The ones eating yellow cake were planted by Russia to spark a new cold war. The others look like the ones in Crimea who wanted to be part of Russia rather than the new anti-Russia Ukraine.

State Department always delivers in a timely way. Guess Russia's voice regarding ousting Assad in Syria can from here on be squarely ignored.

Of course he's doing the exact same thing over again. Russia needs to get the fuck out of Ukraine.

"State Department always delivers in a timely way..."

Did State deliver Russian troops into the Crimea? (insert distinction without a difference here)

detail is true or not, it's Russia's backyard, our government and NATO are clearly stirring the pot to further dismember and weaken Russia and profit from the pieces we cut off from them.

Putin is no angel, but our government calling him Hitler is like Pol Pot crying about the Rwandan genocide.

Therein lies the problem.

And just how are they working to "dismember" Russia?

'Cause to most of us it seems that is what Russia is doing to the Ukraine.

nations and even former Soviet Republics, you could see why Russia might be a little touchy.

Also, it's difficult to see the advantages for the Ukraine aligning with Europe when the terms for their loans include the austerity that crippled countries like Greece.

It's a little like leaving a verbally abusive spouse for one who will beat you and take your whole paycheck too, which makes the whole thing look a lot like the typical CIA astroturf rent-a-mob revolution.

They have 1,000's of nuclear weapons, so it's not like nato is going to invade them. Is Finland worried about Nato?
And who the Ukraine wants to buddy up to should be up to them. They see how much better Poland is because of the westward tilt.

Russia knows they can't bully a small country as much after they join Nato, too bad so sad.

So if we do some serious meddling in there it's fine by you?

That's where the "sphere of influence" arguments get you. US subersion in Caracas! Now!

Or is it only okay when it doesn't help the US and the West, and really only bad when it might?

that we are actively trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government at this moment, or that our government backed two coup attempts against Hugo Chavez.

I'm not sure if Putin is subverting democracy in the Ukraine, but our government has no moral authority and likely has no pure motives for making such a stink about it.

Putting any anti-US feelings aside, do you support Putin's actions in Ukraine?

I am every bit as opposed to U.S. efforts to interfere with the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela as I am to Putin's efforts to destabilize and annex portions of Ukraine.

But it is a striking feature of the discussion of this matter that a great many people who present themselves as opponents of imperialism practiced by the United States argue so strenuously in favor of imperialism practiced by Russia.

and a lot to do with the dictates of banks and Wall Street, and preserving the unipolar moment.

It seems a little analogous to when our government and press are quick to point out examples of human rights abuses in Iran but ignore the same or worse ones in Saudi.

What is dangerous about the thing is breaking the 'unwritten law' that the map of Europe is fixed, and not to be altered by military force moving across a border. This has been bent a little here and there, but has held till now. Because of this, people below a certain age have the idea Europe is a peaceable place and Europeans peaceable people. There are half a dozen wars ready to start, as rectifications to bring old territories or ethnic kin 'home', if the understanding the map does not change is broken. The aspirations of Putin to restore what he can of the old Russian imperium is not worth the risk to the future it poses, and I would not think it worth the danger even if I agreed with his view.

It is ludicrous to propose that Russia is acting to prevent exploitation of Ukraine; Russia simply wants to be the leading exploiter of the place. Why it should constitute a left position to maintain banksters in Moscow should be exploiters of Ukraine, rather than their brothers in New York and London, quite escapes me. It is, put bluntly, as bizarre a spectacle as leftists maintaining categorically that a government put in place by a revolution cannot be legitimate, and should not be regarded as legitimate....

It was a bit of a bend, but it was far from a break. Everything took place within the boundaries of a federated state. No one outside the boundaries of Yugoslavia lost territory, or for that matter gained territory. Federated territories, most of which had been independent countries prior to the creation of Yugoslavia, declared independence from a central authority. These then fought among one another. The secession of Kossovo from Serbia was the nearest thing to an alteration, as this had not been one of the federated states in the Yugoslav union. It was a rebellion, which, owing to the genocidal nature of the regime it was pitched against, did attract outside assistance.

The idea that the U.S. contrived the dissolution of Yugoslavia, while current in some extremely doctrinaire left circles, and some nationalist fever swamps, has little contact with reality, and can impose only on people who know next to nothing of the region's history, and did not follow the events as they unfolded in the last decade of the twentieth century.

Did we kill a million Iraqis and spend potentially trillions on that war out of altruism?

As I suspect you know.

We are not going to war in Ukraine.

Kossovo has received only extremely small sums from the IMF, and in economic terms does not seem to be doing too badly.

The photos need precise time and place information. I can easily show a picture of a Chinese People's Army soldier guarding the white house thanks to photoshop.

Ukraine (run by neonazis and fascists) is squealing like a stuck pig and releasing all sorts of disinformation which neocons and PNACers in Washington are endorsing verbatim without inquiry.

...after previously denying such claims during the annexation process.

Putin apologists.

Yeah, like Putin isn't following the fascist playbook precisely.

They are either moles or rubes.

Weird how you are pro-Putin and pro-Hillary at the same time LOL

Hopefully Hillary would be telling Putin to get the fuck out of Ukraine right now- We would hope right? RIGHT!



VICE

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Just a few short weeks ago, Putin lied through his teeth and claimed that there were no Russian troops deployed in Crimea. Some of the rubes here bought it. Then he admits that there were in fact Russian troops there.

Now he says there are no Russian troops in Eastern Ukraine. And despite evidence presented that that they may, in fact, be Russians, and despite the fact that he flat out lied about the same thing a couple weeks ago, we still have folks here willing to take Putin's side on this. It's unbelievable to me.

So it must be fake.

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Can't believe no one noticed the greek treat typo, I had.

Called up some friendly generals, tell them to arrest and/or kill the offending politicians and we'll recognize them as the new leader so long as they play ball the way our banks and businesses dictate?

... are you saying that it makes it OK for the Russians to do what they are doing, or is this just more hair shirt politics?

Reporters questioning, on April 21st & 22nd, what U.S.State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki is saying about the publicly available photos of armed militants in eastern Ukraine. SEE VIDEO:

Where Russia denied having its men on the ground in the lead up to annexation, and after annexation admitted those were Russians all the time.

Not to mention that unlike yellow cake and mobile gas labs, the United States to date has not threatened to take any military action against Russia. Far from the case in the run up to Iraq, where we were quite clear as to what we wished to do with Iraq.

Iraq is not Russia. Russia is not Iraq. And most importantly, Obama is not Bush.

Embarrassing propaganda, one wonders what the real professionals propagandists are doing. Between this and the previous memo it's amateur hour over at state.

Even though it would appear that this is the exact same scenario played out weeks ago in Crimea, with the same denials from Moscow until it was "safe" to admit the truth?

WASHINGTON — A collection of photographs that Ukraine says shows the presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country, and which the United States cited as evidence of Russian involvement, has come under scrutiny.

...

Another question has been raised about a group photograph of uniformed men who are identified in the Ukrainian submission as a “sabotage-reconnaissance group” that reports to the “General Staff of the Russian armed forces.”

Maxim Dondyuk, a freelance photographer who was working in Slovyansk principally for the Russian newsmagazine Russian Reporter, said that he had taken the group photograph there and posted it on his Instagram account.

“It was taken in Slovyansk,” he said in a telephone interview. “Nobody asked my permission to use this photograph.”

Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, acknowledged that the assertion that the photograph in the American briefing materials had been taken in Russia was incorrect. But she said that the photograph was included in a “draft version” of a briefing packet and that the information has since been corrected. This photograph, she said, was not among those presented by Mr. Kerry in Geneva.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/world/europe/scrutiny-over-photos-said-to-tie-russia-units-to-ukraine.html?ref=world&_r=0