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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums5 Neocon 'Solutions' That Could Spark Catastrophe in Ukraine
http://www.alternet.org/world/5-ukraine-solutions-pushed-neocons-could-provoke-catastrophe***SNIP
1. Missile defense on Russias border. Leave it to the Wall Street Journal opinion pages to distill the neocon perspective. In a March 11 article, the Journal published an article saying that the right response to a Russian power play is a power play of our own. Ballistic missile defenses on NATOs eastern flank would be a good place to start.
2. Georgia into NATO. The last major Russian-U.S. crisis occurred in this Caucasus country in 2008, when a Georgian-provoked war unleashed chaos. U.S.-backed Georgian forces attacked and committed war crimes in South Ossetia, a region that wanted to stay autonomous from Georgia. Many residents had Russian citizenship and want to stay close to Russia.
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3. Military exercises near Russia. This is an idea hawks have called for, and the U.S. is taking heed. A U.S. Navy destroyer is set to take part in exercises with Romanian and Bulgarian warships in the Black Sea, close to Crimea.
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4. Military assistance to Ukraine. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was a key architect of the Iraq war, the neoconservatives wet dream that quickly turned into a nightmare. But his past failures in military adventurism have done little to temper his appetite for more.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)"The last major Russian-U.S. crisis occurred in this Caucasus country in 2008, when a Georgian-provoked war unleashed chaos. U.S.-backed Georgian forces attacked and committed war crimes in South Ossetia, a region that wanted to stay autonomous from Georgia. Many residents had Russian citizenship and want to stay close to Russia."
Give me a friggin' break. The author should be embarassed. It doesn't take much to find five really bad neo-con ideas that could cause catastrophe, but they need to write a realistic background picture and not this garbage.
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)Trade out South Ossetia and Abkhazia for Crimea and we have the not-so-new script.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)I think the author's real name is Anne Schluss.
polly7
(20,582 posts)After the west heaped blame on Russia for the conflict, it ignores new evidence of Georgia's crimes of aggression
Seumas Milne
theguardian.com, Friday 31 October 2008 16.15 GM
Not only does the report by Tim Whewell aired this week on Newsnight and on Radio 4's File on Four - find strong evidence confirming western-backed Georgia as the aggressor on the night of August 7. It also assembles powerful testimony of wide-ranging war crimes carried out by the Georgian army in its attack on the contested region of South Ossetia.
They include the targeting of apartment block basements where civilians were taking refuge with tank shells and Grad rockets, the indiscriminate bombardment of residential districts and the deliberate killing of civilians, including those fleeing the South Ossetian capital of Tskinvali.
The carefully balanced report which also details evidence of ethnic cleansing by South Ossetian paramilitaries cuts the ground from beneath later Georgian claims that its attack on South Ossetia followed the start of a Russian invasion the previous night.
At the time, the Georgian government said its assault on Tskinvali was intended to "restore constitutional order" in an area it has never ruled, as well as to counter South Ossetian paramilitary provocations. Georgian intelligence subsequently claimed to have found the tape of an intercepted phone call backing up its Russian invasion story but even Georgia's allies balk at a claim transparently intended to bolster its shaky international legal position .
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/31/russia-georgia
McCain tried his hardest to ramp that one up, too.
BY SATYAM KHANNA ON AUGUST 15, 2008 AT 9:51 AM
Speaking at the Aspen Institute in Colorado yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that recent Russian aggression in Georgia is the first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. McCain seemingly ignored the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War, to name a few:
My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression."
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/08/15/27592/mccain-russia/
Senator John McCain: We Are All Ukrainians
In response to reports of a Russian takeover in parts of Crimea, Arizona Senator John McCain said on Friday, We are all Ukrainians, before calling for swift U.S. economic aid to Ukraine, condemnation of Russia at the United Nations, sanctions against Russian officials and the installation of U.S. missiles in the nearby Czech Republic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes this is a chess match reminiscent of the Cold War and we need to realize that and act accordingly, McCain said, in an exclusive interview with TIME. That does not mean I envision a conflict with Russia, but we need to take certain measures that would convince Putin that there is a very high cost to actions that he is taking now.
McCain made his declaration in response to a question from TIME about his famous 2008 statement, We are all Georgians, issued when he was a Republican presidential candidate after Russia invaded Georgia. Asked whether he feels the same way about the plight of Ukraine six years later, he agreed. We are all Ukrainians in the respect that we have a sovereign nation that is again with international boundaries that is again being taken in as part of Russia, he said in an interview in his Senate office. That is not acceptable to an America that stands up for the rights of human beings. We are Georgians. And we are Ukrainians.
Read more: John McCain Says We Are All Ukrainians, Takes On Putin | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/28/ukraine-john-mccain-putin-crimea/#ixzz2ufG28LBP
Whos Who in Ukraines New Semi-fascist Government: Meet the People the U.S. and EU are Supporting
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4656360
Strange, I've never read of him saying "We are all Iraqis".
Fuck McCain and the neo-con warmongers!