Russian troops poised to invade Ukraine

These are at least valid sources, not sources that can be edited by the public (and by vested interests). The report I linked on freerepublic - "U.S. Spies Said No Russian Invasion" - was also carried in most of the mainstream media, even including CNN and the BBC. I linked to the freerepublic report (and to the Daily Beast) as examples, and because they had clear headings. The central fact - that US intelligence agencies failed to predict the Russian invasion - was and is easy to verify. Are you claiming that any of the statements made in this article were false? If so, please state which.

The Daily Beast I have always found to be a reliable source. It is certainly far more reliable than the likes of Fox, CNN etc. Again, the facts presented in this article are, as far as I can determine through cross-referencing various other sources, true and accurate. Here it is again. Tell me why you think it's a "bullshit source". www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/27/u-s-spies-no-russia-isn-t-about-to-invade-ukraine.html


Well, if you fail to see that, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. But let me help you out here. He was elected three times. That means he had the popular, democratic mandate to govern the country. If there was so much opposition to his policies, the Ukrainian people had the democratic option to elect someone else. They didn't. They elected him, and two years later they voted for his party. So - and I would have thought that this was obvious - dissent and opposition to Yanukovych was not shared by the majority of the people as recently as 2012.

The Orange Revolution was organised by the opposition in 2004-5 and was predicated on the claim that the elections had been rigged. That's why international monitors were brought in to oversee subsequent elections.


You are implying that the dissent is widespread and spontaneous. The evidence is to the contrary. Again, the government won the elections in 2012, and it is no secret that the US government has been supporting - with money and personnel - the opposition. To say that there has been dissent in Ukraine for years is meaningless. There has been dissent in the US for years. There is dissent in every country. In Ukraine the main problem was never dissent but division. The Ukrainian people are divided over whether their future is with Russia or the West. That is what the current conflict is all about. The protests began when Yanukovych refused to sign an EU association agreement.


It certainly is possible, and it has been done many times, most notably by the US in south and central America. Again, there is ALWAYS domestic dissatisfaction and dissent. Can you name a country where protests aren't a regular event? The trick is to play on that dissent and channel people's anger in a particular direction. It isn't difficult at all. I have spoken at public demos myself, and I know for a fact that on many occasions if I'd said, at just the right moment, "Let's burn the embassy!" that's what would have happened. People are emotionally primed for action in those situations. It is almost too easy to manipulate large numbers of people. A fact that people like Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and others understood only too well.

Nowadays the CIA brings in special psy-op forces - teams of agent provocateur highly trained in the techniques of infiltration, crowd manipulation and so on. And it only takes one person with a gun - among 100,000 peaceful protesters - to provoke the police or the army into using extreme force, including live rounds. That's how protests escalate - or are manipulated - into revolutions.

There are hundreds of CIA agents operating in Venezuela at the moment, using exactly these tactics to try to topple the Maduro government.


Yanukovych's life was not threatened until the shootings. He was forced to flee the country basically to avoid being lynched by protesters furious at his supposed decision to order the security forces to use live rounds.


Different tactics are employed in different circumstances. The usual routine is to begin by stirring up the people, to make it look as if the government no longer has popular support. If there is already unrest - because wages are too low, or there's a shortage of sugar or whatever - all the better. You infiltrate these protest groups and encourage them to be "more daring". If there are public protests, you send in a couple of armed agents to shoot at the police and provoke them into returning fire. Then you have martyrs whose sacrifice can't have been for nothing. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, you give money, weapons, advice to the opposition, and promise them positions in the new government in return for their cooperation.


That is certainly the impression you would take from the media coverage (especially the US media coverage). But is it true? Did you see millions of people on the streets? I didn't. I don't doubt for one minute that many Ukrainians - possibly the majority - were opposed to the government's decision not to join the EU. But remember, Yanukovych agreed to all their demands! The situation could easily have been peacefully resolved. It was escalated when people began to get shot. And who fired the first shots? Members of the opposition group, Right Sector (a Nazi organization funded by the US).

I am no cheerleader for Yanukovych. He's a crook and a piece of shit in my opinion. As is Putin. But it is abundantly clear to me that there is a lot more going on here than a simple case of the people overthrowing the corrupt government. The main opposition groups in Ukraine are certainly under US control. The leaked phone conversation I posted above reveals the level of State Department involvement in manipulating events and selecting the new government (absolutely outrageous meddling by the US in the affairs of another country). The sniper fire - in which 90 people were killed - that resulted in Yanukovych's hasty departure was carried out by Right Sector, not by the army, and not on Yanukovych's orders. There is skullduggery afoot here, and it has the distinct smell of CIA about it.

And yet there you are, touting their bullshit line about Western conspiracies, not popular dissent, being responsible for the recent regime change.

Funny how that goes.

When there is clear and abundant evidence of conspiracy - when you have two senior US government officials discussing who to put in place as prime minister of a foreign country - I think you'd have to be a bit slow on the uptake not to conclude that there was a conspiracy. I never claimed that there was no popular dissent.

As for the infowars link, I picked that at random from a number of websites that were carrying the same report. The information on the page I linked was the same as that given on other news websites, including most of the mainstream media sites. Here's the same report, and the link to the video, on the Guardian website: www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/ukraine-bugged-call-catherine-ashton-urmas-paet
And on Channel4:
www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-catherine-ashton-phone-shoot-maidan-bugged-leaked
And CNN:
edition.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/europe/ukraine-leaked-audio-recording/
Etc.

And I don't need to prove that my information doesn't come from "conspiracy nutters". I don't make statements without being 100% sure of my facts.

What's your point? Do you actually have anything to say on this subject, or are you just here to troll and be obnoxious?

What's your point, Zak?

Do you have anything to say on this subject besides regurgitating trite nonsense from internet conspiracy blogs, or are you just here to be an arrogant blowhard?

As bad as each other? In this country you can still protest without being arrested and jailed, or poisoned with plutonium. Peaceful invasion? For the moment, but Putin is a former head of the KGB and he wouldn't hesitate to use force as he already did in Georgia and Chechnya. Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Empire, the same empire that deliberately starved to death over a million Ukrainians.

Bob

Zak, I see several protest a year. We just had the Tea Party protests and Occupy Wall Street. Plus I lived through the 60's. Plenty of protests then and plenty of people arrested. Most just spend the night in jail. During the last mayor's race, De Blasio (who was eventually elected) was arrested at a protest!

www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/nyregion/3-rivals-join-a-protest-but-just-one-wants-to-be-arrested-and-is.html?_r=0

As for people being routinely photographed, that's been standard procedure for decades. The FBI used to photograph the Mayday Parades even before the start of the Cold War.



Unfortunately, you're 100% correct here. Obama is simply ignoring the constitution and governing by executive order. He ignores laws he doesn't like. He even ignores parts of his own Obamacare law!




Nothing new here. Violence has been used against protestors for over a century. Every now and then they tone it down for public relations purposes.



Once again, nothing new here. In 1954, the U.S. overthrew Mosaddegh in Iran and President Arbenz in Guatemala. In the 1970's they overthrew the government of Chile. There have been many other cases. Still, if American intervention in the Ukraine can stop Putin, it would be well worth it. I don't think that's going to happen though. Obama doesn't care about foreign policy.

Bob

Well then you are either very naive and ill-informed, or you are in denial. But then, you rejected conspiracy on the part of the State Department even when you were presented with a leaked phone conversation of two senior State Dept officials CONSPIRING to manipulate the the new government and install their own patsy.

It is a FACT - not speculation - that CIA ops are active in Ukraine.
And it is a FACT that the US supported and continues to support the opposition with money and expertise.

If you think that's nonsense, you are 100% wrong.

But we know that the US supported the opposition. Secretary of State John Kerry actually met with the Ukraine's opposition leaders before the revolution and pledged US support for their efforts. And at a December 5, 2013 US-Ukraine Foundation Conference, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland stated that the US had invested $5 billion to "build democratic skills and institutions" in Ukraine. And Nuland's presence in Ukraine had no other purpose than to oversee a US-sponsored coup d’etat. So there is no question at all that the US was involved in efforts to bring about "regime change" in Ukraine. The US wasn't just involved after the revolution, it was involved before and during as well.

In fact, what Zak selectively forgets is that the current revolution is the direct result of the Yanukovich administration making a deal with Putin that would have sealed Ukraine's economic and political dependency to Russia.

That deal would have made given Russia enormous economic leverage against the Ukraine, in exchange for Russia paying parts of the Ukrainian huge national debt (which was to a large part caused by the Yanukovich regime's economic mismanagement, corruption and cronyism). And on top of that, a couple of Russian style anti-homosexuality laws (which BTW would effectively bar Ukraine from ever becoming a membership candidate for the EU).

But I guess that's just CIA propaganda blowing smoke in our eyes. If you know what's really going on in the Ukraine, only trust Putin-approved news!

Yes, exactly.

Bob

This is getting more serious by the minute. Russia has announced that it will recognise the results of referendum in Crimea. The UN has declared that Crimea belongs to Ukraine, and the referendum is invalid.
There have already been clashes in east Ukraine. This provides Russia with the pretext it needs to send in troops "to protect Russian speakers". Meanwhile another 10,000 Russian troops are massing along the Ukraine border.

Yes, of course it's getting more serious. What we are seeing now is only the beginning of a major, long-term crisis. It will probably get much worse withing the next two months.

Bob