http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/drone-captures-birds-eye-view-kiev-unrest-n34506
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tag Archives: Russia
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-geopolitical-implications-of-conflict-in-ukraine-a-954724.html
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
political, politics, post-Soviet, Putin, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine
The quote printed in SPIEGEL 33 years ago was a noteworthy one, and still sounds remarkably topical: “We have to ensure that this Soviet empire, when it breaks apart due to its internal contradictions, does so with a whimper rather than a bang.” The sentence was spoken by US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during an interview conducted in September of 1981.
Ukraine – More Death In the Shadow of the Russian Federation
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Ukraine death toll rises as violence rocks Kiev – YouTube – 2/20/2014.
Sniper fire!
Sound familiar?
Pssst. Syria.
Similar remnant state-to-state architecture.
Similar beliefs about power.
Similar manners confronting challenges to authority.
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Related: Hotels in Kiev Are Being Turned into Morgues as the Death Toll Mounts | VICE United States – 2/20/2014; Truce crumbles amid gunfire in Ukraine, protesters claim 100 dead – CNN.com – 2/20/2014; Ukraine violence: dozens killed as protesters clash with armed police | World news | theguardian.com – 2/20/2014; Worried by Ukraine violence, Russia ponders next steps | Reuters – 2/19/2014:
Footage of violence in the Ukrainian capital was beamed almost non-stop into Russian homes by state television on Wednesday, accompanied by apocalyptic warnings of civil war next door and accusations of meddling by foreign states.
Russians well know this form in lying through accusation.
They have been through it right to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, about 24 years ago, and here they have again arrived captive (fewer than 7 percent of Russians speak English) to state media and “covered” by a state security apparatus employing more than 400,000 of their neighbors.
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Video of Ukraine Soldiers Shooting AK 47, Sniper Rifle at People as Truce Fails, 25 More Die – YouTube – 2/20/2014.
I cannot yet vet videos, much less receive them independently. Nonetheless, one may see through them to the contact point between worlds of deception reliant on narcissistic manipulation for wealth and the self-aggrandizement it affords and the other of integrity that insists on speaking truth to power and on political conversation in the open.
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Also posted recently to BackChannels: Ukraine – “We Want To Be Free From Dictatorship” | BackChannels – 2/19/2014.
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FTAC – A Note on Russia’s Resurgent Security State
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Putin is so good, he has got the world focused on Snowden and the NSA rather than his revived “mafia state” and the immense redevelopment and redirection of the KGB beneath the banner FSB: “There are more SVR/FSB personnel per capita in today’s Russia than during the period of the Soviet Empire, and there are at least as many SVR officers in the US today as there were KGB officers during the Cold War.” http://www.cicentre.com/?page=191
For the bookish: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/25/new-nobility-restoration-russia-security
The inspiration: Sochi Winter Olympics – freedom of information left out in the cold – Reporters Without Borders – 2/6/2014: “A Norwegian TV crew detained six times in three days and questioned about its sources . . . .” –>
A Norwegian firm appears to have bagged gold for the sexiest Olympic advert ever with this stirring video.
Sportswear sellers XXL All Sports United launched a thinly veiled attack on Russia’s anti-gay laws with their sexy ‘Airport Love’ ad.
Olympic Commercial From Norway Is The Greatest Ever | Sexy ad – YouTube – 2/11/2014.
Cute.
Related: More Gay Olympic Ads from Norway | LAKE EFFECT | LOS ANGELES – 2/8/2014. Also:
During the last weeks, three big companies in Norway has released lgbt-related campaigns
First was the national lottery with their “out of the closet”-video, and then Stormberg gave two days of income from their website (aprox. 18 000 Euro) to the Russian project for the national lgbt organisation. And now the sport company XXL released this one
During the last weeks, three big companies in… – EuroPride Oslo 2014 – 2/10/2014.
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As an instrument for narcissistic control and manipulation, Putin’s 400,000-strong post-KGB security apparatus (191: Russia’s SVR/FSB/GRU Intelligence Services – CI CENTRE) may have played some games of its own beside the Sochi games.
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Nested (Conflict) Dolls – NATO-Russia | Sunni-Shiite | KSA-Iran | Syria
18 Tuesday Feb 2014
Tags
conflict, dictatorship, NATO, political, political science, politics, Putin, Russia, Sochi, Syria, USA
That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.
HILLEL – JewishEncyclopedia.com
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More than 450 Indian migrant workers in Qatar have died in the last two years, media revealed on Monday. Another upcoming report will show that 400 Nepalese have lost their lives scrambling to get the Gulf state ready for the 2022 World cup.
Qatar World Cup toll: ‘Hundreds’ of Indian migrant workers dead in two years — RT News – 2/17/2014.
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WANT TO know how badly U.S. Syrian policy is going, as President Obama works with international mediator Lakdhar Brahimi? Over the weekend Brahimi apologized to the Syrian people that their hopes for a resolution has come to naught, as the peace talks collapse. It’s made worse that Russia is blocking humanitarian assistance to the people, putting President Obama in a very tough spot.
Putin Plays Pimp of Sochi, While Ignoring Carnage in Syria – Taylor Marsh – 2/17/2014.
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The latest virtual manufacture in the world might be called “nested conflict dolls”, the creation of successive wars by proxy between Russia and the United States / NATO and played out between layers of Sunni and Shiite Islam within the Islamic Small Wars of the middle east and elsewhere, perhaps too between nationalist movements, at least one of which, Hungary’s Jobbik, claim far back Iranian roots, and the liberal-progressive do-good societies of the open democracies.
Predictably, RT’s rakin’ the muck — and no need to fabricate it — from the Arab world while Americans like Taylor Marsh (and myself) view Sochi (a $51 billion show) and Syria (for which Russia has pledged $10 million in humanitarian aid) side by side.
For Putin, Russia, and the rest of the world, Sochi, in memory and in fact, will survive Syria.
The jet set will go skiing, plan winter vacations, ape their own Olympic moments, take snapshots, and dine like royalty by the Black Sea while those punished by years of war and the destruction of their former lives will go on struggling along in the darker shadows of history.
Reference
Qatar World Cup toll: ‘Hundreds’ of Indian migrant workers dead in two years — RT News – 2/17/2014.
HILLEL – JewishEncyclopedia.com
Sochi Winter Olympics: criticism of Games reflects ‘Cold War’ mentality, says Putin – 2/12/2017.
Putin Is Playing a Game of His Own – WSJ.com – 2/14/2014.
It may be warm in Sochi, but these 5 things are chilling U.S-Russia relations | Updates | PBS NewsHour | PBS – 2/13/2014.
Putin Plays Pimp of Sochi, While Ignoring Carnage in Syria – Taylor Marsh – 2/17/2014.
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For thought on the role that money, big money, Ayatollah money, corporate money plays in political sports everywhere and on every issue:
“I’m happy to promote business, but I’m not one of those folks who’s going to be directed by billionaires and I think that’s one of the divisions we have in the Republican conference,” he added.
GOP congressman caught on tape blasting leadership as ‘directed by billionaires’ | The Raw Story
Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa voiced the above complaint in relation to U.S. domestic immigration reform; however, in principle, he’s remarked for all intents on the gravitational sway of wealth in its own right. Whatever the lobbyists may promote, however they may define issues and do battle over them, the money has no conscience but rather a life of its own and the want of more (and more and more and more) of itself.
The three amigos of post-Soviet dictatorship — Putin-Assad-Khamenei — put on a good show and spread it around some through their systems of patronage, but as the web in English gets around, it may become ever more difficult to “follow the money” without also seeing the blood spattered across it and hearing the agonized crying of the suffering behind it.
Related: Reuters Investigates – Assets of the Ayatollah – 11/11/2013; Vladimir Putin Marbella villa in La Zagaleta – 1/19/2013; Assad’s palace: an empty, echoing monument to dictator decor | Art and design | theguardian.com – 9/11/2013.
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Adding to the Hungarian-Iranian Connection
11 Tuesday Feb 2014
Posted in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Europe, Hungary, Iran, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine
President Janos Ader and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in separate messages felicitated the anniversary of victory of the Islamic Revolution to President Hassan Rouhani and First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri.
In his message, President Ader underlined the efforts of both countries in expansion of bilateral cooperation in all fields, which secure interests of the two countries.
Farsnews – http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13921122000527 – 2/11/2014.
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More BackChannels pieces on Hungary’s drift toward nationalist socialism and Iran:
Hungary – How Distant in Time? – Comment: Holocaust Memorial Boycott | BackChannels – 2/10/2014.
Hungary’s UN Envoy Seeks to Clear National Conscience, Admits Hungarian Collusion in the Holocaust | BackChannels – 1/26/2014.
Erdogan – Turkey : Jobbik – Hungary — Amplifying the Politics of Division | BackChannels – 1/25/2014.
A Note on the Hungarian Jobbik Party’s Relationship With Iran | BackChannels – 11/14/2014.
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There have been additional references to Hungary in relation to other subjects, e.g., European reparations to the Jewish community, but it’s the drift into nationalism that catches play here and with it movement within the European aligned NATO state to cement relationships with the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
As as happened over the course of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s tenure, drift toward fascism may draw a strong liberal response from the middle and thereby stall a conservative state movement.
Similar dynamics have also surfaced in Kiev — Ukraine protests take center-stage at EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels | News | DW.DE | 10.02.2014 – which population has found itself in The Bear Trap, i.e., aesthetically, politically, and spiritually aligned with European modernity and its social values but beholden to a state in which the “vertical of power” — the Autocrat — determines the character, position, and values of the state and states it makes its buffer.
Hungarians may express themselves, take to the streets, and throw fits, but Papa Putin with the checkbook and gas tap has sufficient clout for leaving the Ukrainian government to shrug off its liberal critics.
That particular Bear has also aligned itself with Iranian interests — the better to drum up defense and nuclear sales business — and to the extent that it also holds Hungarians in its paws by way of energy supply and sales, it may stalls Hungary’s westward inclinations and, possibly, encourage those who feel comfortable with thuggish mafia-style Putinesque Russian politics.
The effects of the axis — Putin-Assad-Khamenei — made visible by the collapse of Syria, a lingering post-Soviet artifact may be just emergent in the discussion eastern European politics.
If I had budget plus swift graphic arts I would do this with clusters, but a linear verbal illustration might suffice:
Putin-Assad-Khamenei (Middle East) | Putin-Orban-Yanukovych (Eastern Europe)
Where tanks may once have been dispatched, cash and energy may suffice — and money gets around without conscience.
Additional Reference
Hungary
Viktor Orbán in Moscow: “Putin’s new little kitten”? | Hungarian Spectrum – 2/1/2014: “Moreover, one must keep in mind that for Hungary Russia is a much more important partner than vice versa. In trade relations the Hungarian share of Russian imports is only 2%. On the other hand, Hungary because of its dependence on natural gas and oil is heavily dependent on Russian goodwill.”
Putin $14 Billion Nuclear Deal Wins Orban Alliance – Bloomberg – 1/15/2014: “The deal shows Putin’s ability to use Russia’s control over energy resources to extend his sway beyond the former Soviet Union. Last month, he pledged a $15 billion bailout and a cut in the price of natural gas to Ukraine and promised to lend as much as $2 billion to Belarus.”
Ukraine
BBC News – Putin meets Ukraine’s Yanukovych on Sochi sidelines – 2/8/2014: “Under pressure from Moscow, President Yanukovych had refused to sign a far-reaching association and trade agreement with the EU.”
Putin, Yanukovych promise closer economic ties amid Ukraine protests – CNN.com – 1/23/2014.
European Union and the United States
From the above cited BBC news link: “Washington’s European envoy Victoria Nuland was heard using an expletive to disparage the EU’s handling of the crisis and revealing Washington’s determination to influence the outcome of the Ukrainian struggle.”
Марионетки Майдана – YouTube – 2/4/2014.
Obama cancels meeting with Putin amid Russia tensions – NBC News.com: “Given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months, we have informed the Russian Government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda,” the White House said.
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The collapse of the Soviet Union left Soviet business and political relationships as well as Soviet style in place: at least as much would seem embodied in the post-KGB, now FSB person of Russian President Putin who has accepted the defeat of Russian communism — or the armored covering of it — but not of Russian empire and the idea of a Russian way of doing things, even if regress to a 19th Century stance with class empowerment through patronage and equal footing with despots similarly endowed becomes the price paid by Russia’s constituency for the privilege of being different, quintessentially Russian, and now as in the Romanov-then, also cut out of the money but restored in pride.
Additional Reference
Sochi Olympics: Opening ceremony evokes Russian pride before torch is lit – Washington Times – 2/7/2014:
SOCHI, Russia — A Russia in search of global vindication kicked off the Sochi Olympics looking more like a Russia that likes to party, with a pulse-raising opening ceremony about fun and sports instead of terrorism, gay rights and coddling despots.
And that’s just the way Russian President Vladimir Putin wants these Winter Games to be.
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FTAC (Posted Here Exclusively) – On Syria, Putin, Sochi, and Power
09 Sunday Feb 2014
As a dictator develops, he may pass certain milestones in the way that any other criminal might. What starts with techniques for stealing elections, for example, gets on to a depth in corruption hard to reverse (once everyone’s on the take) — and then, later, more substantial crimes. Vladimir Putin may have launched and pursued his career along two tracks: one as the ultimate Bond villain, the Soviet, post-Soviet KGB thug — and he’s already got the nukes — and the other is his own figure in Russian history: how will he be remembered?
The farther down into the depths Syria goes, the more difficult Putin will find it to control his own reputation even as he rebuilds aspects of the Russian security state. He could intervene to temper the Assad regime with some kind of Russian ideological humanism lifted out of 19th Century aristocracy and agitation, but the Assad regime seems to have gone beyond rescue, imho, as has the ISIS part of the revolution, and such Russian medicine as may be applied may not be strong enough to reverse the damage done the state.
Incidentally, Putin evacuated Russian civilians from Syria, at least to the extent that they cared to leave (by air); he also pulled the naval presence from Tartus. That’s been part of the hands-off approach to Syria that has also made the battle space a political theater in which the worst of the worst really have shown their colors, somewhat diminished their own energies as well as assets in play, and brought inherent fault lines in the Arab world and in Islam into focus for the world to see.
A Putinesque intervention during Sochi would be glorious! 🙂 However, what does he have to work with, and what can he do with it? Syrians have needed what Egyptians have enjoyed: a protective and tractable army, not the one dropping barrel bombs on their heads. Take it further: they needed a mentality that would have gathered behind General Idris a malleable revolutionary army: instead, that bright idea has been flanked by the al-Qaeda affiliates and their remote sponsors.
If and as Russian web-based information culture expands, Putin’s reliance on image he can control will become more deeply challenged, but the so-called “fragile empire” has great backbone in the stolen billions of the energy business and use of the same to stoke corruption and patronage. Putin’s enjoying the winter games. He knows his kind of power, and, for now, he knows he’s got it and with it a fine image of himself along with the roaring adulation of his nationalist fans.
Inspiration: promotion of an article (which I’m not finding online) by Adnan Oktar encouraging Russian intervention in Syria.
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There is a struggle between America and Russia in Syria.! (Adnan Oktar) – YouTube – 2/3/2014
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Call it the “System of the Mahdi” or a thousand other things: essential humanism is the issue in Syria, and as noted here recently and implied in the top section, which was composed for a thread but is only posted here, Syrians have never known the possession of an army that stood for their interests.
What they have known and for three years experienced with increasing misery is a dictator’s army, Which has been the mighty instrument of their own subjugation.
With the revolutionary army partially, heavily, hijacked by the al-Qaeda affiliates, even if disaffiliated by al-Qaeda central, they’re trapped, and the reward for being defenseless is global hand wringing, UN humanitarian assistance, and neighborly emergency medical care in small portions — the injured or ill have to get to a border and across it — plus other assistance from (gasp!) Israel.
Syria is gone with several of its key cities destroyed and one-third to one-half of its population dispersed internally and externally.
Assad will not get it back, much less put it back the way it was.
Syrians, however, are not gone.
They will need to go home to their land and live different lives. God give them the army to do it, somehow, and give that army the prescience and wisdom to know and to separate true threats to Syrian freedom, when it comes, from the fabrications of fascist dictators.
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FNS – Inclusion – More on the Gay Community – Abuse in Russia
04 Tuesday Feb 2014
Tags
gay community, HRW, LGBT, persecution of gays, Putin, Russia, Sochi, Syria
“By turning a blind eye to hateful homophobic rhetoric and violence, Russian authorities are sending a dangerous message as the world is about to arrive on its doorstep for the Olympics that there is nothing wrong with attacks on gay people,” Tanya Cooper, a Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times.
Human Rights Watch Releases Video Showing Anti-Gay Attacks in Russia – 2/4/2014.
Russia: Gay Men Beaten on Camera – YouTube – 2/3/2014.
Sochi: Eyes on the Money
Probably, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy with the $50 billion investment in Sochi and hopes for a glamorous Winter Olympics is to play to global business and profit motive while hoping that the demons and ghouls attending the Syrian Civil War stay away.
Related: Putin’s Russia: Sochi Or Bust – Business Insider – 2/1/2014; MOSCOW: For Putin, Sochi Olympics carry big risks, rewards – Business Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com – 1/29/2014; Scandal in Sochi: The Most Expensive Winter Olympic Games Ever | Vanity Fair – 2/2014; The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Cost $51 Billion – Businessweek – 1/2/2014; etc.
The other blindside involves an eastern European-type drift into resurgent nationalism, which is nothing new for Putin’s Russia; in fact, it could be leading the pack.
(Is there a Russia –> Syria –> Iran –> Hungarian Jobbik relationship in place)?
The gay thing, rather like the Jew thing, signals other things that are never good.
Related: Putin is losing the Sochi Olympic game – Jackson Dhiehl – The Washington Post – 2/3/2014.
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The Russian President’s decision to sign a law prohibiting ‘the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors’ last summer probably made sense to him at the time. This measure, along with one that bans the adoption of Russian children not just by homosexuals but also by heterosexuals residing in countries that have gay marriage on the books, is reportedly supported by 74 per cent of Russians. And Putin has for years been able to get away with much worse: invading (and still occupying) Georgia, fuelling Assad’s murder machine, rigging elections, jailing journalists and opposition activists. Other than the odd bleat of protest from the European Union or US State Department, all that has had few serious consequences.
But Putin can’t have anticipated the magnitude of worldwide outrage that would pour forth in response to his gay propaganda law.
Sochi Olympics: Why picking on gays has backfired so horribly for Vladimir Putin » The Spectator – James Kirchick – 2/1/2014.
For the vast expanse of research available as regards homosexuality in nature and in humanity, all may be bypassed by way of a simple binary: is mankind to pursue exclusivity amid infinite possibilities for discrimination or is the world — or perhaps the intellectual leadership of it — to pursue a course in inclusion with appreciate and tolerance for as much differentiation as may be possible with peace?
I’ve added to the sidebar of this blog four of the values and virtues I feel most relevant to developing a more peaceful global village — compassion, humility, inclusion, integrity — but I’ve added a wildcard: “empathy”.
The possession of empathy in human affairs would seem not only not given but more likely absent than present around the world.
In the west, actors, artists, and writers encounter the concept early, and those who may favor color, engineering, mathematics, and pattern over social drivers in their arts may dispense with this imaginative element potential in their own humanity and go on to make things that have presence in a language absent of a great part and potential in humanity.
Others, especially actors and writers, have always before them the challenge of inhabiting someone else’s perspective. If they haven’t that ability — or ability to cultivate empathy and live a few moments in other shoes — they will not be actors or writers or even, really, very good humans . . . which might bring us back to Putin, Sochi, Syria, and gay bashing in Russia.
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I had not intended to write about the gay community at all this morning, but in the way of the web and social networks, some set of items and opportunities always appears in material streaming across the desktop, and it happens that some things come together and one works with the themes.
Had the suspect in a Seattle nightclub fire chosen a straight bar for a target, the post about it on a conflict-analyzing blog would not have had the cast it took.
The same applies here with Sochi. The news turns up this facet of Russian nationalism — Islamic Jihad compulsively persecutes gays and, whaddayaknow, Russian nationalists do too! — and one merely makes note of the observation.
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