Subj : WWIII To : ALEXANDER KORYAGIN From : BOB KLAHN Date : Fri Jun 06 2014 01:29 am Without true freedom of speech and the press no one can have any idea what is going on in Russia. However, any govt that puts a woman's music group in prison for protest songs, and for a long time, is not a govt I believe is honest. BK>> I wonder about that. I wonder if, maybe, he's got it backwards. I BK>> wonder if the result of doing nothing might not be what leads to BK>> the war nobody wants. BK>> We have long been told that Hitler might have been stopped, BK>> probably would have been stopped, if the other nations had stepped BK>> in with his first aggression against the Sudentenland, against BK>> Austria, against those who could not defend themselves. BK>> What makes anyone think Putin is any less than Hitler? AK> Your words are a twaddle unless you see the columns of AK> Russian tanks and troops marching along the Ukraine roads. Once that happens it's too late. What we do know is those troops and tanks were massed on the Ukraine border, but have recently been withdrawn. What Putin has accomplished is to give the former Soviet states reason to believe he is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union. That gives them reason to ask for more US military aid, including the anti-missile systems that had been canceled a few years ago. ... AK> Who told you that countries cannot split up? Why do you AK> think that Ukraine cannot split like Yugoslavia, AK> Czechoslovakia? I have no problem with countries splitting up. What I do have is when one portion wants to secede, and the reports are of masked gunmen patrolling the cities. If they are legitimate, why are they masked? If the people who live there want to split off, I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with it being done by masked gunmen. AK> It is not pro-Russian forces are fighting AK> in eastern Ukraine. It is the Russian people who always AK> lived there, in eastern and southern Ukraine, and they were AK> extremely insulted when pro-western rebels removed their AK> candidate (Yanukovich, who won democratic elections) from AK> power. Being insulted is not ground for shooting up the place, and killing people. It is not grounds for seizing power. Now, how many Russian people live there? And why are Russians living in Ukraine and claiming the right to decide who rules the country? AK> Rebels in Kiev were minority, but they captured AK> power by force, violating all democratic institutions and AK> election results. By force? It seems most of the force was used against them. According to what I have seen, the constitution was rewritten after Yonukovych took power, not by a constitutional convention or such, but by the courts. The protestors started out demanding the previous constitution be reinstated. ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25182830 But it was the deaths of at least 88 people, many of them protesters shot dead by uniformed snipers in 48 hours of bloodshed, that ultimately brought him down. ---------------------------------------------------------------- AK> Putin is not Hiller, just because Russia is not a fascist AK> Germany. AK> Russia doesn't want to rule over the world and AK> topple those governments it doesn't like. It is somebody AK> else. Russia maybe not, Putin I'm not so sure of. BK>> When Obama declared he was pulling our troops out of Afghanistan BK>> and Iraq the Republicans ranted and raved about how no one would ... AK> It easy to explain. When you conquer a country _by military AK> invasion_ you, as a rule, can find collaborators only among AK> bastards, traitors and thieves. So, it is no wonder when Afghanistan was the base for the 9-11 attack. Iraq was a war for oil. We should have been out of Afghanistan quickly, and never in Iraq. I was talking about the republican reaction to a screw up series of wars, vs doing nothing or something now. ... BK>> No matter what the status of the Ukraine and it's government, BK>> Russia is clearly an outside invader. Failing to come to their aid BK>> would be a clear sign to Putin that the West really is too weak to BK>> stop him. Not too militarily weak, on that we outweigh them in BK>> spade, but too weak morally. AK> It is not correct. Ask people from Israel or the US what an AK> invasion looks like. So far you can't tell of Russian AK> "invasion". People must be very accurate in such things. Putin has backed off. However, it certainly appeared he wanted to cut the Ukraine up. http://tinyurl.com/lsgsoqd washingtonpost ousted-ukraine-president-warns-of-civil-war-criticizes-us-for- aiding-current-government Yanukovych last appeared in public Feb. 28, in a news conference also in Rostov, when he asserted he was still the legal president of Ukraine and that he was not calling upon Russia to intervene militarily. The next day, Russia's parliament authorized President Vladimir Putin to send troops into Ukraine, and soon thereafter Russia asserted that Yanukovych had requested the intervention the day after he spoke to the press. ... Ousted Ukraine president warns of civil war, criticizes U.S. for aiding current government ... "The cities are being patrolled by masked gunmen," Yanukovych said in a statement to the press in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Yanukovych, who read from a statement in Russian and did not take questions, accused the West and the United States of backing fascists in Ukraine - another regular allegation being made by Russian authorities. ... On March 6, after gunmen took over the parliament building in the Crimean regional capital, Simferopol, a pro-Russian leadership was installed. Then the regional parliament voted behind closed doors for Crimea to leave Ukraine and join Russia, setting a referendum for Sunday to validate their decision. Some links to look at. Wall street journal http://tinyurl.com/ohlh6ys http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27633117 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn .... I'm not lost -- I'm "locationally challenged" --- Via Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg] * Origin: Fidonet Since 1991 bbs.docsnetservices.com (1:123/140) .