built? Oh, that's right, production of the 6 of 'em or is it 7 has been halted due to technical difficulties such as design and production deficiencies.

Back to the map.

The bases in East Asia are about China and North Korea. Japan has in fact just about completed the major shifting of its defense forces from being concentrated in the North islands due to Russia and North Korea to the South islands due to China and the CCP Boyz in Beijing, whose General Staff are quite upbeat these days.

South Central Asia, the Arabian Gulf and the ME are of course about Iran, counter terrorism and the like, the Strait of Hormuz etc. The Pentagon calls the area the U.S. Central Command.

Europe is armed to the teeth because somebody over on your side started a Cold War, a nuclear arms race, and now a shitload of trouble in Ukraine.

I'll have more to say next time I see the map.

[lovetotravel]

Igor Girkin is an outlaw, a fool separatist. No one cares what is he talking about or what he thinks.

Yeah, except he is an iconic figure who put the rebel army together and has a lot more authority among their fighters than anyone else. This is even more so for Russian public support where he is seen as an exemplary patriot and occasionally polls even higher than Putin.

As for "no one cares what he thinks" - he knows situation around Novorossia better than anyone else and he shared his insights. You, obviously, know everything better than google already and do not need any new information but some people might at least be curious.

He's a terrorist, like all the others. He's killing innocent civilians and arming the locals. What the Russian public knows about him is tightly controlled. He should be back in Russia, not in the Ukraine fighting their war, with Russian's complete support. Terrible.

[lovetotravel]

Bla bla bla, something something, tl;dr, mnoga bukav, as they say in Russian, and then BOOM!

Obama and Putin did manage to develop a working relationship to include Iran's nuclear programs and the Syria chemical weapons event just a year ago. Then factions in each country pursing their own agendas put Ukraine between them.

Exactly. Current confrontation doesn't serve any country's interests. When Romney in 2012 suddenly called Russia America's biggest enemy no one took him seriously and then he lost the election but people who put this on his agenda somehow carried it through, it seems.

In all this Ukrainian mess Obama looks like a clueless guy was "also there" while the whole policy is formulated by someone else.

Example - Russian "invasion". First it was announced on Ukrainian Foreign Ministry twitter account. An hour later their president checked his twitter and declared it officially - Russian army is in Ukraine! Next day everyone was talking about it as a fact, and then Obama came out and quietly said "we haven't seen anything that wasn't there before" but no one listened to him - it has become a full scale invasion by Russian army, everybody knows.

For all the vitriol poured on Russia in the press and Nato summits and by all kinds of "world leaders", Obama himself remained remarkably restrained.

Sanctions are real though, one day someone will get his servings of karma for that.

Oh, and Soviet Union lost like half of its population and its most productive and industrialized western part in the WWII, which created an unequal start for the Cold War. The price of US victory, otoh, is runaway debt and it hasn't been paid, one day someone will come to collect. Russia, meanwhile is already back on its feet.

Russia lost half of it's "conquered" population due to lousy policies. These nations are happy to free from the USSR. Russia lost nothing, but these countries became independent, again. In a free and fair referendum, Ukraine overwhelming voted to be independent, again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_independence_referendum,_1991

A referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991.^[1] An overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence made by the Verkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991.

As far as Russian vs. US economy, the US is doing quite well. A big debt, yes, but not the biggest percentage wise in the global economy. Russia's economy, OTOH, is not doing that great. For a variety of reasons. We do play in a global economy now. If you don't play nice, you'll pay the price.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/global-tensions-pose-risk-to-russian-economic-growth-says-central-bank-1410525001

Global Tensions Pose Risk to Russian Economic Growth, Says Central Bank Country on Track to Post Weakest Growth in a Decade

MOSCOW—Geopolitical tensions pose serious risks for Russia's economy, which, if accompanied by a drop in oil prices, may show nearly zero growth in the next three years, the Bank of Russia said Friday.

After draining more than $70 billion in net capital outflow in the first half of the year, Russia is on track to post its weakest growth in a decade, except for 2009 when the economy contracted amid the global crisis. Contrasting with an ambitious Kremlin call for an annual growth rate of 6%, sluggish economic performance may become a new reality for sanctioned Russia.

"Geopolitical problems on the back of exhaustion of traditional growth sources in the past years became a serious challenge for Russia's economic policy in general and the monetary policy in particular," Elvira Nabiullina, chairwoman of the country's central bank, said in a statement.

[BATHIK]

Lovetotravel, just for you:

Soviet Union lost like half of its population and its most productive and industrialized western part in the WWII,

You argued about post USSR time for no reason.

He's a terrorist, like all the others. He's killing innocent civilians and arming the locals. What the Russian public knows about him is tightly controlled. He should be back in Russia, not in the Ukraine fighting their war, with Russian's complete support.

Well, first of all, He IS back in Russia, has been for over a month and that presser was held in Moscow.

I would say that what you know about Strelkov has been far tighter controlled than what Russians know about him. What is this "tightly controlled" stuff anyway? Ever heard of the internet? A kind of global phenomenon where all sorts of information can be found with a few clicks? Even in Russia there's a whole range of opinions on his persona. Some vilify him, some praise him, some support him, some are happy he has been removed, some think he is nuts, some think he is nation's savior and so on.

And you using the word terrorist means you really know nothing about him, just an empty label ready to be stuck on anyone who disagrees with the you/the US.

This whole reaction to that video is ridiculous - the point was to to show what an influential man think, digest it, and update one's understanding of situation, not to discuss what YOU think of him. Just confirms my suspicion that some people might have closed their minds long long time ago and are averse to re-examining their views no matter what. I think the technical term for this is "brainwashed".

[lovetotravel]

As you well know, Russian media is all controlled by the government. Absolute lack of freedom of the press. Not sure how you could even argue about this. Heck, even here in Thailand there's no freedom of the press.

Talk about "brainwashed". Do some research on internet and media censorship in Russia. And please, don't read Russian sources.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russian-blogger-law-puts-new-restrictions-on-internet-freedoms/2014/07/31/42a05924-a931-459f-acd2-6d08598c375b_story.html

MOSCOW — Russia’s shrinking space for freedom of expression on the Internet is set to constrict further Friday, as tough regulations go into effect that will give Russian authorities powerful oversight over the country’s most-read online personalities, including opposition bloggers and politicians.

The restrictions come as some of Russia’s most prominent independent online news Web sites have been blocked or gutted in recent months, and at a crucial juncture in the Ukrainian conflict, which has raised tensions between Russia and the West to levels not seen since the Cold War. The Internet in Russia had long been a largely uncensored arena even as the nation’s television stations and newspapers toed an ­ever-stricter Kremlin line. The new regulations, bloggers and activists say, will encourage online self-censorship and will create new risks for those who advocate contrarian viewpoints.

The set of regulations coming into effect Friday is known here as the “blogger law” because it requires any person whose online presence draws more than 3,000 daily readers to register, disclose personal information and submit to the same regulations as mass media. Critics — including some pro-Kremlin lawmakers — say the rules are confusing, poorly written and hard to enforce consistently. But the end effect is to put large swaths of Russia’s prominent online personalities in theoretical violation of the law at all times, risking fines and other harassment whenever authorities decide to crack down, critics say.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/elisugarman/2014/03/27/russias-war-on-internet-freedom-is-bad-for-business-and-the-russian-economy/

Russia ranks poorly in global indexes of Internet freedom due to widespread censorship of online content and repeated violation of users’ rights, including criminal prosecution for blog posts critical of the government. Earlier this month, the Russian government took some of its boldest steps yet and blocked the independent news site of chess-champion and opposition figure Garry Kasparov as well as the very popular blog of well-known anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny.

'Nuff said.

[Pakboong]

As you well know, Russian media is all controlled by the government. Absolute lack of freedom of the press. Not sure how you could even argue about this. Heck, even here in Thailand there's no freedom of the press.

Talk about "brainwashed". Do some research on internet and media censorship in Russia. And please, don't read Russian sources.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russian-blogger-law-puts-new-restrictions-on-internet-freedoms/2014/07/31/42a05924-a931-459f-acd2-6d08598c375b_story.html

MOSCOW — Russia’s shrinking space for freedom of expression on the Internet is set to constrict further Friday, as tough regulations go into effect that will give Russian authorities powerful oversight over the country’s most-read online personalities, including opposition bloggers and politicians.

The restrictions come as some of Russia’s most prominent independent online news Web sites have been blocked or gutted in recent months, and at a crucial juncture in the Ukrainian conflict, which has raised tensions between Russia and the West to levels not seen since the Cold War. The Internet in Russia had long been a largely uncensored arena even as the nation’s television stations and newspapers toed an ­ever-stricter Kremlin line. The new regulations, bloggers and activists say, will encourage online self-censorship and will create new risks for those who advocate contrarian viewpoints.

The set of regulations coming into effect Friday is known here as the “blogger law” because it requires any person whose online presence draws more than 3,000 daily readers to register, disclose personal information and submit to the same regulations as mass media. Critics — including some pro-Kremlin lawmakers — say the rules are confusing, poorly written and hard to enforce consistently. But the end effect is to put large swaths of Russia’s prominent online personalities in theoretical violation of the law at all times, risking fines and other harassment whenever authorities decide to crack down, critics say.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/elisugarman/2014/03/27/russias-war-on-internet-freedom-is-bad-for-business-and-the-russian-economy/

Russia ranks poorly in global indexes of Internet freedom due to widespread censorship of online content and repeated violation of users’ rights, including criminal prosecution for blog posts critical of the government. Earlier this month, the Russian government took some of its boldest steps yet and blocked the independent news site of chess-champion and opposition figure Garry Kasparov as well as the very popular blog of well-known anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny.

'Nuff said.

You are aware that the last time a newspaper editor was executed for his editorial opinion, the USA and Russia were partners.

[lovetotravel]

Links????

[Pakboong]

Links????

Why would anybody need a link to one of the most famous trials and punishments in modern history? I certainly do not have links for every thing that I know and I have no plans to start.

It was Julius Striecher who was hung for his newspaper "Der Sturmer". He was convicted of "inciting racial hatred" in "der Sturmer". My point is: there never is "nuff said". There really is no freedom of the press and there actually never has been.

[lovetotravel]

Links????

Why would anybody need a link to one of the most famous trials and punishments in modern history? I certainly do not have links for every thing that I know and I have no plans to start.

It was Julius Striecher who was hung for his newspaper "Der Sturmer". He was convicted of "inciting racial hatred" in "der Sturmer". My point is: there never is "nuff said". There really is no freedom of the press and there actually never has been.

Never heard of him. And definitely not part of "modern" history. I guess it depends on your perspective.

Many journalists have been killed in Russia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern at the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors spoke of several dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities.^[1] The evidence has since been examined and documented in two reports, published in Russian and English, by international organizations.

А wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published in June 2009. At the same time the IFJ launched an online database^[2][3] which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993. Both the report Partial Justice^[4] (Russian version: Частичное правосудие^[5]) and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors, the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

I don't have time to research every one of these deaths, but I'd bet one was an editor. So definitely Julius was not the last.

And he is soooo far off topic, it's incredible.

[Publicus]

Links????

Why would anybody need a link to one of the most famous trials and punishments in modern history? I certainly do not have links for every thing that I know and I have no plans to start.

It was Julius Striecher who was hung for his newspaper "Der Sturmer". He was convicted of "inciting racial hatred" in "der Sturmer". My point is: there never is "nuff said". There really is no freedom of the press and there actually never has been.

" I certainly do not have links for every thing that I know and I have no plans to start."

No one needs to link everything one says but having a good sense of people's general knowledge is a good starting point in considering whether to provide a link(s).

I too had never heard of Julius Striecher, the Nazi propagandist convicted at Nuremberg and I'd bet that if we took a survey here it would confirm the point. If we took a survey of German journalists and/or publishers it would confirm the point (Striecher anyway was not a journalist). More specifically is the point that ThaiVisa.com is a general interest forum in Thailand populated primarily by a general population of expats and World War II was long ago.

Even if it's granted one has a vast and deep base of knowledge - which would be unlikely in any event - links to document our claims are necessary to support making one's case to lesser mortals. Particularly when one's base of knowledge is an obscure one.

[Publicus]

Bla bla bla, something something, tl;dr, mnoga bukav, as they say in Russian, and then BOOM!

Obama and Putin did manage to develop a working relationship to include Iran's nuclear programs and the Syria chemical weapons event just a year ago. Then factions in each country pursing their own agendas put Ukraine between them.

Exactly. Current confrontation doesn't serve any country's interests. When Romney in 2012 suddenly called Russia America's biggest enemy no one took him seriously and then he lost the election but people who put this on his agenda somehow carried it through, it seems.

In all this Ukrainian mess Obama looks like a clueless guy was "also there" while the whole policy is formulated by someone else.

Example - Russian "invasion". First it was announced on Ukrainian Foreign Ministry twitter account. An hour later their president checked his twitter and declared it officially - Russian army is in Ukraine! Next day everyone was talking about it as a fact, and then Obama came out and quietly said "we haven't seen anything that wasn't there before" but no one listened to him - it has become a full scale invasion by Russian army, everybody knows.

For all the vitriol poured on Russia in the press and Nato summits and by all kinds of "world leaders", Obama himself remained remarkably restrained.

Sanctions are real though, one day someone will get his servings of karma for that.

Oh, and Soviet Union lost like half of its population and its most productive and industrialized western part in the WWII, which created an unequal start for the Cold War. The price of US victory, otoh, is runaway debt and it hasn't been paid, one day someone will come to collect. Russia, meanwhile is already back on its feet.

"Oh, and Soviet Union lost like half of its population and its most productive and industrialized western part in the WWII, which created an unequal start for the Cold War."

Moscow's terrible misjudgment of the United States started the Cold War when Moscow in 1947 reneged its guarantee to hold elections in its occupied satellite state Poland. Starting the Cold War was Russia's worst idea since the inept Tsar Nicholas' decision to command his tattered armies in WWI resulted in events that led to his abdication. Enter Vladimir Lenin.

Yes the neocons had control of Romney's foreign policy proposals and yes they have managed to prevail over U.S. foreign policy despite Romney's 2012 loss to Prez Obama which had included Romney's assertion Russia was the number one enemy of the United States. If it looks like Romney might have been right it would only be because the neocons asserted themselves inside the Obama administration to prove their point about Russia.

Putin was never going to be the junior partner with Obama in managing the world order - Putin is junior partner to no one. So now Putin is trying to assert himself as leader of the Brics to challenge the world order by disordering it and trotting out his nuclear warheads. The Brics in the meantime are lying low.

Putin himself is displaying a lot of disorder that is mental, emotional, psychological.

[lovetotravel]

Another reason allowing rogue rebels to "control" a city is not a good idea:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/europe/detained-beaten-and-tortured-by-separatists-in-donetsk-ordeal.html

Detained, Beaten and Tortured by Separatists in Donetsk Ordeal

Although few people dare to talk openly about what is happening in the Donetsk region, extrajudicial abductions and detentions have become commonplace. Since demonstrations against the government in Kiev began in March, the region has evolved into a strange secessionist state run by a collection of pro-Russian political and military types, among them former Communists and K.G.B. men who have brought with them more than a hint of old Communist and Soviet methods.

Rebels fighters, most of them untrained volunteers, operate checkpoints on the roads and often detain people. Residents and former detainees say most checkpoints have underground pits to keep prisoners, who are made to do chores and dig trenches.

In a routine that is reminiscent of the worst of the Stalin era, women in Donetsk now gather at the corner of the Security Service headquarters, the successor of the K.G.B., to try to learn the fate of their missing sons and husbands. Once a day a list is brought out with the names of those being held.

Putin's legacy for the people of Ukraine.

[Pakboong]

Links????

Why would anybody need a link to one of the most famous trials and punishments in modern history? I certainly do not have links for every thing that I know and I have no plans to start.

It was Julius Striecher who was hung for his newspaper "Der Sturmer". He was convicted of "inciting racial hatred" in "der Sturmer". My point is: there never is "nuff said". There really is no freedom of the press and there actually never has been.

Never heard of him. And definitely not part of "modern" history. I guess it depends on your perspective.

Many journalists have been killed in Russia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern at the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors spoke of several dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities.^[1] The evidence has since been examined and documented in two reports, published in Russian and English, by international organizations.

А wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published in June 2009. At the same time the IFJ launched an online database^[2][3] which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993. Both the report Partial Justice^[4] (Russian version: Частичное правосудие^[5]) and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors, the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

I don't have time to research every one of these deaths, but I'd bet one was an editor. So definitely Julius was not the last.

And he is soooo far off topic, it's incredible.

If you need a more recent example about why there is no press freedom in the US, try Helen Thomas of Hearst. Helen was fired from the White House press corps for talking on the record about Israel. That event was just a few years ago. The point remains, there is no freedom of the press. Nothing leaves the daily press briefing without approval. Any member of the press corps who does not play that particular game will be fired. That does not seem like press freedom to me. There are countless others.

The topic of press freedom was not brought up by me. It does however pertain to this topic. The mainstream media has reported several times that 1,000 Russian troops have invaded Ukraine. Under conditions of the cease fire, there was no provision for these troops to exit Ukraine and move back to the Russian side of the border. Doesn't that seem odd? So, where are those Russians right now? There has been talk of volunteers and they may have been the basis for the allegations. I don't really know and apparently, no one else does either.

We are going to get a lot of misinformation from both sides, we have to figure out on our own what is the most believable. If you are a Nationalist, you will believe the side your country or the country which you most affiliate. I am more interested in the truth and I admit that I am not sure what the truth is right now. Just because your favorite newspaper says it, you still need to use common sense.

[Publicus]

My god.

Helen Thomas was a United Press International journalist in Washington for 57 years, from Presidents Eisenhower to Obama.

She was a first in almost everything female concerning American journalism. Helen Thomas was of Lebanese descent and at a cranky point of her life, in 2010 asked a question at the White House about the Arab-Israeli thing that's been going on for 2500 years. As Ms Thomas was well past the retirement age, other journalists down the pecking order took advantage of it.

Yet there are people with a limited knowledge base who I suppose naturally maintain there is no press freedom in the United States and that press freedom anywhere does not exist, never existed, and I'd figure won't ever exist if certain people have their own way. This sort of approach becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy in the minds of those who preach it.

It is a given there's propaganda or bias on each side so it's also a given we sort things out on our own. I assert that it's better to do this in Europe or the United States than it is in Russia where the state controls the media and the internet has recently come under new and draconian rules and restrictions.

It's a pretty straightforward matter in the U.S. to identify neocon MSM, from Fox to the WSJ to the Washington Post Editorial Board (not WP reporters). Looking at Russia it's easy to ID the mass of the media as state directed and to see very quickly which media are not but will soon be so.

Russia's independent media face crackdown

Kremlin's recent press restrictions amid Ukraine crisis have led to fears over a wider censorship policy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/russia-independent-media-face-crackdown-ukraine-2014320133346526434.html

Triumph of the will: Putin's war against Russia's last independent TV channel

Away from Ukraine, Kremlin is fighting a campaign that is part of rehashed agenda that sees media as propaganda automatons

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/10/putin-war-dozhd-russias-last-independent-tv-channel

Edited by Publicus for links & spacing

Edited September 14, 2014 by Publicus

[craigt3365]

Some good information here, but please, no more discussion of freedom of the press. The facts are well known, whether you accept them or not is another issue and not part of this topic. Plenty of websites out there that cater to these "conspiracy" theories. Ours is not one of them.