A NATO boots-on-the-ground nuclear tripwire force....

[Junkdrawer]

installed via a series of provocative events....

protected by the threat of M.A.D.....

with the goal of containment and isolation.

This is where I'm afraid US/NATO policy is headed.


Pentagon sending fighter jets to boost NATO presence amid Ukraine crisis




You look up "Insanely Dangerous" in the dictionary....

[jakeXT]

1. Could be worse (I see your FOX News link and raise WND)

A knowledgeable Ukrainian source in Stanford, Calif, told WND the “real power in Kiev and much of Western Ukraine today belongs to several rival neo-Nazi factions whose masked, well-armed adherents are busy looting abandoned properties and shaking down businesses for money to support their ‘revolution.’”

“They have already made territorial demands to each of the countries bordering the Ukraine, including the NATO members Poland, Hungary and Romania, and they have declared their intention to acquire nuclear weapons,” the source said.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/russians-u-s-siding-with-neo-nazis/#XWsrmL6gCFFXOMBh.99

[geek tragedy]

8. nice link to the biggest birther site on the web. very telling nt

[Ghost Dog]

2. Asia Times (Pepe Escobar):

... Geoeconomically, the Empire needs Ukraine to be out of the Eurasian economic union promoted by the Kremlin - which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus. And geopolitically, when NATO Secretary General, the vain puppet Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that an IMF-EU package for the Ukraine would be "a major boost for Euro-Atlantic security", this is what clinched it; the only thing that matters in this whole game is NATO "annexing" Ukraine, as I examined earlier.

It has always been about the Empire of Bases - just like the encirclement of Iran; just like the "pivot" to Asia translating into encirclement of China; just like encircling Russia with bases and "missile defense". Over the Kremlin's collective dead body, of course.

US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing Russia of "invading Ukraine", in "violation of international law", and "back to the 19th century", is so spectacularly pathetic in its hypocrisy - once again, look at the US's record - it does not warrant comment from any informed observer. Incidentally, this is as pathetic as his offer of a paltry $1 billion in "loan guarantees" - which would barely pay Ukraine's bills for two weeks.

The Obama administration - especially the neo-cons of the "F**k the EU" kind - has lost is power play. And for Moscow, it has no interlocutor in Kiev because it considers the regime-changers illegal. Moscow also regards "Europe" as a bunch of pampered whining losers - with no common foreign policy to boot.

So any mediation now hinges on Germany. Berlin has no time for "sanctions" - the sacrosanct American exceptionalist mantra; Russia is a plush market for German industry. And for all the vociferations at the Economist and the Financial Times, the City of London also does not want sanctions; the financial center feeds on lavish Russian politico/oligarch funds. As for the West's "punishment" for Russia by threatening to expel it from the Group of Eight, that is a joke. The G-8, which excludes China, does not decide anything relevant anymore; the G-20 does...

/... http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-050314.html

[Junkdrawer]

3. Thanks. I was thinking about getting Pepe's take, then forgot.....

too damn busy. just a dilettante.

[Ghost Dog]

4. The Guardian (Seamus Milne):

... (C)ontrary to undertakings given at the time, the US and its allies have since relentlessly expanded Nato up to Russia's borders, incorporating nine former Warsaw Pact states and three former Soviet republics into what is effectively an anti-Russian military alliance in Europe. The European association agreement which provoked the Ukrainian crisis also included clauses to integrate Ukraine into the EU defence structure.

That western military expansion was first brought to a halt in 2008 when the US client state of Georgia attacked Russian forces in the contested territory of South Ossetia and was driven out. The short but bloody conflict signalled the end of George Bush's unipolar world in which the US empire would enforce its will without challenge on every continent.

Given that background, it is hardly surprising that Russia has acted to stop the more strategically sensitive and neuralgic Ukraine falling decisively into the western camp, especially given that Russia's only major warm-water naval base is in Crimea.

Clearly, Putin's justifications for intervention – "humanitarian" protection for Russians and an appeal by the deposed president – are legally and politically flaky, even if nothing like on the scale of "weapons of mass destruction". Nor does Putin's conservative nationalism or oligarchic regime have much wider international appeal.

But Russia's role as a limited counterweight to unilateral western power certainly does. And in a world where the US, Britain, France and their allies have turned international lawlessness with a moral veneer into a permanent routine, others are bound to try the same game...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/clash-crimea-western-expansion-ukraine-fascists

[Junkdrawer]

5. So you're saying others see the same thing...

Yep. The more I think about it, the more this sounds like the plan all along.

Again, thanks

[Junkdrawer]

6. "(US and) allies have turned international lawlessness with a moral veneer into a permanent routine"

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

Most expect China/Russia to pass NATO well before 2040. So just before this, you change the rules and allow the top 'exceptional' power unaccountability. Yet another thing our kids will inherit.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Kick

[stevenleser]

9. Adding six planes to four we already have in Lithuania isn't much of a gesture.

But I note again the latest series of attempts to whitewash an unprovoked war of aggression by Russia and distract with various shiny objects.