Another Malaysian Airways flight down over Ukraine....

[mandrill]

Yes, if you are French living in Quebec and you have nothing in common with the rest of Canada, you form a political movement and declare that it is your desire to self-determination, or do you seize power?

You don't know Ukraine and that is why your " Moscow Buddies Un-friended you". It is also why you will never think clearly.

Here is a little bit of insight about Ukraine. You are hurt, call for an ambulance, they ask if you have money for gas.
You get stopped driving, so drunk you are incoherent, you hand over some money to the police..... they not only drive you home but one officer drives your car to your house.
You want to open a business, you are told that you need to fix up the area outside of your shop and it is strongly suggested that you purchase the supplies from the company that the mayor owns.

AND YOU THINK THERE IS HOPE FOR UKRAINE, I DON'T ( at least not anytime soon )
you believe that a change in regime ( slanted word ) is going to do anything

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE ABOUT UKRAINE

AND

I am right again, you should stop now

As i said in my earlier post, every post you make will advise that Westerners "know nothing about Ukraine" and the only way for us to truly learn is to take your advice. You are following your own script - as I predicted - and becoming more and more frustrated when I don't agree with you.

I agree that Ukraine is probably as corrupt as you suggest. Your solution is to shrug and say "We're just fucked. What's the point. Obama go fuck yourself. Because we're fucked, we (somehow) have the right to secede from the rest of the country and become a micro-state puppet of Moscow that will continue to be corrupt. Because we're Eastern Europeans and that's how things are."

Not all Ukrainians think like you. I have friends from Kiev who had buddies shot and killed on Maidan because they felt their deaths would make a difference and transform that country and make it less corrupt, less racist, more progressive and better. This is a scenario that pro Russian guys like you will never understand or accept as valid. And that fundamentally is why the separatists in Donbas must be defeated and eradicated. Because if Ukraine does not do that, it will always remain disorganized, corrupt, servile and kleptocratic.

The official state ideology in Russia right now is "eurasianism" - the creation of Professor Dugin, Putin's pet ideologue and "philosopher". (I use the term philosopher loosely here. Perhaps Putin's "Goebbels" would be more appropriate.) Dugin and Putin postulate that Eastern Europeans are fundamentally unlike Westerners because the former cannot accept democratic values and need to be confined within the structures of a traditional state - religious, absolutist, authoritarian, anti-liberal and anti-permissive morally. It's a very "convenient" ideology for a leader who is quickly whittling away any vestige of freedom that Russians can enjoy.

The hope that Ukraine can shed its recent past and move forward towards a progressive, liberal, non corrupt, genuine democracy refutes this ideology. From what I can see, most well educated, younger Ukrainians think they can do this. Older people and blue collar people in heavily ethnically Russian areas oppose it. They yearn for the certainty of the Soviet era when everything was laid out for them and they had no responsibility.

Nothing can be changed without struggle, hope and faith.

As far as my Russian FB friends are concerned, you know nothing about those conversations. Suffice to say that they don't give a shit for you Russophone-Ukrainians, but they're pretty big on how the Russian army is going to kick Obama's ass and how Kiev is run by "nazis". You think the Russians give a shit about you? Look at how they're already screwing over Crimea.

 

[stay]

As i said in my earlier post, every post you make will advise that Westerners "know nothing about Ukraine" and the only way for us to truly learn is to take your advice. You are following your own script - as I predicted - and becoming more and more frustrated when I don't agree with you.

I agree that Ukraine is probably as corrupt as you suggest. Your solution is to shrug and say "We're just fucked. What's the point. Obama go fuck yourself. Because we're fucked, we (somehow) have the right to secede from the rest of the country and become a micro-state puppet of Moscow that will continue to be corrupt. Because we're Eastern Europeans and that's how things are."

Not all Ukrainians think like you. I have friends from Kiev who had buddies shot and killed on Maidan because they felt their deaths would make a difference and transform that country and make it less corrupt, less racist, more progressive and better. This is a scenario that pro Russian guys like you will never understand or accept as valid. And that fundamentally is why the separatists in Donbas must be defeated and eradicated. Because if Ukraine does not do that, it will always remain disorganized, corrupt, servile and kleptocratic.

The official state ideology in Russia right now is "eurasianism" - the creation of Professor Dugin, Putin's pet ideologue and "philosopher". (I use the term philosopher loosely here. Perhaps Putin's "Goebbels" would be more appropriate.) Dugin and Putin postulate that Eastern Europeans are fundamentally unlike Westerners because the former cannot accept democratic values and need to be confined within the structures of a traditional state - religious, absolutist, authoritarian, anti-liberal and anti-permissive morally. It's a very "convenient" ideology for a leader who is quickly whittling away any vestige of freedom that Russians can enjoy.

The hope that Ukraine can shed its recent past and move forward towards a progressive, liberal, non corrupt, genuine democracy refutes this ideology. From what I can see, most well educated, younger Ukrainians think they can do this. Older people and blue collar people in heavily ethnically Russian areas oppose it. They yearn for the certainty of the Soviet era when everything was laid out for them and they had no responsibility.

Nothing can be changed without struggle, hope and faith.

As far as my Russian FB friends are concerned, you know nothing about those conversations. Suffice to say that they don't give a shit for you Russophone-Ukrainians, but they're pretty big on how the Russian army is going to kick Obama's ass and how Kiev is run by "nazis". You think the Russians give a shit about you? Look at how they're already screwing over Crimea.

You are wrong again.. I am saying directly to you that you know nothing about Ukraine ( that is as far as I read into your post )

Afterhours: you may be correct, I merely stated my opinion and provided sounds reasons as to why I don't believe. Oagre would rather try to get his point across by name calling without even knowing the psyche of the Ukrainian people, to him people that disagree are idiots, racists etc. I'm saying he doesn't know the Ukrainian way of life.

Sorry Edit

OAGRE: another fine example Crimea, you do know that THEY ARE NOT UKRAINIAN

YOU DO NOT KNOW UKRAINE...... PERIOD

Do you accept that our government pissed away billions of dollars and get away with it.
Tazered a man to death
shot and killed a person on a bus.
pay $500 000 for a bs logo
hand out contracts to buddies.

You know I kind of admire the system over there, they dispense with the inquires that lead to nowhere, they just say we are fucking you, deal with it, that I can respect.

Before you get up on your soap box in Hyde park saying someone else is wrong and they should aspire to be like us, work on making us better.

 

[stay]

Let me give you my POV.
Gov
Conserve water = we need to issue more building permits ( can't issue a building permit without adequate supply of water.
Conserve hydro = we can't afford to build more plants but we will use mercury ( good call ) and then up the price because we can't take a cut in revenue

Do you really think that any government has YOUR interest first in front of their own, sometimes you have to think and not just read.

 

[mandrill]

MOSCOW—Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 has already shined a spotlight on the Russian public’s somewhat, um, unique views. Russian media are running with conspiracy theories: that MH17 was shot down by NATO to spark a conflict with Russia, that MH17 wasn’t full of innocent civilians but week-old corpses, or that MH17 was shot down because it was mistaken for Vladimir Putin’s personal jet (as if anti-aircraft missiles weren’t aimed with radar but with a really large pair of binoculars). The only theory missing is the right one: that Russian-backed separatists accidentally shot down the plane when they mistook it for a Ukrainian military transport.

This may seem like the entertaining sideshow to a tragedy, but actually it’s just a window into a hugely dangerous problem. I recently moved to Moscow, and it’s hard to miss the extent to which Russian society exists in an alternate universe. Even well-educated, sophisticated people who have traveled widely in Europe and North America will frequently voice opinions that, in an American context, would place them alongside people wearing tinfoil hats. Russia is not living in the reality-based community.

One particularly easy and glaring example is Russian TV reporters, filing from Eastern Ukraine, who say they are reporting from the “Lugansk People’s Republic” or the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Regardless of your views on the worsening civil war in Ukraine, which is not a neat story of black and white or right and wrong, it is obvious that these republics are almost entirely fictitious and that their “territory” is largely confined to a handful of government buildings. Despite their extremely dubious claims to legitimacy, the non-existent states are treated with deadly earnestness by both the state media and large numbers of ordinary Russians. (Ukraine has been a problem for Russian media ever since protests there began at the end of 2013.)

On almost any other issue you can think of, Russian views differ radically from the consensus here in America. Russians have extremely different opinions about the conflict in Syria, viewing the war in that unlucky country not as a brave struggle for freedom but as a chaotic war of all against all. They have different views about the war in Libya, where they see the overthrow of Gaddafi not as a new beginning but as the start of chaos and disorder. They have different views about 9/11, with shockingly large numbers of Russians supporting “alternate” explanations of one of history’s most carefully studied and well-documented terrorist attacks. (I was recently asked what “theory” of the attacks I supported only to be told that it was “my opinion” after I noted that al-Qaeda was clearly and obviously responsible.) Even something as seemingly straightforward and non-political as a meteor strike attracted a range of bizarre theories and pseudo-scientific “explanations” like the onset of an alien invasion or the testing of a new American super weapon. These wacky ideas (“the aliens are attacking Siberia!” “The grand masons are responsible for 9/11!”) would be extremely funny if they didn’t represent such a tragic deficit of reason.

I’ve asked people about these notions. Particularly if they’re a bit bashful about the position they’re about to advocate, Russians will often highlight their country’s long track record of superstition and its history as a rural, peasant society. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard “we’re a superstitious people” as an explanation for some kind of seemingly nonsensical position. In contrast to Western Europe, Russia really did urbanize and become literate much later. This delayed development has left a lasting impression on popular consciousness and public attitudes.

But while there is clearly some truth to the idea that Russia’s unique cultural history renders it susceptible to conspiracies, explanations centered on the “Russian soul” strike me as a cop-out. Far more important than the legacy of peasant life or any kind of natural penchant for mysteriousness and inscrutability is the Soviet legacy of propaganda. The older generations here all grew up in an environment in which the government systematically manipulated information on a scale that is hard to fathom. Although you might expect that this would engender a healthy skepticism, it appears to have created an unhealthy over-reaction. Russians don’t just doubt the “official line.” Several expats here, like me, have observed that they seem to doubt everything.

Like many Americans, I used to think that these differences would recede with time, and that, as they traveled the world, got jobs, and got rich, Russians would eventually start to think more and more like us. After Ukraine and the Malaysia Airlines crash, I’m a lot less optimistic. Despite ditching communism and its call to world revolution, Russia appears to becoming more, not less, different from the United States. It doesn’t just have its own system; it now has its own facts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...-russians-are-living-in-an-alternate-reality/

This is a direct response to some of Blue Lazer's comments to the effect that the Russians I dealt w on FB were a small, atypical sample and that "normal" Russians would never believe crackpot theories, such as the report on Strelkov's web page that the Malaysian a/l jet was pre loaded with already stale corpses before it was shot down. Fortuitously, I find a Washington Post article today backing up 100% the very thing I myself had noticed w my Russian FB-ers.

 

[stay]

Oagre: you'll feel much better thinking that "both side" have their own creative way of putting forward a POV. To me a lie is a lie, PERIOD. I personally think that both sides lie, the US does it in the name of democracy and the people's right to choose their destiny. I don't even give a F what the russian position is, had enough with the first side. I DO however believe that to most stories there is an underlying factor that is distasteful.

The plane being shot down is a tragedy, no question, pointing fingers will never get the lives back. Why did it happen, because there are idiots abound. what is the underlying dispute.
One group of Ukrainians want more autonomy ( A LARGE POPULATION ) and another wishes to imposes their view.. When shit like that happens and a dialogue doesn't work.... people die.

I don't really care that you want to look at things with rose tinted glasses, I became pessimistic long ago upon realizing that people died for a lie.

 

[mandrill]

Revealed: The knights, peers and even members of the Royal Family who are now on the payroll of Russian oligarchs

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-payroll-Russian-oligarchs.html#ixzz38Q04MmWR


Daily Mail article on corruption of the British establishment by Russian bosses and oligarchs.

 

[mandrill]

Oagre: you'll feel much better thinking that "both side" have their own creative way of putting forward a POV. To me a lie is a lie, PERIOD. I personally think that both sides lie, the US does it in the name of democracy and the people's right to choose their destiny. I don't even give a F what the russian position is, had enough with the first side. I DO however believe that to most stories there is an underlying factor that is distasteful.

The plane being shot down is a tragedy, no question, pointing fingers will never get the lives back. Why did it happen, because there are idiots abound. what is the underlying dispute.
One group of Ukrainians want more autonomy ( A LARGE POPULATION ) and another wishes to imposes their view.. When shit like that happens and a dialogue doesn't work.... people die.

I don't really care that you want to look at things with rose tinted glasses, I became pessimistic long ago upon realizing that people died for a lie.

You are saying the same things over and over.

1. The US is as bad as Russia;
2. You don't want to talk about Russia;
3. I - and other Westerners - cannot understand Ukraine, unless apparently we accept what you tell us. And then, I guess we'll "understand".
4. The Donetsk / Lugansk guys have a moral right to armed seccession.

Why don't you just sit on your prior posts?

This is the last time I am responding to you.

 

[stay]

You are saying the same things over and over.

1. The US is as bad as Russia;
2. You don't want to talk about Russia;
3. I - and other Westerners - cannot understand Ukraine, unless apparently we accept what you tell us. And then, I guess we'll "understand".
4. The Donetsk / Lugansk guys have a moral right to armed seccession.

Why don't you just sit on your prior posts?

This is the last time I am responding to you.

You insist on trying to bring other people into your fold. I said YOU don't understand Ukraine.
A lie is a lie, there is no degree to a lie, you do admit that the US side lies.
You however do not wish to put forth a sound argument as to points I make. Does a large portion of a population have the right to self I determination? Has nothing to do with Russia. Do the Kurds in Iraq have a right to a homeland. Do the Palestinians?
I assume that your position is that they do not and the cost should be born with lives. You see, the US will go into a country or support a rebel cause in the name of self I determination, only when it suits them. I would assume Russia does the same shit. It isn't about the people and what they want, it is what someone else wants.

 

[BlueLaser]

MOSCOW—Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 has already shined a spotlight on the Russian public’s somewhat, um, unique views. Russian media are running with conspiracy theories: that MH17 was shot down by NATO to spark a conflict with Russia, that MH17 wasn’t full of innocent civilians but week-old corpses, or that MH17 was shot down because it was mistaken for Vladimir Putin’s personal jet (as if anti-aircraft missiles weren’t aimed with radar but with a really large pair of binoculars). The only theory missing is the right one: that Russian-backed separatists accidentally shot down the plane when they mistook it for a Ukrainian military transport.

This may seem like the entertaining sideshow to a tragedy, but actually it’s just a window into a hugely dangerous problem. I recently moved to Moscow, and it’s hard to miss the extent to which Russian society exists in an alternate universe. Even well-educated, sophisticated people who have traveled widely in Europe and North America will frequently voice opinions that, in an American context, would place them alongside people wearing tinfoil hats. Russia is not living in the reality-based community.

One particularly easy and glaring example is Russian TV reporters, filing from Eastern Ukraine, who say they are reporting from the “Lugansk People’s Republic” or the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Regardless of your views on the worsening civil war in Ukraine, which is not a neat story of black and white or right and wrong, it is obvious that these republics are almost entirely fictitious and that their “territory” is largely confined to a handful of government buildings. Despite their extremely dubious claims to legitimacy, the non-existent states are treated with deadly earnestness by both the state media and large numbers of ordinary Russians. (Ukraine has been a problem for Russian media ever since protests there began at the end of 2013.)

On almost any other issue you can think of, Russian views differ radically from the consensus here in America. Russians have extremely different opinions about the conflict in Syria, viewing the war in that unlucky country not as a brave struggle for freedom but as a chaotic war of all against all. They have different views about the war in Libya, where they see the overthrow of Gaddafi not as a new beginning but as the start of chaos and disorder. They have different views about 9/11, with shockingly large numbers of Russians supporting “alternate” explanations of one of history’s most carefully studied and well-documented terrorist attacks. (I was recently asked what “theory” of the attacks I supported only to be told that it was “my opinion” after I noted that al-Qaeda was clearly and obviously responsible.) Even something as seemingly straightforward and non-political as a meteor strike attracted a range of bizarre theories and pseudo-scientific “explanations” like the onset of an alien invasion or the testing of a new American super weapon. These wacky ideas (“the aliens are attacking Siberia!” “The grand masons are responsible for 9/11!”) would be extremely funny if they didn’t represent such a tragic deficit of reason.

I’ve asked people about these notions. Particularly if they’re a bit bashful about the position they’re about to advocate, Russians will often highlight their country’s long track record of superstition and its history as a rural, peasant society. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard “we’re a superstitious people” as an explanation for some kind of seemingly nonsensical position. In contrast to Western Europe, Russia really did urbanize and become literate much later. This delayed development has left a lasting impression on popular consciousness and public attitudes.

But while there is clearly some truth to the idea that Russia’s unique cultural history renders it susceptible to conspiracies, explanations centered on the “Russian soul” strike me as a cop-out. Far more important than the legacy of peasant life or any kind of natural penchant for mysteriousness and inscrutability is the Soviet legacy of propaganda. The older generations here all grew up in an environment in which the government systematically manipulated information on a scale that is hard to fathom. Although you might expect that this would engender a healthy skepticism, it appears to have created an unhealthy over-reaction. Russians don’t just doubt the “official line.” Several expats here, like me, have observed that they seem to doubt everything.

Like many Americans, I used to think that these differences would recede with time, and that, as they traveled the world, got jobs, and got rich, Russians would eventually start to think more and more like us. After Ukraine and the Malaysia Airlines crash, I’m a lot less optimistic. Despite ditching communism and its call to world revolution, Russia appears to becoming more, not less, different from the United States. It doesn’t just have its own system; it now has its own facts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...-russians-are-living-in-an-alternate-reality/

This is a direct response to some of Blue Lazer's comments to the effect that the Russians I dealt w on FB were a small, atypical sample and that "normal" Russians would never believe crackpot theories, such as the report on Strelkov's web page that the Malaysian a/l jet was pre loaded with already stale corpses before it was shot down. Fortuitously, I find a Washington Post article today backing up 100% the very thing I myself had noticed w my Russian FB-ers.

Let's just take a second to realize that The Washington Post in this case used a tabloid (New Republic) as it's source. This is the same story as before. Washington Post links to New Republic, which links to a Vesti story that says, "Look at all the crazy crockpot theories that are being proposed" and links to a Russian tabloid. A news agency referencing a tabloid that references a news agency referencing a tabloid. Tell me, oh good people of terb, am I the only one that sees the ridiculousness of this circle jerk oagre is involved in?

 

[BlueLaser]

Complete horse-shit, as always.

Let me give you an example. I have a buddy who came here from Italy 15 years ago. He loves chianti, pasta and Botticelli. He hates hockey and winter. He tells me he has nothing in common with Canada and is Italian. So he declares his apartment the "College Street People's Republic" and creates a flag which is Red-Blue-Black. In fact, it looks exactly like the flag of the "Donetsk People's Republic". He murders several TPS officers and shoots down a Cessna flying over his "air space" with a hunting rifle. And he invites a half-dozen Chechens and 3 guys from Russia to serve in his "army".

It's obvious that he's "different" to us Canadians and we should simply let him enjoy "self-determination", right? In fact, he should also get a seat at the UN security counsel.

Yeah, because the rebels are "one guy", not an organized movement that held election and referendums and every other democratic process known.

Let's just turn the table. Let's say oagre's Italian friend holds a protest outside Capitol Hill in Ottawa and is ignored, so he storms the building and starts chasing the Prime Minister. He keeps chasing him until the Prime Minister leaves the country, then establishes a new Pro-Italian government in it's place. Are we, the rest of Canada supposed to just accept that our election was worth nothing? Every action the rebels have done is step for step what the previous anti-Russian rebels did to overthrow the government to begin with, right down to support from their allies. The only difference is that the anti-Russian satisfied their demands faster and things didn't escalate into civil war that saw armed troops sitting around with itchy trigger fingers.

 

[BlueLaser]

Here's how we know oagre's view of Ukraine is full of shit. I mean, beside the fact that he was both unaware of any industry in the east but somehow also fully aware of their expansive defense industry, both at the same time, despite them being mutually exclusive ideas...

He says they're too poor to field more than 3,000 soldiers and can't afford binoculors, food or ammunition. Meanwhile, they are perfectly capable of launching airstrikes against cities (not army bases, but cities). Do you know how much it costs to field an Su-25? About $7,000 per hour of flight time. That doesn't even include the ordinance. That's fuel, maintenance, etc. But they can't afford $500 worth of binoculars or to put more than 3,000 soldiers in the field? As for helmets... Soldiers go to war every day without helmets. Helmets are useful in defensive operations where you have pre-determined arcs of fire and you need to be protected from shrapnel cast off by enemy artillery. When you're on the offensive, helmets reduce your field of view, make noise, are hard to camouflage and generally get in the way. Offensively, which is the role Ukraine should be playing, most soldiers complain about helmets, and any organization that isn't required to wear them by military regulation doesn't.

Here's an idea, why doesn't Ukraine actually engage in the basic process of what the commonwealth militaries call FIBUA (Fighting In Built-Up Areas) or what the US calls MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain). which involves going door to door, house to house, street to street. They could clear Donetsk of all foreign military hardware in 2 days, the smaller cities in less. Within a week, there would be no Buk launchers around that weren't Ukrainian-controlled, no Ukrainian T-64M BULATs in rebel hands. I get it, the pro-Russian rebels got the jump on them, took them by surprised and stormed their bases, factories and warehouses before the military could be called up and respond. But the initial surprise attack is over. The Blitzkrieg is done, no more Shock and Awe. Move in, systematically disarm while posting security details at all your stockpiles of arms and armament, close your borders for a few days, and be done with it.

You can't conduct urban operations from the air. You can use helicopters to conduct recce operations or provide fire support to strongholds, but flying jets around dropping bombs on a city, over territory where your enemy is known to have anti-aircraft defences estabilished, is not how anyone, include Ukraine or Russia, have ever trained for urban warfare. Boots on the ground is the way urban warfare is conducted.

So why is Ukraine doing it? There's obviously more to this story. I'd love to know why the media isn't calling them on it. Oh right, because the media is part of the anti-Russia propaganda campaign.

I'll say it again, I fully believe Russia has dirty hands in this mess. But so does the west. And until the propaganda war ends and Ukraine is taken to task with their inept handling of the entire incident, innocent Ukrainians (and now others as well) will continue to pay the price.

 

[great bear]

After going through this thread I'm kind of missing Blackrock.

 

[danmand]

I'll say it again, I fully believe Russia has dirty hands in this mess. But so does the west. And until the propaganda war ends and Ukraine is taken to task with their inept handling of the entire incident, innocent Ukrainians (and now others as well) will continue to pay the price.

It matters not if the elephants are fighting or making love, the mice get trampled in both cases.

 

[fuji]

The investigation is complete. Investigators say they have proof that:

1. A missile launcher was brought in from Russia

2. The plane was downed by a missile fired from pro Russian rebel territory

3. The missile launcher went back to Russia

 

[Barca]

The investigation is complete. Investigators say they have proof that:

1. A missile launcher was brought in from Russia

2. The plane was downed by a missile fired from pro Russian rebel territory

3. The missile launcher went back to Russia

Whoa.

And surely Russia will deny, deny, deny. Probably go on the offensive too. Something along the lines of American propaganda, a conspiracy etc etc.

 

[SkyRider]

And surely Russia will deny, deny, deny. Probably go on the offensive too. Something along the lines of American propaganda, a conspiracy etc etc.

Another conflict zone that needs a peace agreement.

 

[AK-47]

The investigation is complete. Investigators say they have proof that:

1. A missile launcher was brought in from Russia

2. The plane was downed by a missile fired from pro Russian rebel territory

3. The missile launcher went back to Russia

Surprise....surprise.

I'm originally Dutch and 1 person from my hometown died in the crash (although I didnt know him)

 

[Keebler Elf]

They had video many months ago of the self-propelled launcher that was suspected of firing the missile. It was high-tailing it back to Russian territory.

 

[AK-47]

Now lets see how many American missiles went wayward, and killed civilians around the world

 

[nottyboi]

I agree with the above scenarios being very likely, but at least Ukraine is attempting to do something about corruption now.

hahahahahahaha by all accounts the level of corruption in Ukraine is now an order of magnitude higher under Poroshenko then it was under the previous elected regime.