Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
April 24, 2014
Ukraine: Anyone Interested In A Larger War?

The situation in Ukraine is somewhat obscure. There were claims form the coup government of attacks against military outposts but those are unconfirmed. There was an attack by some security forces in military light infantry carriers on one opposition checkpoint near Slaviansk. Two or three people may have died there but the military turned around and the checkpoint is back in opposition hands. Such "hit and run" warfare is usually a tactic a guerrilla force would use but not a decent military against a much, much weaker opposition. More security forces seem to have been positioned around the city but so far held back.

The Russian President Putin talked of "consequences" but did not mention any specific means. The Russian military announced to renew some military training near the Ukrainian border.

This is all just minor public skirmishing. Kiev does not dare to do much more as that would give the justification for a Russian invasion. I do not believe that anyone in Kiev is interested in provoking such.

But people in Washington may be interested in provoking a conflict that involves Russian troops, later NATO and then all its European "partners". What better means is there when you want to hold Europe down, economically and politically, and when you want to prevent any Eurasian cooperation? A nice "little" war in Europe would also do wonders for the U.S. economy. Just keep it below the nuclear threshold and the U.S. will, in the end, be the winner of it all.

Let's just hope that at least some politicians in Europe see this obvious trap and manage to avoid it.

Comments

The Hashtag #UnitedforUkraine is beginning to look really good.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 3:44 utc | 101

Retweeted DJ Rubiconski (@Rubiconski):
Separatist Movement goes West…The Transcarpathian region of #Ukraine is declaring on April 24 the creation of an independent Republic.

Posted by: brian | Apr 25 2014 4:23 utc | 102

@93 demian – also for your rt link
“US Secretary of State John Kerry in the meantime dismissed the whole protest movement in East Ukraine as “sponsored” and “controlled” putting all responsibility for the unfolding crisis on Russia.”
i have heard of having your cake and eating it too, lol.. i suppose if kerry wants this cake, he will have to eat the cake that says the whole protest movement in kiev was ‘sponsored’ and controlled’ by the usa too.. what a buffoon kerry is..

Posted by: james | Apr 25 2014 4:27 utc | 103

speaking of buffoons and bimbos – anne marie slaughter.. good last name for a brain dead neo-con.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/bomb-syria-for-ukraines-sake-the-true-colors-of-the-humanitarian-interventionist-and-responsibility-to-protect-crowd/5379062

Posted by: james | Apr 25 2014 4:52 utc | 104

funny bit of trivia regarding the new american foundation which slaughter finds herself president of..Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, is chairman of the foundation’s board of directors. the board is made up mostly of media types.. it sounds like a new retooled pravda for the usa illiterate and beyond, lol.. slaughters answer to ukraine – bomb syria.. really deep thinking their..

Posted by: james | Apr 25 2014 4:59 utc | 105

@102
Wait, by transcarpathian, you dont mean Zakarpathia, the westernmost part of Ukraine, do you?
I guess they dont want to be part of Banderastan either. Thats nice.
But do you have a link? Because I can scarcely believe it.

Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 25 2014 5:03 utc | 106

@Massinissa 106
Karpato Rus’ (Ruthenians, in US English) have long wanted out of Ukraine. While their language could meaningfully be described as part of a Ukrainian continuum, they are culturally separate, and contest the notion that they are Ukrainians.

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Apr 25 2014 5:50 utc | 107

Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 25, 2014 1:03:30 AM | 106
It is Russian parody. Right Sector has minuscule approval rates even in West Ukraine but they are calling the shots. All you need is 10 Transcarpathians to storm the governor’s building to declare independence.
But yes, a large part of Ukraine is made up of the communities of all the neighbours.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 5:50 utc | 108

Or a Transcarphatian football crowd :-))
Just google all the placenames/names of football clubs and add hooligan to it.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 5:54 utc | 109

@Moassinissa #106:
Transcarpathia
Well, if Transcarpathia is having a referendum on independence, they haven’t announced it on their Web site yet. (What I see from that Web site btw is that Ukrainian is a hell of a lot easier to make sense of for a Russian speaker than Polish is. Polish pretty much comes across as gibberish.)
In post #60, I noted that there are also Polish yearnings for independence in the Zhitomir Region. I find that puzzling, because the only country that region borders on is Belarus.
Wikipedia has an article on the Regions of the Ukraine, which contains a decent map (which for some reason shows Crimea as being part of the Ukraine). It helpfully informs us that “Ukraine is a unitary and indivisible state”.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 5:58 utc | 110

“A paper tiger called NATO”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/how-world-sees-nato-one-cartoon
Second US warship sails into the Black Sea.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/john-kerry-explains-how-well-truce-deal-and-sanctions-are-working-out-live-feed
What do you mean “no escalation” ?

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 25 2014 6:05 utc | 111

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/ukraine-gives-russia-48-hr-ultimatum-or-we-will-fight
More escalation………….

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 25 2014 6:07 utc | 112

@Willy2 #112:
Here’s how antiwar.com characterizes that ultimatum:

Russia has had troops along the border for weeks now, and the 40,000 troops there are likely sufficient, in practical terms, to rout the whole of Ukraine’s poorly equipped military if it came down to it. Russia seems to be seeking to emphasize the troops’ proximity, but has so far ignored calls from the protesters to intervene to protect them, while insisting that they reserve the right to do so.
Ukraine, for its part, seems to be tired of waiting, and has given Russia a 48 hour ultimatum to “explain” its military exercises near the border, and with Deshchytsia talking up the nation’s readiness for a full-scale war against Russia, they seem to be daring Russia to invade at this point.
Ukrainian officials gave no indication what would happen at the end of the 48 hours, but have emphasized claims of US military backing for the offensive against eastern protesters

The Putschists saying they are ready to fight the Russians would be funny if it were not so pathetic. I quoted a retired American colonel as noting that even NATO couldn’t beat Russia in Central or Eastern Europe. As Obama condescendingly said, Russia is a regional power (although for some reason US astronauts can’t get to the International Space Station without Russia flying them there), but the US can’t beat Russia in its own region (not that the US has won wars in any other region recently).

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 6:41 utc | 113

@ 106 Massinissa
Found this, dateline April 23: Hungarians, Rusyns in Zakarpatie afraid of forced Ukrainization, want autonomy

Despite the fact that double citizenship is illegal in Ukraine, the official Budapest is handing out passports to residents of Zakarpatie (Transcarpathia). A few days ago Janos Martonyi, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, stated his full support for the compatriots and their interests.
In Zakarpatie Hungarians and Rusyns call for the creation of a national autonomy. Being tired of the actions of the current Ukrainian authorities, they decided to distance themselves from those authorities as much as possible. The local parliament called the Hungarian-Rusyn National Congress would have the legislative powers. There is already a working name of the future autonomy – the Transcarpathian Regional Confederation of the Hungarian and Rusyn People. While ethnic Hungarian are considered to be a minority in Ukraine, the Rusyns do not have such a status in that country, says Denis Kiryukhin, an expert at the Kiev Center for Political Studies and Conflictology.
«Problems with the Rusyns have come up for several years already. That is the only ethnic minority in Ukraine, which Kiev has always refused to acknowledge. The relations between Rusyns and Ukrainians have been complicated and remain such to date».
Proponents of the Hungarian-Rusyn autonomy claim that everything Hungarian, as well as Rusyn needs to be separated from everything Ukrainian. And besides that Hungarians also advocate the creating of a «Hungarian» district during the elections to Verkhovna Rada. They are talking about the opportunity to run for the Ukrainian parliament for a candidate of Hungarian origin to represent that district.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 25 2014 7:17 utc | 114

Things are in a pretty sad state when the opinion page of the WSJ sounds more clever than the current Democratic White House:
Russian Republican? Obama answers aggression with standoffishness.

“Accusing Russia of failing to live up to its commitments, President Barack Obama warned Moscow on Thursday that the United States has another round of economic sanctions ‘teed up’–even as he acknowledged those penalties may do little to influence Vladimir Putin’s handling of the crisis in Ukraine,” the Associated Press reports from Tokyo.
“Teed up”? What was it that somebody said about Putin playing chess while Obama plays golf? […]
Obama’s standoffish attitude toward Putin does indeed seem similar to the approach he has taken to Republicans.

If a WSJ columnist is more keen to bash Obama than to bash Putin, I think that’s a good sign that America’s ruling class does not have an appetite for a new cold war. (The columnist also registers skepticism about whether the new Obama strategy of containment of Russia trumpeted in Monday’s NY Times will come to anything.)

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 7:17 utc | 115

114 That is another Russian World War II reference.
Putin has stitched a nationalist Russian narrative from the Tsars to the Bolshevists via Stalin to modern Russia, that patchworks people’s heroism of all of it into one glorious tapestry by cutting out the dark parts.
I still prefer to think of it as post modern Russian humour.
It very likely is the corporate identity of Russia inc., I am afraid.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 7:36 utc | 116

@Grieved #114:
Another quote from the link you gave:

From the moment Ukraine proclaimed its independence Kiev has not come up with anything other than «to build the Ukrainian political nation» without taking into account the ethnic composition of the peoples residing in the country. Along with the Ukrainian citizenship everybody has been assigned the official nationality – Ukrainian. In essence that project has led to a slow destruction of Ukraine’s ethnic diversity. It is not surprising that the residents of Zakarpatie felt themselves discriminated against, thinks Rostislav Ischenko, a Ukrainian political analyst.
«The current Ukrainian authorities are trying to build a monoethnic state, which in essence is a Nazi state. Any ethnic minority is viewed as a threat to that monoethnicity. They are trying to conduct forced Ukrainization of all ethnic minorities. It cannot happen peacefully».

This is very good propaganda. (The very best propaganda consists of nothing but claims which are true.) The Russian media is taking the line that the putschists are not just anti-Russian: they are against all ethnicities which are not Ukrainian.
And this gets back to the point which plenty of Western observers have made, that the Ukraine is an artificial state that was cobbled together by the Soviets. Russians have centuries of experience with governing a multiethnic state. The only thing the Ukrainian political class has experience with is hating all ethnicities other than their own.
But don’t expect the US or EU to recognize this problem, which makes the whole idea of “letting the Ukrainian people go their own way” incoherent, any time soon.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 7:49 utc | 117

@somebody #116:

Putin has stitched a nationalist Russian narrative from the Tsars to the Bolshevists via Stalin to modern Russia, that patchworks people’s heroism of all of it into one glorious tapestry by cutting out the dark parts.
I still prefer to think of it as post modern Russian humour.

The first paragraph is clearly self-contradictory, I would say. How does Putin “cut out the dark parts” if he includes Stalin, who is regularly held up as having been as evil as Hitler?
And it is not Putin who is postmodernist but you, with your rejection of the idea that there is such a thing as an authentic national culture, and that this culture is an important component of what gives people meaning to their lives.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 8:14 utc | 118

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25, 2014 3:49:31 AM | 117
Agree. And it was cobbled together by the Soviets in a way to defuse the ethnicities whose leadership had done the dirty work for the Nazis.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 8:17 utc | 119

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25, 2014 4:14:58 AM | 118
Actually it is easy to make Stalinism heroic when you concentrate on the successful defence against Fascism. You can even justify the Hitler/Stalin pact then as necessary to build up the national defense.
Have a look at the opening ceremony of the Sochi olympics and spot the Stalinist symbols.
Either you do not understand what I am saying or you wilfully misrepresent it. I am saying that identity has got nothing to do with the borders of a state.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 8:39 utc | 120

plus 120) this, by the way, was human truth up the nineteenth century including the French revolution. Identity politics are an invention of 1848.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 8:49 utc | 121

@somebody #120:

Actually it is easy to make Stalinism heroic when you concentrate on the successful defence against Fascism. […]
Have a look at the opening ceremony of the Sochi olympics and spot the Stalinist symbols.

Maybe I neglected to mention that my background is White Russian. My parents were Russian exiles from Bolshevism whose parents settled in Latvia. Thus, when the Germans invaded Latvia after the Soviet Union had annexed it, my parents viewed the Germans as liberators. Stalinism was everything that my parents were running away from, and the Nazis saved them from it. So this idea that Stalinism was somehow “heroic” will never have any resonance with me. Leni Riefenstahl is one of the most brilliant filmmakers of all time; Sergei Eisenstein was a primitively manipulative hack.
Do you know where I can find the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics on the Internet? I’ve decided I want to watch them.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 25 2014 9:25 utc | 122

Try Youtube Sochi Olympics :-)) This here is a description of what to expect.
Posted by: Demian | Apr 25, 2014 5:25:56 AM | 122
It works in all directions. If you define Bolshewism as absolute evil and interprete Darwinism in an Eugenic way, then Fascists were the truely heroic of all sacrificing themselves for the purity of the race – this version is extinct now in Germany but you get the patriotic one – that the Wehrmacht was fighting for their country, as patriotic soldiers and had nothing to do with SS atrocities – and that the emigrants were traitors.
This here is Hitler’s Secretary Traudl Junge on German sacrifice and on father figures.
The mechanism still works – everything and anything is allowed in a war against terror.
As this here is “Moon of Alabama” you can also read Bertold Brecht: The Decision (The Measure taken) for a literary analysis of Stalinism. It is pretty generic.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 25 2014 11:02 utc | 123

Water War With Ukraine to Devastate Crimean Harvest
“Russia offered to make advance payments to Ukraine for water, but authorities in Kiev have refused to play ball, Fyodorov said. ”

Posted by: Tea | Apr 25 2014 12:25 utc | 124

“The interpretation a US Government-funded polling operation draws from this is quite different from the conclusions the Ukrainians themselves are drawing. That’s because there are questions the US poll didn’t ask, and Ukrainian pollsters did. Publication of the US Government polling also reveals there were Ukrainian answers in March which Washington has omitted to report in April.”
Polling of Eastern Ukranians

Posted by: Tea | Apr 25 2014 12:44 utc | 125

Demian 2122, you seem to be glorying in the, entirely understandable, prejudices of a previous generation.
It would be not unlike refusing to accept the justice of the cause that the Vietnamese NLF fought for because you had been in the US army there. Or doubting the numerous Bengal famines since 1757 because an ancestor was in the Indian Civil Service.
The truth is that the Latvians, in 1941 and thereafter- not all of them but those leading them and many serving those leaders-played a criminal part in, amongst other things and making no mention of the massacres of Latvian Jews and Communists, the siege of Leningrad.
My view is that it is simply wrong to excuse the crimes of the Nazis by making the claim, first put forward by the Nazis and only very recently heard beyond the foetid basements in which fascists and authoritarians confer, that the Soviet regime was “just as bad.”
It wasn’t nor was the Chinese Communist party.
The one truth that this relativism does remind us of is the one which is most documented and least accepted and that is that the european imperial system, which still exists, was responsible for more deaths, cruelty, genocide and other crimes, and for the destruction of more civilisations and cultures than any of the shortlived bastards it fathered.
As to this:
“…So this idea that Stalinism was somehow “heroic” will never have any resonance with me. Leni Riefenstahl is one of the most brilliant filmmakers of all time; Sergei Eisenstein was a primitively manipulative hack…”
I take it that you regard it as a filial duty to accept, blindly, your parents judgements, warped though they must have been by unbearable suffering and the narrow vision imposed by emigration.
I find this very peculiar. As to your view of Riefenstahl, I have no quarrel with it. Your inability to understand Eisenstein’s genius is obviously just another blind spot. Such blind spots add up. And, in the end, they impair one’s vision, permanently.

Posted by: bevin | Apr 25 2014 19:44 utc | 126

The question of, will Aegis challenge a Russian no-fly zone over Ukraine? Voice of Russia posted an article titled, “Russian Su-24 scores off against the American USS Donald Cook.” The abstract reads, “…Su-24 … paralyzed … American combat management system ‘Aegis'”. The incident was confirmed by USG generally, without specifics.
Thus, the question becomes, did the captain of the destroyer have the authority and duty to splash the Su-24? If affirmative, this supports the main assertion of Russia’s ability to paralyze Aegis. Moreover, Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoygu, stated that, “The Russian Air Force has received new and upgraded versions of aircraft for the exercises.” Thus, the answer to your question is no.
The secondary question is, what does US/NATO really want is easy. They will not allow serious cooperation in Eurasia; that is stated as central to their doctrine. They want to mitigate Russia’s cooperation with Europe, in the area vital to that relationship, energy.
However the central question is, how far will US/NATO go, considering that, “Russia’s national security is guaranteed by nuclear weapons” (Pilko, 2014)? Moreover, the US knows that Russian parallel asymmetric countermeasures, like the one that can “paralyze” Aegis, at a fraction of the cost, will eventually break the Empire’s back –sound familiar? How far will Russia go? They will do everything in their power to protect their interests and sovereignty.
Where’s that dam Reset Button when you need it (Prez’nit April 2014)?

Posted by: HAHA | Apr 25 2014 21:52 utc | 127

Leni Riefenstahl is one of the most brilliant filmmakers of all time;
Most certainly not. Her films are abominably boring, even though she has some of the most dramatic subject matter available. I’ll take Battleship Potemkim over Triumph of the Will any day.
But Khule Wampe beats them all.
As for this: “If you define Bolshewism as absolute evil and interprete Darwinism in an Eugenic way, then Fascists were the truely heroic of all sacrificing themselves for the purity of the race – this version is extinct now in Germany
It is obviously not extinct at all. To declare the remnants of fascism “extinct” is a nice way for upper middle-class “respectable” Germans to pretend that their society is 100% rehabilitated from the bad old days – even though many signs suggest that it is not. And not the least of those signs being its current economic policies like the brutal austerity on countries it previously conquered and its current meddling position in Ukraine as well as the increasing rise of the far-right in Germany itself.
I must say that it comes off as pretty slimy for a German, even today, to try and assign nefarious motives to the Soviets for entering into the so-called “Hitler/Stalin pact” considering what was carried out by the Germans in Russia during World War Two. But then anti-communism is the still respectable form of naziism which makes up for having feel any guilt for the murder of 24 million people (the same obviously does not apply to the Holocaust – that is sacred still -presumably because, knowing human moral “ingenuity”, there is no advantage in undoing it). After all – it certainly was clear that Hitler intended to strike Russia and when he did the results were cataclysmic with no parallel in human history – so who is to say it wasn’t for defensive reasons? Especially from those who ran the offense?
Deep down many Germans love this new American-think. It allows them – under the thin veneer of “anti-communism” and “standing for democracy” – that in their fight against Stalin they were practically fighting Hitler himself and thereby can be absolved of all crimes through some sort of historical collision of matter and anti-matter. Their history thus becomes “extinct” but Russia and Putin – they still haven’t gotten over their Stalinism (just look at the Olympic Ceremony for heavens sake, nudge nudge, wink wink…) and so naturally, logically – it’s time for round three.
Somebody you are, to me, the picture of modern German middle class liberalism which is ever since unification proving itself to be nothing but a mask. You seem convinced of the “extinction” of Germany’s bad past, even though your nation’s quality of life is increasingly dependent upon the fact that the bad ideas are still living and breathing – if ever so slowly.
There was no real change for the top parts of the society, and this rewriting of history merely gives modern Germany its latest excuse to push those around it down.

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 26 2014 4:54 utc | 128

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 26, 2014 12:54:18 AM | 12
How do you come to terms with the fact that after the Hitler Stalin pact, Stalin – never mind sending them to Soviet Camps – sent German communist resistance fighters back to the Fascists?
You might also consider the fact that the original b. of “Moon of Alabama” very wisely passed the Soviet Union to finally end up in the United States.
And the fate of this actress – Carola Neher – close to the original b.
And yes no one in Germany today accepts eugenics.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 26 2014 5:29 utc | 129

Brecht chose the United States – only to be chased out by McCarthyite show trials. And he settled in East Germany decrying Stalin’s crimes like all good Communists.
Perhaps the communists who died going back knew the politics of the situation – like all soldiers do. and perhaps they died knowing they were dying for something greater than themselves. they weren’t not scared. they did not feel betrayed. they knew what their sacrifices were for.
sure it may be hard for those who count their lives in the number of dollars they may spend to understand – but othere know there is something greater.

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 27 2014 3:12 utc | 130

and i don’t doubt this is easy for me to say – but we know the discipline of communists the world over during those intense times (recall, people were signing up to fight and die in Spain just a couple of years before). we know they thought themselves willing to make any sacrifice and that they did.
the socalled Hitler/Stalin pact was no betrayal – it was survival. and the approach of German troops to Moscow proves it. and in any case it is not the place of the criminals should they really feel their guilt (which i most seriously doubt you do)- to second guess the victim.

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 27 2014 3:26 utc | 131