Point of view. A look from the other side.

I wasn't asking "Why is the UK accusing Russia of launching a nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, and what is the evidence?" That was the name of the article I posted. If you had clicked on it you would have seen it was a hyperlink. Have you guys not mastered hyperlinks in Russia? No wonder you guys are so brainwashed. You don't even know how to click on a link.

 

In soviet Russia, link click you!

 

It is the same. Russian media is state controlled - meaningless.

 

I didn't say any ot that.

Probably true and that is fine with me.

 

Here's the kind of twisted propaganda the Russian people are fed: this is the English-language version of The Moscow News, its article on the Skripal poisoning: here. If this is the only thing Russians are allowed to read, no wonder they believe such nonsense. Of course, if this Russian newspaper dared to publish anything like The Truth (as we actually do get to read in the West) they would all be gunned down in the streets.

 

For those wanting to be informed about Russia, but who do not read Russian, this source is a good place to start.

 

Here, a very bright way to check for brainwashing. Nemtsov was no one needed political loser, which everyone forgot. And his murder had no meaning whatsoever for the Kremlin. But his murder was VERY profitable for the West for Putin's accusation.

Cui prodest?

 

All just a big coincidence, right?

 

There are two different things which get mixed up when discussing Russia.

(1) The assertion that Russia today is not just another European country, perhaps somewhat more authoritarian than we would like.

There is a strong trend towards nationalistic authoritarianism in some Eastern European countries today, notably Poland and especially Hungary, and also in Turkey, driven by various forces. And some of the former Soviet countries never became very democratic, namely, Belorussia and the 'stans. We also saw this in Serbia. Although some of the same forces are in play in Russia there is no doubt, in my mind at least, that the situation there is qualitatively worse than, say, in Poland or Hungary at the moment.

The rule of law is very weak, the power of the oligarchs very great, and it's dangerous to be an outspoken liberal, especially one who focusses on corruption, or who openly opposes Russian military operations. (Anyone who is familiar with the recent history of Latin America will recognize the situation, although there it's usually Leftists who are murdered or disappeared, except in Venezuela, where non-Leftists are being repressed.)

(2) The assertion that every murder, in Russia or abroad, of dissidents or ex-spies, is under the direct orders of Vladimir Putin.

It would actually be better if assertion (2) were true, that is, if Putin really had control over all the hit-men in Russia. He's a rational person, and he could see that these murders are actually counter-productive to his aim of getting Russia accepted as just another, perhaps authoritarian, power. The West is perfectly happy dealing with such regimes ... perhaps our leaders would prefer that all nations were like Switzerland, but they're quite happy dealing with governments who torture, murder, and 'disappear' troublemakers, or which preside over systems where this happens ... in fact, they've put in a few such governments themselves and removed ones which didn't do such things, when it suited their interests.

So if Putin could flip a switch and turn off the killing of dissidents and journalists ... he would have a lot of incentive to do that. Not because he's a nice guy, but because he wants sanctions against Russia and his billionaire friends lifted.

My guess, is that he can't. Or can to only a limited degree.

Oh well ... within five or ten years, the Chinese economy will be larger than the American. Within some time period after that, so will their military.

We'll watch as nations turn away from the now-weaker horse and orient towards the strong horse. Russia will watch as more and more Chinese cross the Amur River to settle in that part of Siberia that Russia took away from China not so long ago (as the Chinese reckon time), and maybe in other sections as well. That is, if they can take their eyes off the Muslim parts of the Russian Federation, which may become .... lively.

And the Americans can watch while the Chinese build a new canal across Central America, and maybe defend it with a couple of divisions of troops. Then maybe we'll stop yelling at each other.

 

It's funny, but the biggest increase in votes for Putin abroad was ... in the UK In the last elections in London, only 27.7% of Russians voted for Putin. This year - 51.7% That's what anti-Russian propaganda is doing!

 

Some voters in the past elections

 

Yesterday in Kemerovo in the shopping and entertainment center there was a fire. There were more than a hundred people killed and missing. Half of them are children. It turned out to be a very loud case, which can have far-reaching political consequences. In the USSR, there were strict fire regulations. When the capitalism came in the 1990s, everyone began to give a damn about fire regulations. And the services that need to control fire safety have turned into a form of racket. Instead of real fire safety checks, they simply took bribes and signed all the necessary documents. About 10 years ago, they began to fight against such a small racket against small and medium-sized businesses. And a few years ago, a moratorium on fire checks was introduced. Now the owner himself is responsible for fire safety. And here is the result. A fire started. Fire-fighting systems do not work. The fire alarm does not work. Emergency fire exits are closed. In many rooms these outlets simply do not exist. A large group of children was trapped in the cinema and could not get out. Rescuers have still not been able to break into this cinema and formally the children are considered missing, but there is no chance of their salvation. Imagine this horror of parents when children call them, say goodbye, they say they are locked up, can not get out, smoke around and that they are likely to perish ...

I think, after this event, we must regain the state control over fire safety. And the opposition will again shout about the infringement of the rights of business and the concentration of power in Putin's hands. I understand when Ukrainians are shouting about this. Many of them yesterday really rejoiced and celebrated - "Hurray! A bit more Russian offspring burned - this is revenge for you for the Crimea, Donbass and Syria." But when the Russian liberal opposition begins to conduct its PR on such tragedies, it is disgusting. Yesterday there were already many such statements, for which it will further lose the already negligible support of the people ...

It's disgusting.

 

Now against the backdrop of the tragedy in Kemerovo, someone is actively trying to shake the situation through social networks according to the scenarios of Egypt / Libya / Syria / Ukraine. A huge number of informational bogus stories, direct deception, accusations of the authorities in concealing the scale of the tragedy, appeals for going to the streets to protest rallies. When viewed from the side, the coordination of the information attack is clearly visible. These are hundreds of identical messages in a variety of social networks and instant messengers. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram - everything is full today with this war. And it really affects people

 

Humankind has gone mad, and our days are numbered.

 

" the Soviet ambassador to Paris to him and informed him of the possibility of a nuclear war. "Then we will all die together," the ambassador answered."

And the acronym MAD was coined? Ah well, que sera sera.

 

I am sorry about what happened in Kemerovo but let's be honest. Putin doesn't give two ****s. He's not going to do anything to improve compliance with fire regulations because he just doesn't care. The man is worth $90 million. He's probably one of the many taking bribes.

 

Also in the states the owner his held responsible for fire deaths on his/her property under certain circumstances. What kind of ass backward country doesn't have that law? Oh right. Russia.

 

This will be of interest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/world/europe/russia-kemerovo-fire.html

I would be interested in the issue of fire and other safety problems in the Soviet Union and how they were dealt with. I do know that for some period ... and perhaps this changed ... disasters were just covered up. Not possible now, of course.

The US has had many similar tragedies. The UK just had, two years ago, a terrible fire in a public housing tower block. Of course, political obsessives try to make hay with such things, and they may not be entirely wrong, depending on the case. And no doubt all governments are now using the internet as a weapon of propaganda war against each other.

Let's hope the Russians ignore anyone trying to make trouble with this, have a hard look at questions of public safety and do the right thing. I doubt very much that Putin, whatever his character, is indifferent to the deaths of Russian children. There are no doubt people who are, though.

Question: what proof is there that Ukrainians rejoiced in the incineration of Russian children? I would be grateful for links to anything proving this. I frankly don't believe it.

 

Only the "entire planet" believes in such accusations.

We have nothing to prove to you. No further time to waste playing games with you.

We have the opinion you are guilty.
You will have to live with the consequences of our opinions.


We are not blind but we are deaf.
Bleat on, no one trusts your words enough to listen to them.
After you have made your bed, you get to sleep in it.

 

Russia didn't have anything to do with Hil's loss.

Hil lost, as hard as it is to believe, because she was a bigger POS than Trump. You can't blame Hil's loss of a few, lousy Russian online trolls.



Guns, freedom and not wanting to support the baby murdering Dems was the issue, not Russian Trolls. A vote for Hil is a vote for gun confiscation ...plain and simple.

 

I got confused in dozens of topics in three American forums on the American attack on Syria. Therefore, I will continue traditionally in this topic

...

An interesting version of such a high effectiveness of air defense and a divergence in the stated targets of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defense appeared. Americans have long been preparing for strikes against Syrian airfields. And so the cruise missiles had in advance developed routes for such attacks. Therefore, when new targets suddenly appeared, the routes to them were developed not from scratch, but as a continuation of already existing ones. This provided a series of approaches to the Syrian airbases and further on to new targets. But the Syrian air bases had air defense. And so anti-aircraft complexes shot down cruise missiles flying past like on exercises with high efficiency and without risk of defeat. At the same time, it seemed to the Syrian and Russian military that the air bases were the target of the strike - the missiles flew to them.

 

I think that what the Russians don't understand about the US, and its allies, is that we are very moral, principled people.

Using poison gas, especially against civilians, is wrong, and is against international law.

So when a regime uses it, we are morally, legally, obligated to punish that regime.

For instance, there was a nasty, brutal, secular regime in the Middle East -- actually, from the same political party that now rules Syria -- who used poison gas openly, and extensively, in its war with Muslim fundamentalists, whose country the nasty secular regime had invaded.

The US did not have diplomatic relations with this regime. (It was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, in case you haven't guessed) Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that one) visited this country in February 1984. After his visit, this nasty regime added the nerve agent tabun to its arsenal, and used it, along with the mustard gas they had already been using.


The American response was somewhat slow, but decisive!

In November 1984, we restored diplomatic relations with this awful murderous government.

And then this horrible regime used gas against the Kurds in March of 1988, killing several thousand, repeat thousand, men, women and children.

We responded quickly to this atrocity .... by invading Iraq fifteen years later (things move slowly in Washington, you know how these bureacrats are).

We were going to find those Weapons of Mass Destruction and destroy them, by golly!

But imagine our surprise! Gee whiz, we couldn't find any!!! What a clever dictator that fellow was ... he'd made them invisible! Or maybe he had shipped them all to Syria!!! Yes, that's it!!! They went to Syria where they're being used now!!!

Whoa, bad move, Assad.... just study our history, and you'll see how we respond when Ba'athist dictators use poison gas against their enemies!!! ... What ... you say, you want to have diplomatic relations restored, like we did in Iraq after your pal Hussein used poison gas?

Oh ... but that was different. Hussein was fighting Shia Holy Warriors, and you're fighting Sunni Holy Warriors, and Americans and British and French people are Sunnis ... or something.

Anyway, I'm sure our governments are very very righteous and whatever they do is moral and just.

 

If we believe the statements of the Pentagon, it got here 76 cruise missiles.

 

What our leaders don't seem to understand, is that things done by, or approved by, 'Russians', may not have the approval, or even prior knowledge, of Putin.

They know how their own governments work, and assume that this is how the Russian government works. Or, it may be that they got used to the previous Russian government, the Soviet Union, where things really were run from the center, and assume that the current Russian government is just a continuation of the Soviet one.

But what if what happens in Russia is the outcome of processes that are very different from both the previous Soviet regime, and the governments of the West?

Here are two plausible commentaries on how the Russian regime works, and what motivates Putin: well worth watching.

I think the thesis of the second video is extremely plausible. The first one seems likely, but there may be more to an explanation of 'how Russia works' than the explanation offered in it. For one thing, it doesn't mention 'popular opinion', and how people feel about the collapse of the USSR, and events in the last twenty five years, which the second video does touch on.

The first one.

The second one.


The