https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=132&v=pv6ROkgsiNs
Russia seems to be covering-up well the fact that it's going down the 'caca hole'. Or, perhaps, the Russians are 'enjoying the ride'. Whatever it is, they seem to be disconnected from the 'facts' on the ground, or at least the groundswell of caterwauling and accusations of 'disrupting world order', 'threats to world peace', destabilizing neighbor countries, downing airliners (their own and other peoples') bombing middle eastern hospitals and - the very latest - cheating at the Olympics.
Russia may be a media hell-hole, but we still 'heart' those Russians. We'd be more than willing for them rise up and cast off their chains.
What Will Putin Do?
Putin's great Syrian adventure is being 'doomed and gloomed' as Mr Obama's similar adventure wasn't. But then he doesn't have any 'coalition', or 'duties to protect' anybody. Well neither does America really, either. There are some people very interested in regime change, or thorough destabilization in Syria but it's hard to see the benefit, other than to be having 'that' happening 'over there' rather than 'over here'. Some of the protagonists will get the blow-back, if any, before the USA does. Russia may be one (IS, now according to the wise) of them. But it's a fair statement to make that Russian bombing isn't going to be any more militarily-successful than coalition bombing has been - other than to pound the rubble into smaller particles. The one essential point, I think, missed by so many commentators - the reason Assad didn't fall like other 'tyrants', the reason the civil war in Syria still rages - is because the half of the Syrian population that haven't fled into refugee camp, are still there, fighting for their homeland and their President. They're not all 'free Syria rebels' and the Jihadis are, largely, not Syrians at all. As in a previous Afghan 'quagmire', Russia is not alone.
Lawyer 'gets it' chapter and verse
The US secretary of defense Ash Cater recently pegged Putin for threatening world peace and the 'world order'. He must have been listening to Kristol and Perle's 'Visions of Amerika' again, for he seems to think that if it isn't America doing the military stuff it has to be an enemy. This week however he's 'sticking up' for those around the East China Sea who can't stick up for themselves. But that's all about China and another threat.
Putin continues to 'disrupt' gallant little EUkrainia. He was recently accused of sending 'modern weapons' into eastern Ukraine because somebody claimed a T90 tank has appeared in the east - it looks remarkably similar to the T80 , 82, 85 or 88 tanks that have already appeared in eastern Ukraine - usually unloaded from a western Ukrainian railroad cars. Somebody also seems to think Putin has slipped in a newer variety of rocket artillery with which to 'invade' the place. So far OSCE has failed to come up with any evidence that Russians are crossing the border with anything, but we KNOW they are, eh?
Just like we 'know' they downed the Malaysian airliner, but we can't prove it and, like, they probably downed their own over the Sinai just for sympathy. The good guys didn't drop it, see?
Just recently, we think, or pretty well know, they've been cheating at the Olympics. Not the ones at Sochi, where they almost certainly did cheat, no, the ones in England - where we found 'evidence' of two labs in Russia doing doping tests and covering-up results by losing things and misplacing samples. As if the Russians were testing their athletes who won in London, taking the samples back to Moscow? If they were, there is something wrong with that, and probably the rest of the doping testing regime as well. Once again he media is full of reputed wrongdoings and demands for sanctions. One writer even opined that it might would be good for the Rio Olympics if Russia was banned and its 'allies' boycotted - more medals for the real 'sports'. Maybe the US should boycott in protest? It should be simple to drum up another coalition.
Putinic Russia meanders on to economic ruin and political turmoil while the pacific west apparently hits new heights of stock market activity and consumer confidence. Sadly, all that 'progress' is nonexistent outside the first world and increasingly to more denizens of that, as well. Things are great if you have a) a steady income and b) a 'good' job and really great if you're in the top 15 percent.
Leonhid Berszhidski, writing for the National Post, points out that the current brouhaha, and especially the ceasefire, have shown Ukrainian weaknesses - he describes this as "the rot at Ukraine's core". Whether or not there ever was a ceasefire, let alone a war in the east, Ukraine has been rotten on the inside for a long time. But he can't say the 'skin' isn't impressive. If you take a look at some of the malarky coming out of the place, you get the notion it's just another house of cards waiting to get kicked-in .
Well, for starters there is that 'new' police force being depended-on to bring Eukrainia beyond the knout and the billy club. You know the ones with the US-style uniforms - paid for be guess who - (so that's why). But those service 'shakos' look more like something the SS sported on dress-up day - black with the silver piping, all that's missing is a little totenkopf. And where did they get the training - why from US cops of course, but I haven't been able to figure out what city, or cities they came from. That would have to cause some confusion, for America doesn't have a much of a homogeneous police force outside the military and the FBI. Watch for the tasers and the 'SWAT' squad - although there are a number of security and militia units already doing those. Interesting, too, that the top echelon chosen to command this are a number of Georgian ladies - ex-government and police officials come to help Saarkaasvili birth Ukraine into NATO and the EU. Like Ukraine, they thought a military showdown with Putin was a good way to start. Like Georgia the money and effort were wasted and the military came out a bust.
Ukraine still has a way to go.
Russia is not alone in its 'misery'
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