• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Tag Archives: Ukraine

FTAC – Guest Note – Elena Elena – On Crimean Identity and Self-Determination

24 Monday Mar 2014

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crimea, history, political science, politics, Russia, Ukraine

I’ve been trying to locate a really good article I read about the subject without much luck… Putin is done with the Ukraine. I do not think Russia is going to do anything beyond annexation of the Crimea. The reason: Because the Crimea is a special case legally. (1) The Crimea was given illegally by Nakita Khruschev to the Ukraine in 1954, without any authorization by the Russians in Crimea or from the Duma. It’s worth noting that only 13 members of the Secretariat voted to this, the other 14 were simply absent. (2) As a compromise, the Crimea became an autonomous Russian Region within Ukraine and its constitution stated as such. The means the Crimea could, at any time, vote and rejoin Russia, which is what happened. (3) The propaganda from the EU and the USA and NATO trying to characterize Russian behavior as illegal is a lie. There are treaties between Russia and Ukraine in 1991, 1994, 2004, and 2007 which make everything that has happened perfectly legal within the law – and in 1999 the World Court in the Hague, responding to a question, stated that any people, exercizing self-determination, can quit one state and join another legally.

“FTAC” — “From the Awesome Conversation” (on Facebook).

“Elena Elena” — A Facebook friend and writer of the above quoted passage.

______

With the arrival of common broadband, access to the English-language editions for foreign newspapers, blogging software, and social networks — basic ingredients — any English reading and writing Everyman lucky enough to have the lifestyle, technology, and time could travel by armchair around the world and through its war zones with unprecedented freedom.

So I, you, and we have done as much.

We have seen it all!

But, perhaps, we haven’t seen it at all at all.

As elsewhere, the devils in history are in the details of events, and while hopscotching from revolution to terror, from the diplomacy of the hour to the heart wrenching atrocity of the day, one may discover missing the clear, accurate, and complete intimacy with story that comes with specialization.

How difficult might such specialization be here in mid-flight?

Here’s the step-off for recent events by way of the Modern Broadbanded Everyman’s Wikipedia entry:

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine. Independence was supported by a referendum in all regions of Ukrainian SSR, including Crimea.[17] 54% of the Crimean voters supported independence with a 60% turnout (in Sevastopol 57% supported independence).[18] The percentage of the total Crimean electorate that had voted for Ukrainian independence in the referendum was 37%.[19] In 1994, the legal status of Crimea as part of Ukraine was backed up by Russia, who pledged to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in a memorandum signed in 1994, also signed by the US and UK.[20][21]

This new situation led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. In August 1991, Yuriy Meshkov established the Republican Movement of Crimea which was registered on 19 November.[20]

On 2 September 1991, the National Movement of Crimean Tatars appealed to the V Extraordinary Congress of People’s Deputies in Russia demanding the program how to return the deported Tatar population back to Crimea. Based on the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada (the Crimean parliament) on 26 February 1992, the Crimean ASSR was renamed the Republic of Crimea.[22] The Crimean parliament proclaimed self-government on 5 May 1992.[23][22] (which was yet to be approved by a referendum to be held 2 August 1992[clarification needed Did the referendum happen, or was it cancelled?][24]) and passed the first Crimean constitution the same day.[24] On 6 May 1992 the same parliament inserted a new sentence into this constitution that declared that Crimea was part of Ukraine.[24]

Huh?

As a Wikipedia section note tells, the above passage might be too detailed.

Be that as it may, what it also tells is how time may be needed to read, sift, and reflect on descriptions of events, of the evidence of events, until they make sense, the rhetoric and actions of so many conflicted parties tumbling finally into place in an historian’s mind in a way less ambiguous than may be perceived in a hurry.

Add this commonplace too: nothing beats being there.

The armchair bobbing on the foam of the information deluge and short form Wikitype “learnin'” might not suffice for accurate and reliable comprehension.

# # #

Link

Crimea – Reminder – “In Ukraine Crisis, a Broader Struggle for Influence”

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cold War, Crimea, political, politics, post-Soviet, Russia, Ukraine

Crimea – Reminder – “In Ukraine Crisis, a Broader Struggle for Influence”

“For 23 years after 1991, Russia has been treated consciously or subconsciously as defeated in the Cold War,” said Dmitry Kosyrev, a writer and political commentator with the RIA Novosti news agency in Moscow. “Russia has not accepted this mentality. We have something to say. We have not only interest, but experience. We are not a defeated country in the Cold War; we are something separate like India, like China.”

Mr. Kosyrev added, “Not talking to us, not accepting our point of view, that’s exactly what brought Europe and the United States to the crisis in Ukraine.”

Revived Arcs of Dictatorship – Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Asia, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, South America, Ukraine, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

foreign affairs, political science, politics, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

To Russian and Syrian officials and their supporters, the Syrian war and the standoff over the Crimean Peninsula are essentially part of a single, larger battle, against post-Cold War American unilateralism.

Unity Coalition for Israel.  “Russian Defiance Is Seen as a Confidence Builder for Syria’s Government.”  March 24, 2014.

When Putin’s Russia pledged $10 million to Syrian relief while spending $52 billion to host the winter games in Sochi, it told the world unmistakably what it was going to be about: the greatness of the Great Leader.

Why shouldn’t Bashar al-Assad continue what he’s doing while “encouraging” votes to reelect him as their Great Leader?

Why should Vladimir Putin halt the expansion of either mafia enterprise or Russian hegemony in Crimea?

* * *

Six documents stamped with the seal of the Venezuelan army show that as far back as December 2001, agents of then president Hugo Chavez — Maduro’s mentor — sought to build a paramilitary. What is more, the recruitment efforts targeted military bases in order to incorporate army personnel into this non-uniformed militia. In other words, the Chavez government was looking for trained professionals who could handle weapons.

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia.  “Sanctioned killers make a mockery of ‘democracy’ claims.”  The Wall Street Journal, March 24/25, 2014.

I read the above in hard copy at the coffee shop an hour ago, so it has been out today, Monday, March 24.

Venezuela’s axis may be counterpoised to Russia, as I recall the note of a South American friend: “You can see the oil rigs of the Chinese from Miami.” [1]

The business would seem to come along with the way of doing business – or perhaps dictatorships simply understand one another in the way of crooked and sociopath elites:

The challenges facing most of the Caribbean nations are neither unique nor entirely isolated. They include high unemployment and migration levels, unsustainable levels of government debt and increasingly high costs of energy. In fact, the high costs of energy have led some small Caribbean island nations to join Hugo Chavez’s radical ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) in exchange for cheap Venezuelan petroleum. When a powerful nation such as China comes on the scene and offers loans, credits and investment, local actors take substantial notice, especially when the traditional hegemon, the United States, seems preoccupied elsewhere.

Menéndez, Fernando.  “China Comes to the Caribbean.”  China – U.S. Focus, January 25, 2014.

To spell in schematic, “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” and “Putin-Yanukovych” (so sorry it didn’t last) seems to me perfectly sensible, and then to suggest a similar but Chinese-oriented path for Chavez seems not unreasonable.

The line may be missing a dot or two, but the dots are there and whether intentionally among the Bond-villain set — in the post-00s of the 21st Century, these already have their nukes — or unconsciously by way of the anomic lust for money that produces the policy that pipes out Sudanese oil while ignoring the Darfur Genocide, for example — hardly matters: free Europeans say “hello” to the new old bosses, the old familiars, the kind that talk kindly while select suspect associates are thrown off the roofs above their heads and the children of their constituents are barrel bombed into dead certain compliance with their will.

______

Related on BackChannels: “Draw Near, the Next World Order — China and Russia Hang Together.”  March 3, 2014.

# # #

Russia Today – Russia, Yesterday – RT, Please!

23 Sunday Mar 2014

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Russia, Ukraine

The officially controlled phase of glasnost began the examination of “blank pages” in Soviet history. Literary journals filled up with long-suppressed works by writers such as Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, and Andrey Platonov. Newspapers and magazines carried stories of Stalin-era acts of repression, concentration camps, and mass graves. The works of Marxist theoretician Nikolay Bukharin, shot in 1938 for alleged rightist deviation, appeared. By revealing communist party crimes against the Soviet peoples, and the peasants in particular, glasnost further undermined Soviet federalism and contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Data as of July 1996

Russia-Glasnost – Mongabay.com.

* * *

RIA Novosti is part of a massive effort by Russia to build and project to the world an image of a country where the economy is booming and democracy is developing. The campaign is designed to counter what the government and many people here see as unrelenting and unfair Western criticism of declining political freedoms under President Vladimir Putin, who is preparing to hand over his post, but perhaps little of his power, after the election last Sunday of his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia Pumps Tens of Millions Into Burnishing Image Abroad – 3/6/2008.

* * *

Anyone who has watched Russia’s English-language propaganda channel RT over the past 10 months would have learned that in Syria, foreign-funded terrorists, Israeli operatives, and American intelligence agents are attempting to destabilize a benevolent, popular autocrat.

Russia’s International News Channel RT Warps the Truth About the Syrian Uprising – Tablet Magazine – 2/13/2012.

* * *

1. So on Saturday, RT used all kinds of chyrons to explain the situation in Crimea. For example: The Russian military is a “stabilizing force for Ukraine.”

14 Insane Moments From RT’s Coverage Of The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine – 3/3/2014.

* * *

The job quickly began to seem strange. The editing process was multilayered: “First you have somebody who’s a native English speaker, usually British,” Bivens said. This person edits the script for clarity and tightness. “Then you have a Russian and they make sure that it fits whatever narrative they want it to fit.”

How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today – 3/13/2014.

* * *

It’s been a busy few weeks for Vladimir Putin. In the last month, the Russian president has hosted the Olympic Games, invaded a neighboring country and massed troops along its border. Back in Moscow, the Kremlin has cranked up the volume of hysterical anti-Western propaganda to a roar while cracking down on the last vestiges of the free media.

* * *

While filming in Ukraine over the past several weeks, I was struck by how the revolution that began in February has become a full-scale propaganda war, a surreal throwback to Soviet times, with both sides digging in and stoking old, bitter biases and grievances.

In the battle for the future of Ukraine, control of the media could be just as important as the military bases and government buildings.

Inside Ukraine’s Propaganda War | Foreign Affairs / Defense | FRONTLINE | PBS – 3/14/2014.

* * *

Vladimir Putin and the Lessons of 1938 – Garry Kasparov – POLITICO Magazine – Gary Kasparov – 3/16/2014.

* * *

The news director, who was Russian, pitched the network as an alternative news source that dared to challenge conventions. “Question More” was the network’s slogan.

I Was Putin’s Pawn – Elizabeth Wahl – POLITICO Magazine – 3/21/2014.

______

Language as a culturally-invented survival technology would seem to separate cultures into one of two channels: Channel One: Lies, Loyalty, Power, Subjugation; Channel Two: Truth Telling, Uncertainty, Independence, Dignity.

Which have you chosen?

The language behavior of Putin-Assad-Khamenei would seem to be that of the autocrat / malignant narcissist whose every effort seeks the manipulation of his targets, and what works, works: the censoring and intimating of other and critical and inquiring voices; the dissemination of lies, patronage, and propaganda. Masked by passionate nationalism, these have embarked on criminal adventures from their first words.

What it means to be Crimean Russian in Russia (Today) is to be subjugated to the story whipped up by Colonel President Emperor Putin because in the colonel president emperor’s world, that is the only story that matters.

What it would mean to be Crimean Russian in Crimea would be to live in the other world, distinctly Russian, independent of mind, and free of dictatorship.

Other Ukrainians, some with Ukrainian nationalism in mind, know that Ukraine is not Russia and they are not Russian, and they will not stand the impositions of Russian state-sponsored mafia (how else to describe the deposed president Viktor Yanukovych?) on their newly liberated and western-aligning state, but Ukrainian Russians may feel the tug of divided loyalties, and at that fork might ask a question:

Is Putin Russia?

Is Russia Putin?

Are autocracy and subjugation inherently Russian?

In particular, in Crimea, for the Russians of the peninsula, are autocracy and subjugation (their own to Putin’s manner of doing business as illustrated by what has happened to RT since Glasnost) inherently irresistible?

If Crimea’s Russians have been thinking about their wallets more than their freedoms, including the freedom to discern from an open and free media a true state of affairs in foreign policy an trade, they may be surprised to find themselves Ukrainian after all.

If not, they will live in the bubble atop the vertical of power, i.e., the world according to Russia Today – RT, Kremlin invented: Kremlin approved.

______

Eastern Ukrainian city divided over Russia ties – YouTube – AFP – 3/19/2014.

Additional Reference

McFaul to quit as U.S. Russia ambassador after conclusion of Sochi Olympic Games – The Washington Post – 2/4/2014.

Putin on the Couch – Susan B. Glasser – POLITICO Magazine – 3/13/2014.

Crimean War redux, with Putin as czar – The Globe and Mail – 3/18/2014.

Who Is Putin? | Return Of The Czar | FRONTLINE | PBS

Yanukovich’s Assets

# # #

Link

Ukraine – Amnesty – “Made in Russia: Crimea’s grim human rights predicament”

22 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amnesty, analysis, human rights, political, politics, Russia, Ukraine

Ukraine – Amnesty – “Made in Russia: Crimea’s grim human rights predicament”

Reforms that successive governments have failed to introduce will not be made easier by the huge economic challenges the country now faces, the lingering menace of further Russian intervention in the east and the motley crew of far-right nationalists that played their part in bringing down the government and who have reaped their reward with important posts in the new administration. They will have to work hard to ensure that all Ukrainians feel they have an equal share in their country’s future.

Link

Ukraine – Analysis – “Why Moscow is being so decisive over Ukraine”

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

foreign policy, political, politics, Russia, Ukraine

Ukraine – Analysis – “Why Moscow is being so decisive over Ukraine”

If there is a chance that our neighbouring country could make something of itself with the active participation of the United States and Europe and be built on different principles (in this case it is not important whether these are more liberal or the opposite, obscurantist neo-Nazi values) the opportunity for agreement has disappeared. Moscow is no longer counting the costs linked to the possibility that relations with the West as a whole could be severely damaged. 

It’s Hard Helping You When You Are Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Syria, Ukraine

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Ahmed al-Jarba, anti-Semitism, cynical rhetoric, political, politics, propaganda, Putin, Syria, Ukraine

From Syria with No Love for Jews

“The Diaspora” (Al-Shatat), a Syrian-produced TV series, aired last year during the Ramadan on Al-Manar (Hizbollah TV) is now being aired on Iranian TV. The series covers the period of the Zionist movement, and is primarily a depiction of the classic anti-Semitic libel that attributes to Jews the desire for world domination. The series revolves around the “Secret Jewish World Government . . . .”

Iranian TV now airing Al-Shatat, Horrific Syrian Anti-Semitic series | Conflict Resolutions and World Security Solutions | worldsecuritynetwork.com – 12/14/2014

* * *

The Syrian National Coalition recently released a statement denouncing what it perceived to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media exploitation of Israel’s medical care for wounded Syrian in the Golan area.

Calling it “nothing more than a publicity gimmick”, the statement from the SNC’s media center went on to say that “the Israeli entity stood against the Syrian uprising from the start”, and that wounded Syrian civilians were “forcedly [sic] taken to Israeli hospitals and are being employed today for marketing their political agenda”.

For the Sake of Syria, the Political Opposition Has to Grow Up » From Homs to Istanbul – 2/20/2014.

Remember the unholy troika: Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Khamenei’s regime appears to enthusiastically endorse the most libelous and medieval of depictions of The Jew, but today with a television show.

And cartoons.

One may have hoped that the “moderate” revolutionary side would prove itself more enlightened, idealistic, and just in relation to its views about Jews and others in contrast to the rants and slants of Bashar al-Assad and Ayatollah Khamenei — and the helpful Russian who keeps his mouth wisely shut in this regard even as he maintains the post-Soviet architecture that has so far lengthened Assad’s tyrannical stay.

While Syrian National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba calls for arms supply from the west, sustaining the self-defeating anti-Zionist creed and its correlates would appear to sustain also the coalition’s agony.

If Jarba’s begging arms while remaining anti-west, anti-Jew, anti-Israel, he may continue begging because those interests — democratic, modern, west, also informed by Jewish minorities in concert with others, also represented in the day-to-day politics and spirit of the Jewish State of Israel (which treats Syrian casualties as injured persons, ethically disregarding their politics while in care) — may also wish to be represented in the greater international community arrayed against Assad’s dictatorship in its every hideous aspect.

The reader may judge for himself the tone of the “moderate” revolution through the pages of the Syrian Free Press that purports to represent the main base of the revolution: Netanyahu Calls the Whole World “Anti-Semites” | – 2/24/2014.


Russia’s Leveraging of Anti-Semitic Disinformation in Ukraine Can Only Damage Russia’s Prestige

Putin at the global political poker table has strong cards in Russian anti-Islamist experience and, lately, a neutral to positive stance toward Jews, enabling him, cynically perhaps, to claim better defense of “western values” in Syria (while his client’s snipers paralyze children) and in Ukraine.

While pursuing Russian nationalist imperialism — well, I can’t call it “Soviet” — Putin may now amplify, invent, and portray opposition to Russian expansion as coming from fascist religious or nationalist movements.

It’s an awful strategy, relying as it does on political gaslighting — i.e., planting false information to produce some wanted perception.

What kicked off this rant is this from March 14: Kiev Mob Stabs Rabbi Hillel Cohen in Anti-Semitic Attack (IB Times).

True to thesis, or at least echoed by IB journalist Gianluca Mezoofiore: “The attack plays into the hands of ousted president Viktor Yanukovich’s rhetoric and to that of the Kremlin that Ukraine’s revolutionary movement that removed him is made up of Nazis and extremists.”

In Ukrainian uprising reality, Jews, ever among the oldest of liberation theologians, have played another role:

Balaclava-clad far-right paramilitaries fire into the air at the funeral in Ukraine of an anti-government protestor. This is not a tribute to a fellow right-wing nationalist, but to a Jewish construction worker, Alexander Scherbanyuk.

Of the approximately 100 people killed during the protests in Kiev that swept Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich from power in February, three were Jews, according to Vyacheslav Likhachev, a Ukrainian anti-Semitism expert.

Three Jews among those killed in Ukraine uprising – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz – 3/18/2014.

Facebook’s Euromaidan page has a note from February 20 on Alexander Scherbanyuk: “12:00 – Chernivtsi Alexander Scherbanyuk, a Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party member, has been killed. He was killed by a sniper bullet to the heart. Alexander Scherbanyuk, an Afghan, has left behind three children. – “LigaNews”

Of Joseph Shiling, the Voices of Ukraine blog notes, “He was 61. He and his wife Anna raised two daughters, and he has four granddaughters.”

That just doesn’t sound very fascist, nationalist, or particularly “thuggy” to me.

May Grandpa Shiling rest in peace.

The national or religious heritage of those who were killed is, of course, not important in truth. Just as their age, gender, political views aren’t important. Everything is unimportant, except the fact that they are Ukrainians and that they are heroes of Ukraine, who died in its honor while fighting against evil and injustice.

The Jewish Division of Ukraine’s Heaven’s Hundred | Voices of Ukraine – 3/11/2014.

The third Jewish martyr to the revolution: Evgeniy Kotlyar, an environmentalist.

Scary man, huh?

I kid, of course.

The Ukrainian revolutionary government knows it inherits an issue in regard to anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism does not appear to be its problem but rather a common social issue, the same present in measures small and smaller — a little larger with Jobbik in Hungary — in every political community of the west.

During a special discussion called “The growth of extremism, radicalization and xenophobia”, Nalyvaichenko demonstrated to representatives of the parliamentary delegations of European countries examples of anti-Semitic and xenophobic images and publications on “Berkut” pages in social networks and talked about illegal actions of Special Forces. He noted that in the society, especially among law enforcement agencies, dissemination of information that might incite ethnic hatred and encourage violence against minorities, was unacceptable.

Nalyvaichenko raised the issue of xenophobia among “Berkut” at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly – News – Valentyn Nalyvajchenko – 2/14/2014.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko heads Ukraine’s revolutionary security service.

Thank God.

______

Revolutions develop along two fronts: one is outside the person.

# # #

Ukraine – The Long Wrong Way Around

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, NATO, Russia, Ukraine

Putin’s Crimea ‘victory speech’ – applause – YouTube

* * *

A week before the vote just 41 percent of Crimeans wanted their land to be a part of Russia, yet the returns came back showing 96.6 pecent approval. The electoral commission, such as it is, released numbers indicating 474,137 people voted in the port city of Sevastopol, which would be 123 percent of the registered population there.

Vladimir Putin’s Seizure of Crimea Is Based on Pure Fiction – The Daily Beast

* * *

Over the weekend about 5,000 pro-Russian protesters roamed central Donetsk in eastern Ukraine smashing doors and windows and forcing entry to government buildings.

Ukraine Expects U.S. Military Help If War With Russia Starts – The Daily Beast

* * *

By late Monday afternoon, Crimea’s leaders had stripped all references to Ukraine from the government’s website and made it clear that Ukrainian institutions, assets and state agencies in the peninsula now belonged to the Republic of Crimea.

Globe in Ukraine: From clocks to currency, Crimea strips old ties to embrace Russia – The Globe and Mail

______

I’ve doubts about the “long way around” — appeals for “diplomatic measures”, years to decades of protracted hot air (“negotiations”), the tolerance, first, then institutionalization of barbaric Russian imperial expansion.

Dictators are machines without brakes: they don’t stop on their own as self-restraint would seem not to become them.

______

The main alarming uncertainty of this day is the fate of the Ukrainian military in Crimea. They are being presented with ultimatums and coerced into betrayal, but they keep standing firm. But their future is unknown, which is particularly frightening.

. . .

The good news:

1. The Ukrainian authorities finally announced partial mobilization. It came as a response both to the Crimean “referendum” and to the Moscow-provoked events in the Southeast of Ukraine.

Mobilization will simultaneously strengthen two armed formations with considerably different tasks – namely, the army and the National Guard. The former would be used to fight the enemy’s regular army, and the latter, to destroy gangs. This means that Kyiv is demonstrating that it’s preparing for all possible operations of Moscow, be it an armed invasion or the “Crimean scenario” (actions of the so-called “self-defense” supported by mysterious “little green men”). Such foresight on the part of Kyiv is reassuring.

INVASION OF CRIMEA – March 17, 2014 – SUMMARY (created today)

______

The revolutionary government in Kiev knows well Russian duplicity, and, perhaps, it is learning about the relationship between post-WWII, post-Hitler European comfortableness, productivity, and to this date largely unchallenged security.

Apart from the infiltration of Islamic Jihad within overall Muslim migration, Europe has seen nothing like an old fashioned 19th Century military invasion — but it would seem its radars detect something like it now.

______

As anger at the corrupt government expands through Russian society, the experience of Ukrainian revolutionaries could prove invaluable. It revealed that demonstrations led by activists willing to risk their lives can topple a regime that looks impregnable. Ukraine’s success might encourage similar attempts to unseat a corrupt Russian regime.

Anti-Putin dissidents watching Ukraine: Column – Janusz Bugajski, USA Today, 3/16/2014.

* * *

STUTTGART, Germany — NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove asserted Tuesday that soldiers surrounding Ukrainian bases in Crimea are Russian forces, dismissing accounts that the troops are pro-Russia local militia.

“After extensive review of multiple information sources, we believe these are Russian military forces acting on clear orders to undermine Ukraine forces in Crimea,” Breedlove wrote in his blog, From the Cockpit.

SACEUR says forces at work in Crimea are under Russian command – Stripes – Independent U.S. military news from Iraq, Afghanistan and bases worldwide – 3/12/2014.

* * *

It’s hard to believe that it has been a quarter of a century since Ronald Reagan began to dismantle the ideological wall that divided Europe. Harder still to believe that American politicians, Right and Left, are trying to resuscitate the Cold War — or something hotter. Recent events in the Ukraine seem to be giving the citizens of Europe and America hot flashes of deja-vu.

Articles: Russophobia and Islamophilia – G. Murphy Donovan, American Thinker (today).

______

It’s not the Cold War redux.

As with the Islamic Small Wars, of which Putin has made himself a part in the middle east’s unholy troika that is Putin-Assad-Khamenei, the European Theater with the curtain coming up on the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine revolves around the simplest of democratic open society concepts: integrity.

Putin, who appears to fit well the concept that is “malignant narcissist”, invests in deceits and lies, in under-the-table (“behind the curtains”) dealing, in control of entire information atmospheres.  In the post-Soviet, post-KGB era, the ideology may have been thrown out the window but not the unbridled urge for absolute control and power over all others (and for the purpose of, yawn, obtaining unlimited “narcissistic supply”).

Today’s post-KGB FSB employs more staff per capita than the KGB; the media of Glasnost has returned to “glass? No!” as regards independence and rendering key elements within the state transparent.

Putin’s Russia is no more a benign dictatorship than would be a pirate’s cove dominating the Caribbean — or, look to that mansion in Marbella, Gibraltar.

______

MOSCOW —Russia effectively absorbed Crimea Tuesday afternoon, moments after President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia has no designs on any other parts of Ukraine.

Kremlin says Crimea now officially part of Russia following treaty signing, Putin speech – The Washington Post

* * *

As Russia and the rest of the world move ever closer to a cold war footing over Vladimir Putin’s ill-advised Crimean invasion, an important dimension of this conflict has received scant coverage, in both Western and Russian media: how do Russian citizens feel about this escalating conflict?

Faces of war and peace on Moscow streets | rabble.ca – 3/17/-2014.

* * *

Now, as Vladimir Putin sends troops into Crimea and hints at following up on this cruel gambit with further moves into eastern Ukraine, he is, step by step, turning back the clock on information. It is a move of self-protection. The latest step came on Wednesday, with the announcement that Galina Timchenko, the longtime and much admired editor of the news site Lenta.ru, has been fired, and replaced by Alexei Goreslavsky, the former editor of Vzglyad.ru, a site that is far more sympathetic to the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin Moves Against the Press : The New Yorker – 3/12/2014.

Additional Reference and Updates

52% Support U.S. Diplomatic Action Against Russia Over Crimea – Rasmussen Reports™

# # #

← Older posts
Newer posts →
  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Recent Posts

  • The Destructive Power of Lies: Active Measures and Destabilization and Influence Operations
  • East-West Rivalry: Trump-Putin Divide the World
  • AI: Russia Increases Sale of Gold Reserves
  • America: No Kings
  • On X: About Donald Trump’s State Capture & State Piracy
  • An Untrustworthy and Vile Ignoramus

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • 21st Century Modern
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • COVID-19
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • IRT Images Research Tropes
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • OnX
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Qualities of Living (QOL)
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Guinea
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Caribbean Basin
      • Cuba
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
      • Serbia
    • Eurasia
      • Armenia
      • Azerbaijan
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Poland
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Palestinian Territories
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Create account
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • BackChannels
    • Join 356 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • BackChannels
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar