Ukraine Presidential Crackdown Violence. Russia Invades Ukraine

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

How delightfully naive. The whole world does not think the same way as a 20 something year old North American does.

Meh. With the availability of technology, ideas and collaborations are more easily shared on a global level. It seems that the catalyst was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009; we have seen social revolutions using technology to spread the word in several areas around the world including Libya and Egypt, amongst others.

You can disagree with me and call me naive, that's cool. You're entitled to your opinion.

[CaptainCrunch]

That's a long flight to hit the Ukraine, you'd have to either bend around China in a southerly route and then be aware that you can't fly over Iran. Its probably going to be close to a 8 to 9 thousand mile flight one way since a direct flight over china is about 6500 miles.

You would need to have between 2 to 3 mid flight refueling, With its cruising speed of 650 mph, you'be be thinking for a flight there and back that it would be a 24 hour in the air sortie, far short of the record 35, but this wouldn't be a one off mission. It would be murderous to the pilots and the planes.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Muta

God I hope not, and I don't think it will be. In the age of social revolutions through the use of technology, instantaneous access to information and a world that continues to get smaller and smaller through communications / checks / balances, I think mentality towards conflict and war will have a shrinking presence. But that's just my opinion.

The realities of leadership destroy the idealism of youth. when people transition from the whole theoretical when my generation gets into power we'll find a different way and peace will reign and doves will fly etc is soon forgotten because some times as a leader you have to go to war.

[IgiTang]

The US could simply fly out of FOAB out of Afganistan or Turkey. Too easy. Especially if Georgia is at all in danger. I assure you Georgia will open its airspace.

A major concern for me in this is Russia hitting the Americans from inside the US.. Then this could get real ugly. And Putin appears to be ballsy enough to try it.

[CaptainCrunch]

Yeah, I would agree, but that should have been an awefully big stick that the American's could have waved by now, ie "We've deployed B-52's to Turkey" Its the same as announcing that your sending a submarine into a ocean, it makes a side take pause at a new and uncalculated threat.

As far as attacking American's from the inside ie Terrorism.

I'm not sure from an American Psyche that that would be a good idea. American's would react differently to that as opposed to a conventional battle.

I also believe that American's have defined a nation state sponsored terrorism attack as being on an equivalent level to an attack on American with a wmd.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The realities of leadership destroy the idealism of youth. when people transition from the whole theoretical when my generation gets into power we'll find a different way and peace will reign and doves will fly etc is soon forgotten because some times as a leader you have to go to war.

Not saying war is unnecessary; sometimes it is. I can see this mentality becoming less prevalent as we socially evolve, however.

A good person to ask about this would be Ozy_Flame; I believe he mentioned once he wrote his thesis in social media collaboration from a political angle.

[nik-]

All I know is that if there's a nuclear holocaust, I wanna die in the initial blast.

[Puppet Guy]

Originally Posted by nik-

All I know is that if there's a nuclear holocaust, I wanna die in the initial blast.

exactly. When I rewatched The Day After last year, it was as a period piece, not a look into the future.

[nik-]

peace pinkos

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A2G0RF20140317

[FlamesAddiction]

Putin cites Kosovo as legal grounds to partition Ukraine.

Kosovo was/is in the heartland of historical Serbian territory. During its time under Ottoman occupation, it went through a period of colonization comparable to the "Rusification" of former USSR states (i.e., ethnic resettlement and deportation). There was a violent and orchestrated demographic shift to favour the occupiers.

The "West" (i.e., most of NATO and the EU) decided that the current demographics of the region warranted partitioning Serbia despite the fact the fact that Kosovo was legally Serbia.

I realize that there were a lot of security/humanitarian issues at the time that are not present in Crimea and the situation was a lot more volatile, but if you keep it as simple as foreign military intervention and partitioning of a nation state, I think there are a lot of similarities. At the time, Russia in fact warned that they would consider it a precedent (although they are just as hypocritical here because they do not recognize Kosovo).

Edit: Sorry, this is why I thought that it was relevant:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patr...sovo-precedent

Putin is trying to use it as justification.

[IgiTang]

im having issues getting Nik's Reuters article to load. Anyone else? Could someone post the meat and potatos of it?

NM, got it to load finally.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Confirmed during voting day. There was no option to vote for "No". i.e. no possible way for the Crimeans to vote to stay with Ukraine and not separate; the only two choices were join Russia or separate from Ukraine. No wonder the response rate was 96% and all the opposition chose to boycott the vote. This is some real Soviet style election right here.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26601487
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4947557.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...le-choice.html

Knowing you have your cities and streets full of armed military personnel can sure motivate people to vote as well....

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Muta

Meh. With the availability of technology, ideas and collaborations are more easily shared on a global level. It seems that the catalyst was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009; we have seen social revolutions using technology to spread the word in several areas around the world including Libya and Egypt, amongst others.

You can disagree with me and call me naive, that's cool. You're entitled to your opinion.

Naïveté also involves seeing english speaking people agreeing on things and deciding everyone thinks that way and collaborations are shared at a global level.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

Naïveté also involves seeing english speaking people agreeing on things and deciding everyone thinks that way and collaborations are shared at a global level.

Is that what you think I'm doing? LOL.

Most of the social revolutions over the last five years have occurred in countries that are not pre-dominantly English; yet, the pursuit of social change and political reform has been the same geographically regardless of what I think you are classifying as 'western thought'.

But hey, call it naive.

[FlameOn]

Russia has announced today that they will sanction US senators in retaliation for EU and US sanctions against Putin backing Duma members.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...officials.html

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Muta

Most of the social revolutions over the last five years have occurred in countries that are not pre-dominantly English; yet, the pursuit of social change and political reform has been the same geographically regardless of what I think you are classifying as 'western thought'.

But hey, call it naive.

Naïveté means thinking technology, social media, and collaboration at the global level means anything to the people who don't use it. Whining on the internet rarely accomplishes real change.

The people with the power, guns, and money don't give a #### about what twitter thinks of them. Look at what the end result was in Iran, Syria, and Egypt, and to bring this back to the main topic, Ukraine. In the end, the jerks with the guns won.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

Naïveté means thinking technology, social media, and collaboration at the global level means anything to the people who don't use it. Whining on the internet rarely accomplishes real change.

The people with the power, guns, and money don't give a #### about what twitter thinks of them. Look at what the end result was in Iran, Syria, and Egypt, and to bring this back to the main topic, Ukraine. In the end, the jerks with the guns won.

Not only that but your going to start seeing a manipulation of social media by governments, China already has an entire section of their government that seeds Twitter for example.

[Delthefunky]

President Putin signs a treaty to accept the "Republic of Crimea" into the Russian Federation (no article yet, but in the live text)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26630062

[nik-]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Russia has announced today that they will sanction US senators in retaliation for EU and US sanctions against Putin backing Duma members.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...officials.html

oh, darn

[Pointman]

I am kinda glad Russia did not receive any penalties for doing this, however it is very sad for the sake of the world. I wonder if Japan will conquer Kuril Islands now, we probably won't go into the war with Japan over it.