Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Sleepwalking Into Disaster: How US Establishment Lost Fear of Escalating Ukraine Crisis — Interviewing Vladimir Golstein

Censorship betrays weakness.
As is the case with all sorts of censorship, political in particular, it reveals the weakness of the censoring side.
Replaying the lead-up to WWI.
There is a well-known book by Christopher Clark on the history of the First World War called 'The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'. That’s exactly what we are facing now: sleepwalking politicians….
Prof. Goldstein also outlines the no-so-hidden agenda.
Unfortunately, militarism remains a very powerful magnet for a lot of people. Demonising Russia pays in all sorts of ways: it pays for the military industrial complex; it pays for the press that loves hysteria and black-and-white stories of the evil Russians and their innocent victims; it pays for the politicians who expect to ride and exploit this war of the Slavs for their own benefit; and last, but not least, it pays for the military strategists who know that taking on both Russia and China to reassert American supremacy is a complicated if not an impossible task, whereas starting with weakening Russia and gaining access to its resources is a much more reasonable undertaking. Consequently, too many people with access to power are interested in further escalation, in further expanding this proxy war.….
Sputnik International (Russian state-sponsored media)
Sleepwalking Into Disaster: How US Establishment Lost Fear of Escalating Ukraine Crisis
Sputnik interviews Vladimir Golstein, Associate Professor of Slavic Studies, Brown University
https://sputniknews.com/20220510/sleepwalking-into-disaster-how-us-establishment-lost-fear-of-escalating-ukraine-crisis-1095400659.html

Also at Sputnik

Lavrov Calls Borrell's Idea to Transfer Russia's Frozen Assets to Ukraine 'Theft'
https://sputniknews.com/20220510/lavrov-calls-borrells-idea-to-transfer-russias-frozen-assets-to-ukraine-theft-1095403184.html






7 comments:

Butch Busselle said...

https://sputniknews.com/20220510/sleepwalking-into-disaster-how-us-establishment-lost-fear-of-escalating-ukraine-crisis-1095400659.html

lastgreek said...

Let's not also forget the arrogance and overconfidence of the neoliberal fascist Putin believing that he was a strategic genius. A KGB weasel is what he'll always be.

No one seriously believed that Ukraine would ever join NATO. No one. An apt analogy would be like getting health insurance coverage in America if you had a serious, medical precondition. It ain't going to happen -- no serious, significant coverage... maybe for nail fungus but nothing serious. And that includes the neoliberal fascist Putin. But hey! Scream "neo-nazis!" and other absurd nonsense, like Ukraine is going to invade, and go for the land grab.

The Turks in their land-theft-planning preparations of Greek sovereign territory are watching closely. No surprise that the Turkish ambassador to Russia was at the Moscow parade.

And regarding the parade, what surprised me were the Russian tanks on display. Surprised they were able to spare any.

"Javelin Coffee pudding." Yeah, thinking of trademarking it :)

Peter Pan said...

I didn't seriously believe that Finland would join NATO, yet here we are?

Ahmed Fares said...

The Turks in their land-theft-planning preparations of Greek sovereign territory are watching closely.

Okay lastgreek, I'll bite. First, have a look at the map on this page of Kastellorizo. Note the red dot on the map. Also, note this:

Kastellorizo or Castellorizo (US: /ˌkɑːstəˈlɔːrɪzoʊ/;[2] Greek: Καστελλόριζο, romanized: Kastellórizo), officially Megisti (Μεγίστη Megísti), is a Greek island and municipality of the Dodecanese in the Eastern Mediterranean. It lies roughly 2 kilometres (1 mile) off the south coast of Turkey, about 570 km (354 mi) southeast of Athens...

Here, from another article:

Since the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, Greece has controlled almost all of the islands in the Aegean Sea. Most of these islands are uninhabited and considered to be rocks, stipulating no maritime rights for Greece according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).3 Other islands, such as the inhabited Kastellorizo, are up to two kilometers from Turkish shores and 570 kilometers from the Greek mainland.

According to Turkish national rhetoric, this ‘uneven’ geographical division of the islands leads Ankara to increase its demands in the sea, and in return, leads its counterpart to reject them. The recent dispute between the two neighbors takes media and aggressive political statements as tools to defend claims, the army and naval force as means of intimidation and pressure, and the international laws as references to proclaim rights.

Within the legal framework, the two parties disagree on four basic matters: territorial waters, EEZs, continental shelves and island rights. Only the latter will be focused on in this paper.

The main reason for this radical legal disagreement stems from the fact that Turkey, unlike Greece, is one of the few states that did not sign the UNCLOS, and therefore is not obliged to abide by its rules, but rather choose old treaties, conventions and international customs as legal references to proclaim rights in the Aegean Sea.


source: Turkish-Greek Geopolitical Dispute over the Aegean Sea and its Archipelago

So yeah, a complicated issue.

As an aside, and from an Islamic perspective, God owns everything and that means I don't recognize the claims of either Greece or Turkey to anything.

Ahmed Fares said...

In other news, Robin Brooks has been tweeting that Greek shipowners are increasing their share of oil tanker traffic from Russia as other countries cut back.

Growing awareness in policy circles that the Greek tanker fleet stepped up its oil shipments out of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Since war began, fraction of Greek ships lifting oil out of Russian ports is up to 53% on average, up from 39% pre-war. With...

Robin Brooks tweet

Greece, whose economy is heavily reliant on shipping, was among the member states that pushed the provision on exporting to third countries to be dropped from the EU’s sixth package of sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the people said. The lack of a single position among Group of Seven nations was central to the proposal being dropped.

Greek Shipowners Kill EU’s Russian Oil Tanker Ban

lastgreek said...

Want to be a shipping magnate like Aristotle Onassis? Try to buy a freight ships at a fraction of their cost. That is how he got started.

Peter Pan said...

Want to be a magnate? Change your name to Aristotle Onassis or Magnus O'Magnusson.

Change yer pronouns to Capt'n, My Lord/Lady, or Your Magnificence.