Ukraine's European Revolution?

[mongers]

War in the East?  WTF?  Ukraine isn't in the East.  It is in Europe.  If there is a war, it would be "War in Ukraine."

So you're not heard about the 101st getting ready to jump over Volgograd?

[mongers]

Two and a half hours* before the Ukrainian tanks roll?






* I'm working on it being GMT +2 there currently?

[DGuller]

Given Ukraine's position in the early 90s versus now I feel somewhat comfortable in saying Ukraine probably doesn't deserve to exist. They're extremely weak and it's through years of poor government. If Ukraine was even half a country maybe we the West could do something meaningful, but you can't prop up a house made of papier-mâché. I just hope we use the fall of Ukraine as the reason we finally acknowledge Russia as an enemy and start making Poland the new red line instead of Germany in terms of NATO deployments.

That's exactly how I'm consoling myself.  If we do need to have a sacrificial victim for the first act of this movie, after which everyone realizes how bad the Big Bad really is, then let it be the drug-addicted homeless petty thief with no teeth (who sold his gun many years for a bottle of vodka), rather than a child abuse victim that is growing up and is finally getting her life together.  I just really, really hope that one senseless killing is all it would take for the hero to wake up and go on a victorious rampage.

[DGuller]

I'm of the opinion that Ukrainian politicians across the board have failed the Ukrainian people. They seem, almost to a man and woman, to have bled their state dry, rather than building it and improving the lives of ordinary people.

That is a very accurate conclusion.  I would also say that Russian "liberals" have a lot of blood on their hands as well, by discrediting themselves with pure incompetence and corruption (not to mention the fact that they had a hand in installing Putin to power).  The biggest enemy of nascent democracies is the incompetence of the democrats.

[Sheilbh]

I thought this was a great piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/ukrainians-russians-fascists-putin-west-ukraine

[Valmy]

I thought this was a great piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/ukrainians-russians-fascists-putin-west-ukraine

People in the west actually think the Ukrainians are Fascists?  Wild.

[Razgovory]

I thought this was a great piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/ukrainians-russians-fascists-putin-west-ukraine

People in the west actually think the Ukrainians are Fascists?  Wild.

A lot of people are buying Putin's line.

[Sheilbh]

And there are fascists among the Ukrainian nationalists

[Razgovory]

And there are fascists among the Ukrainian nationalists

That's true of nationalists everywhere, so what?

[DGuller]

I thought this was a great piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/ukrainians-russians-fascists-putin-west-ukraine

People in the west actually think the Ukrainians are Fascists?  Wild.

A lot of people are buying Putin's line.

The West was never short of useful idiots. 

[Razgovory]

Seems a bit disingenuous to shriek about "fascists" in Ukraine when Putin keeps around quite a few Liberal Democrat lackeys on the payroll.

[Valmy]

And there are fascists among the Ukrainian nationalists

I am not even sure those guys are anything more than modern Euro extreme nationalists than some sort of Nazi revivalist group or actually are demanding a dictatorship in the Ukraine.  But anyway even if they are big fucking deal.  They are a tiny minority.  Even more Putin's ideas are pretty much lifted straight from Mussolini anyway so why quibble?

[CountDeMoney]

I just hope we use the fall of Ukraine as the reason we finally acknowledge Russia as an enemy and start making Poland the new red line instead of Germany in terms of NATO deployments.

Russia's not as much an enemy as it is a nuisance.  And like so many potato chips in transit, the former Soviet entities are merely settling along traditional ethnic lines after this 20 year hiccup in history.

[Razgovory]

I thought this was a great piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/ukrainians-russians-fascists-putin-west-ukraine

People in the west actually think the Ukrainians are Fascists?  Wild.

I suspect that classifying the Ukrainians as fascists allows people to write off the victims of Russian aggression with a cleaner conscious.
A lot of people are buying Putin's line.

The West was never short of useful idiots. 

[alfred russel]

That's exactly how I'm consoling myself.  If we do need to have a sacrificial victim for the first act of this movie, after which everyone realizes how bad the Big Bad really is, then let it be the drug-addicted homeless petty thief with no teeth (who sold his gun many years for a bottle of vodka), rather than a child abuse victim that is growing up and is finally getting her life together.  I just really, really hope that one senseless killing is all it would take for the hero to wake up and go on a victorious rampage.

I don't understand. Ukraine must die so that Poland may live?

There is no chance that the west set out on a victorious rampage against Russia. Nuclear fire doesn't smell like victory.