The Mysterious Destroyed "Russian Armored Vehicles"
Yesterday the Guardian's Shaun Walker claimed to have seen Russian military vehicle crossing the Russian border into Ukraine. I wrote elsewhere that I am skeptical of that claim:
I'd be very careful in believing the stuff Shaun Walker writes. He was with the [aid-]convoy yesterday and the convoy is halted some 20-30 kilometer away from the border. How could he have observed the (not really well defined) border from there?
Said differently: The Guardian and Shaun Walker have certainly not be neutral in their reporting and publishing about the Ukraine conflict. There is no reason for the Russian army to invade Ukraine especially not in near an aid-convoy which is covered by dozens of "western" journalists.
But this afternoon the Ukrainian government claimed that its troops overnight had destroyed a some Russian vehicles:
Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, told David Cameron in a phone call on Friday that a column of Russian armoured vehicles had been destroyed.
Now everyone in the media is jumping from the Shaun Walker report to the destroyed "Russian armored vehicle" to claim that it was a Russian military convoy that was attacked and destroyed within Ukraine.
But all armored vehicles in Ukraine are "Russian armored vehicles" as they all were constructed during the Soviet times. All the 123 tanks and APC destroyed in this conflict, most of them from the Ukrainian army, were "Russian armored vehicles". The insurgents use such vehicles as does the Ukrainian army. So even if Poroshenko's claim is true, and there was no proof presented for it at all, there is actually nothing factual that lets one connect "Russian armored vehicles" to actual Russian army vehicles.
The Russian government asserts that no Russian army vehicles have entered Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has claimed for several month that a Russian invasion is imminent or already occurring and a lot of other nonsense. Unless there is additional evidence that actual Russian army vehicles really entered Ukraine I will rather believe the Russian government.
Posted by b on August 15, 2014 at 18:15 UTC | Permalink
next page »But wasnt report from The Guardian newspaper (left wing news)
confirmed by the Daily Telegraph? (right wing news)
if so, then it must be true, IMO
(same as with flight MH17, i suppose.
Posted by: chris m | Aug 15 2014 18:26 utc | 2
claims verses proof... that is the distinction that bozos like walker on up skip over gleefully... why would that be? does someone want to encourage a viewpoint on no real info? i guess that goes with the mh17 theme song which is the same song of the warmongers happy to support war 24/7.. who cares if claims lack proof... it is all about war 24/7 in spite of facts.. just as w. bush and is weapon of mass delusion...
Posted by: james | Aug 15 2014 18:28 utc | 3
The msm will need some pictures. Photoshopped if need be. Shouldn't be too difficult to find a wrecked Russian vehicle on a road in Ukraine these days.
Posted by: dh | Aug 15 2014 18:29 utc | 4
@3 typo - just asK w. bush and his weapons of mass delusion...
Posted by: james | Aug 15 2014 18:31 utc | 5
"I will rather believe the Russian government."
There are no forked paths in your garden.
Stay the course, b.
Posted by: slothrop | Aug 15 2014 18:32 utc | 6
Yes seen this all over the place but has anyone taken just one minute of time to think that Ukraine army could go toe to toe with the Russian Army. I think not, even nato would struggle.
Thanks b for this.
Posted by: jo6pac | Aug 15 2014 18:33 utc | 7
USAToday
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Leonid Matyukhin told Bloomberg News that the vehicles had been painted white to camouflage the operation as a peacekeeping mission.
@2
Everyone "confirming" this alleged incursion has one source: the two Guardian reporters that forgot they had smartphones (and likely other camera gear) on them and didn't take any 'revealing' photos. Though they did tweet their 'scoop' right away.
This whole thing is most likely a journo mistake, due to ignorance of geography and just being stupid and overly excited, that is now being used by politicians in hopes of creating new leverage. Conversely, the journos could have done this on purpose. Who knows.
Posted by: Pair | Aug 15 2014 18:44 utc | 9
Where are the Russian soldiers who allegedly drove these into Ukraine? Show the dog tags. Show the bodies.
Posted by: Yonatan | Aug 15 2014 18:53 utc | 10
@10 Come now Yonatan. You know how the game works. The Russians snuck over the border and destroyed all the evidence.
Posted by: dh | Aug 15 2014 19:03 utc | 11
"A statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed that the strike had taken place, but they conveyed a more aggrieved tone and denied that anything was destroyed. They also deny that Russian vehicles even crossed the border into Ukraine, and say the incursion was on their side of the border. "
Posted by: yellowsnapdragon | Aug 15 2014 19:07 utc | 12
10;my first thought also.
The Graun has gone hydrophobic,like all the rest.
I don't get any of this sh*t,wishing armed conflict with Russia.
Posted by: dahoit | Aug 15 2014 19:11 utc | 13
Can someone clarify what this is then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz-QI8oYlZ4
Posted by: johnh | Aug 15 2014 19:27 utc | 15
@Yellowsnapdragon:
The article you quoted says so but it's supporting link for that particular assertion quotes Russia's FM thus: "We draw attention to the sharp intensification of military action by Ukrainian forces with the apparent aim to stop the path, agreed on with Kiev, of a humanitarian convoy across the Russia-Ukraine border." In other words this is anything but a confirmation of a strike taking place. If the road is the scene of military operations, the convoy will not be going, period. Always helpful to follow the links to the source; in this case Wired appears to be presenting its interpretation of the FM statement as a confirmation. It is not.
Posted by: OIFVet | Aug 15 2014 19:39 utc | 16
Not sure that the WIRE is a believable source. http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/08/15/russian-defense-ministry-denies-reports-military-column-crossed-into-ukraine.html
Posted by: georgeg | Aug 15 2014 19:41 utc | 17
Johnh@15:
title says that it's in stepanovka. complete defeat of ukrainian troops. Has nothing to do with current claims of ukrainian destruction of russian column.
Posted by: skuppers | Aug 15 2014 19:44 utc | 18
Yeah, noticed the supporting link was not exactly as supporting as claimed supportive. Draw your own conclusions. Here is a google translate of a link to Russian press release on convoy. Lavrov had phone call with Ukraine side per another Press Release.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A//mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/newsline/124B7139E4586AE844257D350051EFBD
Posted by: yellowsnapdragon | Aug 15 2014 19:47 utc | 19
As if it really needs be said as he works for the Guardian: Shaun Walker is an effing Western propagandist stooge.
Here's little Shaun back in March of this year on Putin and Crimea:
Viewed through the spectrum of this discontent, Russia's actions in Crimea are essentially a petulant riposte to the west: we think you break international law all the time, so we will too.
The armed seizure of the Crimean parliament, the cynical insistence that Russian troops were not operating in Crimea when they clearly were, and the breakneck speed and flagrant violations involved in organising the Crimean referendum at short notice have been hidden behind a thread of plausible deniability stretched infinitesimally thin – and a knowing smirk on Putin's face.
snip
The president now takes counsel from an ever-shrinking coterie of trusted aides. Most of them have a KGB background like the president and see nefarious western plots everywhere.
"There is a tremendous anxiety about Putin's decision-making and the erratic, impulsive behaviour," says Michael McFaul, who was US ambassador to Russia until last month. "Those that worry about the economy in Russia do not appear to be part of the decision-making process."
McFaul, a professional academic who works on Russia, describes Putin's worldview as "paranoid". The Russian president genuinely believes that the US is attempting to destabilise Russia, he says: "Putin assigns us all kinds of agency in Russia and across the world that we simply don't have."
And yet we are expected to expect FAIR and ACCURATE reporting from this effing stooge?
This little turd could tell us that the sky is blue and we shouldn't believe a word he says.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 15 2014 19:48 utc | 20
@yellowsnapdragon:
The Wire is part of The Atlantic magazine. That's about as conclusive as it can get.
Posted by: OIFVet | Aug 15 2014 19:50 utc | 21
Pooootin don't get no respect from the West, but a Dutch professor published an apology for Netherlands media coverage of MH17
Putin is no angel, but many unpopular leaders get placed in Box Canyon because there is an agenda from without.
NATO (USdotgov) uses their position largely as a function of US econ/political aspirations.
Posted by: Ben Franklin | Aug 15 2014 20:02 utc | 22
I just heard on msnbc shoe the cycle that kiev thought the convoy was rebel aid. Can't find a story.
I'm puking my way through scan of Mr. Walker's pieces for the Guardian which go back to 16 Sep 2013 and this is a non-scientific breakdown of what Mr. Shaun Walker has reported about from Russia since he stared his "assignment":
Pussy Riot/Jailed Greenpeace Activists/Edward Snowden: 33%
Sochi Olympics/Putin Corruption/Anti-Gay Stuff: 33%
The Glorious Ukrainian Revolution and aftermath: 33%
Seriously, I don't even know why they actually pay him to live in Russia/Ukraine as any troglodyte could ghost-write the pabulum he scratches.
Hmmm, what should my slant be when writing pieces for the Guardian about Russia? Tough one.
Before he moved over to The Guardian he was the Moscow correspondent for The Independent writing just wonderful accounts about poor poor Alexei Navalny, Pussy Riot, Edward Snowden and other such nonsense.
Again, this guy's just a Western douchebag propagnadist hack.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 15 2014 20:09 utc | 24
From the above Walker piece on the Navalny trial - better grab a tissue:
The sentence is a stark reminder of the uncompromising course that Mr Putin has taken in the past year. The President has never mentioned Mr Navalny by name, but the opposition leader’s charisma and oratory, as well as a populist nationalist streak, have seen him widely singled out as the leader the Kremlin should fear the most. During the trial, Mr Navalny spoke of his desire to “destroy the feudal system” that Mr Putin has implemented, and end “100 families sucking all the wealth from Russia”.
Mr Navalny’s wife Yulia remained composed as her husband was put in handcuffs and led away. The wife of Mr Ofitserov broke down in tears. In his closing statement, Mr Navalny had said he understood the case was a political order but begged the judge not to send Mr Ofitserov, a father of five, to jail as well. “It’s obvious that Ofitserov has been caught up in this completely by chance,” he said. Independent observers have said that the evidence against Mr Navalny simply does not stack up. The judge looked embarrassed but has passed down a tough sentence anyway.
It's just so beautiful.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 15 2014 20:14 utc | 25
jsore.. i agree with you.. these are the kinds of media types that go far in our present msm..
Posted by: james | Aug 15 2014 20:17 utc | 26
I agree 100% with b!
Concerning the MH17 issue: Amongst all the appaling facts is this video of the federalist with the teddybear where the "looting photos" came from. Someone wrote a letter to Timmermans, not a beep of response I suppose. It's heartbreaking, makes me sad and angry and shows the utter ugliness of West.
Posted by: slirs | Aug 15 2014 20:17 utc | 27
So the APCs and tanks are painted white? Boy, those sneaky Russkies. If you read the western press, no one took a picture of the column of white Russian tanks and APCs.
Something needs to be done for these poor reporters who don't apparently have cameras on their smart phones, although maybe Russia uses stealth technology on their APCs and tanks. It's like the Emperor's new clothes, you can't see them but if you believe you can imagine them.
Posted by: Bob In Portland | Aug 15 2014 20:24 utc | 28
Some idea of what we're dealing with: The US News Editor for the Guardian is Alex Koppelman. Koppelman came to them via The New Yorker (brief stint) and prior to that was at Ad Week. While at Ad Week, he helped lead the media charge in attacking Scott Horton and Harpers for their award-winning investigation asking hard questions about the supposed 2006 triple "suicides" at Guantanamo. In doing so, Horton exposed a possible CIA or JSOC black site at Gitmo ("Camp No").
Koppelman's work was cited far and wide (even by a US Federal judge) as having supposedly exposed Horton's "conspiracy"-mongering about Guantanamo. (I critiqued Koppelman's analysis myself in an article at Truthout at the time.) Since then, he's quickly moved up in the journalism world. He's colleagues with Shaun Walker, and no doubt fits in well with The Guardian's unquestioned obeisance to the US military and CIA when it comes to Russia and the Ukraine.
I'm referring to Koppelman only to help facilitate understanding regarding the kinds of biases that exist among mainstream reporters and editors. I'm not suggesting Koppelman has had any influence on the particular story about a supposed Russian incursion into Ukraine.
Ever since the aid convoy started winding its way from Moscow to the border, Kiev has been completely freaking out. First, they blamed Obama for making them receive it. Then, Yesterday the junta was promising to destroy the caravan if it tried to cross near Luhansk. This morning they said that Ukrainian officials were inspecting the cargo on Russia side of the border. Then that was retracted by Kiev. It is all a fog of disinformation.
For those you who want to follow the minutiae of Novorossiya, I suggest checking out our old friend Rowan Berkeley's blog, Niqnaq. He has done some super work there the last couple months tracking events. The post I would recommend today is the translation of Aleksandr Dugin's analysis.
Dugin addresses Strelkov's alleged departure and the dystopian future of Novorossiya in terms of rock'em sock'em oligarchs Kolomoisky vs. Akhmetov; also, he limns the possible outcomes of the aid convoy.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Aug 15 2014 21:02 utc | 31
The sick junta doing everything to get west to attack Russia, i also heard poroshenko might cut gas to the european uninion.
What the H is wrong with these idiots?!
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 15 2014 21:10 utc | 32
I'm 99% sure that in this case, they're literally making this stuff up. The only purpose of this is to tie the words "military" and "convoy" together, so the casual reader/listener/watcher would think "military" when hearing the word "convoy". It's easy, it's like the auto-completion in your mind's google function.
Posted by: peter radiator | Aug 15 2014 21:23 utc | 33
Well, something goes wrong when even Fox News is sceptical
It was not clear what Russia could hope to gain by sending in a military column while world attention was trained on its efforts to get the aid convoy into eastern Ukraine.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 15 2014 21:36 utc | 34
This Russian convoy story illustrates the saying that a lie circles the globe twice before the truth gets its pants on.
The truth's pants are on concerning MH17.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/EpDKuN3cV_o
Thanks to Saker for posting it.
Posted by: SingingSam | Aug 15 2014 21:49 utc | 35
This Russian convoy story illustrates the saying that a lie circles the globe twice before the truth gets its pants on.
The truth's pants are on concerning MH17.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/EpDKuN3cV_o
Thanks to Saker for posting it.
Posted by: SingingSam | Aug 15 2014 21:50 utc | 36
It is difficult to attribute this story of the Russian army unit passing directly into Ukraine as pure fabrication. Reporters may distort the news or report as news lies from leaders but fabricating facts is just not something western reporters do. Shawn Walker and Roland Oliphant make some very specific claims. The Telegraph has the more detailed account. It sounds like Shawn and Roland followed the unit down an obscure rural road (unpaved?) until they saw them go through a checkpoint with armed men. How they knew this was the border is not clear but it seems very unlikely that they would be traveling around the Russian countryside using by-paths with having a GPS system. Also this Russian unit was traveling at night with their head lights on and didn't seem unsettled that they were being followed by a single car. Strange story to be sure.
Posted by: ToivoS | Aug 15 2014 22:22 utc | 37
I have said this: While the US has consistently displayed a level of military incompetence that is breath taking, they are genius class at subverting other countries' elites.
This includes political, economic, military, national security, media (etc) elites. Not to mention their total subversion of a huge number of NGOs.
These elites first loyalty is to the US, their own country's coming a very poor second (if at all).
The whole entire Ukrainian CF is a classic example of that. Looking at the UK and EU, almost to a person their political/media/etc elites are 'all the way with LBJ' (Australian saying). Large numbers of them are totally prepared to sacrifice their own economies and even their own populations (if things go hot) to stay on the party line.
There is no difference in concept between this and the USSR's total control of Communist parties in the 'old days'. The US in fact has been vastly more successful in that their control is across a far larger spectrum of elite groups.
Back in the 'old days' we used to call people that would deliberately (and with malice aforethought) put another country's interests over their own one...traitors.
So when you read 'claims' and endless anti-Russian/Putin propaganda in the 'respected' UK/EU media (and the lack of questioning of obviously mendacious claims by all the Govts) then just simply reflect on the fact that their first loyalty is to someone else. And don't expect them to change, these people are owned, lock stock and barrel.
Once you understand this you can deconstruct their 'message' and work out (in the way the old Kremlinologists used to do) what the 'Boss' is really worried about.
In this case the US is obviously worried about the aid convoy, therefore something else has to be 'found' to distract everyone from it. They can't really shoot down another airliner, so this is perfect. It takes attention away from the aid convoy story while reinforcing the line that it really is a 'military convoy' while giving the UK/EU political satraps a 'justification' for more sanctions/actions etc. The order went out (no doubt through convoluted channels) and the 'answer' they wanted came back.
Clever, in their own minds at least, in the echo chamber that they all live in. I mean the Guardian's and Telegraph's claims don't even pass the 'laugh test'. Russia invades Ukraine with a few vehicles, headlights on and in front of not just one but two western (and known to be hostile) journalists...this is the stuff of an Onion spoof.
So these things can be useful in working out how they really think and what they are really concerned about, total propaganda, but there is always a purpose behind it, in what is put forward and especially the timing.
My first approach is: "total piffle, but why and why now?".
Posted by: OldSkeptic | Aug 15 2014 22:41 utc | 38
@36 toivos
How they knew this was the border is not clear
According to the Guardian article by Shawn Walker
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/russian-military-vehicles-enter-ukraine-aid-convoy-stops-short-border
using a rough dirt track and clearly crossing through a gap in a barbed wire fence that demarcates the border
Posted by: pantaraxia | Aug 15 2014 22:56 utc | 39
@37
Nato/US/Kiev trying to get justification for this...
Hopefully some people are wising up finally...one can only hope that is the case.
#38 Is that satire? Roland simply reported some kind of fence with a checkpoint that he presumed to be the border. They had to have carried a GPS system.
Posted by: ToivoS | Aug 15 2014 23:19 utc | 41
"Journalists" are paid propagandists, unless proven otherwise. They have no choice. If journalists write anything that doesn't support national objectives they become ex-journalists.
from Norman Solomon's "War Made Easy" -- How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
Dan Rather, an iconic US journalist: "Look I'm an American. I never tried to kid anybody that I'm some internationalist or something. And when my country is at war, I want my country to win, whatever the definition of 'win' might be. Now, I can't and don't argue that that is coverage without prejudice. About that I am prejudiced." So Dan brought us through the criminal war against Vietnam and the Nixon presidency.
Ukraine forces being defeated? http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com
Posted by: Vollin | Aug 15 2014 23:32 utc | 43
According to Walker they have been back to the place today in broad daylight. Still no photos or videos or coordinates or anything...
They - "western" "journalists" - were hanging out in droves at the convoy yesterday. Maybe some oligarch agent approached them with a coffer of cash to help their imagination? Don't think that was necessary, though, especially Walker is such a piece of work that he might have cooked up the story just for attention.
@OldSkeptic #37:
I think this is a tempest in a teapot. The latest NY Times story on the convoy is again neutral. It is careful to say "Ukraine and NATO said", as opposed to writing in such a way as to give the impression that the claims are true.
I have little interest in what Shaun Walker saw or didn't see. This isn't really a significant issue, since everyone knows that Russia is aiding the rebels in one way or another. The West's protestations about seeing Russian army vehicles cross the border carry little weight, given that Canada has been sending Boeing military transports to Kharkov.
I have to admit that I am coming around to your point of view that the British press has become a laughing stock.
The main thing is that, judging by the NY Times story, getting the Russian aid convoy to Lugansk appears to be proceeding. The Ukes and the Red Cross insist upon lots of paperwork, but there don't appear to be any outright refusals anymore.
I have a hunch that the Uke army is disintegrating. That's based mostly on the feeling I get from Russian videos about the resistance. Also, at the beginning of the week, there was talk about the Ukes launching a major assault on Donetsk, but nothing of the kind appears to have materialized.
The Uke strategy that we saw in Slavyansk is to bomb civilians and infrastructure until the rebels can't take the horror any more and leave, to save innocent lives. The Ukes were not up to storming Slavyansk. Donetsk is much bigger than Slavyansk. And the Red Cross coming into Lugansk and/or Donetsk will complicate the preferred Uke way of carrying on war, randomly shelling populated areas. (Do they get that from the English? That's what the English did to the Germans in WW II, with their night bombing runs. The only point of the English bombing was to terrorize the civilian population. So, this is how the Ukes become "European", by committing the same war crimes the English did.)
@ 37 OldSkeptic..excellent commentary and overview.. i think everyone here ought to read your post over a few times as it hits the nail on the head on a few different and very important levels. thanks.
Posted by: james | Aug 16 2014 0:08 utc | 46
Feed for consumption …
Indeed, @ bbc now reporting that most of the trucks in Russian "aid convoy" are empty [http://] m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28799627 …
Anne almost became first lady of Poland, see article Vanity Fair.
Husband is Radek 'neocon' Sikorski.
Anne is one of many neocons invited to Dutch media as 'expert' on Ukraine crisis and her take on facts surrounding downing of MH-17.
Han de Winde @HandeWinde 4h
Caution ! @grasswirefacts: photo reporting Russian troops rolling into Ukraine is actually from #Millerovo, Russia pic.twitter.com/TKRX2JLMEw
Posted by: brian | Aug 16 2014 0:29 utc | 48
http://journal-neo.org/2014/08/15/russian-tanks-in-ukraine-consider-the-source/
Posted by: brian | Aug 16 2014 0:30 utc | 49
The best evidence that the rebels are winning is that the MSM says that they are losing.
My take (not necessarily the best) is that the ethnic Russians initially signed onto secession not realizing that freedom isn't free, and then when Kyev wantonly killed civilians the survivors of military age signed on to the effort. (That would make it similar to the US brutal occupation of Iraq, which served to increase the resistance.)
The Pentagon, and Kyev also as its puppet, has never grasped the idea that military action without consideration of personal motivations toward freedom, politics and religion is futile.
Ukraine has been repeatedly requesting and/or provoking NATO's military intervention to help put down the struggle of SE Ukrainians for self-determination and independence. Since this was not the first occurence and since it begins to look like a pattern, I would rather believe that we are witnessing one more attempt by the deadlocked Ukie "government" to provoke Western military help. Needless to say, Poroshenko's Western sponsors are most likely seeking such provocation, as well.
Posted by: Alex | Aug 16 2014 0:40 utc | 51
i can understand the MSM and following them the general public, believing the Ukrainian regime, but why would anyone else? they have zero credibility
Posted by: brian | Aug 16 2014 1:29 utc | 52
one tiny point. What is the significance of spelling the capitol of Ukraine as "Kyev" as opposed to "Kiev"? I know there is a battle going on about Russian transliterations of their language but this is one I do not understand.
Posted by: ToivoS | Aug 16 2014 1:53 utc | 53
These are dangerous times. How dangerous? There are currently twenty-eight (28) US national emergencies which are threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Ukraine tops the list at three (3) US national emergencies as seen here.
@52, ToivoS: "Kyiv" is "Ukrainian". They tend to have an H where the Russian has a G, like in Ihor/Igor, and Y's as in Yankee are thrown around as much as possible.
@48 brian
Good read there. You would think that people would have learned from the govt. lies that began the iraq travesty in 2003. I think the only way people will wake up and question what their govt. says before accepting is when scenes like gaza, eastern ukraine, somalia and sudan become their reality.
We Americans live in a war zone free bubble, yeah we have our violence towards each other, fortunately we have not experienced US govt. policy induced modern warfare on our soil. Unfortunately, I think that is the only way masses of Americans would stop the blind acceptance of the govt. narrative.
Unfortunately our "leaders" past and current meddlesome, belligerant and bellicose policies may actually bring that carnage to America's soil. Maybe the sheeple would wake up...right before they are mounted on the rotisserie of blind wilful ignorance.
Donetsk. 08/15/2014-21:02
Comment:
Donetsk:
Operative environment is becoming precarious for the punitive army, which is running out of steam having thrown most battle-worth forces to encircle Donetsk.
After a potent counter strike from Saur-Mogila down to Russia’s border, the army of Novorossia has established control over customs terminal Marinovka. An enemy group swooped at Antratsit, Miusinsk, Krasniy Luch found itself cut off of supply lines. Meanwhile , its attempts to take these cities were repelled: the punitive troops sustained serious losses.
Map:
Gorlovka Debal`tsevo
Yenakievo
Yasinovataya Krasniy Luch
Antratsit
Peski Airport
Donetsk Khartsizck Shakhtersk Torez Snezhnoye Miusinsk
-------
Ilovaysk Saur-Mogila Stepanovka Dmitrovka
Dibrovka
Marinovka Kozhevnia---------------------------------------------------------
RussiaLugansk:
Freeing Rodakovo and Zimogor`e to the north eases a pressure on Lugansk. The combatants attained an excellent opportunity to clean up highway Lugansk-Stakhanov from enemy forces, and to create a real threat to an existence of Ukrainian troops’ foothold in area of Beloye. At the same time, this is an opportunity to prevent punitive troops’ strike to assist for a break through those blocked in area Lugutino-Uspenka. Further struggle of Ukrainian forces trapped in this area becomes totally hopeless.
Map:
Metallist
Zimogor`e
Stakhanov Rodakovo Yubileynoye
Lugansk
Alchevsk Beloye -------
Uspenka
Lutugino Airport
Posted by: Fete | Aug 16 2014 4:45 utc | 57
@35: Apparently, there is a one-day time gap when videos are created on YouTube.
Posted by: g_h | Aug 16 2014 6:36 utc | 58
Posted by: Alex | Aug 15, 2014 8:40:07 PM | 50
agree. There is this telling analysis from Timothy Garton Ash who has been paid to create a Ukrainian national identity by rewriting history.
The most interesting thing over the past 24 hours was the Russian military convoy passing through the border into Ukraine, witnessed and photographed by Western and even Russian media outlets.And, more remarkably, has been the muted reaction from the West and indeed from the Western media. Some 4-5 weeks ago, the White House PR machine would have been going into overdrive, and warning of new sanctions iterations in the pipeline unless Russia “de-escalated.” Thus far nothing we have seen next to nothing of note.
Officially the Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the convoy exists/crossed – but the evidence is as conclusive as it could be from the tweets/snaps by the Guardian/London Telegraph/Novy Vremya. I sense this denial was tongue in cheek. But what is more important, I think the Russians wanted everyone to see this convoy crossing the border. Journalists were guided to the border crossing by the convoy of Russian white humanitarian trucks – and then the military convoy just appeared, turned right and crossed the border in front of the journalists. Russia wanted everyone to see that it has the capacity to cross the border into Ukraine at will – even with full Russian military regalia.
It would seem as though Russia is goading/testing the West – to see the Western sanctions response.
The fact that the European Union and the US have failed to respond to the Russian action yesterday in any meaningful way suggests that they really don’t want to know now – they have had their sanctions fill, and Vladimir Putin has played them into sanctions stalemate.
This much was probably evident from comments from the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, this morning, suggestive that Western sanctions have been counter-productive, and these were echoed by similar comments by his Slovak counterpart – I tend to disagree in terms of their impact (they stalled Russian action, and bought time for the Ukrainian military to find its feet). They also come as Europe suffered pretty weak macro data releases this week, suggestive that the crisis in Ukraine and with Russia is weakening sentiment across the European continent.
For Ukraine, that probably means that its fate is now in its own hands – don’t wait for its EU brothers to ride to the rescue, or the US for that matter which is currently focused elsewhere. The EU is divided anyway, and ineffective, and has been subject to “divide and rule” from Russia which has been using its own business leverage, “patronage,” and contacts to full effect over recent months.
He then proceeds to put a positive spin on it. The truth is Ukrainians have been badly used and fooled.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 6:41 utc | 59
@somebody #58:
I remember reading Timothy Garton Ash in the New York Review of Books during the period of unrest in eastern Europe which ended with the collapse of the USSR, and considering him to be a very insightful observer. Compared to that time, the world has turned upside down.
To quote from the piece you link to:
Russia has failed in allowing a new nation to be forged
Colonel Cassad holds to the same view. After the breakup of the USSR, the US engaged in a systematic campaign using "civil society" to turn Ukrainians into virulent, zombified Russophobes. The Russian failure was in not countering that by cultivating Russophilic NGOs, youth groups, etc. in the Ukraine.
If you have references regarding how Ash helped "create a Ukrainian national identity", I'd be grateful if you posted them. From my meager reading on the subject, my impression is that the creation of Uke national identity had the following phases: (1) conquest by the Polish Empire of some western Russian territories; (2) sponsorship of an "independent Ukraine" by the German Reich during WW I; (3) encouragement of Uke nationalism by Lenin and Trotsky; (4) the development of Banderaism by the Nazis; (5) cultivation of Uke nationalism/Russophobia by USG after the breakup of the USSR.
You suggest that Ash played a role in (5).
Uke soldiers have something in common with American professional baseball players: they scratch their balls in public.
Fighter of the 72nd Airomobile about losses (Russian language video)
37
http://www.americansignal.com/applications/military-giant-voice-solutions/
Giant Voice are being installed in communities near US military bases around the world.
They play reveille every morning, and taps every night, and Star Spangled Banner at least
once a day, as well as any 'mass notification system' alerts the military wants to make, and thank G-d they gave up on the Homeland Depot national color alert update shenanigans.
You can hear this through the concrete walls of your compound, booming to the sheep, and
every time it fires up, I think back to the hills of Eos, in Greece, where I found an old
hillside monastery at the end of a long hard year, and lay there on a flat rock, listening to the tinkle of the goat bells in the hills around me. Just the silence, and the bells.
Today, there's DoD Giant Voice, and an old starved dog that comes around in the evening, who I share my rice bowl with. Then he wags his tail, and wanders off in search again.
To paraphrase Kill Bill, for what America has done to the world, it deserves to die.
Posted by: ChipNikh | Aug 16 2014 9:31 utc | 62
@Demian
From linked article Kyiv Post:
"The most interesting thing over the past 24 hours was the Russian military convoy passing through the border into Ukraine, witnessed and photographed by Western and even Russian media outlets.
And, more remarkably, has been the muted reaction from the West and indeed from the Western media. Some 4-5 weeks ago, the White House PR machine would have been going into overdrive, and warning of new sanctions iterations in the pipeline unless Russia “de-escalated.” Thus far nothing we have seen next to nothing of note."
Feeds into my sensing the rhetoric has toned down due to overwhelming evidence of downing MH-17 pointing to Kiev renegade right-wing forces with UBS complicity. Has someone leading the Ukrainian AF been sacked recently?
Interesting to view small summit this weekend between France, Germany, Russia's Lavrov and Ukraine's Klimkin in Berlin. Perhaps a breakthrough … or a reset from an earlier summit on July 2, 2014 ‒ agree on cease-fire path ‒ before the event!
NATO Policy: A Return to Deterrence
NATO's Anders Fogh Rasmussen tells DW that growing tensions with Russia have forced the alliance into a renewed rivalry.
It's actually the West's adopted "Containment 2.0 making Russia a pariah state " policy of the 21st century.
Oui, re #63. It is not so much about 'containment' as 'crippling'.
The US's obvious 'strategy' is #1 end gas/oil sales from Russia to the EU. By one way or another.
This is a win-win in their minds.
It cripples (they think) Russia economically it cripples Germany and the EU economically (even more than they have done it too themselves).
In the first case it weakens a competitor, in the second it binds the EU and the increasingly 'uppity' Germans to the US more closely.
So the EU, which the US 'owned' elites are supposed to 'take one for the Gipper'. Like Japan did when it willingly economically self destructed for the US.
There is push back of course, the German economic elites are not happy, unlike most countries these days they are mostly manufacturing elites. And getting wiped out economically does not sit well with them.
Financial elites are totally protected of course by endless Fed, etc money printing ..hence the UK is a 'attack dog' on Russia after some wavering, but I am sure that they are on line now after some promises by the Fed and BoE to print and protect them from any possible losses.
So this is war, full economic war and fighting, for the moment, with proxies. The US is at war with Russia. Nothing Kiev does or says is without US consent (given the number of CIA,. State Dept, Military, etc people in Kiev and Brennan/Biden visits and calls).
Hence their military incompetence.
Look, connect the dots people. Israel, Iraq, etc, etc, etc ...and Georgia...that forgotten event. Straight US/Israeli playbook.
They are good at killing, but terrible at fighting.
US/Israel plan (they owned, probably still do, the Georgian Political/military elites) Sneak attack (killing all the Russian Peace keepers in their beds), then an ethnic cleansing attack on a defenceless city (see the pattern)...went on..until the Russian tanks came over the horizon then they (including reported US/Israeli 'advisers') ran for their lives.
Chaney, the 'real' President wanted US troops to go in there (to die of course). 'Shrub' (Bush Jnr) actually didn't do that, I speculate at the behest of his father, who for all his faults wasn't a total idiot and Shrub stood up to Chaney, hence you northern hemisphere people's radioactive atoms are all not bouncing off of the stratosphere.
Posted by: OldSkeptic | Aug 16 2014 10:20 utc | 65
Posted by: Demian | Aug 16, 2014 3:08:11 AM | 59
Timothy Garton Ash at the Hoover institution
have a look at the other fellows.
Timothy Garton Ash on the new "European" identity
Europe has lost the plot. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the treaty of Rome on 25th March 2007--the 50th birthday of the European economic community that became the European Union--Europe no longer knows what story it wants to tell. A shared political narrative sustained the postwar project of (west) European integration for three generations, but it has fallen apart since the end of the cold war. Most Europeans now have little idea where we're coming from; far less do we share a vision of where we want to go to. We don't know why we have an EU or what it's good for. So we urgently need a new narrative. I propose that our new story should be woven from six strands, each of which represents a shared European goal. The strands are freedom, peace, law, prosperity, diversity and solidarity. None of these goals is unique to Europe, but most Europeans would agree that it is characteristic of contemporary Europe to aspire to them. Our performance, however, often falls a long way short of the aspiration. That falling short is itself part of our new story and must be spelled out. For today's Europe should also have a capacity for constant self-criticism.
I wonder why he forgot equality.
Timothy Garton Ash on Freedom and Diversity
For everyone in a diverse society, the feeling of belonging together depends crucially on the social and cultural signals sent and received every day.
Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian in March
It would be equally naive, however, to pretend that there are not real fears among many in eastern Ukraine. Start by abandoning the labels "ethnic Ukrainians" and "ethnic Russians". They mean almost nothing. What you have here is a fluid, complex mix of national, linguistic, civic and political identities. There are people who think of themselves as Russians. There are those who live their lives mainly in Russian, but also identify as Ukrainians. There are innumerable families of mixed origins, with parents and grandparents who moved around the former Soviet Union. Most of them would rather not have to choose. In a poll conducted in the first half of February, only 15% of those asked in the Kharkiv region and 33% around Donetsk wanted Ukraine to unite with Russia.In the same poll, the figure for Crimea was 41%. But then take a month of radicalising politics and Russian takeover, with Ukrainian-language channels yanked off TV. Add relentless reporting on the Russian-language media of a "fascist coup" in Kiev, exacerbated by some foolish words and gestures from victorious revolutionaries in Kiev. Subtract Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians living in Crimea, who largely boycott the referendum. Season with a large pinch of electoral fraud. Hey presto, 41% becomes 97%.
It is not just Russian "political technology" that changes numbers and loyalties. What happens in such traumatic moments is that identities switch and crystallise quite suddenly, like an unstable chemical compound to which you add one drop of reactant. Yesterday, you were a Yugoslav; today, a furious Serb or Croat.
Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian in February
I have no idea what will happen in Ukraine tomorrow, let alone next week. But I know what all Europeans should want to happen over the next year and the next decades. In February 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the Yalta agreement, Ukraine should again be a halfway functioning state. A corrupt and rackety one, but still the kind of state that, in the long run, forges a nation. It should have signed an association agreement with the EU, but also have close ties with Russia. In February 2045, on the 100th anniversary of the Yalta agreement, it should be a liberal democratic, rule-of-law state that is a member of the EU, but has a special relationship with a democratic Russia. "Pie in the sky!" you may say. But if you don't know where you want to go, all roads are equally good. This is where we should want to go.That outcome would obviously be good for Ukraine. Less obviously, it would be good for Europe. Look at the shifting balance of world power, and look at the demographic projections for western Europe's ageing population. We'll need those young Ukrainians sooner than you think, if we are to pay our pensions, maintain economic growth and defend our way of life in a post-western world. Less obviously still, it would good for Russia. Russia has lost an empire but not yet found a role. Its uncertain sense of itself is inextricably bound up with its deep-seated confusion about Ukraine, a cradle of Russian history that many Russians still regard as belonging back in Russia's nursery.
Very nicely presented. Democracy in Ukraine first and then in Russia. Ukraine in the Western Block and a friendly Russia next door.
Talking about bringing democracy to a country this is Timothy Garton Ash on Iraq
But on Iraq, I would still like to defend a position of tortured liberal ambivalence. Being liberal doesn't mean you always dither in the middle on the hard questions. I was strongly against the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, against the American interventions in Nicaragua and El Salvador, for military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, and for the war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan, all on good liberal grounds. Iraq is different and more difficult. I see four strong arguments on each side.
He is part of the marketing of wars for liberals. He never explains why Ukraine should be part of Europe, why a conflict between Ukraine and Russia is necessary.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 10:40 utc | 66
@OldSkeptic
True! I'm doing a write-up about the joint venture Ukraine with Georgia, exiled president Saakashvili as a house guest at Maidan protest and seeking a job as advisor to Poroshenko. Does the military-intelligence cooperation include upgrading the Su-25s with avionics from Israel's Elbit Systems? The Georgian version SU-25 KM outperformed the Russian fighter bombers in 2008.
add to 65
Timothy Garton Ash on Ukraine as a state-nation - with an identity created by the state.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 11:19 utc | 68
Pepe Escobar's Asia Times article in case anyone has missed this.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-150814.html
Not jut the Kiev Regime that is guilty, but the British Regime, the American regime, and the Dutch Regime.
But the bastards will get away with this as well. We are discussing tanks now, no?
THE ROVING EYE Vanishing point … By Pepe EscobarFirst, passenger airliner MH370 vanished from Planet Earth. Then MH370 vanished from the news cycle. First, MH17 was shot down by "Putin's missile" - as Planet Earth was told. Then MH17 vanished from the news cycle.
Where's Baudrillard when we need him? Had he been alive, the dervish of simulacra would have already deconstructed these two Malaysian planes as mirror images; from absolute vanishing to maximum exposure, then vanished again. They might as well have been abducted - and shot - by aliens. Now you seem them, now you don't.
...
The Pentagon, with 20-20 vision over Ukraine, knows what happened. Russian intelligence not only knows what happened but offered a tantalizing glimpse of it in an official presentation, dismissed by the "West". The best technical analyses point not to "Putin's missile" - a BUK - but to a combination of R-60 air-to-air missile and the auto-cannon of an Su-25.
... After the missile takes out an engine, both the 777's max speed and its max altitude are well within the Su-25 fighter's speed & altitude capabilities. Then, the Su-25 can show off its cannon power."
.. One cannot even imagine the tectonic geopolitical plates clashing were the Kiev regime to be deemed responsible. It would be the vanishing point for the whole - warped - notion of the Empire of Chaos's "indispensable" exceptionalism.
So as MH370 totally vanished, the MH17 story must also totally vanish. ...
Moscow, after deconstructing the "logic" of the ongoing Russia/Putin hysterical demonization, knows that whatever they say will be invalidated by the Orwellian Thought Police. Yet as much as His Master's Voice controls what the Dutch and the British might eventually reveal, Russia can counterpunch by leaking the crucial scenario to Malaysia. And Malaysia will talk.
MH370 vanished as in a video game. MH17 was hit as in a video game. Now their respective narratives are being vanished. It's as if we are living a tiny rehearsal of the black hypothesis of post-history.
...
So MH370 may have vanished into an antechamber of the black hypothesis. But MH17 is much more prosaic; it could have been just a false flag gone wrong. Thus, under Empire of Chaos's rules, it must also vanish. The question is whether global civil society will accept it - or has already entered its own vanishing point.
Posted by: DM | Aug 16 2014 11:20 utc | 69
Yep, Malaysia will not keep silent.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16, 2014 7:50:42 AM | 69
The threat of a Colour Revolution in Malaysia could shut them up.
But if Dr Mahatir Mohammed (financier of the Mavi Mamara siege-busting mission to Gaza) is still a person of influence then he'll help the authorities find a way to blow the whistle on the US (Zionist Occupied) Govt and its lackeys.
The story only needs to be republicised at regular intervals for the truth to seep out.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 16 2014 12:35 utc | 71
@68
Exposure of the indispensable exceptionalism fallacy would be just what the planet needs. Those of us that already knows the validity of the afore mentioned also know the empire of chaos as Pepe calls them has/will commit(ed) incomprehensible extreme acts of terror to maintain the indispensible exceptionalism falsehoods.
Because the empire of chaos values life other than their own sect as less than worthy to inhabit the planet and/or to only serve as a conduit to do its bidding, the planet's population would have to simutaneously and collectively reach the moment of realization. A complete earth wide revolt against Pepe's empire of chaos, this would require that people put aside their own best interests .
The odds of that happening are not that good.
elder detente statesman Egon Bahr proposes a solution - in German
Security guarantees for Russia - neutral Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.
Must be too simple.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 13:10 utc | 73
Is An Airborne Biological Weapons Release Imminent?
"...At the same time as the funding for “biodefense” was ramping up, the US Congress began passing a series of alarming laws ostensibly circling the wagons around any disclosures that might point to waterborne.
In the USA PATRIOT Act, Section 817 (The Expansion of the Biological Weapons Statute), the US gave itself and its agents mmunity from violating its own biological weapons laws, in the disturbing and underreported caveat that “the prohibitions in this section shall not apply to any duly authorized US governmental activity.”
As previously reported, the US subsequently failed to comply with a politically binding mandate to report changes in its domestic biological weapons laws to the nternational treaty organization, the Biological Weapons and Toxins Convention. This omission could be considered. tantamount to an international snow-job.
In quick succession, the US Congress then passed the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2002, which made the public release of information pertaining to “protected infrastructure” punishable by time in the federal pen. Through a series of public information act requests, this reporter noted that “protected infrastructure” pertaining to water involved details about the existence of a second, parallel water line. The relevance of the second line to a bio/chem delivery system has been discussed here and here...."
http://journal-neo.org/2014/08/14/is-an-airborne-biological-weapons-release-imminent/
I have to add to the compliments of OldSkeptic's very well reasoned remarks. I had to copy it to my personal notebook. That and JSorrentine's comment a few days ago before JSorrentine was censored about how we should run the other way if we encounter any American be they drama professors, bicycle messengers, ice cream vendors, anyone, just run for the hills, that was great stuff too! Although horrible times, the end of an age.
Posted by: geoff29 | Aug 16 2014 14:27 utc | 75
Mmmm, is there actually a shift taking place. It's gentle but a first step - France Calls on Ukraine for Restraint in Its Operations Against Self-Defense Forces | Politics | RIA Novosti
It would be interessting to know if Hollande called them Self-Defense Forces or if that is the doing of RIA.
Posted by: Fran | Aug 16 2014 14:30 utc | 76
really @ 55: "Maybe the sheeple would wake up...right before they are mounted on the rotisserie of blind wilful ignorance."
Couldn't agree more, but not a prayer of that happening. Sad. Anesthetized by bread and circuses the oblivion to reality will continue.
Posted by: ben | Aug 16 2014 14:38 utc | 77
Posted by: Fran | Aug 16, 2014 10:30:38 AM | 75
Google is your friend - he called them "separatistes", he also called for Russia to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine
François Hollande a "rappelé que la Russie devait s'engager à respecter l'intégrité territoriale de l'Ukraine et a appelé l'Ukraine à faire preuve de retenue et discernement dans les opérations militaires en cours contre les séparatistes", poursuit le texte. M. Hollande et José Manuel Barroso ont en outre "souligné l'urgence humanitaire et les besoins de la population à l'est de l'Ukraine".
Nothing new really, washing their hands off the responsibility for the killing.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 14:58 utc | 78
Andrew Korybko wrote the statement below about Senate Bill s.2277 and I agree whole heartedly.
"...If it passes into law, the bill will be seen in hindsight as the one action which single-handedly ushered in the ‘New Cold War’ and could quite possibly revert Europe back to the powder keg that it once was 100 years ago."
If I lived in anywhere in Eurasia I would want to know of this and scream at the top of my lungs to all who would listen. This is the type of bellicose legisltion in which masses of people are brainwashed,coerced, oppressed, disenfranchised and/or used as cannon fodder for resouce and territorial conflict.
Mr. Korybko has his finger on this dangerous piece of poposed legislation spawned from the fetid halls of the US govt. Please spare some time and give it a read. It is written in two parts. Sorry to keep harping on it but the US/NATO are going to try and get this passed in this form or another and that can't happen.
Der Spiegel decides to report the facts.
Brief translation: The convoy seen by the British journalists was nothing unusual, as separatists regularly cross from Russia to the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, they control the border on the Ukrainian side. The drivers almost certainly were not Russian soldiers but Russian volunteers and Ukrainian separatists.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 15:43 utc | 80
Dumping on American citizens who have no role in, no control of, and no interest in specific misguided government activities is silly. In general, polls indicate that growing numbers of Americans believe that U.S. global power and prestige are in decline. And support for U.S. global engagement, already near a historic low, has fallen further. The public thinks that the nation does too much to solve world problems, and increasing percentages want the U.S. to “mind its own business internationally” and pay more attention to problems here at home.
Americans generally (unlike us) have more important things to worry about than events in far-off Ukraine.
The French Press (all of it) has been worse than the Guardian and the Telegraph, if that is even possible to imagine.
And the TV and radio is the absolute pits (I watched some extracts), the ppl interviewed simply state that the “humanitarian convoy” is not “humanitarian”, without any detail(s) or explanations, and that the Russian army has “entered Ukraine” etc, or that is the message one gets. They can do this because it is oral - they stress one part of the sentence and whisper another so to speak - and they can later claim that they were so informed, or that they meant something different, etc. If they do make a stab at correctness they say “Reports from the British tell us that..” and don’t mention it is just one or two journalists..I have never in my life seen so much disinfo from the French media (as far as I am aware!) It is insane. The written press usually mentions rebuttals from Russia, in paragraph 5 - 7, using terms like “shrilly denied at length” or “boldly stated outright that unthruths or inaccuracies were being spread” and so on. Sorry to be imprecise, I’m in a rage..
Although I can’t grasp the pulse of French opinion on all this, as it is August and most ppl are ‘checked out’ on vacation, the upside is that many ppl no longer believe the MSM and complaints are being made. Certainly the comments sections of the written press are either closed or show mostly sharp criticism. The neo-nazis in Kiev (the Fr. being sensitive to this aspect, as it usually serves to excuplate own guilt and brandish moral rigor), MH17 and now this ‘convoy’ stuff, are proving hard to manage by the MSM, and have at least, imho, busted the myth of ‘plurality of the press' for ... some.
What is generally not known in France but now coming out is that all the MSM press is subsidized by the State, that card-carrying journalists have a special status and get financial perks, even tax-breaks (I’m not clear on that aspect..), and that all MSM TV stations are either owned by the ‘State’ or by large Conglomerates.
What is lacking, as elsewhere, is a platform for opposition. But some ppl at least are discussing this topic.
Posted by: Noirette | Aug 16 2014 15:55 utc | 82
"...Americans generally (unlike us) have more important things to worry about than events in far-off Ukraine.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 16, 2014 11:52:30 AM | 80
Although I agree with your sentiment to a degree. Your statement above is one of the primary reasons why Americans currently have degrading living conditions at home and a wreckless bellicose foreign policy abroad.
Thanks somebody @77 - I haven't decided yet if google is my friend. :-)
Posted by: Fran | Aug 16 2014 16:42 utc | 84
Don, & really @ 82,
Dumping on Americans is not “silly” it is a premeditated action to bring in line those Americans who might seriously question the official global and domestic doctrines and actions that are bringing such public sentiments into a (hopefully) groundswell. Why else the so militarized police throughout our country? Conquest and exploitation abroad while repression at home. Sounds like the agenda of ruling elites not only in Smedley’s days but today also. Unfortunately for all of us, they employ far more effective means today than one hundred years ago. Americans, I believe, are generally discovering that there are more important things to worry about than the daily soaps; i.e. the home front repression and how it is linked to the global conquest and exploitation
Posted by: juannie | Aug 16 2014 16:46 utc | 85
Fogh Rasmussen (NATO chief) news quotes:
--"Last night we saw a Russian incursion, a crossing of the Ukrainian border," he told reporters after meeting the Danish defence minister.
--“I can confirm that last night we saw an incursion (into) Ukraine.” Rasmussen did not give details of the alleged incursion.
Notice what Rasmussen didn't say.
--Who is "we," kimosabe?
--What crossed the border? A single Russian to take a leak? One or more vehicles? What?
--How deep was the "incursion," a meter? More?
--Why no "details"? Such an important event ought to be described, no?
--Why was it necessary for Rasmussen to confirm what "we" supposedly saw?
In other words Rasmussen said nothing of import.
more of the same....."Rasmussen did not give details of the alleged incursion."
consider re-reading oldskeptics post at 37 for anyone interested in following anything worth following..
Posted by: james | Aug 16 2014 17:05 utc | 87
@juannie #84
So I counsel Americans not to vote. The only positive action we can take to counter what is a Hamiltoniam elite takeover of the government is to exercise our Jeffersonian peoples' right not to participate, not to support any of them, until they get the message. Don't blame me, I didn't vote for any of them. And then when the presidential (particularly) voter participation drops from its (recent) 62% to 30 or 40 perhaps they will wake up and smell the coffee. I see no other alternative.
George Washington counseled non-involvement in foreign intrigues, and that's what most Americans practice. Senator Paul has picked up that banner recently. The polls indicate their nonsupport for US foreign policy (#80 above) as does their 38% non-participation in meaningless elections.
Meanwhile dumping on Americans is silly and unproductive. There are many Americans involved in important activities, not soaps.
@somebody - #69
Culpability will not be answered by the DSB reports, it will only investigate the circumstances which caused the Malaysian passenger plane to crash in Ukraine. See their website how the investigation evolves – here.
There will be a separate joint international criminal investigation of the downing of MH-17 with all forensic experts, prosecutors under coordination of the Dutch and Eurojust.
More here.
Wow, some ukrainians arent quite sane, check this video:
https://twitter.com/Maiwwo/status/496256773972836352
Posted by: Anonymouss | Aug 16 2014 17:57 utc | 91
@85
... Not to mention the possibility of the west coast of America being vulnerable to nuclear apocalypse because our leaders desire a resource war with Russia. Russia is not Iraq. Russia is not Afghanistan, or Libya, or Syria, etc.
Don't be too hard on regular Americans, though. As Prof. Richard Wolff says, the drop in civic participation is directly correlated to falling wages and economic problems of the last few decades. At the same time, US foreign policy has gone off the deep end. The conclusion that can be drawn is that the more Americans struggle to maintain their economic lifestyles in a drastically changing economic situation, the less tine they have to challenge the leadership that created the problem. So, there is a downward spiral that will continue until a bottom is found or the cycle is broken.
Posted by: yellowsnapdragon | Aug 16 2014 19:13 utc | 92
Regarding Americans, the majority of the people no longer matter to TPTB. Globally, and in the US. I'm sure Cheney opines Obama is the worst of presidents may have a lot to do with the possibility that Obama is losing control of the population on his watch, for not beating us remorselessly in line further than he does already with only the manipulative fabrications, where physical repression is what's required and not adequately delivered on our way to the slaughterhouse we deserve for our own good. These folks think and act as though they've become immortal gods and believe it. Many of us here struggle listening to the lies, the Fogh of War, the arrogance, and confusion made more confusing. I don't think it's Obama's fault, that his schtick is becoming ineffective, he's relentless about it.
If here in the States we by some miracle get to the next election, a lot of pundits think we'll get Clinton on Counterpunch etc. Maybe. . .but since voting is irrelevant, and human beings like us are irrelevant and expendable, we might get another of these authoritarian goons appointed on us to bring us in line, make us wear flag pins, hang ribbons from our trees, sick the cops on us for doing the right thing, and worst of all, subjecting us to deeper states of hypocrisy than we've ever experienced before, driving us all further underground to maintain some semblance of harmony and quietude.
Posted by: geoff29 | Aug 16 2014 19:16 utc | 93
"...Up to now, officials say the U.S. has avoided sending additional military elements to Ukraine as a matter of policy. That will change next year if Congress approves a request to send units from the U.S. Army in Europe and/or the California National Guard to Ukraine's peacekeeping training center in the far west of the country, far from the current conflict.
asing training for Ukraine's military in locations outside Ukraine might be another option, although so far there have been no public suggestions of doing so.
Regardless of whether Putin crosses another line, the U.S. officials said more sanctions on Russia are almost certain if he does not end support for the separatists. A key pivot point will be the NATO summit in Wales in the first week of September..."
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-west-faces-tough-choices-if-russia-ukraine-fight-2014-16
Training outside of Ukraine? Why do that?
Posted by: really | Aug 16 2014 19:29 utc | 94
Clinton isn't sounding like an authoritarian goon?
There would be more chance for ---effective---- reaction if a "masculine" hawk got in.
Posted by: truthbetold | Aug 16 2014 19:37 utc | 95
I'm terrified of Clinton getting elected...
as for voting - I can't decide whether to stay home or to "write in" ---
Posted by: crone | Aug 16 2014 19:52 utc | 96
"Anti-Putin" Alliance Fraying: Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Czech Republic Urge End To Russian Sanctions
Posted by: crone | Aug 16 2014 19:54 utc | 97
@93
Yeah I think Obama was truly "brief" on inauguration day in 2009. Tptb told him here is the script and here is your part. Don't dissappoint, because smilin' biden is on stage and waiting behind the curtain to play "leading man" role. Notice how much older Obama is looking lately? He has that look of why did I agree to do this now look. I could be wrong about that but it is just a feeling I have.
@94
By the way "training" kiev troops outside of Ukraine is a great smokescreen to bring in mercs...
Posted by: really | Aug 16 2014 20:00 utc | 98
Czech Republic against sanctions
This is now Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 16 2014 20:04 utc | 99
I'm terrified of Clinton getting elected.. as for voting - I can't decide whether to stay home or to "write in" --
Posted by: crone | Aug 16, 2014 3:52:30 PM | 96
Who would you write in?
Posted by: really | Aug 16 2014 20:15 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Didn't happen.
Posted by: ThePaper | Aug 15 2014 18:17 utc | 1