Current Affairs Ukraine

[tsubaki]

Mr Potato Heads waffle aside, the reality is that Russia has occupied Syria to both maintian a footing its bases in the country, and chop their resources for the oligarchs.

The country is on the verge of another revolution as Syrians are demanding that the Russian and Iranian occupation cease and they be booted out.

Sweida Protests: The Start of a New Syrian Revolution?

This paper was published in Arabic on 12 June and updated on 15 June 2020. Find it here. Introduction Since 6 June 2020, protests against deteriorating living conditions have been ongoing in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida. The political slogans chanted in the protests have reached the...

blogs.eui.eu

That’s not the reality at all, and that article is three years old.

Assad is still widely hated, but he won that war and I’d be amazed if anyone wanted to go back to how things were before he was helped out.

 

[Yarrgh]

Not surprising that people are urging the US Empire to allow a negotiated settlement. Staring defeat in the face does that, as in Vietnam.

Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME in an interview after his trip to Washington, D.C.

time.com

I read the Time article quoted in the tweet. Who are the people urging the US Empire to allow a negotiated settlement?

If you read the article it's quite frank about Ukraine's position without the need to spin it to seem worse. I remember the words of a ww2 veteran along the lines of not fighting because they thought they would win, but fighting even though they thought they could lose.

 

[ramacca]

Because we have security commitments to Taiwan and the Philippines. The one to Taiwan was ambiguous until recently. The commitment to Taiwan is not enshrined in a treaty the way the Philippines commitment is, but everyone understood it was there. Biden recently clarified it by stating he absolutely would defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. Whether him saying that was a good idea or not is a matter of some debate.

The Philippines are wrangling with China and a bunch of other players, including Taiwan, over the key shipping lanes and oil and gas deposits in the South China Sea, and have been for decades. The short version there is that China has been adding manmade islands to the Spratly Islands, which in and of themselves have little value, in an effort to claim the entire South China Sea as territorial waters (the infamous nine-dash line) under international maritime law. More or less everyone in the region has planted military forces on the various rocks and reefs.

The UN found for the Philippines a few years back, but declined to settle the territorial dispute. As you might expect, the US and its closest allies came out in favor of the ruling, China and its closest allies came out against, and everyone else more or less shut up about the whole thing because they don't want to get nuked by either.

Just one thing on 'security arrangements' with an area in a country, this case Taiwan which is in China. Doesn't that same principle apply to the Donbass? Do they have a right to ask, say Russia for a 'security arrangement'?

 

[ramacca]

Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME in an interview after his trip to Washington, D.C.

time.com

I read the Time article quoted in the tweet. Who are the people urging the US Empire to allow a negotiated settlement?

If you read the article it's quite frank about Ukraine's position without the need to spin it to seem worse. I remember the words of a ww2 veteran along the lines of not fighting because they thought they would win, but fighting even though they thought they could lose.

Fighting for the sake of fighting only results in more and more deaths and destruction. There is internal turmoil in Ukraine with a number of issues.

The Ukraine government was willing to act as a US Empire proxy to damage Russia. By gathering a large army on the border of the Donbass, their intention was to provoke Russia to intervene in the civil war. The knew what would happen. It worked and Russia responded by sending in troops. Zelensky is fighting for his future not Ukraine's.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Some research shows that the US, has only had 15 years of 'peace' since it's Indepence from being a UK colony.

Again, what does a Chinese internal problem have to do with the US? The US recognises Taiwan as being part of China. I can understand the US wanting a solution to the colonial occupation of the north of Ireland. Part ancestoral, partly because it brings votes but also it doesn't look good in the world. When the US is castigating others, for human rights abuses when it is happening right under their nose in the northern part of Ireland ie concentration camp H Blocks, and discrimination against nationalists, and soldiers on the streets etc.

Great powers do use their power for their ends. Currently, the US Empire's west centric view of the world (Great powers using their power for their ends) around Ukraine is for their ends, not Ukraine's. They are using Ukraine to further their ends ie damage Russia and wage further trade war against Germany - making energy costs more expensive ie no Russian gas but, 4 times more expensive US Liquid gas that has driven up energy costs, that has resulted in factories closing diwn.

As far as Iraq is concerned, Saddam was their man eg. waging war against Iran but made the fatal mistake for him of wanting to trade oil in dollars ie against US interests. He was a gonna as, was Ghadaffi the moment he proposed setting up an Africa bank which would counter the IMF and the world Bank domination and control of Africa.

The upshot is your last paragraph. Literally, the world is a safer place because of US dominance. Try telling that to Yugoslavs (Serbians). Trying telling that to Iraqi's. Try telling that to Libyans. Try telling that to Afghanis. Try telling that to Syrians. Try tell that to Africans. Try telling that to Ukraines. Try telling that Palestinians now.

Since the liquidation of the Soviet Union the world and the US decided to police the world their has been sbsolute mayhem, death and destruction with the US Empire centre stage. Unfortunately, for the US it's hegonomy is being challenged and countries are wanting to take their own path. Something the US is fundamentally against. Which leads to trade war and shooting wars.

That research is flawed, and depends upon a definition of conflict that stops well short of anything like the Correlates of War thousand battle death definition of war. Militarized interstate disputes happen all the time. Even the US and Canada show up in that dataset as having experienced MIDs.

What does a Chinese internal problem have to do with the US? The semiconductors, for one thing. The promotion of democracy, for another. The US has a longstanding interest in peace in that region, due to trade. It also likes keeping countries that are legitimately democratic in that state, as natural allies. There are a whole bunch of wars that US mutual defense treaties deter over there. I would imagine the PRC would like to go repay the Japanese for Nanking. They would also like to wipe the South Korean government off the map, and tell the Philippines where to stick it with respect to the South China Sea. If you observe a mutual defense treaty, there's a reason. It wasn't the Soviet Union, in the Pacific. Their war plans pointed west, not east.

You're babbling conspiracy theories with respect to US policy. The first thing members of Congress think about, when it comes to Ukraine, is how their vote will play in their districts. Most Republican members have very conservative districts, and are worried about getting primaried from the right by some budget hawk. That's the main reason for the fuss over Ukraine. They do not think about energy prices in Europe. They do not know the price of natural gas over there, and they do not care. The ones from gas-producing districts know, but that's not a lot of them.

The cause of most conflicts these days is not the US. It's that the US doesn't care enough to put boots on the ground. We saw fewer conflicts during the Cold War because most regional conflicts were in the interest of neither superpower. Everybody had to line up behind one or the other for security, because they (and their allies) were the arms dealers, and they told most of their charges to sit still in class and shut up while the grownups talked. These days, if a country wants to shoot at their neighbor, someone will be happy to supply the weapons. Kenneth Waltz has always been right about this.

I can't download a decade of the study of political science and international relations into your head. I can tell you that you're believing some crackpot stuff. Your call on whether or not you want to fix that.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Just one thing on 'security arrangements' with an area in a country, this case Taiwan which is in China. Doesn't that same principle apply to the Donbass? Do they have a right to ask, say Russia for a 'security arrangement'?

If they wanted to secede in a legitimate plebiscite, with international monitors in place and all the guns removed from the region, the US probably would have rolled with that. If the vote is instead a Russian sham to put a fig leaf over a war of territorial aggression, not so much.

 

[Tennessee Blue Mike]

Sorry mate.
Just keeps saying the American Empire, while supporting a country that has actually expanded and conquered countries in the last few years.
Seems a bit two faced

Don't give it a second thought his posts say it all. sad fact he really believes what he is saying.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

That’s not the reality at all, and that article is three years old.

Assad is still widely hated, but he won that war and I’d be amazed if anyone wanted to go back to how things were before he was helped out.

This was a few weeks back.

Antigovernment protesters tear down picture of al-Assad in Syria’s Sweida

Criticism of al-Assad has been growing in Sweida since demonstrations began in mid-August over end of fuel subsidies.

www.aljazeera.com

Although the unrest is being contained it is not being stopped.

Assad survived because Putin came and made this possible. This support involved the murder of over 200,000, including the usual Russian targeting of all things civilian with Russia actively participating to the types of atrocity that we are seeing in Gaza but much much worse.

It is no wonder that Syrians do not want any Russian or Iranian help.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

The problem with expelling Russia is that the same logic applies to the PRC. That was the exact legal quibble used to deny the PRC their seat, and grant it to the ROC (Taiwan) for decades.

China has quietly been spreading a lot of money around lesser developed countries, and they'll drag that whole voting bloc with them because they don't want that issue revisited. Booting Russia leaves the PRC with just a UN Resolution, and not the charter, as the paper shield their Security Council and UN Charter vetoes hang upon. What is done by the General Assembly can be undone. Revising the charter is all but impossible, so as long as someone else with a veto agrees that successor states to the state named in the charter should be recognized as the original entity, they're fine. That's Russia. Most people think the five countries have the veto because they're the five 'legal' nuclear weapons states under the NPT, and not the other way around as it is in fact.

Expelling Russia isn't great for the UK either, in the sense that they would be opening the door to the loss of their Security Council seat and vetoes in the event of Scottish or Northern Irish secession. Even the United States would need to have a long think, given our present political divisions. Only France can rest assured in the knowledge that, barring a catastrophe that would render the UN Charter irrelevant anyway, there will be a state called 'France'.

With respect to Iran, keep in mind that the General Assembly has the same one-country, one-vote problem as FIFA. When the charter was written, the age of actual empires was unwinding and there were just under 100 countries, mostly located in Asia, Europe or in the Americas. Add another ninety nations, mostly located in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, and suddenly there are a lot of votes that can be had at very low cost, from the perspective of the big fish.

The result is that the UN and FIFA are both corrupt as all get-out, in terms of their governance structure. The various agencies of the UN may not be (and that's a debate worthy of its own thread), but UN votes are for sale. It's even legal. We call it foreign aid. There's also the problem that a large plurality, if not majority, of countries in the world want absolutely 100% of nothing done about human rights.

I don't disagree with any of that. Merely highlighting, that the current global political system it seems broke and possibly needs reworking.

Ideally the system should not be able to be manipulated by aggressors of any flavour.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

This was a few weeks back.

Antigovernment protesters tear down picture of al-Assad in Syria’s Sweida

Criticism of al-Assad has been growing in Sweida since demonstrations began in mid-August over end of fuel subsidies.

www.aljazeera.com

Although the unrest is being contained it is not being stopped.

Assad survived because Putin came and made this possible. This support involved the murder of over 200,000, including the usual Russian targeting of all things civilian with Russia actively participating to the types of atrocity that we are seeing in Gaza but much much worse.

It is no wonder that Syrians do not want any Russian or Iranian help.

Actually, the killed total looks to have been at least 100,000 above that figure with more than 13 million people displaced.

https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/brief...-challenges-push-many-displaced-syrians-brink

 

[ramacca]

If they wanted to secede in a legitimate plebiscite, with international monitors in place and all the guns removed from the region, the US probably would have rolled with that. If the vote is instead a Russian sham to put a fig leaf over a war of territorial aggression, not so much.

,America gained it's independence from Britain, not with a plebiscite but force of arms.

The people of the Donbass were forced to arm themselves, due to being attacked, by a raging rightist mob, led by the Right Sector.

"Ukrainian rightists burn alive 39 at Odessa union building" https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ukrainian-rightists-burn-alive-39-at-odessa-union-building/

And during that Maidan coup, there was the famous Nuland's, 'f... the EU' rage. That is the US will pick the next president. The referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk produced a majority in favour of independence. Of course, the usual suspects, the US, UK, France and Germany, would quibble with the result. They do that to any country they don't like eg Venezuela.

Interesting that you mention 'internstionsl monitors'. I can't find their report on the 2020 election in the US? Could you direct me to it? That report would surely dispel Trump's claims that the election was fraudulent. Of course the loser would say that wouldn't he. All losers do and that's no difference than in Ukraine. I assume the US are going to have international monitors at the 2024 election seeing the hullabaloo caused by the last one.

Again, what right does the US Empire have to do with the internal affairs of another country,? It can only be that it wants a certain outcome. The US wouldn't have 'rolled with it'. Just as it never 'rolled with' the Allende election in Chile. When the US Empire's interest is threatened the only thing they 'roll with' is coups and wars.

 

[Aberblue]

,America gained it's independence from Britain, not with a plebiscite but force of arms.

The people of the Donbass were forced to arm themselves, due to being attacked, by a raging rightist mob, led by the Right Sector.

"Ukrainian rightists burn alive 39 at Odessa union building" https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ukrainian-rightists-burn-alive-39-at-odessa-union-building/

And during that Maidan coup, there was the famous Nuland's, 'f... the EU' rage. That is the US will pick the next president. The referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk produced a majority in favour of independence. Of course, the usual suspects, the US, UK, France and Germany, would quibble with the result. They do that to any country they don't like eg Venezuela.

Interesting that you mention 'internstionsl monitors'. I can't find their report on the 2020 election in the US? Could you direct me to it? That report would surely dispel Trump's claims that the election was fraudulent. Of course the loser would say that wouldn't he. All losers do and that's no difference than in Ukraine. I assume the US are going to have international monitors at the 2024 election seeing the hullabaloo caused by the last one.

Again, what right does the US Empire have to do with the internal affairs of another country,? It can only be that it wants a certain outcome. The US wouldn't have 'rolled with it'. Just as it never 'rolled with' the Allende election in Chile. When the US Empire's interest is threatened the only thing they 'roll with' is coups and wars.

Thus ramacca proves he is no supporter of Putin.

 

[ramacca]

That research is flawed, and depends upon a definition of conflict that stops well short of anything like the Correlates of War thousand battle death definition of war. Militarized interstate disputes happen all the time. Even the US and Canada show up in that dataset as having experienced MIDs.

What does a Chinese internal problem have to do with the US? The semiconductors, for one thing. The promotion of democracy, for another. The US has a longstanding interest in peace in that region, due to trade. It also likes keeping countries that are legitimately democratic in that state, as natural allies. There are a whole bunch of wars that US mutual defense treaties deter over there. I would imagine the PRC would like to go repay the Japanese for Nanking. They would also like to wipe the South Korean government off the map, and tell the Philippines where to stick it with respect to the South China Sea. If you observe a mutual defense treaty, there's a reason. It wasn't the Soviet Union, in the Pacific. Their war plans pointed west, not east.

You're babbling conspiracy theories with respect to US policy. The first thing members of Congress think about, when it comes to Ukraine, is how their vote will play in their districts. Most Republican members have very conservative districts, and are worried about getting primaried from the right by some budget hawk. That's the main reason for the fuss over Ukraine. They do not think about energy prices in Europe. They do not know the price of natural gas over there, and they do not care. The ones from gas-producing districts know, but that's not a lot of them.

The cause of most conflicts these days is not the US. It's that the US doesn't care enough to put boots on the ground. We saw fewer conflicts during the Cold War because most regional conflicts were in the interest of neither superpower. Everybody had to line up behind one or the other for security, because they (and their allies) were the arms dealers, and they told most of their charges to sit still in class and shut up while the grownups talked. These days, if a country wants to shoot at their neighbor, someone will be happy to supply the weapons. Kenneth Waltz has always been right about this.

I can't download a decade of the study of political science and international relations into your head. I can tell you that you're believing some crackpot stuff. Your call on whether or not you want to fix that.

I take it the 'decade of the study of political science and international relations' is your study and not someone else? There are loads and loads of academic crackpot papers written by academics or more like crackpot academics. As a matter of interest, which, ' that research is flawed' you never said? I didn't mention which research paper. I said some research. Odd, to dismiss research as 'flawed' when you don't know which one. I look forward to reading your research paper on the length the US has been at war with the world. As in your 'decade long study' you must have written one. If you have, for all I know it could be crackpot stuff. And I wouldn't want to 'download' that into my head would I now.

So you're saying that America is 'semiconfuctors' thingummy on Taiwan for the US which is 7000 miles awsy. That's just another name for the British Mercantilist East India Company. That looked after trade thousands of miles from Britain. And backed of course by the British navy. Seems like a stolen idea to me. Or is that what all Empires do,?

The US Empire's and your fear is losing that semiconductor thingummy trade. Even to the extent that the USveould blow it up if it thought the Chinese would invade. So much for democracy. That you profess the US is there to 'promote'. Some promotion that to protect not Taiwan's interests but the USs. A bit like the British destroyed the Indian cotton industry in its Empire days, because it was too competitive and there was a cotton industry slump in Britain.

it is no 'babbling conspiracy' that Nuland was prominent, in the internal affairs of Ukraine around the Maidan coup. Just as it's no ',babbling conspiracy', that the CIA were involved with Pinochet's coup against the democratically elected Allende. Phil Agee,'s Inside the Company' is a must read. But of course, during your decade study you must have come across this book. What about the involvement of the UK and US in installing the Shah of Iran in 1953:, against the democratically elected government.

CIA admits 1953 Iranian coup it backed was undemocratic

The toppling of the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and ensuing rule of the shah directly led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution

amp.theguardian.com

Some mantra the US has for, ' promoting and protecting democracy'. Mind, I think that's crackpot bull, don't you,?

The US Empire does put boots on the ground. They were in Ukraine, now they're in Palestine. Which is why there are those that want to ditch Ukraine and solely concentrate on defending the colonial occupiers of Palestine, even if that means using the US Empire troops and weapons assembled in the Med then they will.

 

[ramacca]

Thus ramacca proves he is no supporter of Putin.

Correct. I don't support Putin.

 

[ramacca]

F-16s enter Ukraine but they'll be within range of S-400.