gmat
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August 30, 2014, 06:50:11 PM |
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This sounds like an invitation to the peacekeeping mission |
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Nemo1024
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August 30, 2014, 08:18:42 PM |
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‘United Continent’: European volunteers fighting Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine http://rt.com/news/183864-ukraine-european-volunteers-fighting/European volunteers are streaming into Ukraine to join the fighting on both sides. While Kiev’s forces are beefed up with mercenaries from private military companies, Europeans have also come to defend the rebel Donbass region of their own free will.
One of the latest reinforcements of anti-Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine are four French ex-serviceman who have come to fight this war, thousands of kilometers from home.
“It’s our war. It’s everybody’s war, it’s every European’s war,” Guillaume, a French fighter in Ukraine defending the Donbass region, told RT’s Paula Slier.
...
“These are people’s militias, these are not mercenaries or professional soldiers, so they need instruction,” Nikola told RT.
“They really have the motivation, whereas the Kiev army, which is a kind of puppet of NATO, they don’t have any motivation whatsoever,” Nikola said. “We have seen them before. They are very much unmotivated and they do not really know why they are fighting, and against whom they are fighting, so that is our main strength.” Also: After the UN Security Council on Thursday blocked Russia’s statement calling for a ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine under a completely frivolous pretext, Russia's envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin had a heated debate with colleagues from the US and Ukraine, who again accused Russia of a full-scale invasion as a large number of Russian volunteers are fighting in Ukraine.
Vitaly Churkin fired back, saying that nobody ever tried to hide the presence of Russian volunteers, urging Washington to acknowledge the presence of US advisers in Kiev and why mercenaries from private military companies are waging war in Ukraine.
“Maybe our American colleagues can tell us what tens of American advisers are busy with in the headquarters of National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine [in Kiev]? Let them tell us how many American mercenaries from the so-called “security provider” companies are fighting [in Ukraine], thousands of kilometers from their home ground?” demanded Churkin, not forgetting to mention first-rate US-made armaments observed in Ukrainian units. |
“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
“It is important to fight and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated.”
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Pagan
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August 30, 2014, 08:29:50 PM |
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MERKEL, UKRAINE AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR
When Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Wehrmacht swept through Ukraine with only little resistance from the Soviet Army, which had been severely weakened by Stalin’s purges and military incompetence. In their wake followed SS and the Einzatsgruppen, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians either because they were Jews or Communists or “sub-humans” such as mentally ill and mentally handicapped. Ukraine suffered heavily during the Second World War, probably most of all Soviet republics.
Yet interestingly, the tragedy of the Second World War is generally only connected to the suffering of Russia, and time and again used as an argument to explain why the country feels “threatened” and “in self-defense” feels the need to invade neighbouring countries and set up puppet states. And this explanation, however false, is echoed by many in the West: we have to understand the Russians, they have suffered so much, they had Napoleon and Hitler, you need to give them a break and stop judging, they are just different.
Of course the argument is a completely faulty one. First of all, Russia itself is an imperium that has been created by conquest and subjugating other nations. Some of them, notably Siberian people,did not survive the onslaught and are extinct. Others are still recovering from decades of intense Russification. Also, many of the deaths during the Second World War are the result of decision of the “Genius” Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, who was not such a genius at all but who just didn’t care for one minute whether 10,000, 100,000 or a million people would die. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers died in the Finno-Russian war for… nothing. The argument was used in Soviet times and it was faulty, and it is faulty now again. Russia is an aggressor and has a long history of aggression.
What is very peculiar right now is that the Second World War is again used in relation to the Ukrainian-Russian war. We need to understand Russia, because it feels challenged and it suffered so much during the Second World War. It is one of the explanations why Germany is so meek towards Russia: the guilt issue plays a major role: we Germans are still in “pay back time” because of past horrors.
But what about Ukraine? Is there no “pay back time” when Ukraine is concerned?
How is it explainable that exactly on August 23, to the day 75 years after the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact which carved up Europe between two dictators and caused so much suffering, Chancellor Merkel urges Ukrainian President Poroshenko to compromise, adding that the country still has the possibility to join Putin’s Eurasian Union. Asif he ever indicated that wish, and while knowing that Yanukovich’ decision to do so was exactly the reason why the Maidan movement started!
Somehow the sense of guilt does not result in a special “German approach” towards Ukraine and an extra urge to help the country to defend itself against an external aggressor. Somehow Merkel doesn’t think in the case of Ukraine that past suffering by the its people makes it more urgent to help them at the moment when another aggressor (and not ”just an aggressor” but the legal heir to the same Soviet Union with which her country carved up Europe 75 yearsago) invades its neighbor like a thief in the night.
As the heir of a formerly totalitarian country that caused so much suffering in this region, she should in fact be particularly sensitive to the needs of Ukraine, a country that stands up against it’s dictatorial neighbor that thinks it can just carve out pieces of land in complete violation of all international laws and agreements that shaped the post WW2 period.
It is a shame she isn’t. Maybe somebody should give her a wake-up-call.
Robert van Voren
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Struggle against fake information about events in Ukraine.
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Nemo1024
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August 30, 2014, 08:35:12 PM |
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Poroshenko comes with a "peace plan" again: http://en.ria.ru/politics/20140830/192487022/Poroshenko-Determined-His-Peace-Plan-Can-Stop-Conflict-in.htmlFrom prior experience it means that more vicious and bloody warfare on the civilians will follow shortly. PS: Interesting to see the cloud of most popular tags on RIA: "Ukraine" and "United States" are on top, followed at some distance by "Russia" and "EU" and then by "Iraq". |
“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
“It is important to fight and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated.”
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gmat
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August 30, 2014, 08:52:57 PM |
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as the Russians kill them and steal, if you wonder they are fighting for their? |
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DarkForces
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August 30, 2014, 09:36:19 PM |
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Ah, russia, such a beautiful place, where they send your sons into the meatgrinder and then brutalize you further when you ask what has become of your children. They truly carry on the best traditions of their Mongol conquerers. They can't seem to beat any Asiatic power. They also lost to Japan in 1905:  |
I shot Reagan- I shot the Pope.
I shot the Devil- there ain't NO HOPE!
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Pagan
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August 30, 2014, 09:51:51 PM |
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You want to know why the Russian army behave like animals in Ukraine and torture innocents....because they're subject to sick hazing rituals as new recruits within their own army. It's a sick, psychotic culture filled with beatings, torture and rape. http://www.vice.com/read/full-v13n4also > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina
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StopFake.org
Struggle against fake information about events in Ukraine.
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myshownow
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August 30, 2014, 10:05:55 PM |
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Following was extracted from Zerohedge.com, from the American alternative press. BTW, if you want to know the real truth, don't go to the American mainstream press, seek your info from financial investment newsletters because they give there the actual happenings, not the spin, so that their investors will have a more solid basis for their decisions. Zerohedge started as a financial newsletter, which became a blog, which turned into what it is now, the biggest of its kind in the net.
Putin Says Everything U.S. Touches Turns Out Like Libya Or Iraq
Having been quiet for a few days, comfortable sitting back and watching NATO, Europe, and the US escalate each other's talking points to a frenzy of populist revolt, Russia's Vladimir Putin has come out swinging this morning:
*PUTIN: NO MATTER WHAT U.S. DOES, IT TURNS OUT LIKE LIBYA, IRAQ
*PUTIN SAYS UN CAN'T BE FOREIGN POLICY TOOL FOR U.S., ALLIES
*PUTIN: EUROPEAN LEADERS FAR FROM SHOWING INDEPENDENT THINKING
*PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA IS COUNTRY THAT DOESN'T FEAR ANYTHING
In addition to discussions of The Bolsheviks, agreeing Stalin was a tyrant, and slamming liberal economic models for creating crises, Putin notes his approval rating is high because "he is confident he's right."
Some more fun soundbites:
*PUTIN SAYS BOLSHEVIKS BETRAYED NATIONAL INTERESTS IN WWI
*PUTIN SAYS UNFORTUNATELY SUCH PEOPLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
*PUTIN SAYS LIBERAL ECONOMIC MODEL LEADS TO BUILDUP OF CRISES
*PUTIN SAYS NOBODY DENIES STALIN WAS A TYRANT
*PUTIN SAYS LEADERS WIN SUPPORT BY BEING CONFIDENT THEY'RE RIGHT
*PUTIN: FIGHTS AT UN SOMETIMES FIERCER THAN DURING COLD WAR
*PUTIN SAYS UNITED NATIONS NOT ALWAYS EFFECTIVE
And perhaps of most note... just as Obama pronounced yesterday that US would not engage militarily:
*PUTIN: RUSSIA FAR AWAY FROM BEING SUCKED IN GLOBAL CONFLICT
But...
*PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA IS NUCLEAR POWER, STRENGTHENING CAPABILITIES
*PUTIN: RUSSIA STRENGTHENS ARSENAL TO FEEL SAFE, NOT THREATEN
*PUTIN: DON'T THINK ANYONE SEEKS LARGE-SCALE CONFLICT W/ RUSSIA
* * *
So - just like the Cold War - military build-up on either side and constant escalation in tensions...
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myshownow
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August 30, 2014, 10:09:17 PM |
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Another article from Zerohedge:
Summarizing The West's Russia-Ukraine Propaganda
With regard to the goings-on in Ukraine, I have heard quite a few European and American voices piping in, saying that, yes, Washington and Kiev are fabricating an entirely fictional version of events for propaganda purposes, but then so are the Russians. They appear to assume that if their corporate media is infested with mendacious, incompetent buffoons who are only too happy to repeat the party line, then the Russians must be same or worse.
The reality is quite different. While there is a virtual news blackout with regard to Ukraine in the West, with little being shown beyond pictures of talking heads in Washington and Kiev, the media coverage in Russia is relentless, with daily bulletins describing troop movements, up-to-date maps of the conflict zones, and lots of eye-witness testimony, commentary and analysis. There is also a lively rumor mill on Russian and international social networks, which I tend to disregard because it's mostly just that: rumor. In this environment, those who would attempt to fabricate a fictional narrative, as the officials in Washington and Kiev attempt to do, do not survive very long.
There is a great deal to say on the subject, but here I want to limit myself to rectifying some really, really basic misconceptions that Washington has attempted to impose on you via its various corporate media mouthpieces.
1. They would like you to think that there is a Russian invasion in the East of Ukraine. What's actually happening is a civil war between the government of Western Ukraine (which no longer rules the east in any definable way) and the Russian population of Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has been falling apart for decades—ever since independence. The eventual break-up was inevitable, but the catalyst for it was the military overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate government and its replacement with cadres hand-picked in Washington.
2. They would like you to think that the Russian government stands behind Lugansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic—the two regions which, based on referendum results, have chosen to break away from Kiev. In fact, the Russian government has refused to recognize these republics. They have received no official political support from Moscow, which asked for the referendums to be postponed, and repeatedly asked for a cease-fire and an international, negotiated settlement to the crisis. The leadership of LPR and DPR has refused, and now aims for an outright military victory.
3. They would like you to believe that the Russian government is arming the “rebels” in Eastern Ukraine. To the contrary, the Russian government has withheld all military support, limiting itself to providing humanitarian supplies to the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been destroyed by artillery and rocket fire coming from the Ukrainian forces. The weapons in the “rebels'” arsenal are trophies, which they seized from the retreating Ukrainian forces. That said, the “rebels” are indeed being supported—but by the Russian people, not the Russian government. Remember, these are all Russians, on both sides of the border, and the Ukrainian government no longer controls any of it.
4. They want to convince you that Russia poses a threat to peace in Europe, and that the crisis in Ukraine is part of an imperialist Russian strategy to resurrect the USSR. Nothing could be further from the truth. The overarching Russian ambition is for Russia to be a normal country, subject of international law, at peace with the whole world, and integrated into the global economy. The Russian government is doing next to nothing to prevent Russians in areas that were once part of Russia from being slaughtered right in their homes using artillery and rocket fire. This makes for a distressing spectacle, but the Russian people understand that enlarging the military conflict beyond the by now purely notional borders of Ukraine is not the answer.
5. They want to assure you that Kiev will eventually prevail in the conflict. In fact, the Ukrainian military is being systematically destroyed. Shelling civilians is the only activity which they have been able to carry out successfully. The government in Kiev has instituted three mobilizations, one after the other, sending into battle boys and old men (maximum draft age is now 60). Their soldiers are badly armed, badly trained, completely demoralized, and they mostly refuse to fight. The casualties run into the tens of thousands. Ukraine is quickly running out of tanks and APCs, which are all old Soviet-era and have been rusting for decades. It appears that Ukraine no longer has an air force at all. The war is far from over, but now, for the first time, LPR and DPR actually have something resembling an army, and that army is going on attack. Once the Ukrainian military collapses altogether, it seems likely that other parts of Ukraine will declare independence from Kiev.
6. They want you to think that the government in Kiev is legitimate, popular and stable. In fact, there are huge protests going on in Kiev at this very moment. The entire country is beyond bankrupt and is falling apart in real time, not just in the east, but everywhere. The people are beyond angry. The military units retreating from the east are in a foul mood, and may soon decide to turn their weapons against those who ordered them into battle. The people are beyond angry, and it seems probable that another revolution, only half a year since the last one, is in the works.
I hope that you can absorb this basic information and use it to filter out the propaganda that you read in Western newspapers and hear on the nightly news (if they mention Ukraine at all). Don't automatically assume that if your side is full of it, then the other side is too. You don't have to settle for lies.
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niothor
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August 30, 2014, 10:28:20 PM |
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If you check that link then you will see that most of people there died during 1st and 2nd Chechen war. Terrorists capture people. It is not about freedom of speech, you need to get your facts right. GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT. The page says combined deaths not only Chechen conflicts. For example... 1 February - Sergei Dubov, director of Novoye vremya publishing house, Moscow. Shot in contract killing.[59] Homicide [nJ]. 26 April - Andrei Aidzerdzis, Duma deputy and publisher. Shot in contract killing, in Khimki near Moscow.[60] Homicide [nJ]. 15 June - Yury Soltys, Interfax journalist and editor. Beaten to death in Moscow Region.[61] Homicide [?J]. 15 October - Tatyana Zhuravlyova and husband, media workers, Komsomolskaya pravda (Samara bureau). Killed in Voronezh Region while driving their car in the country.[62] Homicide. [nJ]. 17 July - Yelena Roshchina, chief editor of children's newspaper, Ivanovo. Murdered in her flat.[63] Homicide. The gang who killed her were tried and convicted in 2000 [nJ]. 17 October - Dmitry Kholodov, military correspondent of the Moskovskii Komsomolets newspaper, was killed in Moscow when a booby-trapped briefcase he had collected from a railway station locker exploded in his newspaper's offices.[64] Homicide. Kholodov's alleged killers were tried and twice acquitted, in 2002 and in 2004 [J]. 17 February - Vyacheslav Rudnev, freelance journalist, Kaluga, published in local Vest and Znamya newspapers. Homicide [?J]. 1 March - Vladislav Listyev, head of the new ORT TV Channel, shot dead in stairwell of his Moscow apartment block in a classic contract killing. Homicide [nJ]. 3 March - Igor Kaverin, engineer with Svobodnaya Nakhodka radio station, Primorsky Region. Shot in car, Homicide [nJ]. 8 March - Oleg Ochkasov, freelance journalist in Voronezh, writing for Vecherny Voronezh and Skandalnaya pochta newspapers. Homicide [nJ]. 16 March - Alexei Khropov, director of Vox radio station, recently off the air. Leningradskoe Highway, Moscow Region. Homicide [nJ]. 6 June - Alexander Konovalenko, journalists with Krestyanskaya gazeta, Volgograd, beating in police station led to his death.[68] Homicide. Killer convicted in 1998 [?J]. 4 August - Sergei Nazarov, former presenter of popular TV show "Vremechko". Killed in Moscow. Homicide [nJ]. 10 August - Vadim Obekhov, columnist with Vesti newspaper, Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Region. Homicide [nJ]. 2 November - Andrei Ulanov, chief editor of Togliatti segodnya newspaper. Togliatt, Samara Region. Contract killing, homicide [nJ]. 8 November - Sergei Ananyev, head of press service, East Siberian organised crime department. Murdered in Irkutsk. Outcome of 2000 trial not clear [nJ]. 12 December - Victor Litvinov, "Golos Rossii" radio station commentator, Moscow, died after street attack.[70] Homicide [nJ]. 10 December - 25-year-old Yaroslav Zvaltsev, financial director of the Russky dom newspaper in Magnitogorsk, shot in contract killing.[71] Homicide [nJ]. 26 December - Vadim Alferyev, worked as journalist for local press and TV in Krasnoyarsk, where he died after a savage beating.[72] Homicide [?J]. 25 January - Oleg Slabynko, founder of "Moment Istiny" corporation, producer of a program of the same name, a director of ORT (today Channel One TV), murdered in his Moscow apartment. Contract killing [nJ]. 8 February - Yury Litvinov, engineer, and Alexander Zaitsev, director, of Forward cable television.[74] Found shot in car, Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Region. Contract killing? [nJ]. 26 February - Felix Solovyov, famous photographer, Aeroflot journal editorial board, murdered in Moscow.[75] Homicide [nJ]. 11 May - Victor Mikhailov, crime correspondent for Zabaikalsky rabochy newspaper.[74] Chita. Homicide [nJ]. 26 July - Nikita Chigarkov, staff member of Utrenniy ekspress, beaten and robbed.[74] Moscow. Homicide [nJ]. I'm tired of copy pasting but the are more journalists that died murdered (probably because they dared criticize the soviet government) that the ones in war. |
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myshownow
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August 30, 2014, 10:37:18 PM
Last edit: August 30, 2014, 10:56:18 PM by myshownow |
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I'm tired of copy pasting but the are more journalists that died murdered (probably because they dared criticize the soviet government) that the ones in war.
Compare this list to the millions who got killed from the aggressions and wars created by the West who pontificate about freedoms and liberty. SELECTIVE reality. I would be careful with propaganda claims though; for all we know, these were perpetrated themselves by secret operations of the secret services of Western countries to prove their propaganda claim against Russia. The immoral WEstern countries are not above that. There are many books by ex-CIA agents which revealed their dark operations. See Philip Agee, They killed journalists in the countries they subverted who won't cooperate, which they probably thought were minor to overthrowing governments like Salvador Allende, etc. |
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niothor
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August 30, 2014, 10:38:36 PM |
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Exactly my Russian friend. You got it right . Keep the good work. |
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myshownow
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August 30, 2014, 10:41:07 PM |
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Exactly my Russian friend. You got it right . Keep the good work.
I'm glad you saw the light. Conscience sucks. |
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niothor
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August 30, 2014, 10:44:43 PM |
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there are very few political homicides, so again, get your facts right, it is not about freedom of speech as you can see some of those murders are related to business, or personal vendetta, so, crime rate used to be very high, this is true if you get into the fight with oligarch he can put a price on your head up until 2001 - dark time for Russia, you might know "perestroika"  brings out the best in people You just acknowledged that there are political assassinations in your country. So , freedom of press my ass. No wonder 90% of the population is brainwashed. |
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Pagan
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August 30, 2014, 10:51:42 PM |
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StopFake.org
Struggle against fake information about events in Ukraine.
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niothor
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August 30, 2014, 10:52:09 PM |
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of course I did, and there are political assassinations in your country, or do you think you will be safe when you leak some info on your politician? they will take you down quickly.
at this point I actually don't know what you mean by freedom of speech
No there are not. And again , we are talking about russia. Do you guys suffer from a genetic disease of whataboutism? I will post this link till all of you stop using this crap : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism |
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myshownow
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August 30, 2014, 10:53:07 PM |
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From Handelsblatt, the top business newspaper in Germany.
The West on the wrong path
08.08.2014, 13:53 Uhr
Gabor Steingart
Gabor Steingart is the publisher of Germany’s leading financial newspaper Handelsblatt.
In view of the events in Ukraine, the government and many media have switched from level-headed to agitated. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the width of a sniper scope. The politics of escalation does not have a realistic goal – and harms German interests.
Even when thousands already lay dead on the Belgian battle fields, the war fever did not subside. Exactly 100 years ago, 93 painters, writers, and scientists composed the “Call to the world of culture.“ Max Liebermann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Max Planck, Wilhelm Röntgen, and others encouraged their countrymen to engage in cruelty towards their neighbor: “Without German militarism, German culture would have been swept from the face of the earth a long time ago. The German armed forces and the German people are one. This awareness makes 70 million Germans brothers without prejudice to education, status, or party.“
We interrupt our own train of thought: “History is not repeating itself!” But can we be so sure about that these days? In view of the war events in the Crimean and eastern Ukraine, the heads of states and governments of the West suddenly have no more questions and all the answers. The US Congress is openly discussing arming Ukraine. The former security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski recommends arming the citizens there for house-to-house and street combat. The German Chancellor, as it is her habit, is much less clear but no less ominous: “We are ready to take severe measures.“
German journalism has switched from level-headed to agitated in a matter of weeks. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the field of vision of a sniper scope.
Newspapers we thought to be all about thoughts and ideas now march in lock-step with politicians in their calls for sanctions against Russia's President Putin. Even the headlines betray an aggressive tension as is usually characteristic of hooligans when they 'support' their respective teams.
The Tagesspiegel: “Enough talk!“ The FAZ: “Show strength“. The Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Now or never.“ The Spiegel calls for an “End to cowardice“: “Putin's web of lies, propaganda, and deception has been exposed. The wreckage of MH 17 is also the result of a crashed diplomacy.“
Western politics and German media agree.
Every reflexive string of accusations results in the same outcome: in no time allegations and counter-allegations become so entangled that the facts become almost completely obscured.
Who deceived who first?
Did it all start with the Russian invasion of the Crimean or did the West first promote the destabilization of the Ukraine? Does Russia want to expand into the West or NATO into the East? Or did maybe two world-powers meet at the same door in the middle of the night, driven by very similar intentions towards a defenseless third that now pays for the resulting quagmire with the first phases of a civil war?
If at this point you are still waiting for an answer as to whose fault it is, you might as well just stop reading. You will not miss anything. We are not trying to unearth this hidden truth. We don't know how it started. We don't know how it will end. And we are sitting right here, in the middle of it. At least Peter Sloterdijk has a few words of consolation for us: “To live in the world means to live in uncertainty.“
Our purpose is to wipe off some of the foam that has formed on the debating mouths, to steal words from the mouths of both the rabble-rousers and the roused, and put new words there instead. One word that has become disused of late is this: realism.
The politics of escalation show that Europe sorely misses a realistic goal. It's a different thing in the US. Threats and posturing are simply part of the election preparations. When Hillary Clinton compares Putin with Hitler, she does so only to appeal to the Republican vote, i.e. people who do not own a passport. For many of them, Hitler is the only foreigner they know, which is why Adolf Putin is a very welcome fictitious campaign effigy. In this respect, Clinton and Obama have a realistic goal: to appeal to the people, to win elections, to win another Democratic presidency.
Angela Merkel can hardly claim these mitigating circumstances for herself. Geography forces every German Chancellor to be a bit more serious. As neighbors of Russia, as part of the European community bound in destiny, as recipient of energy and supplier of this and that, we Germans have a clearly more vital interest in stability and communication. We cannot afford to look at Russia through the eyes of the American Tea Party.
Every mistake starts with a mistake in thinking. And we are making this mistake if we believe that only the other party profits from our economic relationship and thus will suffer when this relationship stops. If economic ties were maintained for mutual profit, then severing them will lead to mutual loss. Punishment and self-punishment are the same thing in this case.
Even the idea that economic pressure and political isolation would bring Russia to its knees was not really thought all the way through. Even if we could succeed: what good would Russia be on its knees? How can you want to live together in the European house with a humiliated people whose elected leadership is treated like a pariah and whose citizens you might have to support in the coming winter.
Of course, the current situation requires a strong stance, but more than anything a strong stance against ourselves. Germans have neither wanted nor caused these realities, but they are now our realities. Just consider what Willy Brandt had to listen to when his fate as mayor of Berlin placed him in the shadow of the wall. What sanctions and punishments were suggested to him. But he decided to forgo this festival of outrage. He never turned the screw of retribution.
When he was awarded the Noble Prize for Peace he shed light on what went on around him in the hectic days when the wall was built: “There is still another aspect – that of impotence disguised by verbalism: taking a stand on legal positions which cannot become a reality and planning counter-measures for contingencies that always differ from the one at hand. At critical times we were left to our own devices; the verbalists had nothing to offer.“
The verbalists are back and their headquarters are in Washington D.C. But nobody is forcing us to kowtow to their orders. Following this lead – even if calculatingly and somewhat reluctantly as in the case of Merkel – does not protect the German people, but may well endanger it. This fact remains a fact even if it was not the American but the Russians who were responsible for the original damage in the Crimean and in eastern Ukraine.
Willy Brandt decided clearly differently than Merkel in the present, and that in a clearly more intense situation. As he recalls, he had awoken on the morning of August 13, 1961 “wide awake and at the same time numb“. He had stopped over in Hanover on a trip when he received reports from Berlin about work being done on the large wall separating the city. It was a Sunday morning and the humiliation could hardly be greater for a sitting mayor.
The Soviets had presented him with a fait accompli. The Americans had not informed him even though they had probably received some information from Moscow. Brandt remembers that an “impotent rage“ had risen in him. But what did he do? He reined in his feelings of impotence and displayed his great talent as reality-based politician which would garner him a stint as Chancellor and finally also the Nobel Prize for Peace.
With the advice from Egon Bahr, he accepted the new situation, knowing that no amount of outrage from the rest of the world would bring this wall down again for a while. He even ordered the West-Berlin police to use batons and water cannons against demonstrators at the wall in order not to slip from the catastrophe of division into the much greater catastrophe of war. He strove for the paradox which Bahr put as follows later: “We acknowledged the Status Quo in order to change it.“
And they managed to accomplish this change. Brandt and Bahr made the specific interests of the West Berlin population for who they were now responsible (from June 1962 onwards this also included this author) into the measure of their politics.
In Bonn they negotiated the Berlin subvention, an eight-percent tax-free subvention on payroll and income tax. In the vernacular it was called the “fear premium“. They also negotiated a travel permit treaty with East Berlin which made the wall permeable again two years after it was put up. Between Christmas 1963 and New Year’s 1964, 700 000 inhabitants of Berlin visited their relatives in the east of the city. Every tear of joy turned into a vote for Brandt a short while later.
The voters realized that here was someone who wanted to affect the way they lived every day, not just generate a headline for the next morning. In an almost completely hopeless situation, this SPD man fought for western values – in this case the values of freedom of movement – without bullhorns, without sanctions, without the threat of violence. The elite in Washington started hearing words that had never been heard in politics before: Compassion. Change through rapprochement. Dialog. Reconciliation of interests. And this in the middle of the Cold War, when the world powers were supposed to attack each other with venom, when the script contained only threats and protestations; set ultimatums, enforce sea blockades, conduct representative wars, this is how the Cold War was supposed to be run.
A German foreign policy striving for reconciliation – in the beginning only the foreign policy of Berlin – not only appeared courageous but also very strange.
The Americans – Kennedy, Johnson, then Nixon – followed the German; it kicked off a process which is unparalleled in the history of enemy nations. Finally, there was a meeting in Helsinki in order to set down the rules. The Soviet Union was guaranteed “non-interference into their internal affairs“ which filled party boss Leonid Brezhnev with satisfaction and made Franz Josef Strauß's blood boil. In return, the Moscow Communist Party leadership had to guarantee the West (and thus their own civil societies) “respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including that of thought, conscience, religion or belief“.
In this way “non-interference“ was bought through “involvement“. Communism had received an eternal guarantee for its territory, but within its borders universal human rights suddenly began to brew. Joachim Gauck remembers: “The word that allowed my generation to go on was Helsinki.“
It is not too late for the duo Merkel/Steinmeier to use the concepts and ideas of this time. It does not make sense to just follow the strategically idea-less Obama. Everyone can see how he and Putin are driving like in a dream directly towards a sign which reads: Dead End.
“The test for politics is not how something starts but how it ends“, so Henry Kissinger, also a Peace Nobel Prize winner. After the occupation of the Crimean by Russia he stated: we should want reconciliation, not dominance. Demonizing Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for the lack thereof. He advises condensing conflicts, i.e. to make them smaller, shrink them, and then distill them into a solution.
At the moment (and for a long time before that) America is doing the opposite. All conflicts are escalated. The attack of a terror group named Al Qaida is turned into a global campaign against Islam. Iraq is bombed using dubious justifications. Then the US Air Force flies on to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The relationship to the Islamic world can safely be considered damaged.
If the West had judged the then US government which marched into Iraq without a resolution by the UN and without proof of the existence of “WMDs“ by the same standards as today Putin, then George W. Bush would have immediately been banned from entering the EU. The foreign investments of Warren Buffett should have been frozen, the export of vehicles of the brands GM, Ford, and Chrysler banned.
The American tendency to verbal and then also military escalation, the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies has not proven effective. The last successful major military action the US conducted was the Normandy landing. Everything else – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – was a clear failure. Moving NATO units towards the Polish border and thinking about arming Ukraine is a continuation of a lack of diplomacy by the military means.
This policy of running your head against the wall – and doing so exactly where the wall is the thickest – just gives you a head ache and not much else. And this considering that the wall has a huge door in the relationship of Europe to Russia. And the key to this door is labeled “reconciliation of interests“.
The first step is what Brandt called “compassion“, i.e. the ability to see the world through the eyes of the others. We should stop accusing the 143 million Russian that they look at the world differently than John McCain.
What is needed is help in modernizing the country, no sanctions which will further decrease the dearth of wealth and damage the bond of relationships. Economic relationships are also relationships. International cooperation is akin to tenderness between nations because everyone feels better afterwards.
It is well-known that Russia is an energy super-power and at the same time a developing industrial nation. The policy of reconciliation and mutual interests should attack here. Development aid in return for territorial guarantees; Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even had the right words to describe this: modernization partnership. He just has to dust it off and use it as an aspirational word. Russia should be integrated, not isolated. Small steps in that direction are better than the great nonsense of exclusionary politics.
Brandt and Bahr have never reached for the tool of economic sanctions. They knew why: there are no recorded cases in which countries under sanctions apologized for their behavior and were obedient ever after. On the contrary: collective movements start in support of the sanctioned, as is the case today in Russia. The country was hardly ever more unified behind their president than now. This could almost lead you to think that the rabble-rousers of the West are on the payroll of the Russian secret service.
One more comment about the tone of the debate. The annexation of the Crimean was in violation of international law. The support of separatists in eastern Ukraine also does not mesh with our ideas of the state sovereignty. The boundaries of states are inviolable.
But every act requires context. And the German context is that we are a society on probation which may not act as if violations of international law started with the events in the Crimean.
Germany has waged war against its eastern neighbor twice in the past 100 years. The German soul, which we generally claim to be on the romantic side, showed its cruel side.
Of course, we who came later can continue to proclaim our outrage against the ruthless Putin and appeal to international law against him, but the way things are this outrage should come with a slight blush of embarrassment. Or to use the words of Willy Brandt: “Claims to absolutes threaten man.“
In the end, even the men who had succumbed to war fever in 1914 had to realize this. After the end of the war, the penitent issued a second call, this time to understanding between nations: “The civilized world became a war camp and battle field. It is time that a great tide of love replaces the devastating wave of hatred.“
We should try to avoid the detour via the battle fields in the 21st century. History does not have to repeat itself. Maybe we can find a shortcut
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