No Russian
skibinsky.com
skibinsky.com
This can be summarized with one word "corruption". Corruption that is deep, toxic, and permeates every sphere of life. From small things like getting a passport or drivers' license. What kind of grades kids will get in kindergarten, to large things like the government appropriating and stealing billion dollar companies.
Corruption becomes a way of life and it spreads like a disease.
It is hard to describe how it feels. You know as corrupt as US is, one can at least have a little hope that the judicial system will work. At the end of the day if someone commits murder and they are caught, you know there will probably be a good trial. In these countries (at least where I am from), one can commit murder and then there is a price you pay to the prosecutor, police, judge to make it "go way".
If you start a business, and are very successful you might pop on the radar of the local mafia, who has members in the local government. They will ensure that your business has not "paid all the taxes" or that your immigration paperwork "was not in order" and kick you out of the country and take your business.
Going through life you see this. Colleagues in school who fail everything and don't do work are getting top grades in a final exam. You try to pass a drivers' exam and you are getting deliberately failed with hints that a bribe is necessary for you to pass and so on. That is very stressful and it something I am not used do and don't want to be used to. Others, on the contrary, thrive and prosper in that environment.
I won't claim to have done anywhere near enough research to know either way, but I have heard and read a lot of supposedly educated people say that trials now are extremely rare, primarily due to plea bargaining. I personally think that plea bargaining is a terrible idea in our current legal system.
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/03/burns...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
"shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988," "All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died" "The Fogarty report stated, "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that [Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down.""
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
"shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001" "Ukraine eventually admitted that the disaster was probably caused by an errant missile fired by its armed forces.[1] Ukraine ended up paying $15 million to surviving family members of 78 victims ($200,000 per victim)."
Anyway that's not the point, the point is that even if (people may still doubt) the rebels downed the plane, at worst they thought of it as of an Ukrainian military plane, ie they had no intention to kill noncombatants, it was definitely not an 'act of terrorism' as Ukrainian govt wants to paint it.
We do not even know who shot the plane down, but what we do know is that the captain who shot down the Iranian plane received medals and was promoted after the incident.
Have you read it?
It actually writes:
"The mass murder of passengers & crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 using Russian’s weapons and (most likely) by hands of Russian military squad exposed to the world that Russia is now complicit in committing crimes against humanity."
Now what do you think about proved US and Ukrainian plane shootings? Aren't they crimes?
Absolutely and it's unlikely that those incidents resulted in sanctions against those countries.
It just highlights how hypercritical the US, Ukraine and the rest of the international community are.
All three of these states commit crimes - none of them should be excused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(19...
"on February 3, 1998, near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites" "Twenty people died when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway." "the subsequent acquittal of the pilots, strained relations between the United States and Italy."
Or is this "just a human error"? Where to draw the line?
The three states are US, Ukraine and Russia.
What's your plan? How do you organize? How do you persuade people? How do you plan on gaining power peacefully?
> and progress so far proves that it's working.
What's your track record? How do you measure progress? This post-2006 Putin era can be just a temporary setback, but since he (and the Kremlin and the Duma) rolled back so many laws and principles, that it seems to be a seriously hard blow, very hard to stand up from for at least a generation to come, and when progress will happen, it'll be probably because of exogenous factors encouraged/forced it.
- There is a lack of motive (seriously why would he?)
- There is a lack of identity (if it were the Separatists, are they really controlled by Putin to that degree?)
- The murder weapon happens to also be in the hand of the Ukrainian army (19 systems, 3 of them stationed in the range of the crash site) [2]
- The Ukrainian air control obviously let the flight deviate quite a few kilometers of the "usual route" which goes south of Donetsk. [1]
- The lack of prosecution in the case of Maidan snipers (and evidence against the Ukrainian gov't as being behind it) and the Odessa fire.
I am not saying who it was or who it wasn't. I just state that I seriously doubt anyone who claims to know it right now.
[1] https://twitter.com/VagelisKarmiros/status/48992616773114265...
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/us-ukraine-crisis-... 2nd paragraph
It was most likely a mistake.
> There is a lack of identity (if it were the Separatists, are they really controlled by Putin to that degree?)
Top members of the rebels group, including the leader, are Russian citizens and former members of the FSB.
http://20committee.com/2014/07/19/donetsk-rebels-and-russian...
> The murder weapon happens to also be in the hand of the Ukrainian army (19 systems, 3 of them stationed in the range of the crash site) [2]
If the Ukrainians were responsible, why are the rebels trying to cover up all the traces and why are they interfering with the international investigation? (Also, the source you quote is from Russian media, which are inherently biased, much more so than the multiple other sources whose evidence points towards Russia-backed rebels)
Motive: The motive "mistake" is a motive that works for both sides.
Identity: The membership in the groups "Russian" and "former FSB" is at most an indication. "All former FSB members that are Russian shoot down passenger air planes" holds as much as "All Germans kill jews" and "All jews kill Palestinians"
Murder weapon: The thing is, I assume Western media is as biased as Russian media. The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should trust less.
This view is partially based on the WMD allegations in Iraq and the use of chemical weapons by Assad, both of which can be considered "false flags". Re Assad, see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-study...
Yes but as I said, if this was a mistake from the Ukrainian part, the rebels would have everything to gain to prove it. But all they seem to be doing right now is strongly interfere with the investigation.
> Identity: The membership in the groups "Russian" and "former FSB" is at most an indication. "All former FSB members that are Russian shoot down passenger air planes" holds as much as "All Germans kill jews" and "All jews kill Palestinians"
That's not the point that I made there. The most likely explanation is that it's a mistake. Russia gave the "separatists" (which are truly agents of the government) a sophisticated anti-air weapon. Someone used it against a plane, only they messed up and ended up shooting down a civilian airplane. I am pretty sure that the Kremlin is super pissed off that this happened. This doesn't change the fact that: the "separatists" are Russian agents (who are maybe a bit too much on the loose?) and that Russia gave them the weapon that lead to this mistake. I'm certainly not saying that Russia wanted this plane to be shot down (and that seems very unlikely, considering how much backlash they are facing now).
> The thing is, I assume Western media is as biased as Russian media. The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should trust less.
I would disagree. Of course, Western media are biased, but the bias they have is mostly done through capital (big media groups with ties to politicians). Russian media is a propaganda machine. Despite all the flaws of our Western countries, they are still less corrupted and less susceptible to propaganda than Russia.
> The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should trust less.
It's a sad thing but that's something to be expected of "general consumption" media. Of course they will paint Ukraine as the good guys and Russia as the bad guys because it serves their story. But that doesn't mean that Russia isn't the bad guy here, and most of the evidence points that way.
In particular in this plane crisis, it has to be said that neither the USA nor the EU want to be involved in Ukraine. A war over there would be yet another mess (like Yugoslavia was). So far the position of the EU and the USA has been fairly tame, but the fact that Russia was caught red-handed delivering weapons to wage their proxy war (and annex some new territory to "the Greater Russia", which is Putinism's ultimate goal), changes things, and the USA and the EU may have to get reluctantly involved if Russia doesn't back off. Considering that the USA and the EU don't have much to gain or to lose in Ukraine (because let's face it, Western people don't give a shit about the fate of the Ukrainians for the most part, as has been demonstrated by the previous very weak involvement during the riots; and due to the fact that Ukraine has very little to offer since they don't have any significant natural resources), I'd say that Western media (and in particular more specialized media you can find on the web written by analysts and not general purpose journalists) are much more likely to be trustworthy on this.
> This view is partially based on the WMD allegations in Iraq and the use of chemical weapons by Assad, both of which can be considered "false flags".
The WMD allegations were largely countered by many of the Western media (in particular in Europe). France refused to participate in that war.
PS: An interesting read: the AmA of a Ukrainian man who lives in a rebel controlled zone on Reddit yesterday: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2b72ir/iama_ukrainian_...
* Putin's approval is now at 86+%, an all-time high,
* and it's universal across socio-economic classes. A lot of young bright facebook-equipped software engineers are Putin's fans.
* even a lot of first-generation Russians in US absolutely love Putin, for the sense of belonging to a great empire which he gave them (finally someone stood up to evil America!)
* because of the above, any dissenter is basically a pariah
Just keep that in mind.
"The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs."
I would add that the western EU countries seem to have learned nothing from history. Trying to appease a country with ambitions to become an empire, that annexes neighboring countries -- let's see, haven't we seen that before?
So once again, please, stop blaming Russia, go on with your life, build better country for you to live in.
Ukrainian crisis is the result of building nationalistic state in the country with two different cultures, frequently incompatible. And also grave incompetence of the Ukrainian government leading to escalation of the conflict.
Poland and Baltic states - these countries are outright hostile toward Russia, yes, it has historical reasons. But now it's easier to trade and use economic power than to conquer and control territory. These countries are part of EU, and Russia will never - until forced - engage in any military confrontation with them.
From Ukrainian point of view, they are an independent country - which may, at different times, get into different unions with different partners.
So, Russian (actually, Russian government) point of view that any Ukrainian motion towards EU signals a threat to Russia doesn't justify Russian hostilities, because Ukraine is an independent country. And when Russia in turn decided to protect its perceived interests, it went against that independence - and all things associated with that.
The thing is, there is a handful of superpowers in the world, which dictate the geopolitical motions. A smaller country bordering a superpower can be friends with it, be strictly neutral (see Finland) or be friends with opposing superpowers (see Ukraine). The last scenario means you are asking for all sorts of shit to happen to you. It's not "good", but that's how things are.
Of course there is corruption, autocracy and alcoholism. It is there for several hundreds of years, and we have to deal with that. But situation is actually getting better with time. You can't change loves of millions of people in an instant.
Propaganda is an interesting point. In fact, I think it is not strong enough to counter the massive western information war against Russia. I read BBC and NY times regularly, and constantly notice biased and one-sided view.
I think that the author fall victim to the NY Times style propaganda articles about the evil Putin, connected it with his experience and decided to support it. I don'think it is a objective point of view and it does not describe reality.
That and, for what it's worth, I can see there being just as big of an incentive for Ukraine, as for Russia, to take down MH17. In fact, I found the immediate pinpointing of the blame on Russia to be strange. If they were the perpetrators, then they shot themselves in the foot. It's just a baffling and asinine strategic decision.
I was only saying that it wasn't intentional, there was no strategy behind it, so you can't really ask "What were they thinking" because they weren't. You knee-jerked yourself into oblivion.
Because I can't.
Whoever shot it down, obviously thought it was a military aircraft. They made a mistake.
If it's a mistake, it's not murder.
...maybe. The rest of the Ukrainian political elite is also fairly corrupt, actually. So I expect it to take a decade at the very least. See, for example, Romania and Bulgaria.
http://www.solonin.org/article_sbityiy-boing-medlenno-i-po http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/code/1362312-echo/ http://gordonua.com/publications/Belkovskiy-Vse-plany-Putina... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiZ43EunqvM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ludDRApl7nU
There are videos of transported missiles, intercepted calls, orders of obstructing access to crash site... John Kerry even says there is "Enormous amount of evidence" for that scenario. Still not 100% sure, but 99% yes.
But do they specifically incriminate one side?
So the reasonable thing to do now is to wait for ICAO verdict. Regardless of who actually hit the plane, Ukraine is still to blame for directing it to fly over the war zone.
Victim blaming at its best. Absolutely disgusting.
And your attempt to blame Ukraine is just pathetic.
Like a robber blaming the victim because he went his way.
While all deaths are deplorable being a world power means killing people you disagree with. And unlike the US of to a small but quickly growing extent China Russia lacks the geopolitical power to change the rules of the game.
But it's the US enemy, so I guess it's okay to write:
"The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs."
You could easily replace the word "Russian" with the N-word and post this article on some white power blog.