Sending troops in unmarked uniforms with unmarked vehicles to annex the Crimean Peninsula under the pretense of protection from ethnic cleansing, which anyone with access to Facebook and Twitter can easily see is completely manufactured by the Russian propaganda machine, without buy-in from the international community, is an obvious act of aggression. Putin keeps upping the ante because nobody ever bothered to call him on his bluff. The international community consistently let Putin cross boundaries with impunity, and he's been getting more and more insolent with each incident. There comes a time when enough is enough.
You may buy uniforms and any attributes in near by shops. It's simple as that and doesn't go father than a lot of Hollywood movies with fake cops. We will never know for sure who did what, why and when.
I was confused by the claim that Kerry threatened "to expel Russia from the G8." I clicked the link and went to the other article, which had the following quote from Kerry: "He is not going to have a Sochi G8, he may not even remain in the G8 if this continues."
Am I mistaken in assuming that the G8 is not under American control? At worst, Kerry could recommend that the US not take part in the Sochi-hosted G8, but that's it, correct?
I'm also confused by the writer's characterization of the situation in the Ukraine as "a crisis that can easily be contained if cool heads prevail."
If you drill down to the basics, any crisis could "easily be contained" if all parties involved are calm and willing to sit and talk indefinitely.
In this particular situation, it doesn't look like that would happen given that Ukraine is essentially in the middle of a civil revolt (war?) and there are a large number of parties who would have to be comfortable having some kind of draw-down talk.
I'm Russian, I hate Putin, I support our troops in Crimea, and the article is right that Nato just doesn't want to lose influence right under the Russian border, that's all western hysteria is about.
However I think news like this probably should be posted on reddit than here.
I think it's obvious to everyone that NATO would love to have influence on the Russian border, and that Russia would prefer if that didn't happen, but that doesn't make a military invasion okay. The "Western hysteria," at least what I've seen from over here in the good old US of A, is about the possibility of a significant (which it would be even if nobody else gets involved) war in Europe.
I don't think it's possible to over-dramatize a sovereign nation's cities and airports being occupied by its neighbor. This isn't a little misunderstanding or an "oops, somebody flew a few miles off course and wound up in your airspace."
I think you have a read a lot of media hysteria. First, Crimea people and region parliament took control over region with no respect to Kiev before any army forces. Second, it's not neighbour in airports / cities but Army of Crimea(former army members / Kiev troops taken Crimea side / former Berkut members etc).
However, John Kerry and other agressive imperialists must calm down. But as it's HN, we should talk about hackers responsibility to calm down media hysteria supporting aggresive politicians. Personally I would like to have following tools to prevent brain-washing:
1. Browser plugin(or at least web service)showing "yelowness" of an article and whole site as well. There are some semi-formal attributes of yellow article: exaggerating(e.g. "peaceful protesters" vs "provocateurs"), controversial sources, non-representative opinions(e.g. a crying woman with children speaks for the whole country) etc.
2. Some kind of facts graph. While the most yellow media has no links to sources at all, slightly better option is just quoting source w/out any links(and you have to spend a lot of time to check). Good media have links, but reader have to check them(and source could qoute some controversial and non-representative opinion). We should give users some kind of software able to find root sources for all facts in an article immediately and build linking/quoting graph.
The thought that Russia would do this was raised during the 2012 US Presidential campaign and was mocked in the press and by the current administration. I think we are seeing the effects of that attitude in the response. I am not confident that the US has a good answer or one Putin would believe.
[+] [-] coffeemug|12 years ago|reply
Sending troops in unmarked uniforms with unmarked vehicles to annex the Crimean Peninsula under the pretense of protection from ethnic cleansing, which anyone with access to Facebook and Twitter can easily see is completely manufactured by the Russian propaganda machine, without buy-in from the international community, is an obvious act of aggression. Putin keeps upping the ante because nobody ever bothered to call him on his bluff. The international community consistently let Putin cross boundaries with impunity, and he's been getting more and more insolent with each incident. There comes a time when enough is enough.
[+] [-] schultz9999|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kushti|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdrothrock|12 years ago|reply
Am I mistaken in assuming that the G8 is not under American control? At worst, Kerry could recommend that the US not take part in the Sochi-hosted G8, but that's it, correct?
I'm also confused by the writer's characterization of the situation in the Ukraine as "a crisis that can easily be contained if cool heads prevail."
If you drill down to the basics, any crisis could "easily be contained" if all parties involved are calm and willing to sit and talk indefinitely.
In this particular situation, it doesn't look like that would happen given that Ukraine is essentially in the middle of a civil revolt (war?) and there are a large number of parties who would have to be comfortable having some kind of draw-down talk.
[+] [-] pedalpete|12 years ago|reply
I suspect all it takes is for G7 countries not to invite Russia to the meetings.
They have been uninvited to the G20 meetings in Australia.
[+] [-] cinskiy|12 years ago|reply
However I think news like this probably should be posted on reddit than here.
[+] [-] GeneralMayhem|12 years ago|reply
I think it's obvious to everyone that NATO would love to have influence on the Russian border, and that Russia would prefer if that didn't happen, but that doesn't make a military invasion okay. The "Western hysteria," at least what I've seen from over here in the good old US of A, is about the possibility of a significant (which it would be even if nobody else gets involved) war in Europe.
[+] [-] GeneralMayhem|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kushti|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kushti|12 years ago|reply
1. Browser plugin(or at least web service)showing "yelowness" of an article and whole site as well. There are some semi-formal attributes of yellow article: exaggerating(e.g. "peaceful protesters" vs "provocateurs"), controversial sources, non-representative opinions(e.g. a crying woman with children speaks for the whole country) etc.
2. Some kind of facts graph. While the most yellow media has no links to sources at all, slightly better option is just quoting source w/out any links(and you have to spend a lot of time to check). Good media have links, but reader have to check them(and source could qoute some controversial and non-representative opinion). We should give users some kind of software able to find root sources for all facts in an article immediately and build linking/quoting graph.
[+] [-] protomyth|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grue3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] herenow|12 years ago|reply
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