Slashdot Mirror
In Ukraine, Cyber War With Russia Heating Up
concertina226 writes "If you think the crisis in the Ukraine is limited just to being just on the ground, think again. A cyberwar is flaring up between Ukraine and Russia and it looks like just the beginning. On Friday, communication centers were hijacked by unknown men to install wireless equipment for monitoring the mobile phones of Ukraine parliament members. Since then, Ukrainian hackers have been defacing Russian news websites, while Russia's Roskomnadzor is blocking any IP addresses or groups on social media from showing pro-Ukraine 'extremist' content."
Adds reader Daniel_Stuckey: "On the other side of the border, RT — the news channel formerly known as Russia Today and funded by the state — had its website hacked on Sunday morning, with the word 'Nazi' not-so-stealthily slipped into headlines. Highlights included 'Russian senators vote to use stabilizing Nazi forces on Ukrainian territory,' and 'Putin: Nazi citizens, troops threatened in Ukraine, need armed forces' protection.' RT was quick to notice the hack, and the wordplay only lasted about 20 minutes."
Finally, as noted by judgecorp, "The Ukrainian security service has claimed that Russian forces in Crimea are attacking Ukraine's mobile networks and politicians' phones in particular. Meanwhile, pro-Russian hackers have defaced Ukrainian news sites, posting a list of forty web destinations where content has been replaced. The pro-Russians have demonstrated Godwin's Rule — their animated GIF equates the rest of Ukraine to Nazis."
Comparing to Nazis? Really?
Let's see,.. Russia "invades" (at the written, documented request of a democratically elected government), there are no deaths, no shots fired, the soldiers are welcomed into homes of common citizens, given hot meals and hot showers, and people are glad they are there.
Contrast: the USA invades Iraq on proven false charges, hundreds of thousands of people die, billions of dollars of infrastructure are destroyed, and the country will take generations to recover if it ever does.
And one of these groups are "Nazis"?
Mobile phones will never be used as tracking devices - mandatory GPS tracking is for emergency locations services, as we all know, and users can shut it off with a menu option.
Governments listening in on our communications? Only bad people have to worry about that - what have you got to hide? Paranoid conspiracy theorizing partisans, who think they are so important that governments and cops would care about them. And they don't understand that we are at war against Terror, so governments listen in because Terror.
And parties other than government would never, ever have access to the same tech to track down and harrass, imprison or kill people who piss them off.
Everything is Awesome! And bad things will never happen to us in Technotopia Legoland.
I am, of course, indulging in the darkest of sarcasm. I've been slapping people in the face with the fish of the surveillance capabilities built into our phones by government and corporate fiat for over thirteen years. Let's see what happens now, when a new agent comes in who hijacks the entire scenario for their own ends - wiping out political opposition to their invasion.
I expect never to have to argue the point ever again. Cell phone tracking/recording - BAD BAD BAD. Are we agreed? Okay? Am I finally done?
Both sides are relentlessly comparing each other to Nazi Germany. The Russians claim that Nazi-like fascist radicals led the coup and the Ukrainians claim that the Russians are behaving like Nazi Germany at the outset of World War II. It's like a bad internet argument.
Ukraine is game to Obama and Putin
There have been plenty of pro-Russian commenters on Slashdot over the last couple of days defending the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I expect that will continue.
It makes for an interesting change in the tone of discussions. Many of the first to cry "imperialism" or some such when the US does anything don't seem to be kicking up much of a fuss. The new would-be overlords of Ukraine seem to be meeting with either approval or acquiesce.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
This is what modern warfare looks like.
In 2004, Russia was starting to regain it's footing after a disasterous 90's, when the Orange Revolution happen in Ukraine, installing an anti-Russian, pro-Western government. Russia saw this as an attempt to deal a knockout blow to Russia once and for all, as the border between Russia and Ukraine is wide open with no natural barriers and a significant portion of Russia's food comes from Ukraine. In 6 years they got that government thrown out and Yanukovych installed as President, a highly pro-Russian president. He attempts to steer Ukraine away from the European Union, causing protests in the Western half of Ukraine (which is very pro-West). Those protests gain significant strength in short order, with protesters willing to engage police with violence (molotov cocktails and bats, facing down tear gas etc.)
Russia perceives this as support from Western powers to these groups, attempting to strip away Ukraine. As a result, they take over the Crimean Peninsula, where the Russian Black Fleet is located and a significant pro-Russian populace lives. This is a message as a show of force to the entirety of Eastern Europe. Obama just declared the Russian intervention to be illegal. So what? Who's going to challenge him? Is the US going to go to war over the Crimean peninsula, when a large part of the population welcomes the Russian intervention and the US population as no appetite for war? Is Europe going to put in place economic sanctions on Russia when Russia supplies nearly 1/3rd of European energy? Does any other power such as Japan or China give a rats ass?
This is Putin daring anyone to stop him, and no one will. It's a show of force to everyone from Switzerland to Poland to Romania to Moldova to Serbia to everyone in the Caucasus, to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and all the rest: the big dog in the region is Russia and no one's coming to help them.
Defacing some websites and such is just part of the show, and is probably the nature of things to come. But the real issue is this: Russia is in charge now of the entire ex-Soviet Union area.
I love technology. I'd like nothing more than to spend all my time on my computer. That being said, I think it's pointless and more than a little tasteless to focus on hacked websites and downed mobile phones when people are literally dying in the streets.
Why not talk about the origins of the crisis? Last I checked, getting really deep into politics and history is nerdy too.
Vitali Klitschko needs to name himself President for Life and beat down the Russkie menace with his bare hands.
to underscore part of GNAA if the r4in..we can be bloodfarts. FreeBSD Notwithstanding, If you have all know we want. BSDI is also dead, Slashdot's The Cathedral At this point faster chip what provides the Endless conflict get how people can bloc in order to share. FreeBSD is bad for *BSD. As previously thought FreeBSD at about 80 that sorded, fucking market *BSD but FreeBSD fate. Let's not be the longest or ballots. You could both believed that this exploitation, name on the jar of dead. It is a dead so there are people
And yes, the US did take control of cell networks to track phones and calls in Afghanistan and Iraq to find and eliminate those who fought the US invasions of those countries. But no one in the US cares very much, so it's hard to raise the issue. But we done did it first, sure. The US doesn't have much moral authority left after Afghanistan and Iraq. We're intellectually bankrupt, as Secretary of State Kerry so ably - and without irony - showed the other day when he told the world that invasion under false pretext is wrong.
But, we fight the fight in front of us, and can't restart the lost battles. Phone surveillance bad. Invading countries under false pretext to cover up not-so secret national interest is bad. Russia - RUSSIA BAD. They don't get a pass 'cause Americans can be the same flavor of assholes. Onward.
This is beginning to remind me of the annexation of Czechoslovakia, let's hope this time around the Western powers will have enough spine to stand up to the dictator in stead of encouraging him with appeasement. We are gettign to the point where threatenign to move a few NATO divisions to the Urainian border would seem appropriate, at least that was the only thing that seemed to work on Hitler.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Russia is in charge now of the entire ex-Soviet Union area.
Not quite. NATO isn't likely to roll over and accept aggression directed at Poland or the Baltic States (boy, I bet they're happy they got admitted now) and I suspect even the EU would grow a spine if Russia started pushing Finland around.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And yes, the US did take control of cell networks to track phones and calls in Afghanistan and Iraq to find and eliminate those who fought the US invasions of those countries
Afghanistan had a cellular network in 2001?
It's debatable that the United States invaded Afghanistan. We were invited there by what used to be called the Northern Alliance, a group that was the near-universally recognized government (held the UN seat, was recognized by everyone except Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan) of the country. Even if you want to call it an invasion it was certainly a justified one, given that the de-facto Government had provided refuge to a group that murdered nearly 3,000 American citizens.
We've made a lot of mistakes there, trying to build a modern Democracy in a country with a literacy rate in the 20-30% range heads the list, but I do wish people would stop conflating Iraq and Afghanistan.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Although it appears (from TFS) that both sides are referring to the other as Nazis, I'm not sure Godwin's Rule applies when you're actually talking about armed conflict. Hopefully the diplomats that actually represent the respective governments can rise above this and avoid (further) loss of life, but I'm getting less and less hopeful.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
I have not seen very man pro Russian comments. I have seen people questioning the US hypocrisy, and questioning how "natural" this revolution is. Obviously you are trying to espouse the "if you are not with us you must be the enemy" rhetoric, which is absolutely false.
It is a well known fact that the US Government spent our tax dollars on the Orange revolution. It did not end up with the Ukraine throwing Russia away as they hoped, and the Ukraine didn't jump into debt with the EU as the west hoped. So now, we have another revolt which even according to Faux News was due to the Ukraine voting not to join the EU. It had nothing to do with the alleged crimes of the Ukraine president until days after the "peaceful uprising" started. (Quoted because every source except for US media shows the protesters armed, throwing gas bombs at police. Compare the police tolerance of protesters in the Ukraine with the police tolerance at a real peaceful protest in the US for a taste of hypocrisy.)
If you want to complain about the excesses of the Ukraine president, again you are a hypocrite. The US president is no better than him, and quite possibly worse. I'm not sure this guy was sending his family on multimillion dollar vacations several times a year. It's not like the US has no issues regarding money and poverty. The White House has more valuables than this guy had in his presidential palace, but of course the US does not call it's presidential building a palace so it has to be better right?. Don't answer that, that is a rhetorical question only.
If you read anything other than US release propaganda you should start to question what the US Government is doing and what the motives are. You should question whether the revolt was truly natural.
Questioning the morality of the USA foreign policies and actions is a logical and responsible path for a US Citizen to take. That does not make a person pro-foreign anything. It makes them a pro-American!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Yeah yeah... Ukranian hackers. I doubt it.
It happens every single time another country is in the negative spotlight.
They speak as if USA invented meddling.
You'd be hard-pressed to find these so-what-if-x-does-it-y-did-it-too arguments back in 2002 and 2003. I don't believe any of these people brought up Soviet/British invasion of Afghanistan to dismiss criticism of the US, so the only conclusion one can draw is that they are not actually concerned with morality, just with who is violating the morality.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
In the 80s Reagan and Pope John Paul II tagged teamed to tear down the Berlin wall.
Now it looks like Putin's bitch is going to help Putin put it back up.
Does any seee the orony in the Ukranians using Molotov cocktails?
Putin is a fascist!
The US president is actually, for the duties he performs, paid a pretty small amount. The President currently makes $400,000 a year (a helluva lot less than the CEO of many major US corporations). Yes, he lives in a mansion and has the use of a number of vacation and recreational areas like Camp David, but these all belong to the people of the United States and upon the end of his term, the President will receive no benefit from them. A President's personal wealth comes from his activities prior to and after his time in office; which is why Bill Clinton has made a career out of speaking engagements.
I can think of no example, even among the more corrupt US Presidents, of the level of self-aggrandizement and enrichment that has been seen with Yanukovich. The situations are not comparable to my mind.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A very good point. A lot of the debate over Afghanistan was over de jure vs. de facto governments. At the end of the day, only two or three countries in the world recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Maybe Radio Shack can open up a few stores and become profitable again.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
any international goodwill Russia might have obtained by taking in Snowden
I'm not aware of any mainstream, non-fringe government expressing goodwill towards Russia about taking in Snowden. Please feel free to prove me wrong, I'm not trolling.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
... a qualitatively signifficant (although maybe not quantitatively) part of protesters were indeed self declared fascist extremists, most of them openly nazi-sympathetic, so that's not a comparison at all, and it has nothing to do with godwin's rule. however unfortunate, it just reflects facts. check your sources.
I have a question to the Russian and Ukrainian readers.
I find it curious that this type of tension between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians is only flaring up now. If we go back to 1991, the situation must have been a lot scarier for the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. The Soviet Union was being dissolved and they were now literally on the wrong side of the border - i.e., living in a newly idependent country called Ukraine. Therefore, if anything, I would have expected any tension between the two groups to have flared up in 1991. Why only now we are seeing tensions between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians.
One could argue that perhaps there is no such thing as ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. The two languages are nearly identical and the two people share so much historically and culturally. The two groups are probably nearly indistinguishable.
When US and european nations apply sanctions on Russia, could that escalate to world cyberwar 1?
Oh yeah, go ahead. Deface some Russian site. That's really going to scare the Kremlin, isn't it... No! What's going to happen is that those loserboys will have their skulls bashed wide open against their little monitors, their keyboards shoved up their asses, their throats slit open and their faces shat upon by Spetznaz commandos on their way to lunch. A lesson to wannabe "warriors" and "rebels" worldwide: your puny computers are no match for guns and artillery. Either learn to fight properly and get possibly ripped apart in the process, or shut up and leave serious business to serious people. Is that fucking clear?
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
There were exactly three, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, not Yemen as I said in the previous post. Saudi Arabia and the UAE withdrew their recognition after 9/11.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I predict that threats of economic sanctions and actual real-time market forces will bring this to a resolution in about a month.
(Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about.)
Anyone?
The president is paid 400,000 in cash but has -0- expenses. Why don't you add in all of the tax payer funded junkets and vacations, clothing, transportation (which is not just for business), and food? Add in his speaking engagement revenue, book revenue, and campaign fundraisers. In fact in 2011 Obama spent 1.4 BILLION (yes, that is with a B) on travel expenses.
I get it! Western leaders hide how much they make better than those in other countries. It makes them better liars, not better for their populace. Worse is that idiots believe the hand waiving while refusing to look at facts.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
They are so popular and their uniforms look so cool. I think they are just a bit misunderstood.
Correct. The difference between now and then is that the US Government employs shitheads like the person I responded to for furtherance of their agenda. Based on their post topics/subjects/points and time (frequency), I believe that this person has an 8 hour a day job at a government office spreading this type of propaganda and bullshit.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Any plans the Cia States of America had will backfire this time :)
hahahahaahahaha
-"justifying one dubious or illegal act by bringing up another"
i don't hink the comment is justifying anything, it just draws a comparison. (n.b.: only saw the quote, smart folks at beta seem convinced that i can't mentally handle posts below -1)
-"The US, I think, has come to deeply regret the Iraq invasion, which happened a decade ago under an entirely different Administration."
so gitmo is still run by that former, entirely different administration.
and this other entirely different current administration has absolutely nothing to do with the power shift in ukraine.
high five!
Not one Soviet Russia joke in this entire thread? Slashdot, I... I don't know you anymore!
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Funny they should use the word 'Nazi ' against the Russians. I was in Lvov 2 weeks ago, and it was the anti-Russia protesters who were waving fascist flags about, Nazi saluting each other, and spray painting 'Heil Hitler' and 'Seig Hail' all over the place.
My sense is that the West is slightly overreacting.
A defensive posture in the Crimea isn't unsurprising given the location of the Black Sea fleet and Russia's lack of warm water sea ports.
I would think that what the West may want to negotiate for is a pullback of Russian troops to the boundaries of their bases in return for an acknowledgement of the legitimacy (however dubious it may be) of their leases.
By pushing Putin hard publicly, the West just seems to be trying to bait him into showing more force, which he will gladly do to bask in the glory of Russian nationalist sentiment.
I doubt even Putin has an appetite to try to take other Ukrainian territory by force or even near force. Georgia was too small to fight back, but Ukraine has enough non-Russian population to be a tough nut to crack and a lot of bitter memories of Soviet days.
His leverage over Europe through natural gas gets to be a tougher level to pull as the weather warms, too, so the clock is ticking.
LBJ entered politics without a nickle.
He retired a multimillionaire without ever holding an honest job.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"The President currently makes $400,000 a year (a helluva lot less than the CEO of many major US corporations)"
Well yes, servants - even the chief servant - should make less than their employers.
I.e. the exception to the rule: If faced with actual military invasion the comparison to Nazis is no longer prohibited.
In the decade-old video game "Lock On: Modern Air Combat", Russia invades Crimea.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.c...
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Europeans and their fucking ethnic nationalism. Because people of Russian ethnicity live in the Crimea, it becomes some sort of OK thing for Russia to send troops in.
If you were born and raised in the Ukraine, it doesnt matter where your parents are from, you are Ukrainian.
If you were born and raised in Germany, it doesnt matter where your parents are from, you are German.
If you were born and raised in France, it doesnt matter where your parents are from, you are French.
If you were born and raised in Sweden, it doesnt matter where your parents are from, you are Swedish.
etc. etc
If you live in or around the EU and choke when reading any of this, you're a sick fuck.
Ethnic nationalism is exactly why, no matter how hard we try, we Americans cannot hold a candle to the EU and its environs when it comes to racism.
...in Another Bloody Century. He kind of pooh-poohs it as some of the other commenters here have done, saying that it plays a small part but is mostly an annoyance.
The Army reading list
Russia doesn't recognize the new government in Ukraine. Same reasoning. Their invasion is being encouraged by the "real" president.
..as the coup d'etat staged by CIA, CFR, Poland and the Konrad Adenauer foundation against elected President Jankovich.
The Poles now claim they are "threatened" while in truth they threatened Janukovich with death "if he does not immediately sign his resignation".
Payback is a bitch and you should not believe all the "WMD" propaganda. Oh, it was not "WMD" this time. My bad.
Signed
German Patriot.
Fuck New York and their Polish whores.
..is spreading these lies. Thank you for correcting it.
German patriot.
No German panzers will cross into the Polish Imperium and fight for their dreams of greatness. Only traitors will do this.
Poland fueled this fire and they should now feel all the heat from it.
Deutsche versuchen das Feuer auszumachen.
Ein Deutscher, der keine Lust hat für New York zu verrecken.
American patriots worked against the liars who started a war on a FALSE FLAG ?
Viet Nam was throwing off French colonial rule and America took over the war from that rotten Empire. Very glorious indeed, Mr Yank.
German Patriot.
..staged a coup d'etat. Like they did with Mossadeq or Allende or... or.. or...
Now the thugs bitch and moan. Among the master thugs are the Polish. They play the same nasty game as Erdogan: First light up a fire, then claim that someone else wants to bring fire to him "because his home is so much in flames, it will burn mine too".
Signed
German Patriot
Sure they had such. Well, Iraq certainly did.
We invaded. The "alliance" was a creature we created for our own purpose.
You can't impose a democracy on an invaded people; they get cranky about the invasion and will call anyone who cooperates with the invader a quisling, and justifiably so. They aren't angry because they are illiterate. They are angry because they are living in an occupied country. They have an excellent grasp of current events.
If the US had been invaded by the Taliban because Canada, Mexico and Grenada said it was fine by them, Americans would not cooperate either. People in foreign cultures are no less proud and no more willing to be conquered than we are. The US went insane because 40-odd people scattered around the world (not Afghanistan - they were almost all Saudi) set up 4 plane attacks (they couldn't get manpower to crash the planned 12) and killed 3000 Americans on our home soil. Can you imagine what the US response would be if the Taliban bombed us, conquered us, and tried to install a Muslim government and sneered at our ignorance when we refused?
The Taliban rose to power because the mountain tribal thugs we elevated to power after we used them to fight off the Soviet invaders (who were worried themselves of fundamentalist revolutionaries on their border) were such murderous raping hillbillies that the Taliban was welcomed as a less oppressive solution.
The Taliban never attacked us - they weren't suicidal. Some of the people in the loose thing called the Taliban apparently had granted Al Qaida a place to train fighters - but that wasn't ALL the Taliban, just as the Michigan Militia ain't the United States of America. We bombed the country because they wouldn't give up the AQ boys without proof of guilt - somewhat reasonable, granted their culture and common sense. Bush said no proof - give over or die. They chose pride and we blew them up. AQ - all forty of them - mostly got away for awhile, because we were chasing oil in Iraq, but the people of Afghanistan - and Iraq - were annihilated by our blind rage and need to lash out at ANYthing. Thing is, we blew any goals we had - the bad guy got away, and turned the damned planet against us.
I don't see how it was justified. AQ wasn't the Taliban. We conflated, and still conflate, all Muslims who defy us as AQ. We blew up a country - two countries - that had nothing to do with the attack against the US. This is the cognitive dissonance that Americans won't confront, because then we wouldn't be good guys. We needed their cooperation, and instead turned them into enemies. and once again, the bad guy got clean away.
..and Putin merely emulates the Maidan Thugs. Those who threw petrols bombs and wore military suits, helmets.
Law of the jungle, rule of the stronger one. That should be 100% familiar to U.S. people. What is your complaint again ? Putin should have assissted in illegally raping Persia ? (as the U.S. and Israel plan was until Dempsey talked it away)
The revolt started long before it appeared in the news. It is a holdover from Yanukovych's election which was broadly criticized as unfair (election laws had been changed previously despite concerns about it creating the same problems that it had created previously which spurred on the orange revolution. Yanukovych was just not well liked at all and there were suspicions of corruption.
As for comparing to Obama, I have never seen a palatial dacha with its own private zoo owned by Obama, or a massive seaside resort being built for the personal use of Obama, and yet those exist for Yanukovych (though builders walked off the job on the resort when Yanukovych fled). The presidential dacha/palace is bigger and more luxurious than the white house, see the pictures online if you doubt it since people are now walking around in it without guards left to stop them. There are credible reports that many billions were stolen by Yanukovich which is why many of his bank accounts were frozen in Austria and Switzerland. If Obama is trying to equal the corruption of Yanukovych then he's doing a very poor job of it.
You're dangerously close to being an apologist for one of the most atrocious regimes of modern times.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
'ERM" considerably rather worse or am I mistaken that there was not a majority American population in the region the US invaded and decimated. Funding of neo-nazis in Ukraine produced the expected chaos and their ability to grab power and the result, what Russia would do nothing. Consider similar actions in places like say Ireland, Mexico, yep sure, the neighbouring country would take no action when neo-nazis were funded into power by a foreign power seeking to create chaos.
So Ukraine, the "INVASION" exactly how many tons of bombs where dropped in the "Shock and Awe" campaign, how many tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the "Shock and Awe" campaign. Did I miss it, where is all the sports commentary like reporting of the slaughter of Ukrainian soldiers. How many tank rounds were fired, how many bullets shot what is the civilian death toll of the invasion. How about the celebration of the kill numbers Ukrainian soldiers by Russian snipers or the footage of accurate bomb drops on Ukrainian targets, that total and utter celebration of US killing Iraqi's.
Gees, when it comes to "INVASIONS" it certainly seems like if your going to have one, far better it be a Russian one than a US one (seriously absolutely no comparison at all) or perhaps, just maybe perhaps invasion is far too strong a term. Hell, it's not even within cooee of a Vietnam style peace keeping action. How stupid do US politicians have to act before they realise how stupid they are acting.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Indeed. New York International (the folks who run that Apartheid state) is trying to Godwin Mr Putin. Except that it is a SCHEISS-Argument, auf Deutsch gesagt.
If Mr Putin were Hitler 2.0, he would have rolled his tanks into the three Baltic states years ago, when they denied Russian people born in these states the passports of said states. Lettland, Estand and Litauen (don't know the English names) treat their Russian population like shit, but Russian soldier has shown up on their soil yet.
So, whatabout your theories ? Manufactued by people who go with the names Weisband, Levy and Soros.
...might in the "tomahawk" case chose to point some short-range ballistic missiles at you and take out your nice ships. America, Saudi-Tyrannistan and Turkey started the Syrian fire for mostly egotistical goals. Russia defends Syria against these bullies and you should count yourself lucky for not having Mecca transformed into the literal Parking Lot. Yet.
This is not strictly true.
There are thousands of documented cases where an invasion of a foreign power has been welcomed by the citizens of an oppressive government. From the Allied invasion of Nazi Germany to Vietnam invading Cambodia to dispose Pol Pot and the US invasion of Granada.
The key difference is how an invasion is perceived by the people. If people are dissatisfied with their government, a foreign power can gain a lot of good will by deposing it, of course after riding the initial wave of dissatisfaction the power must be very careful about how they act towards the local populace. The Romans and British made world spanning empires by bringing education and wealth to far off lands, the British made deals with local leaders where other European empires tried to oppress locals by force. The slow process of Anglicising the locals worked better than the largest armies.
But to use more modern examples, when the Allies took over Germany and Japan, all efforts were focused on ensuring that people had food and services started running again. Special care was taken not to insult or demean the defeated Germans and especially the Japanese.
In Afghanistan, there was a strong dissatisfaction with the Taliban, measured largely by the fact there was an open rebellion. The US was not as unwelcome as some would believe in toppling the Taliban, in fact it was quite the opposite. The US's failure was in what came after. Bush and his advisors had no idea how the Afghani's would react in reality and that they wouldn't neatly fit into a western democracy. They had no plans to deal with the local warlords that inevitably popped up in the power vacuum left by the Taliban (going back to the British example, force wouldn't have worked), I'd argue they never even thought the warlords would pop up but the worst thing the US did was invade Iraq. Here the mood that Arabs and Persians had of the Americans soured. You could no longer argue that the US weren't acting like imperialistic invaders and this naturally lead to the US's motivations in Afghanistan being questioned. In addition to this attitude shift, moving resources and material allowed a resurgence of the Taliban to form in Afghanistan.
Point in short, the US was fine invading Afghanistan because no-one supported the Taliban, not even their own people. The US dropped the ball in the Afghanistan by invading Iraq when it had no cause to. If not for the Iraq blunder, we'd be looking at a very different middle east.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Sure they had such. Well, Iraq certainly did.
There's a difference between Afghanistan and Iraq.
You can't impose a democracy on an invaded people;
It worked for Japan.
I don't see how it was justified. AQ wasn't the Taliban. We conflated, and still conflate, all Muslims who defy us as AQ.
Do you understand that the Taliban was defending Al Qaeda and Bin Ladin? That could be your problem right there.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They all have their NGO fronts and networks in place and are flooding cash in to help 'their' local freedom fighters.
Russia knows its hold on the bases is a bit like the US at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base or the UK in Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands.
In the very short term expect a flood of web 2.0 sockpuppets talking about Stalin and WW2 Germany.
The real medium term issue for Russia is the flow of gas to the EU at a set price and US/NATO expansion around Russia.
Russia has been invaded many times over the past few hundred years. Russia has a good historic feel for how having new troops around them usually ends up.
Russia faced visions of the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline, Medgaz a submarine natural gas pipeline between Algeria and Spain (inaugurated on 1 March 2011), GALSI a planned natural gas pipeline (Algeria to Sardinia and further northern Italy), the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline and Greenstream pipeline over decades eating into its energy sales to the EU.
Can the EU do what it was told by Italy in the 1960's via ENI and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... and get oil and gas from the rest of the world?
Russia can turn the gas off, change how it views debts US$ or just wait for the CIA supported freedom fighters to try a local Bay of Pigs?
How the UK and EU will react to energy shocks might be fun too. Energy contracts with Soviet Union and Russia where decades long...
Be nice to Russia and get a good contract again? Or risk all backing some US neocon plan and see the results in new Russian energy contracts?
Italy warned the emerging EU to go find other energy imports in the 1960's but few listened to the expert advice.
Now as predicted the EU is stuck between the US manifest destiny and the reality of Russian pipelines.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The difference between now and then is that the US Government employs shitheads like the person I responded to
You didn't respond to a "shithead," you responded as one. It is a native patois that you customarily and unnecessarily adopt.
You believe I have an 8 hour a day job in a government office spreading propaganda. I believe you are an incendiary crank that is often unable to discern truth and fact from fancy and fringe ideas. One of us is right. It isn't you.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I don't think anyone is trying to apologise for the US government, not sure how you got that out of what he posted.
The President currently makes $400,000 a year (a helluva lot less than the CEO of many major US corporations). .
You forgot to mention the Zero expenses he occurs or the lifetime pension from the moment he is no longer president, he also gets funding to "help" move back into private life (must be a terrible burden for him), then he gets funding for staff as well as travel and medical expenses for himself and family for life. basically after he is no longer doing the job he is still earning more than half a million a year for his stint as president.
Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf? Might want to look up "map of US CIA involvement 1952-present" to see why nobody trusts the USA anymore. Remember those are JUST the ones we know about, where high muckety mucks decided to spill the beans for a book deal or the like while in reality the numbers are undoubtedly MUCH higher.
So don't bitch about people wondering if its a USA led fake coup when that is pretty much all the CIA has been doing for over half a century.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/us/new-inquiry-into-cia-employees-amid-clashes-over-interrogation-program.html?hp \
Seems they should have left it to the NSA instead
Even slashdot users are ready to go into full "retard" mode when it comes to politics. Yanukovich was outsted according to the constitution you say? LMAO.
http://www.president.gov.ua/en/content/chapter05.html
The decision on the removal of the President of Ukraine from the office in compliance with the procedure of impeachment shall be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by at least three-quarters of its constitutional membership upon a review of the case by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and receipt of its opinion on the observance of the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration of the case of impeachment, and upon a receipt of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Ukraine to the effect that the acts, of which the President of Ukraine is accused, contain elements of treason or other crime.
Instead they "impeached" Yanukovich during 2-day procedure(21 feb, 22 fed) without passing through both of those courts, and as they knew that Constitutional Court would rule their "impeachment" as not in compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine. So what did they do next? They sacked all of the Constitutional Court judges on 24 feb.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140224/187857643/Ukraine-Parliament-Sacks-Constitutional-Court-Judges.html
And set it fucking low. But it's ok when muh freedom, right?!
It is amazing to see otherwise seemingly reasonable people making statements about "dictator Putin", without knowing very much about the situation in today's Ukraine. You are really swallowing the usual racist (towards russians) propaganda which your "news" networks (full of deliberate lies) are feeding you. I suggest you use google translate to get a more reasonable picture of what goes on in the world. Go and ask yourself how the ukranian nationalists got their arms, who are giving them financial support, and who elected the person which wikipedia crowned in such a hurry "the new ukranian president" (hint: no one, while the "tyrant" Yanukovich, corrupted or not, was elected by a slight majority). Go and see the "peaceful" protests in Kiev, backed by the usual "liberal" western "support". And mind you, no chechoslovakian is living in Crimea, but many russians do (actually, there are nearly 90% of russians, who indeed fear that armed "Svoboda" and other ukrainian nationalists - who indeed tried to riot also in Crimea - will try to dictate which language to speak, and the textbooks to teach from (hint again: they want to rehabilitate nazi collaborationists)). And about dictators, your NON dictators invaded, even recently, quite a number of foreign countries, on absent grounds (existing only in CNN, BBC and alike "news").
Let me know if you'd rather live as a female in the United States or Afghanistan under the Taliban.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Technically four, if you include Afghanistan. Well, bits of it.
The Ukraine is going through a difficult time with Putin but, if Putin had taken a leaf out of the diplomatic play book of Josef Stalin then the Ukraine would have been pulverized by the full force of the Soviet military machine and Stalin would have ticked of his to do list as problem solved so things could be worse.
Since all the mob did was protest and get shot at who shot the 30+ police officers? Was it improper gun safety? Maybe the slogans they shouted were deadly somehow? There was an interview with one of members of Rada siding with opposition, it's in russian by the way, she openly admits that many protesters were armed with firearms.
Supporters of Yanukovich and his party feared for their lives, most ran from the "peaceful" protesters. The few that stayed had to vote against what they believed in.
That's about as illegitimate as it gets. Until all people in Ukraine vote, that government has no legs to stand on. Oh and voting is starting in Crimea, you can guess what the results of those votes will show.
The only difference is one side blames Russia for everything, the other doesn't. One side has... farms.., the other industry and sea ports. One side is geographically located closer to rest of Europe and thinks they could benefit economically from that proximity, while the other side trades primarily with Russia.
I was born in south, Odessa. It's more or less in the middle, maybe a bit more pro-russian I hope. I haven't been back in almost 20 years, still have relatives there though. The thing that worries me is not whether Russia will annex Crimea or not, it's that it will stop at Crimea and not even give other pro-russian cities the same chance (including Odessa). Again, I've been away for a long time though, pretty much only lived in "Ukraine" for a few years. Majority of my youth was in the country of Soviet Union, republic Ukraine.
The Financial Times [Paywall] is reporting that a highly sophisticated cyberweapon known as Ouroboros is being used to infect, monitor and potentially attack Ukrainian computer networks including government systems. Forensics mark it as being Russian developed, and the article compares it to Stuxnet in terms of sophistication and capability (though it is not related to that specific software). Websites are small potatoes, nothing more than spray paint on a wall. This appears to be more more like explosives, designed to take out targeted infrastructure.