Things To Note About Russia, Ukraine, and The World

With the ongoing crisis in eastern Europe between Russia and the Ukraine over Crimea (and Ukraine itself should Russia all-out invade), there are a few things you'll need to know. This Slate article does a nice job about covering the current events, but there's a few bits of background info you'd need to consider:

1) Russia has historically been heavily involved in Eastern European affairs for centuries.  They consider it "their" stomping grounds the way we Americans would consider, well, the Western hemisphere.  To an outsider, Russia reacting to the Ukrainian uprising this past month seems a bit like overkill: however, just consider how the U.S. reacts/reacted to Cuba just 90 miles off our shores over the last 150 years (trying to annex it, fighting Spain for its' "independence"... going apesh-t when Castro took over and joined the Soviets).  And the Ukraine is right on Russia's border.

The reason World War I escalated the way it did was because Russia inserted itself as a major player into the Eastern European Balkan nation-states like Serbia: when Austria-Hungary mobilized against Serbia in response to the Arch-Duke's assassination, Russia mobilized in response (which got Germany mobilizing against both Russia AND France, since France and Russia were allied via treaty already).  Just think of Russia still wanting to insert itself into Eastern European activities... whether those Eastern European states want Russia meddling or not.

2) What Putin is doing with sending troops into the Crimea may be an over-reaction because the Russians clearly didn't think their ally President Yanukovych would fall so quickly.  There's also the possibility Putin didn't figure on Europe or the United States over-reacting to his sending in the troops and getting his parliament to rubber-stamp the use of force against Ukraine.

A previous stir-up with a former Soviet state in 2008 - Georgia - ended up being lopsided in Russia's favor with few international repercussions.  But that was due more to Georgia's leadership being too aggressive towards Russia, hurting their stance with the U.S. and NATO nations.  Ukrainian protesters that overthrew Yanukovych may have been anti-Russian in their stance, but they were openly protesting in favor of joining the European Union.  That would make the EU nations - Germany, France and the UK in particular - more keen on providing political and economic support to Ukraine.

2a) Another reason for Putin's over-reaction: he's increasingly surrounded himself with yes-men and cronies (sounds familiar...) who only give him the news he wants to hear.  As such, he may have gotten separated from the real world and is operating on full Disconnect mode...

3) It's that pro-EU stance of the Ukrainians that's upsetting the Russian government.  Having a bordering nation go fully into the Western European sphere of influence would seem like a weakness to the Russians.  Again, see how Russia reacted to the start of WWI...

4) Crimea itself is relatively sparsely populated, but is mostly pro-Russian citizenry, which is why Russia moved so quickly and successfully in occupying it.  Save for the Tatar population, which is an Turkic-Arab minority that also happens to be very pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western.  What happens to them is a serious issue.

5) Crimea is key territory for Russia because of its' natural seaport geography in the Black Sea, a major aspect of Russian naval security.  There's a reason after the Soviet break-up that Ukraine and Russia made a series of treaties allowing the Russian navy access to Sevastopol: Russia needed that seaport, big time.

6) Western responses to Russia's takeover of Crimea has been limited.  Mostly diplomatic ties getting cut, a planned G8 meeting in Sochi in June now likely to get suspended, possibility of the other nation members kicking Russia out.  There's been a huge response already, however, to Russia's economy where their stock market's taken a huge hit, their currency's been devalued, and a lot of trade deals getting struck down.

6a) Which is why Putin may be talking tough, but it's increasingly unlikely Russia would fully invade Ukraine.  An actual invasion would be a huge blow to Russia's economy: they have few allies siding with them on this, and the nations that would line up on Ukraine's side are the major economic powers - the EU, Japan, the United States, even China - that could cripple Russia's finances and cause an internal economic depression that would anger up the Russian populace.

7) If Russia does invade, the Ukrainian forces may have fewer numbers than the Russian forces but will be better organized and fighting a defensive war, which favors them.  While NATO or the U.S. won't contribute ground troops or any overt support, they will back Ukraine as far as possible.  More than likely, Ukraine will find military support coming from Poland and other former Warsaw Pact nations not on good terms with Russia and terrified of a Putin-led government acting like a reborn Russian "empire".  It definitely won't be a swift curb-stomp fight like Russia had against Georgia.

8) Most likely scenario: Russia forces the annexation of the Crimea.  There'll be a fight - mostly political, possibly military - to force Russian concessions to Ukraine to make that annexation go over smoothly (especially something that would ensure the Tatars political and physical safety).  Russia may face some sanctions and their political leadership might find themselves persona non grata on the international scene for a few years, but it may stabilize matters over the long term.  That's only if they don't invade.

8a) If they do invade... it'll be like their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan (or the U.S. invasion of Iraq 2003) all over again: an occupying force in hostile territory while the rest of the world sits by in anger and open contempt.  With the added woes of a tanking economy as much-needed trade deals get wiped out.

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Another Moment In The Annals of Angry Guy Syndrome

In the "This Should NOT Be Surprising Anyone" category, George Zimmerman - he who shot Trayvon Martin for the sin of walking at night wearing a hoodie - has been arrested for yet another domestic violence incident:

George Zimmerman was charged Monday with assault after deputies were called to the home where he lived with his girlfriend, who claimed he pointed a shotgun at her during an argument, authorities said.

Zimmerman pushed the woman out of the house and barricaded the door with furniture, Chief Deputy Dennis Lemma said at a news conference hours after the arrest. The girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, provided deputies with a key to the home and they were able to push the door that had been barricaded.

Zimmerman, from before the Trayvon Martin shooting and even after his acquittal, has shown a serious habit of "expressing himself" in a rather violent, confrontational fashion:

• In September of this year, he visited his estranged wife's home and was accused of threatening her and her father with violence, reportedly with the gun on his possession.  The investigation stalled due to lack of evidence.
• Zimmerman and his wife were separated at the time of the Trayvon shooting, following a fight between the couple.  She filed for divorce once the trial ended, with the proceedings on hold following the September incident.
• Zimmerman has been ticketed on three separate occasions for traffic violations, mostly speeding, since the acquittal.
• In July 2005, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest during an incident involving underage drinking, attacking an undercover cop who was trying to arrest Zimmerman's friend.
• The following month, Zimmerman's then-fiance filed a restraining order against him for domestic violence. Zimmerman filed his own restraining order against her.

And remember, these are the incidents that got the cops involved.

Every one of these incidents fit into a pattern of persistent behavior common with the Angry Guy Syndrome: a confrontational personality, issues with the women in his life leading up to domestic violence reports, a recklessness with respecting rules (such as traffic laws), a level of arrogance that makes him act like he's above the law.

And above all, a love of weapons and an eagerness to have them on him whenever he gets into a fight with someone like his ex-wife or current girlfriend.

The 911 phone calls have already been released: the girlfriend's as well as Zimmerman's.  Zimmerman calling just as the cops showed up to answer the woman's earlier call.  You gotta listen to Zimmerman as he's telling his version of events.  Except you gotta be wondering "why isn't he talking to the cops that are already there?"  And the answer is obvious: it's called "gaming the refs".  Zimmerman knows the tapes always get released to the media, and so he puts out his own 911 call, knowing if he does it the right way he can paint himself as the victim of his "crazy girlfriend".

At this point should anyone even trust him anymore (not off-topic: Zimmerman's lawyer during the shooting trial quit on him after not getting paid)?  Zimmerman keeps getting involved in these incidents, keeps painting himself as the victim.  But here's the thing.  All of these domestic violence calls, all of these traffic violations, all of the times Zimmerman has been confronted by the law, there has been one constant.

George Zimmerman.  George Zimmerman being angry.

This is a trend that cannot be explained away.  This is a constant, an ever-fixed mark of this guy's personality.  Combine it with his love of guns, and we have a troubling threat to other people's safety.

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Egypt and Syria and the Mess of the Middle East

There's serious concern about Syria's troops under Assad using chemical weapons, reports are now up to thousands of civilians dead.  Considering the use of chemical weapons is a dire matter, if the reports pan out the United States and NATO (with neighboring Turkey coping with the stress of it all) will be under even greater pressure to take direct action.

Egypt is undergoing another round of violence between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Middle East remains a total mess.

It'd be nice to see an end to the violence and bloodshed, an end to the hate between nations and tribes.

But outside of just putting up massive barricades everywhere and cutting off the supply of weapons to the region, how the hell can you fix it?  Besides, people will figure out how to get around those barricades.  And worse, people will figure out how to smuggle in weapons, especially when the biggest gun dealers on the planet happen to be the permanent members - USA, Russia, China, France and UK - of the UN Security Council, and there's money to be made in war.  The dollars, always the dollars...

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The Middle East As The Center Of The Storm

There is, once again, little peace between Israel and Palestine as disparate peoples as much as nations.  There may be a ceasefire in place now with Gaza, but ceasefires can end without the resolution of both sides to stop the downward cycle of violence.

There is still an ongoing civil war in Syria, with tens of thousands dead, tens of thousands as refugees... and no honest solution in sight other than outright war that few other nations, including the bordering Turkey, have the stomach or budget to fight...

Iran has been living the horrors of occupation by their own leadership since the uprisings of 2009 (that an old blog entry from then is STILL getting hits on my little-viewed blog on a daily basis amazes me), combined with a global sanctions against the regime's nuclear program that's hurting the civilian economy but not the elites', leaving that a very unhappy place at the moment.

Egypt, coming off the high point of a relatively powerful yet low-on-body-counts uprising against their own dictatorship in 2011 and with a delicately well-managed crafting of that Israel/Gaza ceasefire, is now coping with an arrogant move by the newly elected President Morsi where he claimed sweeping extra-constitutional powers (basically making himself a new dictator replacing the old dictator), bringing the protestors back out into the same streets and gathering spots they've been at just one-and-a-half years ago.  Good Lord, can anybody catch a break here...?

And Libya's not entirely stabilized either after the overthrow of (misspelled name here).  The attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi is but a smaller part of ongoing street violence between the militants and the more open, pro-democracy groups trying to rebuild after decades of brutal dictatorship.

And this doesn't even include the ongoing quagmire that is the U.S. Occupation of Afghanistan, nor the ongoing unrest in Pakistan.


I have no solutions.  I doubt anyone does, at least a solution that WON'T piss everyone off.  I have pity for any person going into foreign policy as a career, if you ever get signed in to do a job in that region.  Madness would be the only sane response the way things are going...

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Tragedy July 20 2012

To the families and friends who lost people last night in Aurora, Colorado, my prayers and sympathies are with you.  These are weak words, they always are, compared to the suffering you all are going through right now.

These people went to the movie theater to be entertained.  Instead, they received pain and sorrow because of a sicko with a gun and with hate and fear in his heart.

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I Link to Things I Like

Following up on my previous post:

John Cole at Balloon-Juice:

The point we have been trying to make for the last couple of years is that Republicans need to stop whipping up crazy people with violent political rhetoric. This is really not a hard concept to follow. There are crazy people out there. Stop egging them on.

I followed a thread to a place called Driftglass:

In other words, no mention of the fact that Right's interlocking political/media/religious keiretsu has been a massive paint-shaker for Crazy for as long as anyone can remember: when they need a few more votes or a few more dollars, they notch it up; when someone takes them up on their elimination rhetoric and blows up a federal building or flies a plane into an IRS office or murders a doctor, they dial it back a little and pretend they have no idea where anyone could have gotten such ideas...  What Mr. Sullivan and his expatriate tribe have never come to terms with is that this problem didn't just precipitate out of the pellucid ether two years ago with the arrival of "The Palin forces". It was right there, in plain sight, during all the many, many years he was cheer-leading for the Right because Palinism is nothing more or less than the latest, mutant manifestation of the violent, paranoid and often-racist rot that has always been at the very heart of Mr. Sullivan's beloved Movement.  There was no Palin when McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma to stop the Evil Government whose imaginary treachery had been dinned into his ears for years, or when militias armed themselves against the coming of the Black Helicopters and the U.N. New World Order, or when the Clintons were being gutted in the press every day as a murderers, assassins, depraved monsters and drug dealers...  Palin is merely an emergent property of all that preceded her: just the latest inheritor of Conservatism's long and obscene legacy who is using that inheritance exactly as she was taught to use it by her Conservative forebears.

Digby:

There are certainly left wing people who spew incendiary and violent rhetoric. But they are few and far between compared to the drumbeat of hatred and consequential acts of violence we've seen over the past two years and none who make the kind of profit at it that the right wing noise machine does. There is no comparison, it's ridiculous to frame it that way. And it ends up distorting the truth, which is that we have a violent right wing political movement developing in this country with the help and acquiescence of a major political party which refuses to police its own... 

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

...As appalled as I've been over the past couple of years by ads like this, veiled allusions to insurrection, and the otherizing of the president, I've found arguments drawing connections between a "climate of hate" and Loughner unpersuasive. Simply put, the case that far-right rhetoric contributed or caused this killing spree strikes me as squishy, and, at the moment, unprovable. In The Times and Post this morning, there are some of the calling-cards of the conspiratorial right. But more relevant, there are hallmarks of severe mental problems, and a troubled home-life...

Sully:

A survey of the bloggy scene suggests a rigid, uniform, passionate position that this assassination has nothing whatsoever to do with violent rhetoric and political polarization. It is as if some loony had just randomly shot some schoolkids or ran into a mall killing strangers. If you are looking for reflectiveness, you won't find it, in what strikes me as an ominous sign of a right-wing movement more willing to see its opponents gunned down than ever engage in introspection... I don't disagree with the sentiment that we should not refrain from robust or colorful or exuberant rhetoric. But constant resort to violent imagery directed at specific and named human targets is not a sign of a lively discourse but of thuggishness... There is the obvious third option that has occurred to almost anyone not ideologically primed to defend anything Republican. That option - voiced even by Palin apologist Howie Kurtz - is that Palin's words were "highly unfortunate" and certainly regrettable. Does Glenn Reynolds believe otherwise? Does he endorse the gun-sights imagery? Does he see nothing wrong with it in retrospect? Would he have attended the Jesse Kelly "Fire an M-16" to show you want to defeat Gabby Giffords? We know the answer...

At Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman: 

...In the short term, politicos of both parties are now talking about how perhaps it’s important to adjust the tone of American politics. And that would certainly be a nice, lofty goal: almost day by day, American politics on so many fronts is increasingly personal and toxic, where the operative goal seems to be to paint the other side as evil as possible. You see and hear it in Congress, on the radio, on TV, on the web and (most assuredly) in comments sections on web-logs of all political persuasions.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. You’ll turn blue.  Most likely, there will be a period where politicos, talk show hosts, bloggers, talking heads, newspaper columnists and partisan activists from both parties rein in some of the vitriol. But then place money in Vegas that it’ll be business as usual. There is now too much of an institutional and cultural vested interest in American politics in keeping the tone and pundit flow as it now exists: partisans and ideologues on both sides find that pushing “hot buttons” is a way to rally sympathizers to your side and talk radio and cable ideological shows and websites make money throwing red meat to an audience that shows up because they already agree with an opinionated host or info-outlet...

Personally:

Cole's comment nails it.  Stop egging the crazies on.  That's the one thing we need to take away from this tragic killing spree...  Pity is, Sullivan and Gandelman are most likely right that this isn't going to tone down... it's going to get worse...

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Blood On The Streets of Tuscon AZ

Today has been a terrible day for the nation.  A gunman opened fire at a public event being held by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Eyewitness reports have the gunman coming right up behind the congresswoman, shouting something and pulling the trigger.

Giffords was shot in the head.  Ten others were wounded and along with her taken to hospital for rescue.  One of the wounded, a nine-year-old girl, died at the hospital.  For hours, word kept getting out that Giffords had died, but surgeons finally came out to report that they were able to save her life and that she will with hope recover.  Five others, including a federal judge John Roll attending the public meet-and-greet, were killed on the spot.

It is difficult to explain the rage I have at this moment, for almost the whole day...

Regardless of the political leanings of the shooter - and the Far Right are eager to point out how Loughner is some left-wing hippie, with the Far Left pointing out Loughner's gold-standard obsessions fit right in with Ron Paul's - this horrifying crime underscores a LOT that is f-cking wrong with this country.


In case Giffords was someone you didn't know before today, she was one of 20 Democratic House members targeted - LITERALLY TARGETED - by Sarah Palin's crew during the 2010 midterms.  And in case you didn't know this by this evening, but Palin and her supporters had quickly pulled that poster (THAT THEY STILL HAD UP ON THEIR WEBSITES AFTER THE MIDTERMS) from their pages, trying desperately to scrub away the violent rhetoric that they have been pushing on our nation over the last two, no eight, no eighteen years.  That bulls-eye poster reminds me of the John Bircher crap back in the 1960s... for example that infamous WANTED poster of JFK that happened to be in a Dallas newspaper around Nov. 22 1963...

We had violent rhetoric about an abortion doctor in the midwest, and Bill O'Reilly kept talking about him and about how he needed to get taken out...  Someone comes along and shoots him AT A CHURCH.  The Fox-Not-News crowd of opinionated pundits rail against liberals as socialists and how they're destroying our nation... Someone who listens and reads their crap, writes up his own list of targets to kill before driving out to a Unitarian church to shoot up a recital of Annie.  A white supremacist with an obsession about Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate works up the nerve to start a shootout at the Holocaust museum filled with families and kids.

We get political candidates on the Right running for office screaming about "gathering your armies" and relying on "Second Amendment remedies," throwing tantrums for special treatment and privileges and reviling their opponents for un-American actions they can't ever prove in court but are able to convince their teabagger followers as God's honest truth.  But then the second any actual violence on a Democrat or Liberal takes place, then by God the same Far Right talking heads come out of the woodwork insisting the violence is all from the Left while quickly scrubbing away the evidence that it was the goddamn Right wingnut lies in the first place.

There is blood on the streets of Tuscon Arizona.  There is sorrow within most of our souls tonight as we mourn the dead.  But will there ever be any semblance of accountability on the Right for their lying bullshit, for their obsession with violence?

Probably not.  Welcome to our Hell.

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