n a recent post for the Daily Sceptic, Toby claims the received wisdom on the Ukraine crisis is basically right, noting that he’s “experienced the unusual sensation of feeling more in step with the mainstream media than I have with my sceptical friends”. While he makes some good points, I don’t think he really steelmans the sceptical position.
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Harsha De Silva …. an UNP MP**
The country is in complete disarray today. Fuel is rationed at pumps, daily power cuts across the island, shortage of dollars to import essentials including medicine, food is to be rationed next. Collapse is imminent if we continue to go this way, it is almost similar to a broken car rumbling before it completely comes to a halt.
Ed Turner, using this title “Germany’s €100-billion army fund: a remarkable change in post-war policy in response to the Ukraine crisis” 2 March 2022, …………………………………………………….. ……….. https://theconversation.com/germanys-100-billion-army-fund-a-remarkable-change-in-post-war-policy-in-response-to-the-ukraine-crisis-178202?
If you’d asked experts just a fortnight ago what the key features of Germany’s approach to foreign and defence policy were, there would have been several strands. Alignment with the west, and of course membership of the EU and Nato would have been a feature. Striving for strong transatlantic links would be another, not least because the country was bruised by its regular, public and bellicose criticism from former president Donald Trump.
Padraig Colman, … at https://pcolman.wordpress.com/2022/03/02/ukraine-part-one/
Apparently the invasion of Ukraine is a defensive measure. It beggars belief to even contemplate Ukraine as a genocidal terrorist state and Russia as a liberal human rights defender.
Little Victims
Many years ago, I set out to write a short poem about my father on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. It developed into a longer meditation on the malignant forces of ideologies and systems of terror that crush common people and sweep them away. The great tides of history, of isms and empires, buffet little people, maim them, kill them, uproot them and inflict damage that lasts for years or generations. I noted that all over the globe vicious wars, disintegrating nations and dying empires still today produce a flotsam of refugees. Great men discount little people. On the TV, I see ordinary Ukrainians in drab winter clothes calmly queuing at the supermarket. Most are masked against Covid but they wave at the camera. What are these people being punished for?
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B = The Lahore Assault on the Cricket Entourage in March 2009 …………………… https://thuppahis.com › 2019/10/02 › bewildering-facts… 2 Oct 2019 — Roberts, Michael 2009a “The Lahore atrocity: our cricketing ambassadors,” Island, 14 March 2009. Roberts, Michael 2009b “Cricket and Lahore: Jane Russell, in an essay dedicated to Shirlene de Silva who introduced her to the Mandelstam’s writings …. an essay writen on 1 March 2022 with the title “Ukraine and its place in 20th century Russian literature: Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam”
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam, the genius Russian-Jewish poet murdered by Stalin, met his Jewish wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna, in a nightclub in Kyiv when both were in their twenties. It was 1919, the second year of the Soviet revolution, which was finally getting going after the 1st World War.
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam
Nadezhda Mandelstam
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UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis ………………………………… John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.
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The Islamic terrorist attack of March 2009 near Gaddafi Stadium at Lahore was a traumatic event which endangered the Sri Lankan cricket team as well as a mini-bus bearing cricketing officials. The team were extremely fortunate to survive withonly aa few minor injuries. Photogaphs can only provide a smidgeon of the impact.
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As News Items displayed pictures and stroies of beeming Aussie cricketers arriving in Pakistan for cricket, we need to cast our mind back to that fateful day on the 3rd March 2009 when the entourage bearing the Sri Lankan team and the officiating personnel were subject to an assault by some Pakistani “terrorists.” The most effective manner of reminding readers of the horrendous events that unfolded in and around the last roundabout before Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore is to present some of the photographs taken immediately afterwards.
That only a few Pakistani policemen and the driver of the minibus bearing the team officials lost their lives was due to Allah’s grace and the presence of mind shown by Khallil, the driver of the coach and Tuan Tillekeratne Dilshan as the bus sped away from botched efforts to (a) block it and (b) hit it with a shoulder-fired rocket.
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Michael Whitney, in Global Research, 15 February 2022, … with highlighting in the original article which is entitled “The Crisis Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany”
“The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars– the First, the Second and Cold Wars– has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” George Friedman, STRATFOR CEO at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs
The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream. 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go. Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin. German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
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