Pending Invasion

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

Russia has a long history in the Crimea and Alaska was paid for...

Nobody wants a slum. We already tapped out all oil in Alaska. Crimea has a potential major gas field.

Besides, Americans might get angry. Nobody cares if Ukrainians do. As Putin says, they are illegitament. Second class people no different then Czechs in the Sudetenland.

[glatt]

I just saw a short blurb in today's paper of some poll of American attitudes about this. Along bipartisan lines, most American don't trust Putin and don't like the guy, but also don't want the US to get involved in this Crimean issue.

[glatt]

Oh, and the radio this morning was saying that the Crimea sucks anyway. (Maybe it's a case of sour grapes.) But apparently, Crimea needs 40% of its economy subsidized by whatever country it belongs to. So the Ukraine will be losing a parasite and Russia will be gaining one, at least in the short term. Maybe the fossil fuels will eventually make Crimea a prize.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

Along bipartisan lines, most American don't trust Putin and don't like the guy, but also don't want the US to get involved in this Crimean issue.

First, this is a regional issue no different than Rwanda and Burundi, the Balkans, Syria, and Somolia. Merkel (who demonstrates leadership abilities) is even saying this. America's job is to backup its NATO allies who must be fully involved here - nothing else matters. Obama has been doing that. But you would never know this from the press ... especially due to pathetic responses from Italy, Britian, France, and other European leaders.

Crimea is gone. Time to avert this was long ago. Nobody is (should be) discussing that. Discussion should be about the response so that Ukraine is not invaded. So that another Georgia does not happen.

Second, the current response says no consequences exist when (if) Russia invades Ukraine. That should have everyones attentaion especially if distracted by something trivial like a missing airplane.

So what happens if Belarus or Russia invaded Ukranine using the same rationalization used by Hilter in Czechoslavakia? Ukraine is not a NATO country. It has no military alliances. And yet all of the EU and NATO must have a reaction clearly planned long before that happens. It is called Chess. To pretend every country in the world is not playing in this game is to all but want another Cold War. Don't fool yourself. This even affects disputes and solutions ongoing in the Senkukas, Arctic Ocean, Syria, Iran, and even the ISS. And Moldova.

An "I do not care" attitude is exactly what happened when an Iron Curtain decended on Eastern Europe. The attitude encouraged Stalin, create 50 years of crisis, the Korean War, and almost (many times) the destructiion of mankind.

Third, wasted bandwidth is discussion of a missing airliner. That is about emotion attached to something that does not have decades of consequences to every nation. What is happening in Ukraine , if ignored, can have major consequences for the next 50 years. It is no exaggeration that another Cold War was made necessary when trust was so subverted in 2000-2008.

No current news story is more serious; could potentially change everyone's future. But only if the "I don't care" attitude makes that happen. What happens now with every little response could defuse what is otherwise the precursor to WWIII. As happened in late 1940s Europe to almost blow up the entire world in the 1960s. It should be your most important new story. An "I don't care" atttitude is why it is so serious. As if nobody learned anything from Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, etc.

You do also know about the nine dash line?

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Battle for the Hearts and Minds...

From Pravda...

The media reported that the EU and the U.S. were negotiating with the current central government of Ukraine regarding the disposal of nuclear waste in the western territories of the country. According to some reports, Kiev would be paid a considerable sum of money that would help to stabilize the economic situation in the country for the provision of land for the burial of nuclear waste.

A reader of Pravda.Ru wrote: "in the south of Italy and the island of Sardinia radioactive waste is stockpiled, awaiting shipment to Ukraine. Containers arriving from Syria will also be sent our way, they are just waiting for the opposition to come to power. The source of information is our countrymen working in those areas in ports. Italians are chatty and readily disclose the destination of the dangerous goods. "

In addition, social network Maxpark reported that trucks with military and nuclear waste were already at the Polish-Ukrainian border, pending the signing of a contract for the burial on the territory of Ukraine.
Pravda.Ru reporter interviewed experts to find out whether Ukraine was facing a threat of becoming a nuclear burial ground for its western neighbors.

A deputy of the Ukrainian Party of Regions Oleg Tsarev noted that the negotiations on the disposal of nuclear waste on the territory of Ukraine began long before the current events.

Another one...

EU aid destroyed Portugal.
Portugal, a member of the EU since 1986, is rapidly losing its population due to significant emigration. In terms of the economic indicators Portugal is approaching the level of the least developed countries in the Eastern Europe. The decline became particularly rapid three years ago, when Portugal began to receive financial assistance from the EU. Isn't it an odd coincidence?

The country is deteriorating politically, economically, and morally. Public debt and unemployment are on the rise, and increasingly more able-bodied people of reproductive age are leaving the country. According to the data by Observatório da Emigração, since 2008 about 400,000 people left Portugal, it terms of the percentage of the total population (10.6 million people) this is the second maximum rate in Europe after Malta with a population of just under one million. The country has lost a fifth of its resources in the skilled labor segment.