Israel – Iran – Shipment Intercepted – Context Enlarged

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Politics, Regions, Russia, Syria

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Iran, Israel, middle east, political, politics

Iran’s Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel – YouTube – 3/9/2014.

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Bill of lading: 40 M-302 rockets, 180 mortar shells, 400,000 7.62 (NATO) rounds.

Iran’s Weapons Shipment Safely in Israel’s Hands • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces – 3/9/2014.

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On one hand, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani continues to engage the international community in a diplomatic process over Tehran’s nuclear program. He has achieved many successes in a charm offensive designed to rebrand his country as a reasonable and more moderate international player.

Simultaneously, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and its overseas special operation unit, the Quds Force, are strengthening, financing, and arming terrorist organizations all over the Middle East.

Iran’s Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention? (Gatestone)

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Iran, at a glance, has been sewing conflict around the middle east, building its own energy industry, establishing itself as a nuclear power — well, no one has yet stalled that ambition or dampened the regime’s enthusiasm for achieving it — and it illustrates its efforts in blood, or else why release Hezbollah to defend and sustain the brutality of the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad? Against that sweeping influence in regional payola and arms shipments, Israel’s recent interdiction of arms intended for Gaza provides but a glimpse of Ayatollah Khamenei’s greater ambitions as the middle east’s greatest Lord of War.

Additional Reference

Israel to show long-range rockets from ‘Iran arms ship’ – Daily News Egypt

Israel says confiscated rockets had 100-mile range | Fox News

Blog: Giving peace a chance the Iranian way

‘Rows of Iranian rockets’ said found on seized ship | The Times of Israel – 3/9/2014.

Iranian influence, Iraq: US, Iranian influence evolves in Iraq – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/28/2013; Ten years after Iraq war began, Iran reaps the gains – Los Angeles Times – 3/28/2013.

Iranian influence, Lebanon: Iran Gloats over Ashes of American Influence « Commentary Magazine – 1/3/2014; Iran Uses Lebanese to Project Its Regional Power | Foundation for Defense of Democracies – 4/11/2013.

Iranian influence, Syria: Iranian Strategy in Syria | Institute for the Study of War – May 2013; Will Iran Use its Political Influence in Syria to Halt the Violence? | Majid Rafizadeh – 1/25/2014; Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank | Stratfor – 8/9/2013; It’s Iran, Stupid – Foreign Policy – 2/12/2014.

Nuclear Deal Only Strengthens Iran As Regional Power | Anav Silverman – 11/25/2013.

Iran nuclear deal may be start of new era in Persian Gulf – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 12/1/2013.

Iran’s Flourishing Regional Influence | Science & Diplomacy – 7/15/2013.

Iran Rallies To Salvage Iraq’s Al Maliki Government – 6/4/2012; Iran opposition charges Iraq’s Al Maliki allowing open attacks on Camp Liberty | World Tribune – 2/2/2014: “LONDON ― Iraq has been accused of giving the Teheran regime a free hand to attack the exiled Iranian opposition. / The National Council of Resistance of Iran said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was allowing Iran to strike the exiled opposition community around Baghdad.” —>

Iraq – 26.12.2013 Missile attack on Iranian dissident Camp Liberty – YouTube – 12/27/2013:

At 21:15 local time Iraq, on December 26, 2013, Camp Liberty was targeted by dozens of missiles of different types. In the early hours 3 members of the Iranian resistance were slain and more than 50 were reported injured, some in critical condition.

This is the fourth missile attack on Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty (Iraq) in 2013, while the Iraqi government has not yet delivered the bodies of those massacred during the September 1, 2013 attack on Camp Ashraf, to Liberty residents for burial.

While American President Barrak Obama gives diplomacy and peace a chance over Iran’s developing nuclear weapons building potential, Ayatollah Khamenei’s efforts to produce influence and obtain it throughout the region has been also developing unobstructed. With that in mind, Israel’s interception of a lone arms shipment doubtless intended to arm Hamas for the destruction of the Jewish-majority state represents but a small interruption in the Ayatollah’s efforts to turn a large wheel, a wheel that, in fact, has turned.

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Ukraine – While Russian Voices Cry for Yesterday Twenty-Two Years Ago . . .

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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Crimea, Putin, Russia, Ukraine

Hundreds of supporters of Russia clapped along to nostalgic Soviet-era songs being played in a public square.

Ukraine PM to fly to U.S. to discuss Crimea crisis – CNN.com

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In light of unfolding events in Ukraine, the question now arises whether anyone in the Kremlin is thinking of how Russia’s own kleptocratic regime will fare once the population begins to question the right of their rulers to loot their country in the way that Viktor Yanukovych and his cronies have been doing.

Kleptocracy: final stage of Soviet-style socialism | openDemocracy – 2/28/2014.

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It appears the thugs want to remain thugs, crashing peaceful demonstrations, vandalizing cars, beating unarmed innocents.

Perhaps Putin’s oligarchs wish to remain responsible for paying thugs to do thuggish things for political ends a while longer.

Yo ho ho!

One more hour.

However, it would not surprise me to see, say, Gary Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky running for office in Russia some (intentionally vague) years from now, but realpolitik today has it that Vladimir Putin controls the wealth of a vast and uncertain Russian Federation, and he’s not only sustaining his own self-aggrandizement but that of a host of interests who may fear that when he’s gone, if ever, their own channels wealth and power will vanish as well.

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As the erstwhile British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli once sourly remarked, “What we anticipate seldom occurs, and what we least expect generally happens.” Russia watchers in the West expected the Russian economy to prosper, as did the Chinese economy, once Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected Russian president, cast off the communist mantle in 1991. Instead, he fostered the growth of crony capitalism, deliberately enriching a handful of men in return for their political support. Since Yeltsin’s resignation in 1999, journalists and scholars have begun to analyze his regime more frankly.

(18) The Russian Kleptocracy and Rise of Organized Crime | Johanna Granville – Academia.edu (2003).

According to US diplomats, his main motivation for carrying on is to guarantee the safety of his own assets and those of his inner circle. No one quite knows how much Putin and his friends are worth. (Several of them feature prominently on the Forbes annual list.) But the sums involved allegedly total many billions of dollars.

Vladimir Putin: return of the king | World news | The Guardian – Luke Harding – 9/26/2011.

Although Putin’s escapades — or rackets — may have him intent on remaining in power for life, he has with Ukraine and his bid to hold Crimea come up against a hard border: the Ukrainians who launched and succeeded with their “Euromaidan” are not having back their deposed arch-kleptocrat Viktor Yanukovich, and what got to Viktor in mid-stride may now through Ukraine-launched spoken Russian — for not all of Ukraine’s Russian speakers are with Putin — zing through the air and Internet back to Vladimir.

With or inspiring “consequences”.

The political imbroglio over Crimea isn’t about the fate of Crimea, which is secure if it does not become the centerpiece in a Syrian-style civil war, but rather about the limits to Putin’s projection of power and, perhaps too, his time in power as the oligarchs and the Russian people en masse and outside of the tightly knit power circles in Moscow find their way to standing on their own feet.

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As I have said for years, it is a waste of time to attempt to discern deep strategy in Mr. Putin’s actions. There are no complex national interests in a dictator’s calculations. There are only personal interests, the interests of those close to him who keep him in power, and how best to consolidate that power. Without real elections or a free media, the only way a dictator can communicate with his subjects is through propaganda, and the only way he can validate his power is with regular shows of force.

Garry Kasparov: Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin – WSJ.com – 3/7/2014.

Related from long ago: Putin and the Oligarchs | Foreign Affairs – December 2004.

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“This is our land,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a crowd gathered at the Kiev statue to writer and nationalist Taras Shevchenko. “Our fathers and grandfathers have spilled their blood for this land. And we won’t budge a single centimeter from Ukrainian land. Let Russia and its president know this.”

PM: Won’t budge ‘1 centimeter’ from Ukrainian land – The Washington Post

Khodorkovsky’s voice shook and his lips at one stage quivered as he told the receptive crowd he was deeply shocked by the violence that has gripped the ex-Soviet state.

“I want you to know — there is a different Russia. There are people who despite the arrests, despite the long years they have spent in prison, go to anti-war demonstrations in Moscow,” Khodorkovsky said in reference to the dozens arrested last week near the Kremlin during a protest against Russia’s de facto seisure of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

AFP: In Kiev, Khodorkovsky blames Russia for Ukraine deaths

Putin may bellow about anti-Semitic nationalist Ukrainians seizing power in Kiev and his Russian army standing in to defend Slavs in Crimea — and oh how that bullshit rolls through the old propaganda press — but, for the record, an IDF-experienced Jew named “Delta” helped defend the “Blue Helmets of Euromaidan” — he seems to feel anti-Semitism is barely there — and Ukrainians have made plans to stay away from an illegal referendum on Crimea, rendering voting fixed from that perspective alone.

Sochi may have been Putin’s zenith, a fine $52 billion hour, but the planting of Russian troops in Crimea seems a step down for the statesman and a big step backward in time for Russia. In Crimea, Putin may be expected to lose his balance, to tumble off his landing while the atrocities spinning off Assad’s brutality in Syria fly into the past beside him along with the many other dark phantoms of a suddenly long ago Soviet ignominy.

Additional Reference

How Putin miscalculated in the struggle for Ukraine – FT.com – 12/2/2013.

Should we leave Crimea to the Russians? | The World – 3/5/2014.

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Ukraine – Boobies and Spinmeisters – Femen, Pussy Riot, and Ketchum and Crew

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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character, freedom of speech, political, political psychology, politics, Ukraine

On Ukraine and Crimea, on democracy and human rights in Russia, forget about Ketchum and company and what they do for money: go with the girls, Femen and Pussy Riot, for integrity.

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Ukraine action des Femen devant le Parlement – YouTube

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Obama said Thursday that the referendum would violate both the Ukrainian constitution and international law. He called on Russia to help reduce tensions on the Crimean Peninsula, as he ordered sanctions on Russians involved in Russia’s military intervention and Ukrainians who have jeopardized democracy and looted national assets. Obama later spoke by phone with Putin for more than hour.

Crimea solidifies ties with Russia ahead of referendum on leaving Ukraine – The Washington Post

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Putin also claims that “there is every reason to believe” chemical weapons were “used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists,” despite a forthcoming U.N. report that will reportedly finger the Assad regime as the culprit.

Ketchum Placed Controversial Putin Op-Ed – 9/12/2013.

Related: Who’s on Putin’s American payroll? – 3/5/2014.

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Now: which superpower leader do you trust?

I’m going with Femen — those gals put their boots on the ground and boobies in the air every time out, never mind catching cold.

One might wish one could say as much of Russians standing off to the side of Russian nationalists whom Putin means to portray as majority Russians, the only Russians, the Russians who are represented, at least by himself, not by the pestered Alexy Navalny (three hours ago: “Navalny Fined for Participation in Unsanctioned Public Gathering,” RFE — it’s got to be back in business big time with Russia’s rush backwards to despotism) or the now absent-from-Russia-until-Putin-leaves Gary Kasparov:

Mr. Putin belongs to an exclusive club, along with Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Miloševic, as one of the very few leaders to invade a neighboring nation in the nuclear age. Such raw expansionist aggression has been out of fashion since the time of Adolf Hitler, who eventually failed, and Joseph Stalin, who succeeded. Stalin’s Red Army had its share of battlefield glory, but his real triumph came at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, three months before the end of the war in Europe. There Stalin bullied a feeble Franklin Roosevelt and a powerless Winston Churchill, redrawing the Polish borders and promising elections in Poland when he knew that the Communist government the Soviets were installing was there to stay.

Garry Kasparov: Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin – WSJ.com

Well said.

In Washington, D.C., Ketchum represents Vladimir Putin and Putin’s Russia. One may trust it was well paid for the September placement denying Assad’s use, well investigated, of chemical warheads in the Syria’s civil war.

At least one might consider Ketchum in the best of like company:

In May 2009, Waldman filed paperwork with the DOJ indicating he would be working with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska to provide “legal advice on issues involving his U.S. visa as well as commercial transactions.”

Deripaska had his U.S. visa revoked in 2006 due to longstanding concerns about his links to organized crime and because the State Department was concerned he lied to American investigators who were looking into his business.

American Executives Working For Putin – Business Insider – 3/5/2014, on Adam Waldman representing Oleg Deripaska. Others included in the Business Insider story by Hunter Walker include Ketchum Inc.; Robert C. Jones, an attorney “ultimately responsible to Ketchum, Inc. (the money involved: about $535,000 in contracts devoted to working for Russia); William Nordwind, partner in a consultancy serving both Gazprom and Ketchum (I don’t want to relay the earnings — the story is larger than this paragraph and the curious reader may click to it.

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One more thing about Russia’s apparent politics and perhaps the thugs who make it work:

Pussy Riot attacked in Nizhny Novgorod McDonalds – YouTube – 3/5/2014.

Caption: “On the mourning of March 6 2014 Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, along with Peter Verzilov and members of their prisoners rights NGO “Zone of the Rights” arrived in the city of Nizhny Novgorod to inspect a local prison. At 7.20 am an organized group barged into the McDonalds where members of Pussy Riot with their crew were having breakfast and attacked them with pepper spray, green antiseptic and other weapons.”

So sad to see these two so less wild after gulag time, but they were peacefully doing their new NGO thing, and by that I mean doing what human rights NGOs do, i.e., looking into matters involving the victimization of others.

More on the latest Pussy Riot story: Russia: Violent attack on former Pussy Riot members must not be tolerated | Amnesty International – 3/6/2014; Pussy Riot members assaulted by gang who threw paint on them | Mail Online – 3/6/2014; ‘Pussy Riot’ Band Members Attacked, Left With Burns (VIDEO) – today.

On Ukraine and Crimea, on democracy and human rights in Russia, forget about Ketchum and company and what they do for money: go with the girls, Femen and Pussy Riot, for integrity.

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Ukraine – Autonomy and Competence-Seeking Behavior – Plus Mobocrats

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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democracy, dictatorship, mobocracy, oligarchy, political psychology, Putin, Russia, Ukraine

Russia denies controlling pro-Moscow force in Crimea – YouTube – 3/5/2014.

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Ukraine: UN Envoy Threatened By Armed Mob – YouTube – 3/5/2014.

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Ukraine crisis Russian troops ‘besieging navy headquarters’ – YouTube – 3/5/2014.

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Ukraine No Agreements Reached In Crisis Talks – YouTube – 3/5/2014.

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Give a new revolutionary state a break!

Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians know that the first day or so of establishment is huge as regards the potential defenses of a new state. State leaders, provisional, interim, or old hands know they have got to get on their feet fast; at the same time on this one: where’s the war?

The Ukrainian revolution, what little I’ve seen of it, just hasn’t been about Ukrainian or Russian culture or nationalism — this goes way beyond “hardly” — as much as about kleptocratic and piratical Moscow — Putin’s Moscow –leaning on Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian Ukraine, for favor and loot, and then promoting a dependency-creating energy-based trade policy to chain Ukraine back to The Bear.

Putin-Assad-Khamenei: okay. It’s good to see them in the same arc, the three amigos of dictatorship (with just one capable of reversing his tracks).

Putin-Yanukovych?

It just wasn’t meant to last.

There are only two main themes for the whole wide world and for Ukraine as regards the recent boot given the government of Viktor Yanukovych: integrity in government; autonomy in self-governance.

It’s a big F-U alright, but not to Russia. Or Russians. Or people who speak Russian.

Putin isn’t Russia.

Putin is what he can command and control of Russia with the levers and methods he has at hand — start with his ability neutralize political rivals like Gary Kasparov and, perhaps, one day, Navalny — and to which he may have become accustomed (while we in the U.S. are counting on him to contain and destroy Assad’s chemical weapons, it’s, gosh, hard griping about his irresponsibility as regards the rest of the war . . . oh, that Arab-borne jihadi thing to close to Saudi ambitions gets in the way too.

Ukraine’s different.

Ukrainian Russians aligning with Russia and not on the take, as it were, may want to revisit what they may doing for Putin to keep themselves in Russian money. I would suggest that if arrangements and contracts are commercial or industrial outside of defense or involve shipping and trade, the will be there no matter what.

The state relationships that seem to be at stake are off to the side of these other two central themes: again, integrity vs. kleptocracy; Ukrainian and Russian self-determination within Ukraine.

Ukraine may turn out a long-term neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, but that’s a peaceful position — pretty good one, actually — where the character of leadership on both sides wakes up in good health.

I cannot suggest that good health might also characterize, say, Bashar al-Assad’s mentality as regards his position in Syria. That one left common sense (if children ask you a few questions, do you wipe them out?), prudent statecraft, and sanity behind years ago.

As regards the best possible Bond villain ever — and he doesn’t even have to live in fiction — Putin suffers as I do: we love the charms of 19th Century aristocracy, but mine is like an architect’s model of a life, a spec of an old apartment box lined with books; Putin has the whole estate, carriages with wings and palaces and all.

I can’t wait to see what he does with Marbella!

In the meantime, Ukraine seems to be breathing on its own again and getting on to its feet, nicely graced with Faberge eggs left behind by the former boss.

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US official denies Russia’s claim that Moscow, West favor EU deal for Ukraine | Fox News – 3/5/2014.

Ukraine crisis: March 4 as it happened – Telegraph – 3/4/2014.

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FNS – Ukraine – Get Ready

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Fast News Share, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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democracy, despotism, kleptocracy, political, politics, Revolution, Russia, state mafia, Ukraine

NATO calls on Russia to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine – YouTube

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Note: undated references are current within 24 hours.

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PEREVALNE, Ukraine (AP) — Warning that it was “on the brink of disaster,” Ukraine put its military on high alert Sunday and appealed for international help to avoid what it feared was the possibility of a wider invasion by Russia.

Outrage over Russia’s military moves mounted in world capitals, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calling on President Vladimir Putin to pull back from “an incredible act of aggression.”

Associated Press

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“This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in English. Yatsenuik heads a pro-Western government that took power when the country’s Russia-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted last week.

Ukraine mobilizes after Putin’s ‘declaration of war’ | Reuters

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Of potentially even greater concern are eastern swathes of the country, where most of the ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language. Those areas saw violent protests on Saturday, with pro-Moscow demonstrators hoisting flags at government buildings and calling for Russia to defend them.

Ukraine mobilizes for war, calls up reserves

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Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a press conference that Russia should pull back its forces and refrain from interfering elsewhere in Ukraine, according to Reuters. NATO is urging the two countries to seek a peaceful resolution through dialogue.

Secretary of State John Kerry — who is heading to Kiev on March 4 to meet with representatives of Ukraine’s new government — has called Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine “an incredible act of aggression” and said Putin has made “a stunning, willful” choice to invade another country.

Putin defends Russia’s response to Ukraine crisis as gunmen surround military bases | Fox News

Related: Secretary of State John Kerry vows visit to Kiev as Russian forces surround Ukraine military base in Crimea – NY Daily News: “A second administration official indicated that the U.S. was not weighing military action to counter Russia’s advances, saying the Obama administration’s efforts were focused on political, economic and diplomatic options. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and insisted on anonymity.”

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Ukraine, as a whole, is going to move fast.

The Bear regards the old system of buffers as its own, but it has a remarkable failure going in Syria. That President Vladimir Putin pumped $52 billion into the Winter Olympics at Sochi while pledging $10 million for humanitarian relief in Syria has not gone unnoticed — nor have election shenanigans, the Night Wolves, allegations about “mafia state” and “fragile empire” — and all will reflect poorly on his sense of responsibility to Russians and to others.

However, Ukraine is also a borderland naturally spanning a cultural divide between Europe and Eurasia, between the politics of the now open democracies and their common currency and shared values and a stalwart attempting to build some kind of new Slavic society out of the 19th Century manners of aristocracy, now an energy-fueled oligarchy committed not only to its survival but the survival of Bashar al-Assad and Ayatollah Khamenei, a veritable arc of despotic displays of power.

While Syria has become a battleground squeezing out Syrians as casualties and refugees between despots, Ukraine’s democratic revolutionary opposition to despotism has its feet and spirit planted against the “vertical of power” in Moscow.

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As Russian forces seize key objects in Crimea, their objective is not just to create chaos in Ukraine but also to protect kleptocratic rule in Russia itself.

Russia and Ukraine under Yanukovych shared a single form of government – rule by a criminal oligarchy. This is why the anti-criminal revolution that overthrew Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych is a precedent that is perfectly applicable to Putin’s Russia. It is also the reason why, from the Russian regime’s point of view, the Ukrainian revolution must be stopped at all costs.

Ukraine’s Revolutionary Lesson for Russia – The Daily Beast

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Perhaps the last time the Russian intelligentsia watched the internal struggle in another country this intently was in 1968 during the Prague Spring, when they hoped the Czechs would succeed in building what they called “socialism with a human face”. They also believed it would hold out the promise of something better for life in the Soviet Union. In August 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, quashing the Prague Spring. In Moscow, seven people came out to protest against the invasion; they were arrested and the modern dissident movement was born.

Most Russians believe the Crimea is theirs – Putin has acted on his belief | Masha Gessen | Comment is free | The Observer – 2/1/2014.

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“Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. Palin was resoundingly mocked by comedians like Tina Fey and eggheads for saying in 2008 that Alaska’s proximity to Russia forced her to deal with foreign policy issues just like George W. Bush said thatTexas’s proximity to Mexico compelled him to deal with Mexico when he was governor of Texas.

Sarah Palin on Ukraine: I Told You So – 2/28/2014.

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On Russian propaganda: StopFake | Fighting untruthful information regarding the events in Ukraine

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FTAC – Comment on Sochi and Syria

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by commart in Eurasia, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia

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despotism, dictators, dictatorship, political, political science, politics, Russia, Sochi, Syria, tyrants

“If costs are the benchmark for a ‘successful’ Games,” says Janice Forsyth, Director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada, “Sochi is the most unsuccessful games in history, bar none.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2014/02/23/sochis-long-term-economic-impact-good-or-bad/

Countries invested in the Olympics — an amateur affair where sports are to enjoy contests to the side of politics with national pride second to pride in individual athletic striving and accomplishing.

The international press excoriated Sochi in regard to its encounter with substandard facilities; such as myself have tried keep Sochi and Syria in the same frame with the money front and center — i.e., a Russian pledge of $10 million for Syrian humanitarian aid while Sochi went forward with a $51 billion price tag.

Humanity is not what the Syrian civil war is about. It’s not about God either. It’s about despotism. Humanity would probably (that’s a validated probably, considering the numbers in casualties and refugees) not be in the middle of it. The obscenity of the treatment meted by both sides to the Palestinian Yarmouk Camp underscores the inhumanity displayed between contesting forces.

The world’s getting the message between Chinese and Russian Security Council complicity in relation to the Syrian Civil War.

Neither has interest in voting against a dynastic dictatorship; both have interest in containing or rebuffing Islam, which in the weird way described by Aboud Dandachi in the previous post, has both emphasizing and tacitly supporting the presence of al-Qaeda-type fighters as a demonstration of who is just as bad and promises to be far worse — and would be if they themselves were not there to block them. In essence, these undemocratic political elite are attempting to curry favor with the global war watching public by keeping before their eyes the atrocious barbaric excesses of a foe that make themselves look the little bit better choice.

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Ukraine – Revolution – WOW!

23 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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In a hectic round of voting in the chamber, near where triumphant but wary protesters remain encamped on Kiev’s main square, lawmakers stripped the still missing president of his abandoned country home. Its brash opulence, now on display, has fuelled demands that the Russian-backed, elected leader and his allies be held to account for corruption on a grand scale.

Ukraine parliament names acting president, seeks government | Reuters

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Piratical uber-capitalist Vladimir Putin may yet succeed at accomplishing what the Soviet Kremlin could never achieve: the establishment of socialist societies and welfare states inspired by appalling state corruption and determined to do a few things about it, not that as much creates cause to applaud steps forward for nationalist socialism. However, this post-Soviet denouement that may also cap a revival of 19th Century aristocracy funded by energy sales and abetted by patronage spinning off the “vertical of power” may turn emerging leaders toward accountable, democratic, responsible, and responsive governance.

It’s good for a nation to have its wealthy, its monumental in private and institutional structures from estates to museums to resorts, but let that wealth not ride on the backs of whole constituencies and further reside in wickedly defended and untouchable halls of mirror.

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Political crisis in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych leaves Kiev – YouTube – 2/23/2014.

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Ukraine divide echoes cold war – YouTube

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LIVE: On The Ground in Ukraine with VICE News – YouTube – from 2/23/2014.

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Ukraine’s parliament votes to oust president; former prime minister is freed from prison – The Washington Post

Whereabouts and legitimacy of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych unclear – CBS News

BBC News – Ukraine turmoil: Saturday as it happened

Ukrainian parliament votes to oust president, sets early elections | Fox News

Ukraine’s Yanukovych missing as protesters take control of presidential residence in Kiev – The Washington Post

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After Yugoslavia, Ukraine ? – 2/14/2014: “. . . Washington’s goal is not to push the country into the arms of the European Union, but to deprive Russia of its historical partners.”

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Ukraine – Flash Backwards Two Months – Journeyman Video Backgrounder (55 Minutes) – Flash Forward to Now

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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Orange Revolution, Russia, Ukraine

I was in the KGB . . . I’m retired now . . . President is nobody to me . . . Nobody. Honestly. I voted for my grandchildren. I have two. I voted for the sake of the future.

(44:49)

Is Ukraine On The Brink Of Another Orange Revolution? – YouTube – 12/3/2013.

Documentaries : The Orange Chronicles

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The two dimensions in the Ukrainian conversation: 1) decency in governance; 2) economic survival.

Putin appears to believe in the ultimate power of money.

🙂

Money, of course, is the mafia god, and that god is no different in Caracas than it is in Damascus or Kiev: whatever they may have to do to get it, the “men of respect” get it and get it to work for them to get more of it.

Where the getting is piratical, the business is protected against the development of sufficient challenge, a large part of which begins with the control and spin of information likely to reach a constituency about to be captured, made dependent, infantilized, inhibited, patronized, and subjugated in the cause of the greater aggrandizement of the dictator.

It appears Ukrainians (and Russians) have approached a fork in time and must choose between a complacent acceptance of piratical dictatorship and its capricious and centrally manipulated governance or a more vigorous embrace of democratic governance with its uniform legal codes and fair and equal enforcement, open courts subject to expert and open review, tolerance of a broad and independent press, and, ultimately, governance responsive to the needs and will of whole cultures and the complex societies in which they must thrive.

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Undated links correspond with the date of the post.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, rebel leaders sign peace deal to end fighting – NY Daily News

Between Russia and the EU: Ukraine splits or dies – The Commentator

Ukraine’s $19-billion question of debt and corruption – Quartz

Yanukovich accepts calls for election to defuse Ukraine’s crisis – FT.com

Yanukovich announces early Ukraine poll but no deal yet with opposition | Reuters

Ukraine president announces early poll, reduced powers – Yahoo News

Timeline of key events in Ukraine protests – Europe news – Boston.com

Diplomatic talks in Ukraine end at dawn, a day after 100 may have died – CNN.com

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Kiev protests: frustrated Ukraine is caught between Russian brutality and EU self-interest – Telegraph Blogs – 2/20/2014.