PVW said:

As tjohn pointed out, we have a very recent example of what it looks like when a government imposed by a foreign power with no local support faces opposition.

I'm having trouble reconciling the actions we've seen Ukraine take in recent years - standing up to Trump's extortion, mounting a dogged and effective resistance to Russian military invasion -- with the idea that 2014 was an American coup that Ukrainians meekly accepted.

First of all the actions you claim to see are all provided by Western media, the same group that does not even admit the US was behind the coup.  They consistently lie to you about war, so don't be shocked if what you are hearing about this one is not exactly what's really going on. I watched CNN/MSNBC this week and to me it was clearly propaganda designed to get people on board with a No Fly Zone or direct confrontation with Russia. 

What's interesting is that almost everything being said about Ukraine today was said back in 2014 by highly regarded, but non-mainstream journalists.   Here is Robert Parry, best known for exposing the Iran-Contra scandal, on the 2014 coup:

Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine?

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/02/whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/

excerpt:

"

If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III much as it did into World War I a century ago all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.

The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the “smart people” of Washington just “knew” it to be true."

Neocons and the Ukraine Coup

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/

--and--

ROBERT PARRY: The Mess That Nuland Made

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/

ROBERT PARRY: Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/10/cheering-a-democratic-coup-in-ukraine/

And more if you get through these. . .

PVW said:

So this was all orchestrated to create a direct confrontation with Russia, and now that Russia has invaded these same people are rejecting claims to impose a no-fly zone and categorically ruling out US ground troops so as to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia. Truly these are wheels within wheels.

like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel…

nohero said:

That part is the fantasy, apparently based on some hatred of Ukrainians - for not liking Putin or for some similar sin. 

I don't even know where you are going but I recommend the Robert Parry articles I referenced in my last post. 

nan said:

PVW said:

As tjohn pointed out, we have a very recent example of what it looks like when a government imposed by a foreign power with no local support faces opposition.

I'm having trouble reconciling the actions we've seen Ukraine take in recent years - standing up to Trump's extortion, mounting a dogged and effective resistance to Russian military invasion -- with the idea that 2014 was an American coup that Ukrainians meekly accepted.

First of all the actions you claim to see are all provided by Western media, the same group that does not even admit the US was behind the coup.  They consistently lie to you about war, so don't be shocked if what you are hearing about this one is not exactly what's really going on. I watched CNN/MSNBC this week and to me it was clearly propaganda designed to get people on board with a No Fly Zone or direct confrontation with Russia. 

What's interesting is that almost everything being said about Ukraine today was said back in 2014 by highly regarded, but non-mainstream journalists.   Here is Robert Parry, best known for exposing the Iran-Contra scandal, on the 2014 coup:

Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine?

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/02/whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/

excerpt:

"

If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III much as it did into World War I a century ago all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.

The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the “smart people” of Washington just “knew” it to be true."

I also recommend these articles by Parry:

Neocons and the Ukraine Coup

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/

--and--

ROBERT PARRY: The Mess That Nuland Made

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/

ROBERT PARRY: Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/10/cheering-a-democratic-coup-in-ukraine/

And more if you get through these. . .

Parry got lucky with Iran-Contra, because he hasn't done much since then.

nan said:

I don't even know where you are going but I recommend the Robert Parry articles I referenced in my last post. 

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone

drummerboy said:

ridiculous.

Where in that piece do they actually provide evidence from the call that any of their claims are true?

Nowhere is where.

As I said, your evidentiary standards are practically non-existent. All it takes is for someone to cater to your preconceived notions.

Everything in the call came true a month later.  The people in the phone call were in positions of power to make it happen.  It was not nan and drummerboy talking crap on the phone. 

sbenois said:

2.5 million refugees.  Cities destroyed.   

Nan remains silent.

Nan's been saying a whole lot but it's not what you want to hear so you hear silence. 

nan said:

I view Trump as a symptom of late stage Capitalism, and I understand why people would want to go back to the 1950s, a rare time in history when the middle class had some power and benefits. 

Unless your were Black or Gay. Women were far more oppressed than they are now. People with your point of view were blacklisted, lost jobs.

Apparently your rather strange view of things does not apply only to Russia-Ukraine

nan said:

Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine?

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/02/whos-telling-the-big-lie-on-ukraine/

excerpt:

"

...

The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. 

LOL - isn't Putin trying to do exactly that?

Are you actually this blind to reality?

nan said:

First of all the actions you claim to see are all provided by Western media, the same group that does not even admit the US was behind the coup.  They consistently lie to you about war, so don't be shocked if what you are hearing about this one is not exactly what's really going on. I watched CNN/MSNBC this week and to me it was clearly propaganda designed to get people on board with a No Fly Zone or direct confrontation with Russia.

Wait, so who's fighting in Ukraine then? There's no war currently going on? All the images and stories about a war are fake?

nan said:

drummerboy said:

ridiculous.

Where in that piece do they actually provide evidence from the call that any of their claims are true?

Nowhere is where.

As I said, your evidentiary standards are practically non-existent. All it takes is for someone to cater to your preconceived notions.

Everything in the call came true a month later.  The people in the phone call were in positions of power to make it happen.  It was not nan and drummerboy talking crap on the phone. 

oh yeah. an under secretary of state and an ambassador have the super-powers to engineer a coup.

do you know how silly that sounds?

well, apparently you don't.

PVW said:

nan said:

First of all the actions you claim to see are all provided by Western media, the same group that does not even admit the US was behind the coup.  They consistently lie to you about war, so don't be shocked if what you are hearing about this one is not exactly what's really going on. I watched CNN/MSNBC this week and to me it was clearly propaganda designed to get people on board with a No Fly Zone or direct confrontation with Russia.

Wait, so who's fighting in Ukraine then? There's no war currently going on? All the images and stories about a war are fake?

you have to allow for propaganda coming from the Ukraine side, and the U.S. media is not the most trustworthy in the world. They tend to err on the side of more war.

but to deny that Russia is engaged in an illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a little nutsy.

PVW said:

So this was all orchestrated to create a direct confrontation with Russia, and now that Russia has invaded these same people are rejecting claims to impose a no-fly zone and categorically ruling out US ground troops so as to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia. Truly these are wheels within wheels.

They are not avoiding a direct confrontation with Russia.  They are figuring out how to sell it to us first.  After five years of the Russiagate hoax they already have the US population thinking Putin is a crazy dictator and unmitigated evil with a drunken lust for world domination.  He does not seem like Mr. Nice Guy, but neither do other world leaders we seem to be fine with.  Right now we are getting all kissy-face with Maduro and just last year we were saying he was a dictator and not even the president.  It's all how they market things and who has oil and prime real estate.

If you believe the myth that NATO does not matter and that Putin is crazy and just wants power and to do cruel things to others and you see lots of innocents being slaughtered and a country that "just wants to be free to choose" and other elements you will probably start to think we need to go over there and do regime change in Russia.  I read that 70% of people already support a "no-fly zone" although I doubt they know what that means.  I do know what it means and I am just not in the mood for nuclear war.  Are you?

We get lied into war after war and yet here is is again and everyone is just falling in line.  When I had my sister, a devout Democrat, watch Ukraine on Fire, she was shocked and remarked, "well no one ever sees any thing except the same view."   

drummerboy said:

oh yeah. an under secretary of state and an ambassador have the super-powers to engineer a coup.

do you know how silly that sounds?

well, apparently you don't.

They mention  they got the sign-off from Biden.  They did not do it on their own.  They hired and NGO and filtered money to the neo-Nazi groups. They did an intense PR effort as well.  There is a coup playbook that is followed.  They use it in many countries.  The US knows how to do coups.  

Here are some pictures that explain my hatred of John McCain (and others).  I got kicked off MOL for posting them last time, but perhaps the context will be better understood now. 

I'm off this train. Have fun with nan.

Some more pictures you don't see in US media much:

"Victoria Nuland was smiling ear to ear when she posed with neo-Nazi Tyahnybok and Azov Battalion supporter Klitschko in 2014."

nan said:

You mean "Yatz?"   He imposed the EU austerity plan and people suffered greatly.  He got voted out.  Zelensky, the current president, has a sketchy past.  He ran on a peace in the Donbas platform and people thought he would follow the Minsk accord.  But once elected he pulled a 180 change.  According to this, it's because the far-right threatened him, and he is thought by some to just be a puppet. 

How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/

No, Poroshenko. Yatz didn’t get voted out, he was forced to resign. I mean he tried to resign once before, but the parliament voted to keep him in then. I can’t find any mention of either him or Poroshenko in your link. If Poroshenko was our guy, why did he lose?

PVW said:

I'm off this train. Have fun with nan.

Yeah, it’s Saturday night, and I’m bored of fighting.

nan - why don't you listen to what Putin is actually saying instead of your propaganda?

Can you post other sites where people are responding to your posts?  I'm curious to see where you're chatting with like minded people.  Or are we the only lucky ones?

We need to find an off ramp and I do have some faith that a decent number of world leaders feel the same way.  Aside from the direct damage inflicted on Ukraine and the European refugee crisis, as this war rages on, it will destabilize parts of the world due to rising food and fuel prices.  At this point, I have no idea where the off ramp might be as the Ukrainians are not done fighting and Russia and the West can't easily back down right now.

As to whether or not Putin has lost his mind, I would say no.  But he made a really bad call on the assumption that his invasion of Ukraine would go pretty well and the government would fold like the Afghan government.  The most concerning thing to me about this is that apparently, he is getting bad information from his advisors, or should we say, sycophants.

Meanwhile, I'm not going to get in the weeds about various conspiracy theories.  It would have been clear to any student of Russia and Ukraine that Ukraine was going to be pulled in two directions as the West and Russia struggled for influence.  I had always assumed that it was understood that NATO shouldn't try to expand into the former SSRs of the USSR.  Especially not Ukraine - the Baltics, a bit less clear.  

But here we are and we need to find an off ramp.  Honestly, I think the Ukrainians need to stop fighting at this point.  Putin's adventure has been a disaster for Russia but Ukraine isn't going to prevail on the battlefield.  The Russian Army will pulverize Ukraine.  But what Putin has done is assured that the peoples of Ukraine - both Russian and Ukrainian language speakers will hate Russia for a generation or two.  We cannot get further involved militarily because I have no doubt that Russia will use tactical nukes in Ukraine and this will be a disaster for Ukraine for sure and other countries if nukes are used elsewhere.

Once the fighting stops, there will still be some sort of resistance to the Russian Army - enough to assure that some number of soldiers and killed each week.  And it will be costly for Russia to maintain an occupying force.  And this will happen without having to supply a lot of weapons going forward.  The man portable weapons are small, deadly and easily concealed.  The resistance we faced in Iraq and Afghanistan was not nearly so well-armed and they still killed a lot of soldiers and made life difficult.

I don't quite see a way out of this short of a palace coup and God only knows if and when that might happen.

tjohn said:

We need to find an off ramp and I do have some faith that a decent number of world leaders feel the same way.  Aside from the direct damage inflicted on Ukraine and the European refugee crisis, as this war rages on, it will destabilize parts of the world due to rising food and fuel prices.  At this point, I have no idea where the off ramp might be as the Ukrainians are not done fighting and Russia and the West can't easily back down right now.

As to whether or not Putin has lost his mind, I would say no.  But he made a really bad call on the assumption that his invasion of Ukraine would go pretty well and the government would fold like the Afghan government.  The most concerning thing to me about this is that apparently, he is getting bad information from his advisors, or should we say, sycophants.

Meanwhile, I'm not going to get in the weeds about various conspiracy theories.  It would have been clear to any student of Russia and Ukraine that Ukraine was going to be pulled in two directions as the West and Russia struggled for influence.  I had always assumed that it was understood that NATO shouldn't try to expand into the former SSRs of the USSR.  Especially not Ukraine - the Baltics, a bit less clear.  

But here we are and we need to find an off ramp.  Honestly, I think the Ukrainians need to stop fighting at this point.  Putin's adventure has been a disaster for Russia but Ukraine isn't going to prevail on the battlefield.  The Russian Army will pulverize Ukraine.  But what Putin has done is assured that the peoples of Ukraine - both Russian and Ukrainian language speakers will hate Russia for a generation or two.  We cannot get further involved militarily because I have no doubt that Russia will use tactical nukes in Ukraine and this will be a disaster for Ukraine for sure and other countries if nukes are used elsewhere.

Once the fighting stops, there will still be some sort of resistance to the Russian Army - enough to assure that some number of soldiers and killed each week.  And it will be costly for Russia to maintain an occupying force.  And this will happen without having to supply a lot of weapons going forward.  The man portable weapons are small, deadly and easily concealed.  The resistance we faced in Iraq and Afghanistan was not nearly so well-armed and they still killed a lot of soldiers and made life difficult.

I don't quite see a way out of this short of a palace coup and God only knows if and when that might happen.

we might see some of Putin’s advisors under arrest soon. He’s definitely angered by the incompetence and information leaking out to the Ukrainian military. Heads are gonna roll. 

jamie said:

nan - why don't you listen to what Putin is actually saying instead of your propaganda?

Can you post other sites where people are responding to your posts?  I'm curious to see where you're chatting with like minded people.  Or are we the only lucky ones?

I have listened to Putin.  In fact I watched most of a Putin press conference which was very strange but I lost the link so I can't find it to finish.  From what I have heard, his demands are reasonable. They are also the same demands he has been making for years.  This conflict has been tinder waiting for a match for years and years.  Lots of stuff has been going on in Ukraine, including Russiagate stuff (which made the Democrats look bad), but no one here was the least bit interested.  There was also the stuff with Biden's son which was suppressed and blamed on Russia. 

I know I have been pushing you all to watch Ukraine on Fire, which you should, but Oliver Stone made a follow up movie which is also interesting.  It covers some of the same ground of the previous movie, but focuses on the Ukraine post-2014.  Since the coup they have had one pro-Western leader after another and the economy has plummeted, the education system declined and anyone with a brain has figured out a way to leave.  I worked with someone from Ukraine and I tried to talk to her about it and all she would say was, "It's very sad."  As here, they also blame a lot of stuff on Russia.  

Anyway, I recommend watching this movie also, because it shows how Wall Street and the US used Ukraine and did not work with it's best interests at heart.  

Anyway, watch if you are interested:

Revealing Ukraine 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10498588/

Note:  The trailer on Amazon Prime seems to be from Ukraine on Fire, not Revealing Ukraine.  

Jaytee said:

we might see some of Putin’s advisors under arrest soon. He’s definitely angered by the incompetence and information leaking out to the Ukrainian military. Heads are gonna roll. 

Where did you get this information?

ridski said:

No, Poroshenko. Yatz didn’t get voted out, he was forced to resign. I mean he tried to resign once before, but the parliament voted to keep him in then. I can’t find any mention of either him or Poroshenko in your link. If Poroshenko was our guy, why did he lose?

Yatz was our guy.  Poroshenko came next and he was also our guy but super unpopular.  Things have basically sucked in Ukraine since 2014, although they were not great before either. They have major economic problems, which are at least partially responsible of US.  See the Oliver Stone movie I mentioned in last post. 

Who are the stars Revealing Ukraine?   not stone and Putin again I hope

STANV said:

Unless your were Black or Gay. Women were far more oppressed than they are now. People with your point of view were blacklisted, lost jobs.

Apparently your rather strange view of things does not apply only to Russia-Ukraine

I agree with you about marginalized groups.  I'm old enough to remember being told that women had to get married and have families or they were worthless.  I was just referring to the perception of many people.  And also economically there was a stronger middle class for white people and families could live on one person's income. I lived through dramatic changes both socially and economically. 

nan said:

Yatz was our guy.  Poroshenko came next and he was also our guy but super unpopular.  Things have basically sucked in Ukraine since 2014, although they were not great before either. They have major economic problems, which are at least partially responsible of US.  See the Oliver Stone movie I mentioned in last post. 

what is your proof that things have sucked in Ukraine since 2014? That’s a bizarre assessment.

nan said:

Since the coup they have had one pro-Western leader after another and the economy has plummeted …

Ukraine’s GDP (Source: Your friendly global book cookers at the World Bank)

drummerboy said:

nan,

you continually bring up Manufacturing Consent, a concept I happen to agree with.

But do you think that the concept is only limited to one ideology? Have you ever considered that all of your trusted sources are engaging in the same thing?

All news sources try to persuade you to their point of view.  The problem with mainstream media is that it's many stations with one consistent neoliberal, neocon point of view.  When it comes to war, the Democrats and Republicans are on the same page. The people who work in MSM either speak for the corporate overlords or they get fired. Sometimes they sneak in some dissent, but not much.

My sources are more varied and individual. I don't have many trusted sources, they sometimes conflict and as they change over time, I switch them out for others. There are people I used to listen to that I can't stand now. And some people I don't like I have grown to respect.  I am very aware that I cannot really know what goes on in some of these places and that there are multiple views. Also, some people are good on one topic, but suck on another.  I try to figure things out on my own based on information available.   I'm not always right.  I did not think Russia would invade Ukraine, although I'm not that surprised given how heated it has been for years.  I think we are headed for WWIII and I hope I am wrong about that. 

nan said:

I'm not always right. I did not think Russia would invade Ukraine, although I'm not that surprised given how heated it has been for years.

I also have a vague recollection that you did not think — or, as one might put it to reflect the certainty, could not fathom in a megazillion years — that a certain Delawarean could defeat Donald Trump.