Biden’s Visit to Kiev – Russian-speaking Separatists Are Gangsters and Terrorists

6 Comments

1. 

   Marie2 on April 22, 2014 at 4:47 pm

   So the western backed/supported coup was a good thing?  Because there were Russia supporting thugs living among Ukrainians that heretofore had no need to declare an allegiance or display their true thugish nature?

   Oh well, Americans probably buy that the Ludlow massacre was perpetrated by union thugs and not anti-union Rockefeller mercenaries.

    

2. 

   Oui on April 22, 2014 at 6:21 pm

   From the news cycle – Kerry: Cold War diplomacy was ‘easier’ than today.

   Remarks at the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) Launch

   USAID ADMINISTRATOR SHAH: So let’s use this as an opportunity to elevate the role of diplomacy, the role of development, and the role America can play in a world that is, in fact, rapidly changing.

   Now, I have the opportunity to introduce Secretary Kerry in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department, so that’s – I’m not going to do a broad introduction here. But I will say one thing, and that is: The sheer force of Secretary Kerry’s example should inspire every person in this room today, and all of our colleagues at State, at AID, across our government, and in our diplomatic and development community, to be bolder, to be more aspirational, and to be more confident that in a world where people debate sometimes what America’s power looks like 10 or 20 years from now, if we do the right things today, if we follow Secretary Kerry’s bold aspirational leadership, we know that our efforts will collectively shape the kind of world we live in.

   So with that, Secretary Kerry. (Applause.)

   SECRETARY KERRY: Raj, thank you very much for the very, very generous introduction. And thanks for your leadership. Thank you to Deputy Secretary Higginbottom for her efforts to focus the QDDR and her leadership that will be forthcoming in the days ahead as we carry this out. And I particularly want to thank Congressman Tom Perriello for his commitment to public service …

   One of the lessons that I certainly drew from the Cold War, which I grew up in, from the early days when we would crouch under our desks at school and practice for possible nuclear war, to the incredible emotions we all experienced with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sort of formal demarcation point of the end of the Cold War, to the vast array of challenges that we face today as the world is witnessing this explosion of sectarianism, religious extremism, radical ideologies, and frankly too many failed states and failing states – a vast challenge to governance, sometimes even witnessed here in our nation’s capital. So we – all of us – need to be thinking hard about how we project power. But not power for the sake of power – power to achieve great goals, power to leverage values and to protect our interests. That’s what this is about.

   And I can’t help but think coming back to that lesson that I mentioned that during the Cold War, it actually – it may not have seemed so at the time, obviously, to great leaders, but it was easier than it is today – simpler is maybe a way to put it. The choices were less varied, less complicated, more stark, more clear: communism, democracy; West, East; the Iron Curtain, the great line of divide. And many things were subsumed and quashed by that force of that bipolar world.

   Today all you have to do is go back and look at the former Yugoslavia and see how Tito crushed all those forces that were released that led to what we saw in the Balkans and in Kosovo, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and so forth. Now we witness in the Middle East many forces unleashed – Sunni, Shia, other – Islamism, radical Islam, so forth. So we have to really navigate our way through this much more complicated world. And in order to do that in a world where change is coming at us much, much faster, whole populations that might have relied on written communication arriving at some point in time or perhaps just television now instantaneously are in touch with everybody in the world.

   And everybody’s aspirations are shared by everybody everywhere, all the time, 24/7, 365. That changes politics, believe me. I can tell you that based on 30-plus years of being elected. It’s tricky, a tricky world. And so the values that we stand for, we want obviously to be able to assert and do so in ways that are effective, not just feel-good, that are going to help get the job done.

    

   John Kerry is a Cold War Diplomat, Playing the Chessboard of Strategy and Risk

   The Embassy of Italy hosted a Digital Diplomacy Series forum, titled “Foreign Policy in Stereo: Power and Leadership in a World of States and People,” with Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter.

   “Traditional diplomacy is a chessboard. I was raised in the Cold War, and it was absolute epitome of chessboard, where there are two principle players.” She further explained the application of game theory in the world of traditional diplomacy. “It was a lot easier when the world was smaller, or when there were bigger blocs… John Kerry still plays this diplomacy–this chessboard diplomacy, chessboard strategy, chessboard geopolitics is still alive and well. It hasn’t gone away.”

   However, she mentioned that this is not the experience with diplomacy younger generations often have today. “If you were born in the 1990s, the normal relations would not be conflict, the normal relations would be connection. You would have grown up in a world of globalization. You would have grown up in the constant interconnectedness, where everybody was networked.” These networks have different fields, such as politics, business, civil society, criminals, and the individuals, but they all exist–from smaller units to gigantic organizations, she explained. “This world is not a chessboard; this world is ‘internet.’ Not as the actual “internet” but as a metaphor: the network of networks.” She argued that this is the new model of diplomacy today–all of these numerous networks intertwined among different actors–and in this diplomacy, chessboard strategy becomes useless.

   Russian Diplomats Are Eating America’s Lunch

   ○ Russia Hits Back at Biden: We Are Ready for ‘Unfriendly Steps’
   ○ Sanctions will make Russia stronger – Medvedev

   • 

     kafkananda on April 23, 2014 at 11:42 am

     How telling that our diplomats are campaign bundlers while the Russians use professional, experienced, dedicated diplomats. And it’s not just the Russians feasting on the Global Arrogance. The Iranian diplomatic  core is embracing the world with their Peace Train strategies.

     When the wikileaks diplomatic cables first came out, there was a flurry of interest. I started to randomly look at them. What I found was ominously interesting. The format of the cables is pretty straight forward. You have the routing and the acronyms of the departments and people at the top, a synopsis of the cable and then the full detailed report following. What I saw over and again was that after what would be the usual diplomatic business, a final paragraph, like a dark cloud, would start talking in a thug like manner, very unlike the usual diplomatic talk. Like a vanilla cake with a neocon frosting. Very creepy.  

3. 

   kafkananda on April 23, 2014 at 10:34 am

   I saw that youtube you had linked to before of ‘Tory’ Nuland at the Atlantic Council. Actually, I became a little nauseous and didn’t finish watching the whole thing. When she was described as a special assistant to Dick Cheney during the Iraq war period, enough said I thought.

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on April 24, 2014 at 12:57 pm

     Yet more evidence that the entire “Obama” thing is just a tablecloth spread over a still-filthy table. As if more evidence might be needed after the spectacle of U.S. economic thieves like Jamie Dimon being appointed to guard the door against further theft.

     AG

4. 

   Oui on April 24, 2014 at 6:49 am

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   Ukraine: “Anti-Terrorism” Campaigns Follow Visits From U.S.   @ Moon of Alabama

   On April 12 CIA Director Brennan held talks with the coup government in Kiev, Ukraine.

   On April 13 the coup government launched an “anti-terrorism” campaign against opposition forces in east Ukraine.

   That did not go well.

   On April 22 Vice President Biden held talks with the coup government in Kiev, Ukraine.

   On April 23 the coup government relaunched an “anti-terrorism” campaign against opposition forces in east Ukraine.  

   ○ Slavyansk: Defenders killed by Ukrainian troops as civil war looms

   BREAKING NEWS: KIEV AUTHORITIES A ‘JUNTA’
   Vladimir Putin considers a military operation undertaken by authorities in Kiev against anti-government protesters in eastern Ukraine a crime, according to statement the president made at All-Russia People’s Front media forum.