02-25-2017, 10:23 PM
Quote:I'm going to cop out a bit and send you to a wikipedia article that seems to have the story straight. It has plenty of references so you can likely find what you want there.
That is not at all adequate. Wikipedia articles about politically contentious subjects are fairly worthless, and there were no real conclusions in the body of the article, just a lot of he said and she said from various analysts.
Quote:Okay, p14 of this (which I found through another Wikipedia article) provides some more detail:
A little heavy on opinion. I also don't see much evidence of a premeditated attack on frolicking peasants by the evil Russians OR Georgians provided. Looks like the runup to a very ordinary sort of conflict.
Quote:It's our problem because we're part of NATO. And we want NATO to stick around because, basically, it's an alliance that gives us control over the European military and prevents them from becoming a geopolitical rival.
As I said, the Russian military is not capable of seizing the EU, and any supposed imperial benefits from keeping the Europeans in a subservient state are more than outweighed by the risks of conflict generated by weaker states playing fast and loose with their larger neighbor because they believe we have their back.
Quote:Keep in mind that the EU, along with the rest of the world, pay us hundreds of billions in "inflation tax" for our protection and policing of the world in general, and trade routes in particular.
Granted we should use our leverage to negotiate more favorable trade arrangements with the EU, which are currently slanted against us. In retrospect, when globalization was happening after the fall of the Soviet Union, we should have taken more pains to make sure it benefited us rather than just benefiting the rest of the world; we should work on fixing that now.
Most of which is unfortunately recycled back into the US security state, and the currency flows (the "eurodollar") you mention have been instrumental in exacerbating and accelerating the process of deindustrialization and financialization.
I'm not saying we have to cut loose completely and aim for autarchy, only that the Cold War is over and we need to wind up these imperial commitments.
Quote:There was nothing lazy about it: I pointed out actual parallels. I would agree that "Saddam Hussein is Hitler" was a big stretch back in 1990 - I interpreted it as an aging Bush wanting to relive his glory days - but the parallels here are closer.
What parallels? Like I said before, Hitler annexed multiple countries and started a bid for global conquest within 6 years or so of coming to power. Putin has been in for 17 and has the Crimea (already majority Russian, the host of a major part of the Russian Navy, and a longrunning historical part of the Russian state), plus a few ragtag microstates he's propping up.
Quote:https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-flynn-drama1/
Flynn's rumored plan to install a Russia friendly administration in Ukraine I may have read in another source, but while that was a pretty specific rumor, it was still only a rumor.
Really? Look, if you don't have sources, you don't have sources. Please don't claim you do, then serve me up a load of tripe and gossip.