Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
Indeed the "Law of Unintented Consequences" that do often change the course of history.Quite often seen only in hindsight but critically important
Don't insult goldfish. They're smarter than you are.
22 Feb 2014 - overthrow of Yanukovych
23 Feb 2014 - pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian protests in Crimea
27 Feb 2014 - unmarked Russian military takes over Crimea, oust the government of Crimea and install pro-Russian administration
1 Mar 2014 - protests begin in Donbas
16 Mar 2014 - referendum on status of Crimea
18 Mar 2014 - Russia annexes Crimea
7 April 2014 - Donetsk People's Republic is proclaimed.
27 April 2014 - Luhansk People's Republic is proclaimed.
I hope you're not stupid enough to debate these dates because these can be verified from Russian sources.
And why was there a "coup" in the first place?
Ukraine under Yanukovych was a failing state with struggling economy and declining standards of living. Yanukovych narrowly won the election for presidency in 2010 (49,55% vs 46,03%, with rampant electoral fraud in the east) and under Ukrainiain constitution nominated Party of Region's Mykola Azarov as Prime Minister for the minority caretaker government despite lack of support in the parliament. In 2012 under changed rules and with the help of more election fraud he gained majority in parliament. In other words Yanukovych and Party of Regions governed for three years in the lead up to the protests. During those three years there was no improvement of economic condition and corruption was growing. He was not popular and immediately resorted to changing the law to protect his power.
What grew the protests was also not pro-EU position but the opposition to Yanukovych's and Party of Region's use of force against protesters exercising their rights.
Euromaidan began as a relatively small organised protest on 21 Nov 2013 against Yanukovych abandoning association agreement with the EU. The peak of participation was on Sunday but it didn't cross 50 thousand protesters in all the cities. Emboldened by this Yanukovych ordered first attack by Berkut (police) on 30 Nov 2013. That attack caused uproar from people in Kiyv and elsewhere who saw this as an attack against freedom to protest and more people started joining for that specific purpose. The protest grew but slowly.
Yanukovych then ordered another large attack on 11 Dec 2013 with the use of Berkut and Internal Troops which failed again due to the protest growing in number and getting organised. That only outraged people more, support kept growing faster and Euromaidan began to draw in politicians from all over the world. Here's US senator John McCain speaking there four days after the attack:
The agreement with Russia was signed on 17 Dec 2013 as a move to support Yanukovych who was rapidly losing popularity in the face of his incompetence and brutality. It was not an agreement in the works unless the preparations were made in secret. In fact during 2013 Russia was increasing economic pressure against Ukraine, not helping it. They only helped when their control of the country was threatened.
The agreement did little to help the failing Yanukovych government but he continued to resist. Partly because by that time he was fighting for his own position in the party and refused to back down as not to admit a mistake - the usual strategy of stupid and brutal authoritarian types (see: Assad, Putin etc.).
On 16 Jan 2014 Party of Regions, Communists and "Independents" passed anti-protest laws which only reinforced the support for Euromaidan, again not so much due to its geopolitical position but against the brutal and corrupt Yanukovych and his government. The dividing line became "EU supports democracy and civil rights and Russia represses them" and after that nothing that Yanukovych could do would help him. He lost his gambit by using force instead of allowing the protest to lose momentum on its own while it was small.
On 28 Jan the Prime Minister Mykola Azarov of Party of Regions resigned. Weakened Yanukovych announced an amnesty bill hoping to resolve the protests but that only encouraged the protesters.They demanded removal of Yanukovych and constitutional reform reverting it to 2004. From there on the situation slowly spiraled out of control until the overthrow of Yanukovych on 22 February.
The removal was conducted by a procedure of questionable legality and personally I view it as a mistake which only aggravated the situation, but it was definitely not a "coup". Note:
[..] In the afternoon [of 22 February], the Rada voted 328–0 (about 73% of the parliament's 450 members) to remove Yanukovych from his post and to schedule an early presidential election for 25 May.[...]
3/4 of Parliament participated in a session and voted unanimously for removal. That was majority sufficient to amend the constitution to make that removal legal. And since the 2012 election Party of Regions had 185 of 450 seats this means that for 328 members to vote for removal of Yanukovych 53 of 185 of Party of Regions members had to vote for removal. That's 28,65% of PoR MPs.
Even that clown in Korea managed to get his entire party to resist the impeachment. How bad was Yanukovych that people from his party voted against him?
Africans will soon learn that they were naive in trusting Russia to deliver them from "colonialist" powers. Russia has no interest in improving the situation of Africa. They directly benefit from increased instability because it weakens both Europe, and MENA through migrations and it increases difficulty for China's expansion. Already in every country that ejected western powers in favour of Russia the situation has already worsened. Russians benefit from this too - it makes the juntas more dependent on their help. But if this continues then all of the juntas will fall because Russia has very limited resources for power projection and Sahel will become a chain of failed states. If the insurgency are a problem it would be better to partner up with an Islamic power - Turkey and Qatar or Saudis etc.
I think that Russia started the war in Ukraine not so much against the west but to show China that they're an equal partner. They banked on quick stunning success as in 2014 and instead they lost everything and had to come hat in hand.
The sudden and unexpected dependency on China will only mean that Russia will try to fight back and the only place that they can do it is Africa. They lost Central Asia to China and Turkey and Europe and East Asia are beyond their capability to control. Where do they have left? Who is weak enough to be exploited by a power without any actual power?
As for Russia changing their mentality you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Think China's Qing not Revolutionary France. Russia today has none of the potential that made the revolution in early 20th century possible. They're a declining reactionary irredentist power driven by weakness. And that makes them both malicious and dangerous. They are like a drowning man that will drag you to the bottom to save himself.
But that's on Africa to learn from their own mistakes.
ROFL. Russian loans were offered prior to the coup that overthrew the elected president of Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea and proclaimation of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics followed after the coup.
A few weeks between annexation of Crimea and proclaimation of DPR/LPR does not change the fundamental relation that Russian loans were offered -> coup occurs -> Crimea and DPR/LPR are no longer part of Ukraine.
It also does not change the fact that the IMF loan terms, tied to the EU partnership, were extremely harsh in comparison - smaller loan and requiring an increase in final customer gas prices - and was offered only immediately prior to the Russian offer: Nov. 12 2013 for the IMF loan, Dec. 17 Russian loan.
It also does not change the fact that the final value of the IMF + EU loan was lower than the Russian loan despite its harsher conditions.
Putting all the blame on Assad is just easy.
In fact the US, Israel and Erdogan never stopped arming, training and financing terrorists, while Russia and Iran reached their limits and China did not risk falling into sanctions to help Syria.
In recent years Assad has made numerous trips to different countries to try to normalize Syria's economic situation, apparently in vain. None were able to help him enough.
The truth is that the US and Israel won without contest in the Middle East.
There is no real resistance, Muslims are not a threat to the West, they are just the scapegoat and useful idiots. Without suffering anything more in the Middle East, the West's focus will now be on reaffirming its power in Eastern Europe and then in Asia.
Trump did an interview with NBC. He said that he has "a very good relationship with President Xi", that they spoke 3 days ago, and refused to answer whether he'll defend Taiwan.
I love how this guy became a meme.
It quite literally is Assad. There were no kinds of international reach sanctions on Syria. He had an economy richer than Pakistan's on a per capita basis and ability to use humanitarian reasons to call for nearly whatever they wanted from neighbours, Russia and China.
In reality the locals just don't like being ruled by a secular leader, and Assad crucially didn't give them the strong cause they want to make up for his inherently disadvantaged position as a non-muslim.
Assad never had the popular mobilisation support to unify his country. Now that he handed all his resources nearly untouched to the jihadists, you will see those resources actually be employed.
On whether US can just leave the SDF to getting fucked: yes and they should. A notional Islamic Emirate Syria will have to spend awhile rebuilding before it causes trouble for US again.
But China is a very tricky opponent, and her influence is not only in Iran, but across the gulf monarchies, North Africa and even Israel. Only Turkey is "free" but Turkey too cannot openly fight China due to economic reasons. Any of these actors can be used to draw US back to the middle east.
The real war US should fight is the one to improve economy and industry at home. Imo, everything else, including possible action in Asia, is a carefully curated distraction.
Muslims are indeed just some randoms recruited/influenced as stage props to annoy the west and build a wall over their eyes over what actually matters, economic and industrial supremacy.
Yes, this is the bitter truth that "Global South" promoters have to contend with. Syria was in effect bankrupt because of the sanctions imposed by the US and there is no world alternative to the US dollar. For all the talk about an alternative BRICS-led system, there has been nothing but empty words and slogans.
When a weak country like Syria comes under crushing sanctions, there is no alternative. Only very strong and self-sufficient countries like Russia or China can withstand them. But weaker ones like Syria collapse under the weight. Had there been a genuine alternative to the Western financial domination, Assad might still have ruled Syria. The country is so broke that lots of SAA soldiers simply switched sides or stood down for a simple bribe. Many were not paid regular salaries for months or even years but had to resort to exortion from civilians to make ends meet prior to the recent events. If you can't even pay your soldiers, why would they fight? And of course, Assad had to demobilise many of the best units as he could no longer afford them either. This explains why the collapse happened so quick. The army was a hollow paper tiger, withered from the inside over years.
Hezbollah is now bereft of its most crucial supply link through Syria. I'm already seeing images of Israeli settlers trying to settle Southern Lebanon. Israeli army units have begun occupying more Syrian land through a so-called "buffer zone" east of the Golan Heights. Iran's influence has been fatally weakened. For Russia, it's less clear. If they get to keep their base, it might not be the end of the world for them. I don't see China being affected much since they've wisely stayed out of these stupid sectarian fights.
They've completely evactuated from Syria.
Their ability to continuing to influence Africa is thus coming with a giant question mark since Tartus port and the airbases in Syria were their main logistics hub to supply Wagner fighters.