Chlorine Gas Attack reported in Aleppo

[Stones of granite]

No, I'm just not brainwashed enough to imagine Crimea's ethnic Russian majority were forced into reunification with Moscow against their wishes, even as Ukrainians were burning ethnic Russians to death in Odessa.

Neither am I brainwashed enough to imagine that Russia is the problem when it is America rampaging through the Middle East, bombing countries to smithereens, destabilizing others with terrorists, and installing, backing and arming murderous dictators, monocracies and, in one case, an Apartheid regime.

Oh, that's right. Only the brainwashed think there's a problem with holding a referendum at gun-point.

No, only the brainwashed would imagine it would be necessary to point a gun at the ethnic Russian majority to force them to vote in favor of breaking away from a regime that was waging war on ethnic Russians at the time (and still is). Twisting sentences so that they mean something entirely different isn't very clever, you know.

There's no twisting involved. Crimea was taken over by a Russian Special Force unit - probably the 45th Guards Separate Reconnaissance Regiment of VDV by analysis of their battledress, equipment and doctrine - and the referendum held under their occupation. That is the very definition of at gunpoint.

The conflict between ethnic Russians and Ukraine in Eastern Ukraine was another of Putin's "deniable" operations, and the land-grab and illegal annexation of Crimea was part of his maneuverings. He correctly calculated that Ukraine wouldn't risk opening a second front against Russia, and giving him a causus belli to switch from a covert war to an overt war in Donbass.

[rowan]

You've just recited verbatim the official NATO version of events and still claim that you're not brainwashed. But the fact is the referendum was a free and open affair and ethnic Russians were hardly going to need any encouragement voting to break away from a regime that was at the time waging war on ethnic Russians. The result was, unsurprisingly, reunification with Russia - by a landslide.

The civil war is actually the regime's war on ethnic Russians who opposed the US-orchestrated coup removing a pro-Russian leader and replacing him with a corrupt but pro-Western oligarch. This they did with the help of Neo Nazi groups, including those who burned 38 ethnic Russians alive in Odessa. But your account ignores (and effectively defends) them and blames Putin, and then you claim you're not brainwashed.

Indeed, your anti-Russian prejudice is such that you are actually siding with Neo Nazis. This from one of the world's most respected and experienced journalists:

Ukraine - once part of the Soviet Union - has become a CIA theme park. Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the political descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian speaking minority.

http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world- ... e-silence-

[kk67]

There's no twisting involved. Crimea was taken over by a Russian Special Force unit - probably the 45th Guards Separate Reconnaissance Regiment of VDV by analysis of their battledress, equipment and doctrine - and the referendum held under their occupation. That is the very definition of at gunpoint.

...and it's also not too different to what the UN, IMF and US do in the name of democracy.

[rowan]

Yes, we can see how many referendums the US organized in the Middle East to facilitate popular and peaceful transitions

[rowan]

So much for the truce:

U.S.-led coalition jets bombed a Syrian army position at Jebel Tharda near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, killing dozens of Syrian soldiers, Russia and a war monitoring group said, paving the way for Islamic State fighters to overun it.

Syria's army general command said in a statement that the air strike was "conclusive evidence" of U.S. support for Islamic State, noting that the strike was "dangerous and blatant aggression".

Islamic State said in a statement on its Amaq news channel that it had gained "complete control" over Jebel Tharda.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... SKCN11N0PT

[rowan]

Very clear now that the US is not going to give up on its designs for regime change in Damascus. It just violated a truce and bombed the Syrian army, murdering 62 soldiers and wounding more than a hundred others, thereby allowing the terrorists to regain vital territory. It simply doesn't get any more blatant than that. Of course, they claimed it was a mistake, just like they did last time when they killed a whole bunch of civilians, but if the world's major super power is really that incompetent, then we are all in extremely grave danger, surely. Fact is they were never invited there in the first place. They invited themselves and claimed they were fighting ISIS, the name attributed to the Wahhabi terrorists they themselves armed and supplied in the first place. For fully a generation after WWII America made war on East Asia in the name of fighting communism. The next generation witnessed the war on Central America, also based on that false premise. And for the past generation they have been waging war on the Middle East, destroying one nation after another - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. They're using drones in Pakistan and Somalia, supporting Saudi as it bombs schools, hospitals and weddings in Yemen, and financing Israel as it continues its ethnic cleansing of the native population. Meanwhile the Western media ignores much of this and points the finger at Putin or whoever as a diversion, because it thinks that we are really, really stupid.