What is going in Russia

[Temetka]

So with them sending some bombers into Alaskan air space back in Feb, the recent war / fighting in Georgia and now this:

Russia threatens nuclear attack.

Fun times indeed.

Why do people have to be so stupid? This kind of political blustering accomplishes nothing. I don't know what is going on over there and to be frank I don't really care. If Russia thinks they can get away with this then they are wrong.

So...thoughts?

[skitty4gzus]

unfortunately Russia made a big mistake. what their reasons for messing with Georgia dont really matter much. We are increasingly getting closer to a Nuclear holocaust worldwide. I pray it doesn't come to that, but pay attention to whats going on ya know. More and more nations arming themselves and trying to arm themselves. Its just gonna take 1 person with an "itchy" finger to let one missile go and we will be so deep into another World War. Being American's we are the "Big Brother" to nations that are weaker and not able to defend themselves. Its always been this way and always will be that way and Im proud to live in a nation that will not stand by and let atrocities take place in far away nations that "seemingly" have nothing to do with us. But, the fact of the matter is everybody deserves a right to live. The right to not live in terror, tyranny, slavery, bondage, etc..... We (as a nation) just cant stand by when basic human rights are violated.

[AIX]

@skitty4gzus - What do you say about North korea then?


Russia behaved in a very uncivilized manner with Georgia - but that's not surprising me, I think they were always uncivilized with their neighbouring countries and not only.

[ajkula66]

skitty4gzus wrote:

We (as a nation) just cant stand by when basic human rights are violated.

This sounds plausible in theory, but:

a) Who has given U.S. the right to be The World Cop?

b) Why is this policy being applied selectively ? Human rights should be protected everywhere, and I don't see too many actions taken against China...to begin with.

That being said, there will be a lot of talk and absolutely no meaningful action against Putin and his crew. They have the weapons of mass destruction (unlike Iraq) and then some, but even more important, they have enough oil to hold the rest of the non-Arab world hostage...

And, if one can judge by the past, this is just the beginning...

[Temetka]

That whole history repeating itself thing.

That scares the crap out of me.

I hope my kids won't have to deal with this too, even though I am pretty sure they will.

[mattbiernat]

...i will be soon moving out to a desert, lets say about 100 miles from a major city (all of the sudden Nevada seems like a really cool place to live at).
and I will advice my family in Poland to move out to the mountains.
my grandparents survived WWI and WWII, why shouldn't I live through WWIII.

[jdhurst]

<snip>
my grandparents survived WWI and WWII, why shouldn't I live through WWIII.

You are probably too young to remember (no offence). If there is a nuclear WWWIII, millions will perish from radiation. There are even neutron bombs that can kill everyone in a city and leave most of the buildings intact (uninhabitable, but intact).

The civilized world should avoid any sabre-rattling about nuclear war, band together, and push hard for peaceful solutions.

I am only a little past half-way to dying from old age, and I do NOT want to leave a useless, barely inhabitable world to my grandkids.
... JDH

[milstein]

It seems that majority of us are misled by our media about Georgia's invasion to South Ossetia: in this incident, Russian troops are mainly peacekeepers, and protectors of Russian people in South Ossetia.

Background:
Georgia declared independence in 1991, right before the dissolution of USSR. At the same time in 1991, while Georgia declared independence, southern part of Georgia with Russians being their majority declared independence, and formed South Ossetia. Georgian troops took military action against the Ossetians and started eliminating them, but after negotiations, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), union of countries from former Soviet Union, reached an agreement of ceasefire - CIS will recognize South Ossetia, while Georgia, North Ossetia, South Ossetia, and Russia will all provide troops to the South Ossetia region to maintain peace in South Ossetia.
Peace were there in South Ossetia from 1992. However, Georgia wants to join some outside power --- the US and the NATO (who in turn rule the United Nations): it bought military supplies from Israel, and helped in the invasion of Iraq. On August 7 2008, during the Olympic games (as if it was planned), President Saakashvili suddenly started their invasion to South Ossetia, and then announced during a public speech in the capital city Tbilisi that Georgia would leave the CIS. These Georgian troops are basically performing ethnic cleansing: they bombed schools, hospitals, and various civilian regions in South Ossetia, killing thousands in 2 days. Because majority in South Ossetia are Russians, and Russia has the obligation to enforce the ceasefire agreement in 1992, Russia took action to stop Georgia troops and protect the people in South Ossetia. After Russian troops took action to stop Geogia's bleach of agreement and Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia, there were suddenly an explosion of media coverage about Russian troops' action and Georgia then asked the US, and the NATO for "help".

There was a 12 years old survivor that Fox News interviewed "by mistake". What she said during the interview includes:

"... I want say thank you to the Russian troops that were helping us out ..."
"... that is Mr. Saakashvili (President of Georgia) who started this war... who is the aggressor... in 2 days our people, Ossetian people were killed ... 2000 people were killed in one day ..."

The video say it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8XI2Chc6uQ
(Fox news stopped the little girl and the woman from continuing by commercial breaks)

There are some more "flawed" and incompletely censored news reports about the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtdVS8646GI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXUW_ks8ls

What's more intriguing: when Georgia asked for help from the US, our US troops was already there in fact - even right at the time when Georgia troops started their sudden assault to South Ossetia. As if they are already there for backing up these ethnical cleansing of Ossetians by Georgia troops.
[U.S. troops start training exercise in Georgia]
Jul 15, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... 9920080715


After Russia troops took action to stop Georgia troops' invasion, the whole incident is portrayed as Russian's crazy invasion to Georgia without any reason. And they right after the news broke out.
US-Poland missile shield deal seen aimed at Russia
Aug 15, 2008
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 44,00.html


What are we watching in these dominating media?!
These deems are in potential violations to ethical codes (truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability) and standards of the practice of Journalism (about which also the U.S. has the loudest and leading voices on the subject of journalistic standards and ethics).

In an information age dominated by these western funded media enterprise, how can people know the truth about the world with them messing around? These are the main source of information for millions and millions of people in the world, and in this incident,

Who have heard of a single report about the details of Georgian's military invasion of South Ossetia? The peace-keeping Russian troops are just depicted as devil troops in this incident.

In this era when governments are making use of the media for propaganda, please carefully choose your sources of information:
http://www.allyoucanread.com/
I try to read news provided by independent news agents from 3 continents when I want to understand an incident more clearly.

[mattbiernat]

you are 100% right about the bias found in the media. both invasion of iraq and invasion of georgia were pre-preemptive strikes. however russia's threats towards Poland are completely out of proportions.

[milstein]

These are all international politics.
Poland and Czech were previously allies of USSR. What US is trying to do here is to expand their world dominance by weakening the world #2 troops (the Russian troops). US pulled the previous allies away from Russia by magnifying Russian's threat and providing them benefits. Then US can isolate Russia and block the routes of Russia's air force to parts of Europe by these missile system (through Poland & Czech's air).

But have we thought deeply why our US troop have to expand so broadly around the world, and build so many bases around the world for US armies?
That has something to do with why US can continue printing dollar notes to "resolve" their inadequate world (proportional) production compared to their world (proportional) consumption. Who will dare to mess with the US? US have massive numbers of weapons of mass destruction and will claim whoever dollar-opposing countries to have some sort of weapons of mass destruction.

I have a further question for our current US government: is worldwide military domination still a sufficient answer to the rotting internal economy and to the inadequate production relative to the huge (mainly military) spendings?

[dr_st]

If I try to summarize the complicated situation in the simplest way I can see, I get the following:

Russia does not want the US / NATO in its neighborhood.

I completely understand them. Would the US be happy if Russia/China suddenly started setting up military bases and missile installations in Mexico/Cuba/Canada?

And in this particular cause I also support Russia. I don't want the US there either. A single all-powerful hegemon is not good for the world in the long run.

My problem with Russia is that in its opposition to the US it too often tends to support its enemies in the middle east (mostly Iran at this point), which are also enemies of my country.

[AIX]

Probably it's somehow easy to understand and sympathize with Russia when you are far from them. Remember: Gulag, Communism plague, Cold War years - Eastern Europe was under Russia's boots. Chechnya? Transnistria? I just can't sympathize with Russia.

[mattbiernat]

These are all international politics.
Poland and Czech were previously allies of USSR. What US is trying to do here is to expand their world dominance by weakening the world #2 troops (the Russian troops). US pulled the previous allies away from Russia by magnifying Russian's threat and providing them benefits.

- polish people were never allied with Russia. it was the Russia's puppet government that was allied with Russia. and how did communist gov't got set up in Poland? It was very simple, we got invaded by Nazis + Communists in September 1939. Nazis lost but communists stayed. we lost independence in 1939 and really did not get our country back until 1989. oh yeah and by the way poland was allied with U.S. during world war II, yet U.S. did nothing to help us with Russia. in short, U.S. did not "pull" any allies away from Russia. And the reason why Poland wants so badly to be allied with U.S. and other Western European countries is because they don't want to end up like Georgia.

[mattbiernat]

Russia does not want the US / NATO in its neighborhood.

what kind of rights has Russia to tell its neighbors what to do?
do you tell your neighbor next door whom you want him to be friends with? common guys... Georgia is an independent country and can ally with whomever they wish.

[ajkula66]

mattbiernat wrote:

what kind of rights has Russia to tell its neighbors what to do?

That's called the right of being the bully on one's block, the very same right that U.S. and China have been applying for the last 50 years or so...

From a sheer global standpoint, I prefer Russia under Putin to Russia under Yeltsin...balance is everything, and that seems to be the point we're getting to now...

[milstein]

Russia does not want the US / NATO in its neighborhood.

what kind of rights has Russia to tell its neighbors what to do?
do you tell your neighbor next door whom you want him to be friends with? common guys... Georgia is an independent country and can ally with whomever they wish.

Of course, but it's more than that.
Imagine California declares independence, and then "befriends" with China.

[milstein]

...oh yeah and by the way poland was allied with U.S. during world war II, yet U.S. did nothing to help us with Russia... And the reason why Poland wants so badly to be allied with U.S. and other Western European countries is because they don't want to end up like Georgia.

US troops only help those that can provide strategic benefit to the country. US troops don't at all care about any chaotic conflicts in Eastern Europe. All bother the US troops are how to stir things up to weaken the military power of other bigger countries, and which countries dare to/ are able to challenge the US dollar status as the oil currency - despite the US economy is so weak and unhealthy.

Are Polish people still dying to ally with the US - to fight for the dollars?

Georgia is a crazy country that wants the US to help its ethnic cleansing of Ossetia - US troops was crazy enough to be there during Georgia troops' action by the way.

It's very sad that despite human beings already have recordable civilization for a few thousand years, the matters among countries on earth still work in such a primitive and barbaric way.

[milstein]

That's called the right of being the bully on one's block, the very same right that U.S. and China have been applying for the last 50 years or so...

From a sheer global standpoint, I prefer Russia under Putin to Russia under Yeltsin...balance is everything, and that seems to be the point we're getting to now...

Yes, but China cannot compare to Japan, maybe not yet an adequate bully in the region. Japan has the strongest Navy in Asia Pacific region, while the US also has its largest foreign bases in Japan, e.g. Yokosuka port.

[mattbiernat]

now this is getting very interesting: "Kremlin announces that South Ossetia will join 'one united Russian state'."


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 635843.ece

[ajkula66]

Well, everyone who gets upset over this can thank U.S.and its NATO pals for pushing the independance of Kosovo...and this is just the beginning...

Payback is, as we all know, a female dog...

[dwilsonfl]

I think you are correct about the regional politics angle, but most are dead wrong about what really happened there.

Take a look at Michael Totten's reports from the area. Whole different understanding of just how Russia was able to do what it did so quickly.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

[Dimitri_P]

Have to side with *milstein* on the issue

[Temetka]

I think you are correct about the regional politics angle, but most are dead wrong about what really happened there.

Take a look at Michael Totten's reports from the area. Whole different understanding of just how Russia was able to do what it did so quickly.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

He is a good writer to be sure. I checked out a few of his articles and liked what I saw. I have since bookmarked the site. Thanks.