How about the Lask base in central Poland? You’re attempting a “gotcha” with “NATO base,” but the baltic states’ pseudo-membership is considered “virtual NATO,” since they are “partners,” not actual allies. So all of Poland’s bases are “virtual NATO bases.” The US is currently moving additional air force assets to Poland and Lithuanian bases, so the basing rights and military cooperation are very much real.

Go back to trolling central and come up with something better. Jeebus, why bother wasting our time with this bullshit in the first place?

No, a war against the dictator of Iraq is not the same as a war against the people of Ukraine.

Most Americans don’t have enough knowledge to form a coherent opinion on the matter, beyond “Russia, bad.” And that’s all they need.

My spiritual teacher used to tell us students that humanity was moving into the Sai Yuga.

I have my doubts. Or at least I think he was premature in the assessment.

Their religious loyalty is to a particularly retarded version of religion, too. But obviously, the more religious you are, the more retarded you are, and the less religious you are, the more likely you are to having a functioning frontal lobe and so the less likely you are to support retarded ways of thinking: religion and totalitarianism.

Hell, we have ample evidence most don’t even remember recent history. For a while, I thought it was a condition limited to Republican conservatives, but clearly I was mistaken.

“a) most Americans agree with our warmongering politicians” I’m not so sure about that.

Like the American Diplomats say, Fuck the EU.

yeah, that was rather laughable… tone deaf?
nah, he knows the American public will not do the very simple math.

Saw a clip of John Kerry berating Putin for “invading a sovereign nation, blah, blah, blah”. Rewind to Bush doing the same thing to Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not for Russia’s move here just saying that we don’t have a leg to stand on by claiming our indignation at Putin’s move. When Russia moved in to Afghanistan we boycotted the Olympics, then Regan was elected and grew the defict almost 200% in a defense build up. But basically we did nothing. Lindsey Graham was all flustered this weekend, twisting his thong and screaming up Obama being weak, Palin claims she was able to predict this and meanwhile little is heard from any other country. Let NATO do the heavy lifting, they are the most threatened, they have a stake in this and let them spend their money with troops, aid and outrage.

You know what they should really be posting is that picture of the wounded kids. What kind of country is bashing the heads of people under 18 for their “activism”? That, if nothing else, should tell you how screwed up things are there. There are certain signs that a government isn’t civilized…this is a big one.

He only posted them to make a point about Russian media supporting Lenin. If you look at surveys, a lot of Russians still support Stalin & Lenin (mostly the older generation though). We need to remember the mindset of people in this country.

Also, I think studying Stalin & Lenin gives one an insight into why Russians are so opposed to democracy. Unfortunately it is ingrained in their culture.

John, the last photo in your post, the one of Lenin’s statue, is awful. From among Lenin’s nasty quotes, here are the worst of the worst:

“He who now talks about the ‘freedom of the press’ goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.”

“Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice.”

“Freedom of speech?! We are not going to commit suicide.”

Sounds like the heartfelt sentiments of a few of the Putin supporters on this blog. Will you please remove those statues of Lenin? Don’t wait. Do it now. They have no place in the public places of a free nation.

I’ll only start with the most obvious example of the demonization of ethnic Ukranians (from Retired Catholic): “Western Ukrainians have a history with the Nazis going all the way back to the 1930’s.”

Retired Catholic needs some information about Ukraine during the 1930s because the Russians also have a history with Ukraine going back to the 1930s. Stalin’s government perpetrated the Holomodor, the mass murder by starvation of at least 4 million Ukranians during the early 1930s. Putin fanboys don’t want to admit that because it makes Russian dictators look bad, and they wouldn’t want to do that, would they? Some Putin fans on this blog imply that Ukrainians, by virtue of their ethnic descent, deserved the mass murder of 4 million. If they don’t have the human decency to avoid spitting on the graves of 4 million people who were murdered at the whim of some asswipe Soviet dictator, then they need to crawl back underneath their flat rock. Yanukovych, Putin’s ally, followed that tradition when he recently killed 80 protestors by having his police forces open fire on them.

Putin has acted against the interest of Russia—he has only acted in his own personal interest by launching a military invasion of Crimea. That will wind up being a disappointment for you, Putin fans, because the civilized world will urge Ukraine to join NATO. Russian citizens will inevitably become disenchanted with Putin. It is widely known that Putin has been obsessed with Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, fearing that it could happen in Moscow. It will eventually, and you will lose, Putin fanboys. History is not on your side.

Western Ukrainians have a history with the Nazis going all the way back to the 1930’s. The Ukraine was never really denazified after WWII. I boycotted watching the Olympics over the LGBT issues, so I have no truck with their domestic policies. Using the word Nazi to describe the Russians is bogus, seeing has how they lost nearly 30 million people to those bastards in WWII. The fact remains that we and our EU cohorts are primarily responsible for the current turmoil in the Ukraine. The protests turned violent due to the activities of self described neo nazis in the Ukraine, and there is a great deal of evidence that a lot of the killing of peaceful protesters, Russian personnel and others was done by these Ukrainian Fascists-a campaign financed with money from the West.

Russian diplomatic efforts to partner up with “The West” to bail the Ukraine out of its current difficulties were rebuffed. The Neocons want to make the Ukraine part of NATO, a move that the Russians will simply not permit in a country on their border. The original Ukrainian protests were against their own corrupt and incompetent kleptocracy, we foolishly tried to exploit the situation when we were really in no position to control events at all. The major members of the EU and the US are simply out to strip mine the Ukrainian economy through the good offices of of the IMF and the World Bank. A look at what was being offered by “our” side and what was being offered to the Ukraine by the Russians is most instructive in understanding the roots of what is going on.

Putin has been outmaneuvering both the Bush and Obama administrations with a facility that we should find quite disturbing. The fact is the Russians are issuing Russian passports to virtually anyone in the Ukraine who wants to get out of Dodge, including members of the Ukrainian army and police.This includes people who are not ethnically Russian. The Commander of the Ukranian Navy has defected to the Russians, but has since been dismissed by the new government. Various localities throughout the Ukraine have disassociated themselves from the new central government and are making overtures to the Russians. Interestingly, the Neo Nazi parties in the Ukraine are now threatening the stability of the newly formed present government. Don’t confuse us with Mother Theresa here.

So then why is Ukraine not as wealthy as Poland, that has had to deal with the EU and the IMF? What paranoid fantasy do you guys think didn’t apply to Poland that DOES apply to Ukraine. I’m no Conservative, and Wall Street has issues, but some of you Russophiles/Castrophiles are really naive. The people of the Ukraine know exactly what their advancement path is….its the EU, transparency, tolerance, and democracy……Not aligning themselves with racists, homophobes, thieves and violent fools. Take away oil and natural gas and no entity using the Russian/Venezuelan model has any economy to speak of.

Yeah perhaps they could go to Russia where neo-Nazi gans proliferate all over the country with the formerly tacit, and now public, embrace of the Putin government. I’m sure that would end well for them.

The Neo-Nazis are the Russians. They have invaded Crimea. They are engaging in a state sponsored/tolerated pogrom against its LGBT population and against racial minorities. They are hideously corrupt and undemocratic. While there are some anti-freedom factions in Ukraine, those know that their choice of the EU means that they’ll have to put up with Gay people and racial minorities.
Russia is in total an complete abrogation of every single agreement they have ever signed.

I think that the world response to Russia should be as follows.
1) Start treating Russia like Apartheid South Africa. Its not like Russia is in compliance with any of its agreements. Kick em out of the Council of Europe, OSCE, the G8, and suspend treating them as if they are a member of the WTO. Expel them from intra-European organizations such as UEFA and Eurovision. Announce that in the event that FIFA will not move the 2018 World Cup, that the US, Canada, and Europe will hold a World Football Championship somewhere civilized at the same time as the FIFA World Cup. The Paralymics should be postponed, as it is now in a war zone.
2) An immediate asset freeze on Russian assets held in the west. That would include assets of Russian oligarchs tied to the Putin regime.
3) An announcement that any aircraft or ship touching Russian occupied Ukraine will not be accepted in any Western airport or port.
4) Encourage the Turks to cut of the Bosporus to Russian military traffic, thus removing the strategic importance of Crimea. Suggest the Turks do so in order to protect the interests of the Turkish Tatar minority in Crimea (who overwhelmingly support Ukraine).
5) Announce that the EU will not accept any Russian natural gas sent through occupied Ukraine unless the Kiev government approves.
6) Shut the borders between Poland, Lithuania and Kaliningrad. Make Russia support the enclave via sea only
7) Have the Kiev government announce that all debts held by Ukrainians to Russian banks or governmental agencies are null and void.
8) Announce the building of 3 more LNG terminals to go along with the new Polish one. The implications to Russia will be obvious.
9) Institute a travel and visa ban on supporters of Russia’s government. Round up those supporters in the West and deport them.
10) Cut off all diplomatic relations.
11) Provide lethal aid to the Ukrainian military.
Russia isn’t going to help us in Iran or Syria.

We can count our blessings that Kerry never made it to the Presidency.

I know this is Buzzfeed and it’s informal and likely has some inaccuracies, but they’re independent journalists and it’s worth checking out if you want a timeline of the conflict.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamberger/a-35-step-guide-to-understanding-why-russia-decided-to-follo

Poor Russians, they are a minority there…wah. So when does the genocide of ethnic Ukrainians by “minority” Russians start? The wingnut “majority is the minority” victim brigade is already starting. War is imminent.

This propaganda is extremely stupid. Most people are not this stupid, as bad as they seem.
The only logical conclusion is that poeple believe this stupidity because they WANT to. And that’s a really scary thought.

And the DM commenters are gibbering out the same “facts,” literally exactly as you worded them. It’s pathetic. Russians are a de-facto minority? Give me a break.

RT is right now just repeating what in Putin’s years most of Russian TV channels have been telling Russian viewers: neo-Nazis are in power in the former (pro-Western) republics of the USSR, Russians are being oppressed and marginalized everywhere (despite the fact that at least 20 people who dies in Independence Square for the anti-regime side were Russian)… It’s the same thing they did 4 years ago with Southern Ossetia. But now they’re trying to package it for foreign consumption.

Hopefully the US stays out, but given that it’s a very uneven match between Russia & Ukraine, we may try to step in as usual to curb them. Very scary when you think about how far other countries have surpassed us these days. We may not be a significant world power anymore. We will have to abandon the fighting like we did with Syrians. I just wonder if we will learn that the hard or the easy way.

In Ukraine, it won’t be deaths. It will be the death of effective diplomacy for a generation.

“The locals”. That’s one guy! An old guy. He probably knew Lenin personally.
Interesting, they say nothing of the 70 some people killed in Kiev by snipers.

I don’t know about that faction on the left, but I do know Bill Kristol is creaming in his pants with glee right about now.

the lull before the storm and there will be a storm of what consequence no one knows.

The NeoNazis make up 6% of the people in Western Ukraine. Don’t believe the Russian State Media or InfoWars.

The question is: does the fun stop with Crimea? Putin was pissed when his vassal lost the Ukraine to the opposition. How dare they reject Mother(fucker) Russia and want to do things like join the EU? Even if Putin is able to restore his Ukranian-raping stooge Yanukovych to power, he’s going to have to prop him up with either troops in Ukraine or at its borders. In any event, Ukraine is either going to become a part of Russia or be totally controlled by it. I don’t think anything will put the Nightmare Bear back in the cage. He and his buddies are having too much fun having tea with the Crimeans.

Yes, but now the shoe is on the other foot. That changes everything in grassroots Amerika. But you knew that.

And more importantly, we can thank for the Republicans for that one. I was just telling a Republican last night that if he’s upset the US is doing more on Ukraine, he has his own party to blame. I don’t plan on spending another trillion dollars on another war just yet

Oh, and lol on “…make me look Hitler.”

Your point is taken, but it’s cringe-inducing to see Sec’y of State John Kerry on Sunday morning TV saying “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.”

Especially considering former-Senator Kerry voted for the Iraq war authorization.

I’m no fan of the Iraq invasion, but I think taking on Saddam Hussein is a tad different than invading Ukraine because you don’t like the country signing a trade agreement with the EU, and are more interested in reforming the Soviet Union.

Not trying to take it out on you, but I get annoyed sometimes at a certain faction of the left that runs to create equivalences when horrific events like this happen. Their first instinct is to point fingers back at us. I’m not sure today is the right day to be arguing that we’re as bad as they are.