In Ukraine, Cyber War With Russia Heating Up 256
concertina226 writes "If you think the crisis in the Ukraine is limited just to being just on the ground, think again. A cyberwar is flaring up between Ukraine and Russia and it looks like just the beginning. On Friday, communication centers were hijacked by unknown men to install wireless equipment for monitoring the mobile phones of Ukraine parliament members. Since then, Ukrainian hackers have been defacing Russian news websites, while Russia's Roskomnadzor is blocking any IP addresses or groups on social media from showing pro-Ukraine 'extremist' content."
Adds reader Daniel_Stuckey: "On the other side of the border, RT — the news channel formerly known as Russia Today and funded by the state — had its website hacked on Sunday morning, with the word 'Nazi' not-so-stealthily slipped into headlines. Highlights included 'Russian senators vote to use stabilizing Nazi forces on Ukrainian territory,' and 'Putin: Nazi citizens, troops threatened in Ukraine, need armed forces' protection.' RT was quick to notice the hack, and the wordplay only lasted about 20 minutes."
Finally, as noted by judgecorp, "The Ukrainian security service has claimed that Russian forces in Crimea are attacking Ukraine's mobile networks and politicians' phones in particular. Meanwhile, pro-Russian hackers have defaced Ukrainian news sites, posting a list of forty web destinations where content has been replaced. The pro-Russians have demonstrated Godwin's Rule — their animated GIF equates the rest of Ukraine to Nazis."
Memories (Score:2)
This is beginning to remind me of the annexation of Czechoslovakia, let's hope this time around the Western powers will have enough spine to stand up to the dictator in stead of encouraging him with appeasement. We are gettign to the point where threatenign to move a few NATO divisions to the Urainian border would seem appropriate, at least that was the only thing that seemed to work on Hitler.
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This is beginning to remind me of the annexation of Czechoslovakia, let's hope this time around the Western powers will have enough spine to stand up to the dictator in stead of encouraging him with appeasement. We are gettign to the point where threatenign to move a few NATO divisions to the Urainian border would seem appropriate, at least that was the only thing that seemed to work on Hitler.
We moved F-22s and submarines carrying hundreds of nuclear warheads toward the conflict area.
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"Annexation" of Kosovo? Tell me, what country is Kosovo now a part of? The only country I'm aware of that doesn't recognize Kosovo's independence is Serbia, and that's because they claim Kosovo is still a part of *them*.
The irony (Score:2)
Does any seee the orony in the Ukranians using Molotov cocktails?
Putin was Spanked by Global Markets (Score:2)
I predict that threats of economic sanctions and actual real-time market forces will bring this to a resolution in about a month.
(Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about.)
Anyone?
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Makes sense. If Russia really decides to push into non-Russian territory things could get really nasty - Afghanistan 2.0. The Soviet Union couldn't handle that, and Russia is only a shadow of the former superpower.
Calls for a 2nd order correction to Godwin's Rule (Score:3)
I.e. the exception to the rule: If faced with actual military invasion the comparison to Nazis is no longer prohibited.
In Cyber, Ukraine War With Russia Heating Up (Score:2)
In the decade-old video game "Lock On: Modern Air Combat", Russia invades Crimea.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.c... [jalopnik.com]
Colin Gray talks about cyber warfare... (Score:2)
...in Another Bloody Century [militarypr...glists.com]. He kind of pooh-poohs it as some of the other commenters here have done, saying that it plays a small part but is mostly an annoyance.
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:4, Informative)
Comparing to Nazis? Really?
Yes, really.
TFS got it wrong though, making the comparison to Godwin's law. This is a particularly offensive piece of propaganda that goes above and beyond mundane internet stupidity, given historical events (see: Great Patriotic War) and the particularly heavy price that Ukraine paid in WW2, likely worse than any European nation not called Poland.
Calling someone a Nazi is a special level of insult in the Slavic countries.
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:4, Insightful)
The comparison is apt.
Shortly after hosting an Olympic Games filled with nationalistic posing and bluster, the megalomaniacal leader of a dictatorship ordered his armed forces to invade a neighboring country for their "protection".
It is in fact a perfectly apt comparison of the situation as history repeating itself.
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I was referring to the insults being directed Ukraine's way as being particularly offensive, not the other way around, though of course there are few worse things you can call a Russian than 'fascist'.
As far as the comparison, it's not all that apt. Russia in 2014 is a vastly different place than 1938's Germany, Putin is not Hitler, the Crimea is not the Sudetenland, and the other Great Powers have not signed off on his actions.
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One other difference: The economy in Russia took a BIG punch to the face due to the offensive. The ruble and the Russian stock market paid dearly for this.
I do fear a remake of "The Guns of August", but these are different times. Back then, people thought economic interdependence would keep war from breaking out. I wonder if it will be the case today.
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The Russian stock market is already recovering, though.
And you know what's funny? It's seeing a lot of trades... but whoever is buying those stocks back is not the ones that held it before the conflict. The holders of those stocks before the conflict were mostly foreign investors, once you discount the government of Russia itself. If the new holders turn out to be Russian, well... it might well be the first time in history that a war in Europe was threatened and almost provoked to fill some pockets with a l
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However many things are indeed eerily similar. Putin really does have immense power. Putin really does say that Russia should use military power to protect Russian speaking minorities in other countries.
And it's not Crimea which is a parallel to Sudetenland, it is eastern Ukraine which has had a few centuries of Russification (mostly in cities though).
Parallels do fall down though in many other ways. Ie, Czechoslovakia did not have a disliked president who fled the country taking $70 billion with him.
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Yes, the WW2 analogies are forced. However when Putin first said the bit about defending Russian citizens wherever they are, plus passing out Russian passports in Crimea, that just instantly made an association with Sudetenland. For awhile I thought I was the only once who picked up on this since I hadn't heard any other mention of it (I was going to ask a Czech coworker what he thought), but then this week it seems lots of people have been noticing the connection.
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And these were the majority of peoples? They were undoubtedly far outnumbered by the "we want Putin" militants. It is possible to be anti-Russian without being fascist.
actually ... (Score:2)
... a qualitatively signifficant (although maybe not quantitatively) part of protesters were indeed self declared fascist extremists, most of them openly nazi-sympathetic, so that's not a comparison at all, and it has nothing to do with godwin's rule. however unfortunate, it just reflects facts. check your sources.
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This was a very small fraction of protesters, though they did tend to be the protesters who stuck it out the longest. Even then of this small minority, extremely few of them were pro-Nazi, that is mostly Russian propaganda that can not figure out that the war is over and that those who cooperated with the Nazis did so in order to survive or fight back against Stalin who was even more feared.
In most of Europe, east and west, when the economy starts to suck then the neo-nazis start to become more common.
Cert
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And yet it is an insult that Russians like to toss out at central European peoples who aren't fans of Russia.
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The problem is during WW2, Ukrainian nationalists sided with the Nazis. So while it is insulting for most Slavic nations, it's a bit hard to say the same for the Ukraine because there still is the same nationalistic mindset, with strong support for Stepan Bandera [wikipedia.org] and the groups who carried out massacres [wikipedia.org].
The western media isn't really covering this fact, while the Russian media is dwelling exclusively on this. So no matter what, people are getting a skewed outlook on what has been happening, but one thing fo
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever the merits of claiming that government asked Russia for help, that government is no longer in power. The former president has been impeached as per Ukraine's constitution and the new government is within its rights to request foreign troops leave its sovereign territory.
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Whatever the merits of claiming that government asked Russia for help, that government is no longer in power. The former president has been impeached as per Ukraine's constitution and the new government is within its rights to request foreign troops leave its sovereign territory.
Unfortunately that's completely irrelevant. He was voted on to be impeached, but all that means is he's summoned to trial; constitutionally he still retains all the powers granted the President. In the meantime, the French, German, and US ambassadors to Ukraine negotiated a deal with the opposition and Ukrainian Parliament that stripped Yanukovich of his power and gave it all to the Parliament, which is a direct violation of the Ukrainian Constitution; they are not allowed to do that. Now you have a situ
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From what I understand, the impeachment vote vacated the presidency, with new elections in May. I'm no expert on Ukraine's constitution, but what I read suggests Parliament was within its rights. Furthermore, Yanukovich pulled a James II and fled into Russia hands, thus effectively vacating his position.
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That is not correct. Impeachment is solely the official accusation of crimes directed at the official. It only strips powers when he is removed from office, which can only happen during a trial and decision made by the Constitutional Court.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ukraine,_2010
See Article 108 and 111; 108 says the powers go away "once removed via the process of impeachment", and 111 says that removal only occurs once the Court has made a decision, not during the vote of impeachment.
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And just how important is that constitution, practically speaking? And what was done was to basically reinstate constitutional amendments that existed in 2010, undoing changes that gave the president too much power. So maybe they are not "allowed" to do that, but pragmatically they just did it. So it's old constitution versus new constitution. And Putin is not stepping in as some holy savior of written documents either, or abiding by existing laws in Crimea.
There were new elections scheduled, then the p
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Interesting)
And even more, even if Janukovych were the ruling president, he would not have the right to request foreign troops, as that prerogative belongs only to the Supreme Council. But hey, Russia never cared much about validity of their excuses for invasion. And remember: they used the very same excuse on 1939-09-17 when invading Poland.
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a parliamentary vote to impeach him. At least by the English translation of Ukraine's constitution that I read, that's how it's done. Sure the lawmakers may have felt a lot of pressure to do so, but the forms were obeyed, even if in a ragged and somewhat bloody way.
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What does the parliament in Crimea have to do with this? And as other posters have pointed out, Yanukovych was abandoned by members of his own party. The Parliament of Ukraine, as authorized by the Ukraine constitution, voted to remove Yanukovych from power. We can debate all day whether they felt forced by the protesters, but that is the facts. No one prevented Yanukovych's supporters in Ukraine's parliament from voting, so your whole point is false.
Get over it. The removal of Yanukovych was constitutional
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Was parliament disbanded? Most of the same people who are there now were there previously.
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Many members were threatened not to vote, others have been ousted by the mob. I'll have to dig for sources, but it's fresh enough where a google search should work. While this [rt.com] link is to RT (subject to bias) this shows a different view of what's happening than US media. This is why I suggested to look at both pieces media and look toward the middle. RT and Al Jazeera both have completely different "news" from the Western AP.
Before you say it, yes I read each source as biased and try to do a bit of resea
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the parliament threw him out. The mob never did anything but protest and get shot at, until members of his own former party stopped supporting him, making room for a majority against him. The new government is as legally elected as the former! There was never any revolution, just protests, that triggered insane behavior from the president that let to him losing his parliamentarian basis.
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He left. He surprised the existing government by leaving suddenly while negotiations were ongoing. A lot of money has gone missing over the years and I think he decided it was time to cut and run before he could be held criminally responsible. His supporters were no longer voting the way he wanted and the writing was on the wall. It certainly was not a coup. If he had lost the election I'm certain he felt that the opposition would have imprisoned him in the exact same way that he imprisoned/poisoned th
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you misunderstand me. Frankly I think Russia's annexation of Crimea is a fait accompli, and I think the EU and the US knew it all along. They're gamble, I suspect, is that Crimea will be sufficient coin to buy Russia's acquiescence to the rest of Ukraine moving westward (so to speak). It strikes me that that is Russia's view as well, as it seems to have contented itself with putting Russian forces in a position to negate any real action by Ukraine military forces.
In other words, I'm not blind to real politik. At the same time, territorial integrity has been a rather large theme in the international sphere since the Allied Powers agreed to the creation of the United Nations during WWII. Sure, it hasn't been uniformly applied; there have been effective secessions, civil wars and the like, but in general, the idea of military forces entering a region of a sovereign state and annexing it has been viewed as a breach of international peace. In the case of Crimea, Russia was a signatory to an agreement guaranteeing Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine giving up the nuclear arsenal that it had inherited after the collapse of the USSR, so I think it's pretty firm that the occupation of Crimea and the clear intent to annex it into the Russian Federation breaks international law on a number of counts.
But, as I said, I think it's a fait accompli, and I think the end of this story was written weeks, if not months ago. Russia will agree to restrict itself to "protecting" Crimea. There will be a referendum in Crimea that will inevitably lead to Crimea either being annexed proper into Russia, or being given a sufficiently strong autonomous status that Ukraine will permanently lose it. The forms of diplomacy have to be obeyed, so Western leaders and foreign ministers will wring their hands and cry foul, even though everyone knew how this would end.
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I don't annexation is necessarily guaranteed. If enough pressure it put, the question will be put to vote, and with only a small majoriy of Russian speakers in Crimea, it is stastically implausible they would ever have a full majority to join the Russian federation. It would only take 10% of the russian speakers to consider themselves russian-speaking ukrainians or simply prefer a less corrupt government (the recent protests were also support by many russian speaking ukrainians).
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If enough pressure it put, the question will be put to vote, and with only a small majoriy of Russian speakers in Crimea, it is stastically implausible they would ever have a full majority to join the Russian federation.
I disagree with your assertion that Russians make up a small majority of population of Crimea. In the Wikipedia article on Crimea [wikipedia.org] it states that 58% of the population is ethnic Russians and 24% are Ukrainian. Crimea was traditionally Russian territory. It was only given to Ukraine quite recently: 1954.
I believe that Russia will have control of Crimea no matter what. The navy bases in the city of Sevastopol are far too strategical to lose.
And who is going to oppose them when majority of population are ethnic
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58% Russian speakers in 2001, and 12% Crimerian Tartars. In 1991 there was 0% Crimerian Tartars. It is likely more have returned since 2001, and more Ukranians have moved there as well.
Even with 60% Russian-speaking Crimerians, it still only takes 20% of them to consider themselves Russian-speaking Ukranians, or prefer a less corrupt government, and a fair election would never lead to joining the Russian federation. Of course a lot of the conflict in Ukraine has been about election fraud by the pro-russian
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On the other hand, Crimea has only been a part of Ukraine for a relatively short period of time. The current majority of Russian speakers is also a relative new demographic as well, since Stalin deported the Tatars. It has changed hands many times in recent centuries, with a quite varied demographic.
Overall the biggest problem in former Soviet countries, and even within Russian federation members, is the long history of Russification that has been going on from the time of the czars and continued during t
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The logistics involved here aren't impossible, obviously islands like Hawaii, Iceland, Great Britain or Ireland can survive by shipping in food, fuel, and goods from elsewhere. But the Ukraine can shut off the flow o
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also the fact that the troops Russia sent in were all wearing masks, had no identifying insignia of any kind on their uniforms, and appear to be well equipped and highly trained. To me, it seems that Putin has likely taken the ouster of his lapdog and the loss of a potential client state personal. He has also quickly eroded any international goodwill Russia might have obtained by taking in Snowden, as well as potentially set a dangerous precident by saying Russia has a right and duty to protect the Russian-speaking people in the Crimea. Can Germany now do the same thing? How about the US? Does Iran now have the right to invade the US to protect Persian-speaking people? Putin is playing a dangerous game, and he is really exhibiting a lot of the characteristics Hitler and even Stalin did, including the cult of personality over the last few years.
Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure anybody was ever fooled by the "local militiamen" who just happened to organize themselves into a cohesive force and acquire uniforms and decent military equipment in less than half a week. It was immediately obvious that they were russian soldiers - the "real" local militiamen (as in, truly a militia) look like your average hastily put together group without uniforms.
The fact alone that those soldiers are unidentified makes it a war crime (As stated in the Geneva Conventions). If this ever gets to trial (ha!) and is considered war, we already have a war crime before a single shot was fired.
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The fact alone that those soldiers are unidentified makes it a war crime (As stated in the Geneva Conventions). If this ever gets to trial (ha!) and is considered war, we already have a war crime before a single shot was fired.
Agreed. Unidentified soldiers are a flagrant violation of the conventions. In theory in any combat they would not be afforded the rights of the conventions either.
That said, at least they're in some kind of uniform. That beats having people in civilian clothes mounting guerrilla attacks.
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Article 5 of the 3rd Geneva convention defines 'lawful combatant'. Uniforms are required if you want Geneva convention protections.
The main point of a uniform is to identify what side you are on. Simply wearing green does not qualify if that is not the standard uniform of your force.
Black pajamas was the 'uniform' of the VietCong. But that only worked because they didn't have another uniform already.
In almost all military forces, if you remove the insignia you are 'out of uniform'.
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Being critical is one thing. Organising an army is another.
You mean to tell me those russian-speaking guys with russian military equipment and russian uniforms and russian vehicles are in fact locals?
If so, you're the ignorant one here.
Protip: The locals look like your average militia. AKs and rather liberal uniforms.
I'd also like to see where your weapons claims are coming from. Only very late did the protests escalate beyond throwing rocks (in the grand scheme, isolated incidents aside). And guess what? S
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I think Putin overstepped out of anger, and I hope that he currently realizes that. Although he got away with it with only minor grumbling in the west when he took disputed regions away from Georgia, Ukraine is a much bigger country without such a convenient geography. It will likely be easy to take and hold Crimea, however it would be extremely dificult to invade eastern Ukraine without great political, economic, and military cost.
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Re:extremist comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same token, justifying one dubious or illegal act by bringing up another strikes me as a pretty flawed argument. That the US invaded Iraq in 2003 doesn't mean Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 is appropriate.
This is exactly the tit-for-tat Great Power games that lead to WWI... The US, I think, has come to deeply regret the Iraq invasion, which happened a decade ago under an entirely different Administration.
If only nations as pure as the driven snow could call out infamous acts by other nations, there would be virtually no one to complain.
re (Score:2)
-"justifying one dubious or illegal act by bringing up another"
i don't hink the comment is justifying anything, it just draws a comparison. (n.b.: only saw the quote, smart folks at beta seem convinced that i can't mentally handle posts below -1)
-"The US, I think, has come to deeply regret the Iraq invasion, which happened a decade ago under an entirely different Administration."
so gitmo is still run by that former, entirely different administration.
and this other entirely different current administration has absolutely nothing to do with the power shift in ukraine.
high five!
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It is not just tit for tat. Iraq also drained US resources and willingness to act. It is the two latter issues that has caused the US to lose power. Hypocracy has no effect in real politik. Without the economic resources and public support necessary to actually deploy US troops, the US military has effectively been reduced to a paper tiger by 13 years of republican policies.
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The situation in the Ukraine just confirms that Obama f***ed up on Syria. Obama explicitly warned Assad against using chemical weapons, saying that this was a "red line" that wouldn't be crossed without serious consequences. And Assad crossed that line, and crossed it again, and finally crossed it in a massive way, gassing 1400 unarmed men, women and children in a coordinated assault on civilian populations.
The consequence? Obama dithers, says he'll ask congress for permission to act, and finally brokers a
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The chief problem in Syria is trying to decide who is worse; Assad or the al Qaeda-backed rebels that have become so dominant in the battle against Assad. There's little point to getting rid of Assad only to replace him with people who would likely be much much worse.
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The US at least gathered international support before invading Iraq. Granted, much of the evidence presented turned out to be misinformation and over-reliance on untrustworthy sources, that is true. However Russia does not seem to be even attempting this and is going about it purely solo without any pretence of national security. Instead it wants to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence without any orange leanings in the government.
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And yes, the US did take control of cell networks to track phones and calls in Afghanistan and Iraq to find and eliminate those who fought the US invasions of those countries. But no one in the US cares very much, so it's hard to raise the issue. But we done did it first, sure. The US doesn't have much moral authority left after Afghanistan and Iraq. We're intellectually bankrupt, as Secretary of State Kerry so ably - and without irony - showed the other day when he told the world that invasion under false
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And yes, the US did take control of cell networks to track phones and calls in Afghanistan and Iraq to find and eliminate those who fought the US invasions of those countries
Afghanistan had a cellular network in 2001?
It's debatable that the United States invaded Afghanistan. We were invited there by what used to be called the Northern Alliance, a group that was the near-universally recognized government (held the UN seat, was recognized by everyone except Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan) of the country. Even if you want to call it an invasion it was certainly a justified one, given that the de-facto Government had provided refuge to a group that murdered nearly 3,000 Ameri
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A very good point. A lot of the debate over Afghanistan was over de jure vs. de facto governments. At the end of the day, only two or three countries in the world recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.
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Russia doesn't recognize the new government in Ukraine. Same reasoning. Their invasion is being encouraged by the "real" president.
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Sure they had such. Well, Iraq certainly did.
We invaded. The "alliance" was a creature we created for our own purpose.
You can't impose a democracy on an invaded people; they get cranky about the invasion and will call anyone who cooperates with the invader a quisling, and justifiably so. They aren't angry because they are illiterate. They are angry because they are living in an occupied country. They have an excellent grasp of current events.
If the US had been invaded by the Taliban because Canada, Mexico a
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This is not strictly true.
There are thousands of documented cases where an invasion of a foreign power h
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'ERM" considerably rather worse or am I mistaken that there was not a majority American population in the region the US invaded and decimated. Funding of neo-nazis in Ukraine produced the expected chaos and their ability to grab power and the result, what Russia would do nothing. Consider similar actions in places like say Ireland, Mexico, yep sure, the neighbouring country would take no action when neo-nazis were funded into power by a foreign power seeking to create chaos.
So Ukraine, the "INVASION" exa
Not Quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia is in charge now of the entire ex-Soviet Union area.
Not quite. NATO isn't likely to roll over and accept aggression directed at Poland or the Baltic States (boy, I bet they're happy they got admitted now) and I suspect even the EU would grow a spine if Russia started pushing Finland around.
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Russia is in charge now of the entire ex-Soviet Union area.
Not quite. NATO isn't likely to roll over and accept aggression directed at Poland or the Baltic States (boy, I bet they're happy they got admitted now) and I suspect even the EU would grow a spine if Russia started pushing Finland around.
Finland is nothing but miles upon miles of easily defended terrain, the Finns are masters of using terrain as a weapon and they will give the Russians a very hard time if they start a war like they did last time [wikipedia.org]. This time strike aircraft flying out of Norway, Sweden and aircraft carriers in the region will have a field day tearing up Russian divisions filing down those forest roads in-between the Finnish Lakes. I'd say Poland is a more likely target for Russian aggression. We might actually witness German
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if Russia started pushing Finland around.
Last time Russia tried that, it didn't turn out too well for them.
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Yes but when you look at what people really want, war is a waste of time strategically too. Reducing war to a bunch of symbolic actions that give you an excuse to keep people on payroll and make some noise now and again really fills most of the real objectives of war anyway...or....does at least as good as real war but without all the mess.
The quicker you can get back to business as usual economic activity the bigger the win for everyone. The less disruption to that on both sides, the bigger the win for eve
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Except for the Russian people who elected Putin because of the problems in Chechnya.
I'm sure they are thrilled with Putin creating similar problems with the Ukraine.
Especially when Russian websites drive the point home.
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Problems that were staged by Putin's own special forces. Litvinenko is a hero of Snowden's calibre, yet somehow data he brought up isn't widely known.
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In 6 years they got that government thrown out and Yanukovych installed as President, a highly pro-Russian president.
Where "overthrown" means democratically elected in a fair election.
You also missed the point that Russia only intervened after the elected president was removed unconstitutionally.
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Obama just declared the Russian intervention to be illegal. So what? Who's going to challenge him? Is the US going to go to war over the Crimean peninsula, when a large part of the population welcomes the Russian intervention and the US population as no appetite for war? Is Europe going to put in place economic sanctions on Russia when Russia supplies nearly 1/3rd of European energy?
I tend to agree. Putin cares more about being feared than loved, and the message is clear. If you're on his side and something goes wrong the troops come in to put you back in power. If you're on the other side you can look forward to his tanks rolling across your territory while your allies offer their condolences.
That said, if this really gets nasty it could turn into another Afghanistan for them. The US could avoid deploying troops locally but start handing out missiles and guns like toys, and the Ru
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Vietnam is a nightmare of jungle.
Afghanistan is a nightmare of mountains and caves.
Ukraine is smooth open fields with some woodland. What is resistance going to use as cover or hiding places?
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Ukraine is smooth open fields with some woodland. What is resistance going to use as cover or hiding places?
Houses, unless the Russians plan on bulldozing all of them.
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More lies and propaganda from you, no shock here. (Score:2, Flamebait)
I have not seen very man pro Russian comments. I have seen people questioning the US hypocrisy, and questioning how "natural" this revolution is. Obviously you are trying to espouse the "if you are not with us you must be the enemy" rhetoric, which is absolutely false.
It is a well known fact that the US Government spent our tax dollars on the Orange revolution. It did not end up with the Ukraine throwing Russia away as they hoped, and the Ukraine didn't jump into debt with the EU as the west hoped. So n
You don't notice the "so what, USA did it" posts? (Score:2)
It happens every single time another country is in the negative spotlight.
They speak as if USA invented meddling.
You'd be hard-pressed to find these so-what-if-x-does-it-y-did-it-too arguments back in 2002 and 2003. I don't believe any of these people brought up Soviet/British invasion of Afghanistan to dismiss criticism of the US, so the only conclusion one can draw is that they are not actually concerned with morality, just with who is violating the morality.
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The US president is actually, for the duties he performs, paid a pretty small amount. The President currently makes $400,000 a year (a helluva lot less than the CEO of many major US corporations). Yes, he lives in a mansion and has the use of a number of vacation and recreational areas like Camp David, but these all belong to the people of the United States and upon the end of his term, the President will receive no benefit from them. A President's personal wealth comes from his activities prior to and afte
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The president is paid 400,000 in cash but has -0- expenses. Why don't you add in all of the tax payer funded junkets and vacations, clothing, transportation (which is not just for business), and food? Add in his speaking engagement revenue, book revenue, and campaign fundraisers. In fact in 2011 Obama spent 1.4 BILLION (yes, that is with a B) on travel expenses [mcall.com].
I get it! Western leaders hide how much they make better than those in other countries. It makes them better liars, not better for their popula
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LBJ entered politics without a nickle.
He retired a multimillionaire without ever holding an honest job.
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The revolt started long before it appeared in the news. It is a holdover from Yanukovych's election which was broadly criticized as unfair (election laws had been changed previously despite concerns about it creating the same problems that it had created previously which spurred on the orange revolution. Yanukovych was just not well liked at all and there were suspicions of corruption.
As for comparing to Obama, I have never seen a palatial dacha with its own private zoo owned by Obama, or a massive seasid
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No, I am not claiming the election of the deposed Russian-aligned President was free and fair in the first place - I have no idea. But there is no question that the majority of people in Crimea consider themselves Russian and favored their elected President rather than the revolutionaries.
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That does not mean I think the Russians are angels - far from it. But the people of the Ukraine and the Crimea are getting screwed here too, played as pawns by both the US and R
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Well let's talk about that.
John Kerry, with no apparent sense of irony: "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext."
Now does that describe the Russian movement into Crimea? The 'pretext' was actually a request from the legitimate authorities in autonomous Crimea, and the Russian troops moved in peac
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However it fits what the US did a few years ago in Iraq to a T.
I wasn't going to comment, but this is just absurd. No, it doesn't.
Like not even in any way whatsoever. Iraq broke the terms of the armistice which ended hostilities authorized by the UN Security Council in 1993. By breaking the terms of the armistice, Iraq restarted the already-authorized war.
Russia signed a treaty with Ukraine which requires Russia to seek Ukrainian cooperation for any actions in Crimea (in regards to the Russian naval base there). While the majority of the residents of Crimea are et
West over-reacting? (Score:2)
My sense is that the West is slightly overreacting.
A defensive posture in the Crimea isn't unsurprising given the location of the Black Sea fleet and Russia's lack of warm water sea ports.
I would think that what the West may want to negotiate for is a pullback of Russian troops to the boundaries of their bases in return for an acknowledgement of the legitimacy (however dubious it may be) of their leases.
By pushing Putin hard publicly, the West just seems to be trying to bait him into showing more force, whi
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The "overlords" are the Russians. Crimea is Ukrainian territory. The Russians have invaded Crimea, which means they have invaded Ukraine. It similar to having invaded Germany if you invade Bavaria.
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Kosovo stolen??? Only after the Serbs made it very clear they had every intention of killing or driving out every ethnic Albanian in the place. Kosovo wasn't stolen, it was granted independence by NATO because Serbia was on the brink of wiping out every non-Serbian it could find.
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You deny there was a deliberate campaign by the Serbian leaders in power (not all Serbians) to create a greater Serbian nation without any non-Serbian elements? Do you think Serbia would have protected rights in Kosovo for all ethnic groups in a better way than the current Kosovo? If you do believe this then you have drunk some some very strong kool-aid.
There were plenty of people trying to describe the other side in English and doing a very bad job of it. I saw several letters to the editor that were ou
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Or possibly he simply knows someone there. Serbs in Kosovo are routinely abused by the 'authorities' who are in many cases 'former' KLA terrorists.
The point is that you can make noise about the sanctity of the administrative lines the Soviets set 50 years ago, or you can try to justify seizing Kosovo and separating it from Serbia (which it has been part of for centuries) but you cannot l
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However if Serbia had their way, then ethnic Albanians would have been driven out of Kosovo entirely, and if history is any indicator.
First year or two of independence the Serbs there were invited to join in on elections and they almost all refused, but over time some have braved the displeasure of their fellow Serbs and gone to the polls as citizens.
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Crimea is the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with its own constituion really and it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR by the communist Ukrainian clown Khrushchev in 1954.
In short you acknowledge that Crimea is legally part of Ukraine, and has been recognized as that by the world for the last 60 years. Russia leased bases there, so it acknowledged it in the past too. Russia has now seized this territory by force of arms and not by negotiation.
Yes, Russians (about 60% of population) invaded Crimea the same way as the British "invaded" Gibraltar or Maledives... err wait... Falklands.
OK, Russia invaded ... good. The ethnicity population doesn't really matter. Should Germany invade Russia now to protect the Volga Germans that have been so abused? Does Russia have similar claims on Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Pol
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I'm sure that, if the Ukrainians agree, a token military presence by the US/EU/NATO/whoever they don't want to piss off would most certainly force them to back down.
Getting them to move back into Russia is a little trickier if they don't feel like moving - they might feel inclined to call the bluff.
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The EU can decide to politely ask member states to send troops to protect their interests. NATO can easily deploy whatever is necessary.
Keep in mind: All that is needed is a token presence which would turn an invasion scenario into an attack on NATO/the EU. Since not even Putin is crazy enough to do that, it keeps them from advancing.
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I did not suggest taking them on. I suggested strategically placed personnel (observers) that would render any offensive action an act of war by Russia.
Popular opinion has little influence over such a thing. We're not talking about a military force, we're talking about a symbolic message.
Again, the objective is to shadow the Ukrainians to keep the Russians from invading further, not take an active part in the conflict. That way the question is no longer "Do we want to piss him off?" - it's "Does he want to
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The EU is hesitant, because it gets so much gas from Russia via Ukraine, and had difficulties in late 90s during a gas crisis in Ukraine that it doesn't wnat to repeat.
As for racism, it's iffy. There are parts of the country that do seem very ethnocentric. The maps like to show Ukrainian west versus Russian east, however it is not always that simple. For example the most prominent figure in the orange revolution was Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minster twice, who was imprisoned by Yanukovich. You would expec
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At the moment no one is dying in the streets in fact. Whatever the legality of Russia's actions there have not been any shots fired between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Well, ok, I think I read one story about warning shots being fired, but no one is being shot at this time. The cyber antics are part of a larger picture, on the one hand Russia bunkering up on the Crimean peninsula, consolidating their hold on infrastructure and communications. On the other, a disorganized (and presumably grass roots)
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Gibraltar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org] or the Falkland Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org] to the UK.
Russia feels its bases are part of an ongoing historical issue and surrounding NATO backed coups, well funded political changes do not really alter their view.
The origins of the crisis is basically NATO and the US want to surround and contain Russia.
Russia is selling its gas and n
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Both sides are relentlessly comparing each other to Nazi Germany. The Russians claim that Nazi-like fascist radicals led the coup and the Ukrainians claim that the Russians are behaving like Nazi Germany at the outset of World War II. It's like a bad internet argument.
Only that even the BBC now shows that here are indeed Nazi-like fascist radicals [youtube.com] in charge now in Ukraine (especially see the two MP from Svoboda showing the numbers 14/88 [urbandictionary.com] at 5:00).
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In Soviet Russia, this entire thread makes a joke to you!