Open Thread for today (plus comments)

I agree. Russia is doing this thing exactly right. Preserving their own forces and limiting, as much as possible, the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

Absolutely 100++
The USA is already bored. They view it as a football game and Russia is winning big. Like your favorite team losing big on TV, you turn off the game. The finger pointing in Wash DC-Biden Admin-Pentagon-Intel agencies has started. They will end up blaming Ukraine.

Let’s look at the calendar. Not too far from heading into July. Gonzalo Lira said the rubber meets the road starting in October aka Europeans will know Old Man winter is knocking on the door.

I read something that real panic in Europe may set in around August over energy for winter. August is very soon.

Finally, Hal Turner’s web site said Germany said no more tanks because they cannot build them due to lack of (Russian) titanium. The USA SR-71 was built with Soviet titanium bought through CIA shell companies to avoid the Soviets knowing they were building a super spy jet.

Hal Turner said that NATO can never beat the Russians on a battlefiend because Russia controls titanium.

As soon as the Ukrainian Army folds, events will be happening so fast that it will resemble Trumps statement of ” too much winning Mr. President”! I agree that we are talking months and not years.

Per Capita wealth is what matters. and in ‘mature’ countries such as Japan etc – per capita wealth continues to increase modestly every year.

Not true. He will make a great effort to find another subject to discuss while ignoring the one that is important.

How can one be gentle when idiots govern this country, and small dogs in Ottawa sniff asses of big dogs to be part of the pack of NATO mad dogs.. A bit of history as a nation of Peace Keepers emulates the war monger south of the 49th parallel.

Failing to learn from the defeat of Alexander the Great, four British invasions, the Soviets in 1979, Canada, in 2014, limped out of Afghanistan defeated like all the rest. Canada’s former prime minister, Stephen Harper, was telling his constituents that democracy has won the day after new elections, which were held to replace the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai.

A reality known to all except those who need to create a political “win” for self interest, Canada has left Afghanistan no better than the way it found it. The drug dealers, the Tajik and Uzbek in the north, will remain in power because Canada’s American allies manipulated the vote to elect the chosen successors of Karzai.
Democracy-building in Afghanistan has cost the Canadian taxpayer over $22 billion, not counting future medical and psychiatric care for our veterans and the families of many who have committed suicide on their return home. The cost of this will be spread over the backs of the Canadian worker for years to come. In essence, the Afghanistan venture has been another NATO failed regime-change exercise that has cost Canadians a huge amount in terms of lives, welfare of combatants, and taxpayer dollars.

After the manipulated election terrorism in Afghanistan continued against the Americans, delivered by our enemies the Taliban, and supported by the majority Pashtun tribes in the South who were banned from voting in the election.

In hopes of winning the 2015 election at home, former PM Harper moved Canadian tax dollars from Afghanistan north to Ukraine, where we under Justin Trudeau are “nation-building” through another regime change, but this time with fascist allies. Our allies in current world meddling are Svoboda and the Right Sector, a solidly neo-Nazi fascist group based in western Ukraine. The West had recently condemned these neo-Nazis and armed them to do NATO’s dirty work to militarily overthrow the elected government in Kiev. Canada and the EU has embraces fascism because we want Ukraine to join the EU rather than be economically attached to Russia.

This new adventure in Ukraine was another example of more hypocrisy by the former Prime Minister Harper. He talks about democracy, but he often does not follow its principles nationally or in our international relations, conveniently ignoring treaties and accords, which the Canadian government had signed. Harper’s remarks against Russia and support of neo-Nazis and skinheads in Kiev is an election appeal to 1.2 million Ukrainian Canadian constituents. His comments during his recent trip to Ukraine are a continuation of countless falsehoods in the service of his attempt to rewrite events and redefine democracy, a “Tea Party” exercise full of conservative malfeasance.

Harper’s malfeasance is hypocritical. He makes the comment that Russia is “violating bilateral and international commitments,” when we have violated international agreements constantly, often under his leadership. We have violated WWII treaties, the UN Charter, and we have bombed countries without UN agreement. We have violated UN Human Rights by mistreating prisoners of war, violated the Helsinki agreement on borders, and the signed article 1244 on Kosovo, which we violated before the ink was dry. Our current government’s domestic track record on democracy and support for international law is abysmal.

Canadian conservative leaders and their voters, like their American Republican counterparts, have accepted the concept of “exceptionalism.” Based on birth and country, conservatives believe they have a right to play a dominant role throughout the world, but particularly in countries deemed “less worthy.” This concept is deeply rooted in Anglo Saxon history of imperialism, particularly the “white man’s burden” of the late 18th century. Using propaganda and control of mainstream media, conservative political leadership has gained support of a large sector of the public for their interventions in world events, which tend to be one-sided.

For example, Herman and Peterson have written in Politics of Genocide that Western governments and their media treated the Ukrainian famine as genocide but not the Irish famine. The media and Western governments labeled Saddam’s killing of Kurds a genocide but not the Turkish killing of Kurds. They also labeled Serbian shelling of Sarajevo a war crime but not the US shelling of Fallujah, and they wrote and broadcast that the Hutu killing of the Tutsi was a genocide but not the reverse — the Tutsi killing of the Hutu.

Our media and many politicians see some international crimes committed by our government and our allies as worthy and acceptable, while crimes committed by states or tribes who are deemed different, or not aligned with us, as unworthy. When states we support commit specifically aimed violence in a foreign country, Herman and Peterson write that the word genocide is rarely (if ever) used by our government and the media. Coverage of the story is diminished, and if the word genocide is used, it’s primarily relegated to a “back page” exposure. When states deemed unfriendly to our political and economic interests commit a violent act, the media takes its lead from the government and uses negative euphemisms to discredit the “other side” in the dispute.

A year or so ago, the Canadian TV outlet CTV interviewed Mr. Shwec, at that time, the Ukrainian ambassador to Canada. There was not a single question to Mr. Shwec about the Nazi affiliation of the rioters, or the intercepted telephone conversations about the shooters of police and civilians in Kiev and their association with the protestors. It was very clear for anyone watching reports from Kiev that the petrol bombs and other weapons were used by the rioters, and this was ignored in the interview. The insurrection in Washington some 17 month ago is treated by Canadian and American Media as a crime against democracy, while the Maidan killing of police and burning of civilians in buildings in Odesa was/is unworthy of condemnation.

Jacqueline Milczarek, the anchor on the CTV News Channel, ignored this action knowing full-well that such violence would have been met by force if it had taken place in Canada as it was during the FLQ Crisis. In fact, in Canada, just wearing a balaclava during a riot is punishable with up to ten years in jail. Rather than ask probing questions, Milczarek gave Mr. Shwec a forum to simply bash Putin, knowing that was the expectation from her media bosses.

She went on to insinuate that what was going on in Ukraine is somehow a threat to the Baltic States and Poland. She continued with fear mongering with simplistic drivel designed to further promote the conservative and corporate agenda. She did not mention the fact that the USA spent $5 billion to destabilize Ukraine, but she did mention that Russia had an army on their side of the border. She opted to ignore the fact that NATO has armies and bases in 50 or so countries surrounding Russia, but Russia was criticized for having its army in its own country..

Should balanced reporting include the fact that NATO and US forces are on Russia’s borders, and the fact that EU and American governments instigated this revolution? Should pointed questions be asked about the history of Shwec and his supporters so that the public (the viewers) can really understand who’s involved and why it’s occurring?

Russia is not Serbia, or Libya, or Iraq. Russia has an arsenal of nukes, and the more we attempt to partition it into small units ripe for takeover or to isolate it to gain access to its resources, the more the world is in danger of a nuclear war. That said, Russia has never attacked others, but it has been attacked: from the East (Mongols); South (Turks); and particularly, the West (Teutonic Knights, Poles, Swedes, Napoleon with a European Army, as well as British, French, and Germans in WWI, and Canadians, Americans, British, and French after WWI, plus Germans with a European Army under Hitler). Every time Russia was attacked, they expanded their territory at the expense of the invader. Russia and many nations around the world have a multitude of significant lessons from history to distrust the western countries.

Harper did not tell Canadians that the government of democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych wanted closer ties with Russia rather than with the EU. The Neo Nazis Svoboda, UDAR, and the Right Sector (with support from the West) were instrumental in deposing Yanukovych. And, with this action, the move away from the EU was quashed, benefitting the west economically. The Nazi UDAR and Svoboda were on the EU and NATO side rather than Russia’s, thus they had to be seen as attractive partners, thus disregarding their Fascist history.
To Harper, these Fascist became our allies, so he portrayed them as “worthy,” regardless of their history even though that history included murdering their own people like UDAR and Svoboda rioters did in Maidan. Even our present deputy prime Minister Freeland who was a CIA asset in Kiev at that time called her Nazi grandfather a “freedom fighter.”

We (the West) call ourselves “reformers” when we engineer a regime change for our own benefit, while the regime that wants to remain as they are labeled by our press and government as a “hardliner,” despot, or some similar easy-to-understand label like Axis of Evil to create the necessary impression. When we (our side) kill in war and innocents die, it’s called collateral damage, while when nations that simply don’t agree with us or follow our leadership engage in warfare, it’s called violence, murder, oppression, or genocide. Those words create an image, which has led people in Ukraine (eastern and southern) regions to vote with their feet as they are now demanding to join Russia.

All three political parties in Canada condemned Russia over Crimea and over the present conflict but did not condemn NATO which caused the conflict. This was done to appease the Ukrainian voters in Canada, even though a democratic vote was taken in Crimea to join Russia. However, this action shows our petty selfish prejudices, since these same parties supported Kosovo independence after they supported 78 days bombing of Serbia to detach Kosovo, which was part of Serbia for 2000 years. Once again, our politicians find it easier to support who we think are our friends, rather than the rule of international law. America and NATO have a policy paper in their front pocket for separatism that they support and another policy in their back pocket for a similar situation that they oppose.

Our government, the G7, and the EU recognized the democratic elections and the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. Yet, they supported his ouster and the violence used against his country. People died because of that support.

After opposing the Crimean referendum, where do the Canadian political parties stand on the Quebec Referendum? Are they willing to oppose Quebec like Spain opposes Catalonia or will they side with the new Quebec premier that wants to have a 10-year moratorium on the sovereignty vote or will the RCMP burn barns and instigate violence as they did the last time in order to have an excuse to call out the army