Today the UNSC made its choice, tomorrow the Crimeans will make theirs

@Narciso Lopez

Nice comment.

Mindfriedo

Simple question to Saker: why do you live outside Russia if you are so supportive of Russian Government?

@anonymous: why do you live outside Russia if you are so supportive of Russian Government?

I don’t see how this is relevant, but, okay why not? Because I have a family and 3 kids for which a move to Russia would be disruptive right now.

HTH, cheers,

The Saker

Here is an interesting hypothesis:
“The Ukrainian crisis was probably triggered for no other reason than, ultimately, to force us to buy US shale gas (13), to sign the TTIP (without which the former can’t be sold in Europe (14)) and to justify a renewed increase of American-NATO military budgets (15) thanks to the restarting of a Cold War between the West and emerging nations (except for this detail that it’s the West which will be on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain this time).”
Source: http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-83-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-escalation-in-the-US-reaction-for-survival-trigger-a-cold-war-to-make-it_a15801.html

Yea, choices have been made on which side to stand alright. Russia should probably have subtracted from their “80%” based on the number they exterminated in Ukraine thought, right?

1954 GMT: Reuters reports on the storming of a Ukrainian cultural centre by pro-Russian activists in Kharkiv. The activists then began burning Ukrainian history books and texts on the Holodomor, the terror famine from 1932-33 that killed at least 3.3 million Ukrainians:

In Kharkiv, Reuters Television footage showed pro-Russian activists scaling an iron gate, smashing a van and breaking into the offices of a Ukrainian cultural center. Two policemen stood nearby, examining the van.

The footage then showed young men seizing Ukrainian-language books, including a volume devoted to the 1932-1933 man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine, which killed from 7-10 million people.

“Do you see what they print here?” one activist said to another.

The activists then took the books into the street and set them alight in small bonfires, along with posters from the extreme-right wing Right Sector group.

I have no new information, I am just trying to connect the dots. In the Ukrainian crisis there are a few parts in the puzzle with a strange form. In politics things often happen because somebody wants them to happen. Not always, but often. But to me the Ukrainian game looks like a loose-loose game for the main players. Of course the banderist bandits win. But they are not part of the global power elite. Of course the Polish morons like Sikorski win. But not in a convincing way: This was their debut as power brokers for the EU in the East – and they made a lot of trouble. But the rest: The Ukraine, Germany, Russia, the EU are all losers. And even if the Empire gains, the Obama administration is clearly a looser.

The strange parts:

The diplomatic handlers (Sikorski, Nuland) is very openly commisars from the think-tank sphere of the neocons.
The corporate media have a complete blackout on the rightwing extremists, as if led by a conductor.
Kerry and Obama is clearly improvising – their speakwriters are not on the top of the situation. The drive did not come from the White House.
In the critical moment extreme rightwing leaders from Banderastan had power to say “no” to an agreement brokered by Russia, Poland, Germany and France. Strange.
And of course – the mystical snipers at Maidan.

We all is full of anger and excitement about the damage to European and Russian interest. We are all tracing information fitting to our excitement. But are we mislead by our own passions? Is there any major power gaining from all this? I think so.

We know the priorities of global diplomacy this period. One of the most important victories for Obama came in late 2013, when he managed to get an interim agreement with the Iranians. This is a major victory – but not one that Obama has landed. He and the Iranians are in a hurry if they want to get the relationship in a permanent shape. And this is a complicated process, involving all important European powers, including Russia.

We also know that the top priority goal of the Israelis this period is to destroy this process. They tried to launch new sanctions trough the Congress to cut down Obama – failing miserably. But is their resources exhausted? I don’t think so. The beautiful thing with the mess in Ukraina is that it destroys the diplomatic relationship between Washington and Moscow for at least the rest of the year. I think Netanyahu already can cash in a major victory for his most important goal. I think the Iran deal is dead.

Did he play a part in Kiev? I don’t know. The role of Nuland and Sikorski make the Israelis total insiders in the flow of information. But who trained the banderists, gave them the necessary confidence to say “no” to the brokered deal? Who gave the order to shoot, and conducted the press to totally overlook the Nazis in the coup?

If the Israelis played a part, it is a classical example of how to practice “think locally, act globally”.

Dear Pakistan muslim, wa-alaykumu s-salam
I trust that you are honest in really wanting to learn more about the history of the Third Reich. The problem is: All my sources are in German language. I googled around to find English sources but I found them really, really superficial and not of much use.
OK. Where to begin? Let me begin by telling you, that I was were astonished to find that in most of the English literature that I found with the help of Google, the holocaust is more or less equated with Auschwitz. Relative best was – lo and behold! – Wikipedia. Have a look at this list and you will see what an incredible whitewashing this equating of the holocaust with Auschwitz is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nazi-German_concentration_camps
Wikipedia says: “This article presents a partial list of more prominent German concentration camps set up across Europe during World War II … A more complete list drawn up in 1967 by the German Ministry of Justice names about 1,200 camps”. This list can be found here:
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/begdv_6/anlage_6.html
But complete it is not. Missing in action: Alexisdorf, Arnoldsweiler, Bathorn, Beninnghausen, Börgermoor, Bocholt, Brual-Rhede, Brunshausen, Dorokucza, Emslandlager, Fichtenhain, Fullen, Gantenwald, Glückstadt, Hemer, Hutthurm, Indersdorf, Janałwska, Katzbach, Kelsterbach, Laberweinting, Liebenau, Neusustrum, Neu Versen, Nordmark, Oberlangen, Pfaffenwald, Rühen, Tomaszow, Velpke, Voerde, Walchum, Wesuwe, Wietmarschen. Probably more.
And that’s only about the “Konzentrationslager” (KZ). Every one of the larger KZs was the centre of an archipelago of “Außenlager” and “Außenkommandos”.
And than add to this the other Archipelagos: Arbeitslager, Arbeitserziehungslager (AELA), Polizeilager, Jugendschutzlager, Durchgangslager, Sammellager, Schutzhaftlager, SS-Sonderlager, Stalags (I mentioned the Stalags in my earlier post), Kriegsgefangenenlager, Zwangsarbeiterlager, Vernichtungslager, Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten, Sterbe- und Geburtenlager. Every single one of these institutions was as cruel as the KZs were. Some were even crueler, but that may be a matter of opinion. I think the Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten were in a league with the Vernichtungslager, which topped the KZs by far. The death rate in both was more or less the same, but I personally think the method of killing in the Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten was in a way crueler.
All of them differed in that they were operated by different organisations. The larger KZs were operated by the Totenkopf-SS, as is widely known. The AELAs were operated by the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo). Some of the other archipelagos were operated by the Sicherheitspolizei, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Wehrmacht, the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) or the normal police and so on and so on. The KZ Kuhlen for example was operated by the “Diakonie” of the Lutheran Church. It is not for nothing that contemporary German historians (Klaus Hildebrand, Peter Hüttenberger, Michael Ruck) call the Nazi-system a “polycracy”.

But originally I wanted to write about the treatment of the “Zwangsarbeiter” (forced labourers), especially those from Eastern Europe and Russia. Here is a quote of Heinrich Himmler from a speech he made at a gathering of “SS-Gruppenführer” in October 1943: “Wie es den Russen geht, wie es den Tschechen geht, ist mir total gleichgültig … Ob die anderen Völker in Wohlstand leben oder ob sie verrecken vor Hunger, das interessiert mich nur insoweit, als wir sie als Sklaven für unsere Kultur brauchen, anders interessiert mich das nicht. Ob beim Bau eines Panzergrabens 10,000 russische Weiber an Entkräftung umfallen oder nicht, interessiert mich nur insoweit, als der Panzergraben für Deutschland fertig wird. Wir werden niemals roh und herzlos sein, wo es nicht sein muss; das ist klar. Wir Deutsche, die wir als einzige in der Welt eine anständige Einstellung zum Tier haben, werden ja auch zu diesen Menschentieren eine andere Einstellung einnehmen…” I should translate this for you, but here it is now nearly midnight and tomorrow will be a very busy day for me. So may-be Google translator can help you.
Hopefully I can continue this in a few days. Ma’a salamah