Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeah, the US has nothing to gain from this conflict. I might see some older neocons do it for gaks and giggles, but not this current administration.

 Tyran wrote:
Ukraine a regional power?

That idea got axed the moment someone thought about it in the first place, drugs were probably involved.

 Tyran wrote:
Ukraine a regional power?

That idea got axed the moment someone thought about it in the first place, drugs were probably involved.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeah, the US has nothing to gain from this conflict. I might see some older neocons do it for gaks and giggles, but not this current administration.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Now don't be so mean to Ukraine. They are actually quite succesful as the world's leading scrapheap.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

True, but if the Senate itself has caused all those 18 people to be unable to take over the duties of president using illegal means, and then goes on to create a government of its own, you can bet that a lot of Americans (and other people) would think that it was an illegal coup by politicians in the Senate. I am pretty sure this would lead to conflict in the US, even if the US is not so polarised as the Ukraine.

As far as polarization goes, the US is very nearly there.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Whether it was justified or not is a matter of different opinion and political alignment, but there is simply no denying that what happened in Ukraine was according to the Constitution illegal and that meets the common definition of a coup.

It lacks the overwhelming participation of the military common to most coups though. I would actually say it's a comparative outlier, as, even by your estimation, the government was overthrown by the opposition, not the military.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

And that should not be surprising, because after all, coup d'etat is one of the US's favourite weapons and they have lots of experience.

A US run coup, there would not have been so many people making a successful run for the boarder, and the little green men would have been US special forces ensuring Russian non-involvement. Instead we see massive Russian involvement, Crimea getting carved off, and all the people responsible for escalating things in the first place fleeing to Russian territory where they've been getting rewarded with fat government paychecks. And I'm not talking about former elected officials.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

True, but if the Senate itself has caused all those 18 people to be unable to take over the duties of president using illegal means, and then goes on to create a government of its own, you can bet that a lot of Americans (and other people) would think that it was an illegal coup by politicians in the Senate. I am pretty sure this would lead to conflict in the US, even if the US is not so polarised as the Ukraine.

As far as polarization goes, the US is very nearly there.

I had no idea about that. So that means we are getting American Civil War II soon?

 LordofHats wrote:
Probably overstating the division. US politics have always been polarized. Hell, it's pretty much out entire political history. It wanes and ebbs every 40-50 years. Trump and Sanders remind me an awfully lot of Huey Long and Father Coughlin, who were very polarizing figures in the US back during the Great Depression. The current election isn't a gak show because of polarization; its a gak show because one of the big two parties in the US has lost its cohesion which is also a repeating pattern in US politics (happens about every 25-30 yeas).

 Vaktathi wrote:

The CIA is a useful strawman to frame everything as an "us against them" struggle and detract from internal dissent, the US uses the same mechanism quite frequently (Terrorism!!!1!1!1), but it needs to be acknowledged as the strawman it really is.

 Vaktathi wrote:
the way some talk in the US, yes. Probably not given how intermixed and mobile the US population is, but political and geographical polarization are increasing. Thats a big reason as to why this years election is such a shitshow.

 Vaktathi wrote:
the candidates we are seeing are far less moderate than in eras past, which is saying something. likewise,

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Oh, no, Russia doesn't have to worry about Trump. He and Putin are "pals" (i.e. Trump has business interests in Russia).

 Tyran wrote:

I would say the whole world has to worry about Trump.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

I would say the whole world has to worry about Trump.

What, there's nothing wrong with Benito....errr... Donald.

Something to consider:

 Tyran wrote:
He really said that? lol.

The Historian Whitewashing Ukraine’s Past

Volodymyr Viatrovych is erasing the country’s racist and bloody history — stripping pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives.


hen it comes to politics and history, an accurate memory can be a dangerous thing.

In Ukraine, as the country struggles with its identity, that’s doubly true. While Ukrainian political parties try to push the country toward Europe or Russia, a young, rising Ukrainian historian named Volodymyr Viatrovych has placed himself at the center of that fight. Advocating a nationalist, revisionist history that glorifies the country’s move to independence — and purges bloody and opportunistic chapters — Viatrovych has attempted to redraft the country’s modern history to whitewash Ukrainian nationalist groups’ involvement in the Holocaust and mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War II. And right now, he’s winning.



In May 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law that mandated the transfer of the country’s complete set of archives, from the “Soviet organs of repression,” such as the KGB and its decedent, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to a government organization called the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. Run by the young scholar — and charged with “implementation of state policy in the field of restoration and preservation of national memory of the Ukrainian people” — the institute received millions of documents, including information on political dissidents, propaganda campaigns against religion, the activities of Ukrainian nationalist organizations, KGB espionage and counter-espionage activities, and criminal cases connected to the Stalinist purges. Under the archives law, one of four “memory laws” written by Viatrovych, the institute’s anodyne-sounding mandate is merely a cover to present a biased and one-sided view of modern Ukrainian history — and one that could shape the country’s path forward.


1.gif?r=usa5&k=ZAl1cy1lYXN0LTFkCWgJaS1lY
The controversy centers on a telling of World War II history that amplifies Soviet crimes and glorifies Ukrainian nationalist fighters while dismissing the vital part they played in ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews from 1941 to 1945 after the Nazi invasion of the former Soviet Union. Viatrovych’s vision of history instead tells the story of partisan guerrillas who waged a brave battle for Ukrainian independence against overwhelming Soviet power. It also sends a message to those who do not identify with the country’s ethno-nationalist mythmakers — such as the many Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who still celebrate the heroism of the Red Army during World War II — that they’re on the outside. And more pointedly, scholars now fear that they risk reprisal for not toeing the official line — or calling Viatrovych on his historical distortions. Under Viatrovych’s reign, the country could be headed for a new, and frightening, era of censorship.



[Break]



From the beginning of his career, he was an up-and-comer. Viatrovych has the equivalent of a Ph.D. from Lviv University, located in the western Ukrainian city where he was born, and is articulate and passionate, albeit sometimes with a short fuse. The 35 year old scholar, first made a professional name for himself at the Institute for the Study of the Liberation Movement known by its Ukrainian acronym TsDVR, an organization founded to promote the heroic narrative of the OUN-UPA, where he began working in 2002. By 2006, he had become the organization’s director. In this time, he published books glorifying the OUN-UPA, established programs to help young Ukrainian scholars promote the nationalist viewpoint, and served as a bridge to ultra-nationalists in the diaspora who largely fund TsDVR.



In 2008, in addition to his role at TsDVR, Viktor Yushchenko, then president, appointed Viatrovych head of the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) archives. Yuschenko made the promotion of OUN-UPA mythology a fundamental part of his legacy, rewriting school textbooks, renaming streets, and honoring OUN-UPA leaders as “heroes of Ukraine.” As Yuschenko’s leading memory manager — both at TsDVR and the SBU — Viatrovych was his right-hand man in this crusade. He continued to push the state-sponsored heroic representation of the OUN-UPA and their leaders Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, and Roman Shukhevych. “The Ukrainian struggle for independence is one of the cornerstones of our national self-identification,” Viatrovych wrote in Pravda in 2010. “Because without UPA, without Bandera, without Shukhevych there would not be a contemporary Ukrainian state, there would not be a contemporary Ukrainian nation.” Viatrovych is also frequently quoted in the Ukrainian media, once even going so far as to defend the Ukrainian SS Galician division that fought on the side of the Nazis during World War II.

 Wyrmalla wrote:

The Historian Whitewashing Ukraine’s Past

Volodymyr Viatrovych is erasing the country’s racist and bloody history — stripping pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives.


hen it comes to politics and history, an accurate memory can be a dangerous thing.

In Ukraine, as the country struggles with its identity, that’s doubly true. While Ukrainian political parties try to push the country toward Europe or Russia, a young, rising Ukrainian historian named Volodymyr Viatrovych has placed himself at the center of that fight. Advocating a nationalist, revisionist history that glorifies the country’s move to independence — and purges bloody and opportunistic chapters — Viatrovych has attempted to redraft the country’s modern history to whitewash Ukrainian nationalist groups’ involvement in the Holocaust and mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War II. And right now, he’s winning.



In May 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law that mandated the transfer of the country’s complete set of archives, from the “Soviet organs of repression,” such as the KGB and its decedent, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to a government organization called the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. Run by the young scholar — and charged with “implementation of state policy in the field of restoration and preservation of national memory of the Ukrainian people” — the institute received millions of documents, including information on political dissidents, propaganda campaigns against religion, the activities of Ukrainian nationalist organizations, KGB espionage and counter-espionage activities, and criminal cases connected to the Stalinist purges. Under the archives law, one of four “memory laws” written by Viatrovych, the institute’s anodyne-sounding mandate is merely a cover to present a biased and one-sided view of modern Ukrainian history — and one that could shape the country’s path forward.


1.gif?r=usa5&k=ZAl1cy1lYXN0LTFkCWgJaS1lY
The controversy centers on a telling of World War II history that amplifies Soviet crimes and glorifies Ukrainian nationalist fighters while dismissing the vital part they played in ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews from 1941 to 1945 after the Nazi invasion of the former Soviet Union. Viatrovych’s vision of history instead tells the story of partisan guerrillas who waged a brave battle for Ukrainian independence against overwhelming Soviet power. It also sends a message to those who do not identify with the country’s ethno-nationalist mythmakers — such as the many Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who still celebrate the heroism of the Red Army during World War II — that they’re on the outside. And more pointedly, scholars now fear that they risk reprisal for not toeing the official line — or calling Viatrovych on his historical distortions. Under Viatrovych’s reign, the country could be headed for a new, and frightening, era of censorship.



[Break]



From the beginning of his career, he was an up-and-comer. Viatrovych has the equivalent of a Ph.D. from Lviv University, located in the western Ukrainian city where he was born, and is articulate and passionate, albeit sometimes with a short fuse. The 35 year old scholar, first made a professional name for himself at the Institute for the Study of the Liberation Movement known by its Ukrainian acronym TsDVR, an organization founded to promote the heroic narrative of the OUN-UPA, where he began working in 2002. By 2006, he had become the organization’s director. In this time, he published books glorifying the OUN-UPA, established programs to help young Ukrainian scholars promote the nationalist viewpoint, and served as a bridge to ultra-nationalists in the diaspora who largely fund TsDVR.



In 2008, in addition to his role at TsDVR, Viktor Yushchenko, then president, appointed Viatrovych head of the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) archives. Yuschenko made the promotion of OUN-UPA mythology a fundamental part of his legacy, rewriting school textbooks, renaming streets, and honoring OUN-UPA leaders as “heroes of Ukraine.” As Yuschenko’s leading memory manager — both at TsDVR and the SBU — Viatrovych was his right-hand man in this crusade. He continued to push the state-sponsored heroic representation of the OUN-UPA and their leaders Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, and Roman Shukhevych. “The Ukrainian struggle for independence is one of the cornerstones of our national self-identification,” Viatrovych wrote in Pravda in 2010. “Because without UPA, without Bandera, without Shukhevych there would not be a contemporary Ukrainian state, there would not be a contemporary Ukrainian nation.” Viatrovych is also frequently quoted in the Ukrainian media, once even going so far as to defend the Ukrainian SS Galician division that fought on the side of the Nazis during World War II.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

 Vaktathi wrote:
While disturbing, its also sadly not unique, Russia passed measures seen as similiar in the recent past.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA440IV20140505

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

I think similar measures have also been brought up in Poland, Hungar, the Baltic states and others.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
While disturbing, its also sadly not unique, Russia passed measures seen as similiar in the recent past.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA440IV20140505

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

I think similar measures have also been brought up in Poland, Hungar, the Baltic states and others.

The really important difference is that those laws prohibit denial of historical Nazi crimes (and in some countries prohibit denial of historical Soviet crimes too). This law in Ukraine is not the same, it is in fact the exact opposite in that it prohibits acknlowedging historical crimes.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
While disturbing, its also sadly not unique, Russia passed measures seen as similiar in the recent past.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA440IV20140505

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

I think similar measures have also been brought up in Poland, Hungar, the Baltic states and others.

The really important difference is that those laws prohibit denial of historical Nazi crimes (and in some countries prohibit denial of historical Soviet crimes too). This law in Ukraine is not the same, it is in fact the exact opposite in that it prohibits acknlowedging historical crimes.

The Russian law also prohibits "distorting the Soviet Union's role in WW2", which can be used to prevent discussion or criticism of Stalin or the conduct of Red Army soldiers and other such things, thats where the similarities lie.

Both laws are about protecting the image of the state and the past as those in power wish it to be portrayed, the only difference is the who's vision of the past is being protected.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
While disturbing, its also sadly not unique, Russia passed measures seen as similiar in the recent past.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA440IV20140505

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

I think similar measures have also been brought up in Poland, Hungar, the Baltic states and others.

The really important difference is that those laws prohibit denial of historical Nazi crimes (and in some countries prohibit denial of historical Soviet crimes too). This law in Ukraine is not the same, it is in fact the exact opposite in that it prohibits acknlowedging historical crimes.

The Russian law also prohibits "distorting the Soviet Union's role in WW2", which can be used to prevent discussion or criticism of Stalin or the conduct of Red Army soldiers and other such things, thats where the similarities lie.

Both laws are about protecting the image of the state and the past as those in power wish it to be portrayed, the only difference is the who's vision of the past is being protected.

That is partially true, but the Russian law leaves more room for criticism. It does not prohibit anyone from acknowledging that the Red Army also had some less than heroic actions as long as you correctly remember that the Red Army was mostly heroic and responsible for defeating the Nazis and saving the world. It does not prevent you from mentioning Soviet war crimes as long as you put them in a politically correct historical perspective.

it does not at all restrict criticism of Soviet purges, deportations and other Stalinist crimes. So while restrictive, it is not so restrictive as the Ukrainian law could be. The Ukrainian law is so vague it could basically be used to shut down any and all mentioning of historic events.

Even mentioning the fact that Ukrainians massacred millions of Poles and Jews and were complicit in the Holocaust could be put away as "disrespectful" and thus punishable.

Russian Military Involved In Shooting Down Flight MH17, Researchers Say

Russian officials are trying to discredit a new report that implicates the Russian military in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. Nearly two years ago, that attack in the skies over eastern Ukraine killed 298 people.

The latest report comes from a U.K.-based organization called Bellingcat, which bills itself as a group of citizen investigative journalists. Much of their work is done by volunteers, who sift through open source information on the web, using social media and satellite imagery. The group was launched with a crowd-funding campaign, and says it now receives a grant from Google.

Bellingcat has focused on a number of big stories such as the war in Syria and the terror attacks in Paris. The team has been interested in the MH17 case ever since the plane was shot down in July 2014.

Early on, the group found photographs of an anti-aircraft missile launcher that were taken in eastern Ukraine on the day the plane was shot down. Eliot Higgins, one of the founders of Bellingcat, says his group linked the missile launcher, called a Buk, to the Russian 53rd air defense brigade. That unit is stationed in the Russian city of Kursk, not far from the Ukrainian border.

"We discovered quite quickly that the soldiers there were using a lot of social media, posting photographs of each other, posting photographs of the base," Higgins says.

The photographs included pictures of their equipment, such as their Buk missile launchers. The launcher that was believed to have shot down the Malaysian airliner had an identification number that was partly worn away, but the researchers were able to pick out other unique characteristics. They included a dent in the side of the launcher and even the pattern formed by soot around the exhaust pipe.

"We looked at all these details and we were able to establish the number of the missile launcher, which was 332," Higgins says.

In other words, Bellingcat is saying that MH17 was shot down by a specific Russian missile launcher that was documented to be in eastern Ukraine at the time.

Spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, dismissed the Bellingcat report. She says it was the work of amateurs who ignored the information put forward by Russian experts and professionals.

Zakharova says the motives behind it are sinister. "We consider this whole campaign to be an attempt by certain destructive forces to demonize Russia by creating an image in the mass consciousness that's very far from reality."

Eliot Higgins says much of the information provided by the Russian experts has been refuted. He says there's a simple reason why Russia has been so adamant in rejecting any suggestion its troops were involved in the shoot-down.

Russia has continually denied it ever sent any troops or equipment across the border into Ukraine, Higgins says, because "to admit that they were responsible for MH17 is not only admitting to the murder of 298 people, but also admitting that they were lying for months and months to their own countrypeople."

The Safety Board in the Netherlands, where the flight originated, recently completed its investigation, saying the plane was most likely shot down by a Buk missile, originating from territory controlled by the Russian-backed separatists.

Dutch police are now conducting a criminal investigation into the attack, which may finally determine who fired the missile.

 d-usa wrote:
Via NPR:

Russian Military Involved In Shooting Down Flight MH17, Researchers Say

Russian officials are trying to discredit a new report that implicates the Russian military in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. Nearly two years ago, that attack in the skies over eastern Ukraine killed 298 people.

The latest report comes from a U.K.-based organization called Bellingcat, which bills itself as a group of citizen investigative journalists. Much of their work is done by volunteers, who sift through open source information on the web, using social media and satellite imagery. The group was launched with a crowd-funding campaign, and says it now receives a grant from Google.

Bellingcat has focused on a number of big stories such as the war in Syria and the terror attacks in Paris. The team has been interested in the MH17 case ever since the plane was shot down in July 2014.

Early on, the group found photographs of an anti-aircraft missile launcher that were taken in eastern Ukraine on the day the plane was shot down. Eliot Higgins, one of the founders of Bellingcat, says his group linked the missile launcher, called a Buk, to the Russian 53rd air defense brigade. That unit is stationed in the Russian city of Kursk, not far from the Ukrainian border.

"We discovered quite quickly that the soldiers there were using a lot of social media, posting photographs of each other, posting photographs of the base," Higgins says.

The photographs included pictures of their equipment, such as their Buk missile launchers. The launcher that was believed to have shot down the Malaysian airliner had an identification number that was partly worn away, but the researchers were able to pick out other unique characteristics. They included a dent in the side of the launcher and even the pattern formed by soot around the exhaust pipe.

"We looked at all these details and we were able to establish the number of the missile launcher, which was 332," Higgins says.

In other words, Bellingcat is saying that MH17 was shot down by a specific Russian missile launcher that was documented to be in eastern Ukraine at the time.

Spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, dismissed the Bellingcat report. She says it was the work of amateurs who ignored the information put forward by Russian experts and professionals.

Zakharova says the motives behind it are sinister. "We consider this whole campaign to be an attempt by certain destructive forces to demonize Russia by creating an image in the mass consciousness that's very far from reality."

Eliot Higgins says much of the information provided by the Russian experts has been refuted. He says there's a simple reason why Russia has been so adamant in rejecting any suggestion its troops were involved in the shoot-down.

Russia has continually denied it ever sent any troops or equipment across the border into Ukraine, Higgins says, because "to admit that they were responsible for MH17 is not only admitting to the murder of 298 people, but also admitting that they were lying for months and months to their own countrypeople."

The Safety Board in the Netherlands, where the flight originated, recently completed its investigation, saying the plane was most likely shot down by a Buk missile, originating from territory controlled by the Russian-backed separatists.

Dutch police are now conducting a criminal investigation into the attack, which may finally determine who fired the missile.