AND THE OTHER GUYS ARE THE WARMONGERS???????????????????????????????????????

Henry Meyer and Daryna Krasnolutska? lol

Her family is already making arraignments to move to Sweden, if things get worse.

there certainly is no love loss between Poland and Russia.

putin is a fool.

Estonia is the one that needs to watch out if Europe plans on putting tanks there.

For now.
Sorry, you may take Putin's word, but those E. European countries? Not so much and with good reason.

Hate to spoil your WW3 fantasies, but Putin's not going to risk going against NATO. He's an asshole, not an idiot.

I can't blame Poland for being paranoid, really - being conquered a few times while your allies sit back and go "eh, changed my mind' can instill that in a nation I imagine - but it's really unlikely that Putin is going to throw Russia into a war against NATO, over Poland. Or Estonia, or any of those other ones. it'd be hugely costly, with no worthy return for Russia, even were Russia to succeed in the effort.

far from it, I save that label for a couple of others here,.
And, I happen to agree with you that Putin won't try to take Poland, Russia's military is just a shadow of it's former self, it wouldn't last very long against a well equipped and seasoned military like the US Military.
But you've got to understand why E. Europe is edgy about Putin's intentions.

I get why East Europe is edgy. I do understand history. But... this is why so many of them are part of NATO since the last decade. it's kind of the point. Though granted, that history does involve getting stabbed in the back by the west (or conquered by the north... who would have ever imagined Sweden to be one of the great military powers, at a time?) so...

Thing is, just because these states are paranoid doesn't actually make the threat real.

Live next to a country that has a history of invading countries for no reason and occupied you nation for many years.

Then tell me just how peaceful you would feel when the Russians invade a neighboring nation.

Deal?

in the world. People are literally dancing in the streets in Siberia they are so happy. That wouldn't be happening if Putin were a Brezhnev or something like that. I think you or your friend are worrying needlessly. Putin is not going attack Poland. If things keep going as they are now,he will be the greatest leader in the world soon.

if you want to defend putin, knock yourself out.

I seriously doubt you would get many supporters here.

I think I saw an opening at pravda

you are an odd one.

it's glaringly apparent you know of no one who, you know, actually lives in that area of the world.

you seem to desperately want the last word, so you may have it.

I'm done with this really childish conversation.

Putin would be a fool to do the same and it would be World War 3.

I would suggest the articles on Ukraine-Russia by Stephen Cohen in The Nation.

For example: The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev’s Atrocities

Frankly, 'we' are probably on the wrong side once again, yet the warmongers of the left and the warmongers on the right have so far been successful in getting most Americans to cast Putin as the villain ... and it likely just isn't true.

even here on DU.

I remember when DU was part of the 10% that didn't support Bushco warmongering.

former KGB and remember Chechnya. I have watched the videos of Kiev's atrocities every day. Putin needs to take those right-wing Nazis out as quickly as possible.

Russia only has ten foreign military bases? This is in contrast to what many estimate to be over 1000 in at minimum 156 countries by the U.S. A cursory glance at a world map shows that a substantial number of these bases form a ring around Russia. Even the most impartial observer would not view this as a coincidence and would at least appreciate why Putin and company see much of what America does as provocative, if not blatantly confrontational -

See more at: http://jdrachel.com/2014/08/30/russia-bad-america-good/#sthash.82zVkOOW.dpuf

That the current Kiev government is a good one. It is better than Yanukovich, who stole billions, was in Putin's pocket, and killed 100 peaceful demonstrators.

The government that took its place is better, but not good. Ukraine has the chance through gradualist reform to become a nation of laws, with minimal corruption like Georgia.

Putin does not have a better way. His way is Yanukovich's way.

he is just too busy killing to start stealing. But be rest assured, he will do his fair share of stealing once he is done subduing the ethic Russian minority who oppose his rule.

why 15,000?

A smaller number won't alarm the West say 3,000 and a larger number of say 100,000 won't be believable.

No soldier or his mother knows for sure how many troops are deployed, so they just make up a believable number.

People who know the exact number are extremely unlikely to give it out.

whenever the news try to scare us about Russia. Then they trot out the NGO like they are not mostly controlled by western govts. The good thing about this whole case is that the Ukrainians have cried wolf for so long that even when the real invasion starts, nobody would believe them.

Just imagine how better off the Ukrainians would have been if the democratically elected govt and democratic process were allowed to work. Now they have war, bigger financial problems, loss of pensions and loss of territory. They were stupid enough just like the Libyans and Syrians to fall for what McCain and Lindsey Graham was selling.

It's current problems are a direct result of the incursion into Crimea by Russia troops in late February/early March 2014.

a bunch of right wingers decided that Obama is not doing a good enough job. They rally their troop in the street, attack police and burn buildings. They say they cannot wait the 1yr or so years it would take for the next election season to arrive that Obama has to go now. Foreign countries threaten Obama with sanctions if he as much as laid a finger to those violent right wingers protesting. This makes protesters grow even bolder and after a while, Obama starts to fear for his life and leaves the country.

The right winger claim victory and immediately run an election to elected their guy with liberal parts of the country not even participating because they were so disgusted with the way everything transpired. Now imagine how you would feel if that happened in this country and someone tells you that the US has "a democratically elected government"?

Poroschenko was elected democratically. The entire Rada was elected democratically. There's no usurper, no junta of which to speak.

in the east agree with my telling of the event that happened and no yours and that is why we have this problem. Non of this would have happened if only they had let the democratic process work. Sorry but people in the streets on one city throwing molotov cocktails and forcing out a democratically elected leader(who received very high numbers from the east) is not allowing the democratic process to work

Your claim is patently false. Your whole "Obama as Yanukovych" analogy is entirely irrelevant to the premise.

And western Ukraine? I think that would be one step in determining how fair the election was. The previous democratically elected government was overthrown by violence, requiring the president to flee. Beyond that, everything seems to be in a state of turmoil, and might end up with a west Ukraine and an east Ukraine. It happens.

The portions of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces not under separatist control did conduct elections. Election equipment and ballots were even sent to Donetsk which was under separatist control. Do you know what the separatists did? They destroyed the ballots and smashed up the ballot boxes, and placed them in the town center with placards on them marked "Trash." They were responsible for disenfranchising the people, not the government.

While its true that turnout was far less in Donetsk and Luhansk than in the rest of the country, on the other hand it should also be noted that candidates from the far-right ultranationalist parties Svoboda and Right Sector received barely 2% of the entire vote. This entirely contradicts the narrative that Western Ukrainians are nothing but a bunch of fringe radicals obsessed with reliving World War II.

Like elephant pudding, for example.

my post you think is wrong? This is exactly the story of one non complaint democratically elected leader was replaced for another and some people act like I am telling a tall tale.

and Chile had a democratically elected Government so do Iran and Guatemala and Honduras ...US wiped them all out ....

some snipers opened up on cops and protesters alike from ambush...this led to prolonged and intense violence that drove the Government out...its was not done with ballots ....and we got our man "Yats" in power [he has since resigned]...we did our little purple finger vote Kabuki and that is that ....Kiev is now dropping Ballistic missiles on its civilians ....they are our dudes...

You are aware that Yanukovych voluntarily up and left the country? That he took three whole days at the very height of the Maidan crisis to casually pack up literally truckloads of valuable antiques and oil paintings before flying off in his private fleet of helicopters? And that there is video of him doing this? And that the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, was never overthrown?

And you are aware that all of this belies the very definition of a "coup", unless you so choose to redefine commonly accepted words to suit your own positions?

??????????

to me

Victoria Nuland of our State department....

...and you just make some vague allusion to a figure who you think to be involved somehow, but you have no idea how?

Is that the long and short of it?

straw man version....I alluded to a specific person who is on tape discussing Ukraine etc...I think she was out at the Square handing cookies to protesters ...there is a message in that bit of street theater you know ....

I'm not talking about handing out cookies or what was said on a phone call.

The coup. The coup. How did the actual coup happen?

Why, that is exactly the rationale used by the fascists in Moscow to silence it's domestic critics by calling them "foreign agents."

Putinapologists sure do love them good old-fashioned authoritarianism.

the many members in the group to get a good idea of what the number is. Certainly they have a better idea of what the scale of involvement is than you or I have.

Did any of the mothers in the UK or USA know how many troops were deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan to the closest 1,000?

It is impossible and therefore exact numbers coming from any source other than the top military leadership is propaganda.

somehow a bad thing? No one can know the precise number without access to military records. We should just let the military leadership have its secrets because no one will believe any information coming from anyone else anyway?

I realize you are arguing from the point of view that if the military leadership does not release the information then we can never really know anything. So we should stop questioning the military leadership and accept that they know best and will release the information when they feel it is appropriate.

Such faith in military leadership, and disdain for those trying to piece together information that the military refuses to release, is a quality hard to come by in liberals.

I am not putting faith in military leadership either.

All I am saying is a bunch of soldiers' mothers cannot accurately predict the deployment nor where that depolyment is made.

The soldiers themselves don't know where they are being deployed and in secret operations, they are not allowed to tell their family members where they are serving either.

So - said mothers' sons may have been called to duty but they could be going to Siberia for training or to Vienna to guard an embassy. How could the mothers know that they are being deployed in Ukraine?

Thus, my point holds -- the NGOs funded by Western interests are participating in a concerted propaganda campaign because there is no possible way they can know the information they are releasing to the media. Period.

I know that Russian government labelled them as such right after they came out with information they did not want released. But is there anything else?

And are the 200+ death certificates which "specify gunshot or shrapnel wounds as a cause of death, they do not say where they were sustained" but "the place of death there is a blank space" seem at all suspicious to you. Those 'training exercises close to the Ukrainian border must be very dangerous since they are killing so many Russian soldiers. Or perhaps the mothers of the dead soldiers are making this up to please western interests?

and counted them, verified that they were not 200 copies of a single certificate AND that they were authentic?

With a random name generator and a simple mail-merge, I can create 5,000 distinct death certificates in about an hour. How long will it take to verify each one to determine authenticity?

Like I said, you choose to believe things that you want to be true. I am a skeptic.

Exactly the words that climate change deniers use. Congratulations.

Their version: "I am skeptical of anything that goes against the policy I believe in. What you think is evidence, I think is a plot invented by hostile interests to keep my policy beliefs from ever being achieved."

I'll ask you the same question I ask them: Can you conceive of some evidence that would be persuasive to you that, in this case, Russia really has committed a large number of troops to fight in Ukraine? (I can certainly conceive of evidence which, if it existed, would convince me that Russia has little to no involvement in Ukraine.) Or is that such an impossible thing to consider that there is no evidence that could do that?

It is done with accurate and calibrated instruments with graphs and charts.

If a bunch of (Western aid-dependent) NGOs from Russia and Ukrainian government said there is climate change, I won't believe it.

So, please don't create a straw-man after straw-man.

repeating the accusation of an authoritarian government is not proof. Is it impossible for Russian mothers to form an organization to promote human rights and peace without it being a front for Western interests? Perhaps Russian mothers are not 'evolved' enough?

From their wiki:

Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia

The organization was founded in 1989. Before 1998, it was known as the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia.

The organization is often labeled as a human rights or peace organization. Among the activities the organization is involved in is educating Russian civil society on the rule of law in relation to service in the military, as well as informing society about what the armed forces should look like in a democratic society. The organization also provides free legal advice to soldiers and their families about their rights and conscription laws, as well as intervening on behalf of soldiers who are facing abuse and hazing from their superiors and other more senior soldiers (dedovshchina).

The Committee was awarded the Rafto Prize in 1995 and the Right Livelihood Award in 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_the_Committees_of_Soldiers%27_Mothers_of_Russia

of the NGO which detail their source of funds.

If >60% of the funds are from Russian private individuals, I'll accept the NGO's word.

I doubt you will find any financial statements sufficient to prove otherwise.

If an auditor like KPMG or PWC says 60% of the donations came in small amounts and in rubles, I will believe that.

I sympathize with you in that those ARE foreign funded NGOs audited by Russian firms by prima facie evidence.

btw, this requirement is not extraordinary. Many countries require foreign organizations operating in their territory to be audited by domestic firms because the CIA has been playing fast and loose with shell companies, fake fronts and so called NGOs.

If the Brits and the Americans had not been raping the world, the world wouldn't need chastity belts for protection.

a) Russian accounting firms are dishonest or pressured by the government
b) The NGOs are solely funded by domestic donations

Unless and until there is such proof, the credibility of the NGOs shall remain suspect.

so I accept your conclusion. Guilty until proven innocent. Since there is no evidence, innocence can not be proven. The NGO must be presumed to be guilty.

I find it troubling that the government determined the Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg to be a 'foreign agent' the week after they released information about Russian troops that the government wanted concealed. Of course, no audit (done by a Russian firm) was released at the time of that determination.

The government made a decision to repress an independent voice, timed as punishment for the release of a human rights report ("political activity&quot and without releasing any evidence that the NGO is foreign-funded.

But Vlad can do no wrong. You are welcome to your trust his government.

Let's consider the following chain of events:

1. The neocon push for a regime change in Ukraine under the auspices of the CIA is successful with cookies and right wing militia etc.
2. Russia, not wanting to lose the bases in crimea, annexes it as a logical reaction - whether you like it or not.
3. Russia, in order to destabilize the CIA installed government in Ukraine creates unrest.
4. There is a propaganda war trying to discredit Russia at every step.

Under these circumstances and with Russians rallying around Putin taking his popularity to an all time high, one NGO comes forward and repeats the 15,000 Russians in Ukraine claim which it cannot possibly know. No NGO is ever going to know the exact troop count. The 15,000 is exactly the same number that was thrown out by Poroshenko. (Again, a number that is believable and alarming as I stated before. 3,000 won't alarm anyone and 100,000 would be unbelievable)

I am honest in that I find the claims from Ukraine to be not credible. You are insisting that they are credible and word of the almighty himself. I am comfortable in stating that I don't know the truth of what is going on. You seem to know everything that is going on there very accurately.

If the CIA had not been impatient and had waited for the one year to the elections as a part of the three way Yanukovytch-EU-Russia deal, everything would have been on the up and up -- but no -- CIA wanted its regime change immediately and by force.

Apparently, this organisation and it's director are not for the first time in the headlines. No doubt they have the best interest of their clientele in mind, and that is perhaps why they have accepted foreign funding in previous years.

states) to receive foreign funding. The repressive NGO law became effective in July 2012. If Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg were to trying to comply with the repressive law they would have stopped accepting funding from abroad - "ceased to receive foreign funding" in the wording of the site that you linked to.

That is a great site you linked to. Thanks for posting it.

the law only requires that you submit to audits, tell the government exactly how much of your funding comes from abroad, and that you make sure everybody knows that you do. It's called tranparency.

shoot straight with their blood alcohol levels off the charts. Except for killing all the innocent civilians on the airliner, they got that one targeted pretty well despite the vodka.

let's leave substantive discussion to the adults, shall we?

Pootie can do no wrong.