yes by all means take advantage of the Ukrainians in their crisis, there are profits to be made and coffers to be raided
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yes by all means take advantage of the Ukrainians in their crisis, there are profits to be made and coffers to be raided
I would offer it at discount rates ...sorta a 21st century Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe.
you don't really think you could discount Russian prices without passing the costs into your own economy do you? I doubt you have the financial capacity for such a plan these days, afterall you are already screaming about the deficits of this administration
Exxon Welcomes Russia's Rosneft Into Gulf of Mexico
Russia signs exploration deal with Exxon - Europe - Al Jazeera English
Lots of big deals would go south really fast if Russia was to trigger additional sanctions.
and ? Since when do you care about Exxon Mobile ?
Fact is noone cares about an individual company unless they are an investor but there is a ripple effect forget teh pipedream of supplying Ukraine from North America, perhaps your saudi friends can profit. Ukraine should have thought about the implications before shaking hands with the EU
I don't, but big profits is the leverage against further Russian aggression in the region.Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
The investor class is who rules Russia. An a sovereign Ukraine doesn't have to take orders from Russian thugs. They can shake hands with who they please. You talk as if they should just rollover for Putin.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
Or maybe Putin is an enviro-wacko and wants west Ukraine to prevent them from fracking .Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
Russia has environmental concerns over Ukraine's fracking plans
Put it this way Tal there are many implications for their turning away from traditional and long relationships and cultivating the EU which is just as expansionist as Russia, It isn't as though they didn't have competing offers on the table, whereas they have little relationship with the US who is using them to prod Putin, who would feel very vulnerable, just as you would if Mexico wanted to join the EUQuote:
you talk as if they should just rollover for Putin
You really don't understand the paranoia left over from WWII, and that is because your neighbours didn't invade you and murder millions of your population
Don't be so dramatic Clete. Its all about the money, and Putin playing hardball after they kicked his stooge out of Keiv.
I can't believe that Tom, it's a ploy to protect their markets. However we do need take a second look at fracking, there are serious environmental concerns which cannot be ignored just because some multinationals think they have a new nation to exploitQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Yes All those neo-cons in the Obama Adm prodded Vlad the Invador to move .
Vlad does what Vlad does, he needs no encouragement from the west but as I said before the Russians are paranoid
fine I get that . They have reasons to be. Geography . They have no natural land borders separating them from any of their neighbors. That's why they are always pushing West and South.
I'll also concede that we blew a golden opportunity when the Soviets fell to support democracy there . NATO ,an organization without a mission started to invent them by pushing east (and lately into Africa ) . When Vlad justifies his actions by comparing them to our land grab against Serbia ,he has a point.
Under normal circumstances I would've supported a democratic secession of Crimea and an annexation by Russia. But Vlad had made it his doctrine that all his neighbors are but appendages in his attempt to restore Russia to it's former glory .
Yes and he may be mad enough to do it, but a war with Europe will bankrupt his economy which is heavily dependent on oil and gas sales. It is actually Hitler in reverse. Hitler wanted "living space" and minerals, particularly oil, whereas Putin has no shortage of those but has lost a lot of people and has a declining population.
The great problem with the west is it is confrontational while shouting democracy from a base that is far from democratic. The people of Crimea made a decision we don't like the way it was done, but it was democratic, at least as democratic as we might do it, but there was no outside oversight
There is no simple answer to the question of whether people should be allowed to secede from their country.
Woodrow Wilson proposed the idea of "self-determination", but that was in the context of WW1 after the Imperial powers had been defeated, and Austria-Hungary having been a state full of different ethnic groups. The Balkans didn't shake themselves out until 70 years later.
Abraham Lincoln believed the American South had no right to secede since they were part of a "Federated Republic". The South saw it differently and formed a "CON-federation", a different system
Colonies, of course, are an altogether different proposition, and would seem to always have the right to secede from the mother country.
The Crimea was not really a secession. It was an annexation by a neighboring country. But this is probably semantics. Ukranian law prohibited the Crimean action, but, in the face of Russian tanks, law took a back seat.
Bottom line - if you want to secede, better have plenty of firepower.
However, an interesting situation looms with Scotland. My guess is that it will be done without force of arms as long as the Scots want it.
obviously the Scots want it otherwise it wouldn't be a question. The Scots have had hundreds of years of oppression and follow the people of Ireland in wanting out from under the english thumb. The people of Crimea felt they were oppressed. fact is; the american south should have been allowed to secede since what Wilson proposed was one rule for some and something else when the policy supported it. It might be inconvenient but all people should have the right to form their own nation. I would support the australian aboriginee creating their own nation in the north if they wanted it, what's one more failed state in a world of failed states?
Wilson and the South were two widely separated eras.
But, why would you support a state to fail in Australia? (If I read you correctly).
Btw, the Scotland issue is not as obvious as you may think.
I have lived in Scotland, the issue is obvious. and entirely transparent. I wouldn't want a failed state in either place, but in the case of Australia the creation of such a state may even be a positive since it would give the aboriginal people something to aspire to and living conditions could hardly be worse. If they were a seperate state we could provide them with foriegn aid, a different regime to the provisions existing at the moment, they would be deregulated and could attract industries, etc
I don't know much about Australia. How would foreign aid be different from "existing provisions"? Is this a racial thing? I'm not criticizing, I'm asking.
If the Scotland issue is so obvious, why is it still not achieved?
Scotland: Divorce is never an easy process
Australia: we have a very disdvantaged group in northern Australia and much money is poured in there with little effect, but laws prevent the establishment of say; special development areas where wages are lower, etc. If it were a seperate nation in charge of its own development, the handout mentality might change and the people feel empowered, plus development would be at their own pace, managed by their own people and implemented according to their own ideals, which seem very different to the rest of the country and aid could take entirely different forms
much development is stymied by cultural issues, sacred places and all that. they would be free to pursue their own culture which is a vastly different value system to the rest of the country
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...9.00264.x/full
whereas we genuinely screw our native population. The Federal Gvt has this antiquated agency called Bureau of Indian Affairs which thinks that the only way our natives can prosper is if they run casinos .
Yes we are no so enlightened, our natives have various business opportunities, tourism, cultural guides, cattle raising but of couse this gives opportunity to very few whereas the the real money making enterprises are in the hands of our enterpreneurs. paternalism doesn't equal development or equality
Is Donetsk the next Crimea ?
eastern Ukraine would always be problematic but earlier indications were that the people might speak russian but were not inclinded to join Russia, so some troublemakers from the old regime. This happens when there is a vacuum caused by undemocratic takeovers not legitimised by elections
you mean like Russian nationals storming the gvt building ? What happens when Russian nationals in Latvia ,Lithuania ,Estonia decide they need to carve out pieces of their country for Mother Russia ? These nations all have NATO membership.
Tom you know the answer as well as I do, we might see insurrections all over the former USSR, there are a lot of Russians scattered about. The question here is whether we have a small minority of malcontents or a movement. You could bet Russia doesn't want large numbers of new poor citizens, it might remember Germany it took a while to straighten out reunification and how much NATO wants a war. nature abhors a vacuum and the Ukraine right now is a vacuum
Unfortunately, those few malcontents are a great excuse for Putin to invade the Ukraine to protect Mother Russian citizens.
Russia has a long history of invading to protect Russian minorities. However today we have a vastly different geopolitical situation, these places are not as isolated as they once were
’Quote:
When President Bill Clinton signed a 1994 agreement promising to “respect” the territorial integrity of Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, there was little thought then of how that obscure diplomatic pact – called the Budapest Memorandum – might affect the long-running defense partnership between the United States and Japan.
But now, as American officials have distanced themselves from the Budapest Memorandum in light of Russia’s takeover of Crimea, calling promises made in Budapest “nonbinding,” the United States is being forced at the same time to make reassurances in Asia. Japanese officials, a senior American military official said, “keep asking, ‘Are you going to do the same thing to us when something happens?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/wo...e-leaders.html
Yes an interesting question I would like to know the answer myself in reference to the ANZUS treaty. it is a big question, can the US be trusted to meet its treaty obligations in all instances? If you can sell the Ukraine up the creek, you can sell any of us
That's only true under Obama... luckily he's legally prohibited from running for office a third time... so the wholesale vote fraud that got him in the last two times can't do it a third time.
Unless Hillary gets in... she is likely to be just as bad. She's just say..."what difference does it make?" in her shrew like grating voice....
It's a long time to a presidential election, what's the mood over there, would they do it again?Quote:
Unless Hillary gets in... she is likely to be just as bad
Hmmm
that is Russian agitprop . There is a history of anti-Semitism in the region and Vladdy would like to portray himself as their protector .
let's put it this way Tom noone wants another pogrom, the jews must not become the excuse for the invasion of the Ukraine
I'm just relieved that Vladdy the Invader has decided he has no interest in Alaska .
Vladimir Putin Says Alaska Is Too Cold To Annex
Apparently it is the Russians in eastern Ukraine who want to round up the jews and I think the Russians got a good deal when they got rid of Alaska why would they want it back, too far from home
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