Lithuanian not happy with Russia

[Donny osmond]

Kinda illustrates the "Haters gonna hate" philosophy, this thread.

Indeed.

[emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji106]

[cashead]

rowan's just gonna to have to shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it off, shake it off

[rowan]

Wibble wibble is your response to this:

NB: Needs updating to include Ukraine & Syria, among others...

In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.

These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

Map 1. U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World. The Cost of «Permanent War» and Some Comparative Data

Source: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=884

[Donny osmond]

No, its our response to your, increasingly obvious, bigotry.

Haven't made any other response to those posts.

[rowan]

Who started this pointless thread - & why??

As I said on the Anti-Russian Rhetoric thread some time ago: The day the Americans and British stop pointing the finger at others will be the day they are forced to accept the vast majority of the evil in this world has been wrought upon humankind by their own two monstrous nations.

[morepork]

Do you get credits for these posts in an online journalism course?

[Adder]

It's pretty boring have to constantly chose between the USA and the Russians. Usually the term "West" is used in a ridiculous way as if the US was the west.

Living in Bulgaria, I'm constantly faced with this manichaean way of thinking, but there are many middle grounds. I can't understand how in order to oppose the US, you have to turn a blind eye on the Actions of Putin who is one scary mofo, (or even Erdogan, and Trump for some). There are big Russians communities in every state surrounding Russia, which can be used as convenient excuses for Russian Annexation (which they have used with Ukraine). Russia has not yet attacked any EU states but their aggressive politics should cause concern.

The founders of the EU had many goals in sight, the main one being Peace in Europe through Mutual prosperity, the other was to have a separate voice than that of the US and URSS. I believe the Iraq war has shown that there is not just one West.

[rowan]

Your reversal of the truth discredits you, NATO has drawn right up to Russia's Eastern European borders in violation of post-Cold War agreements, and orchestrated a coup in Kiev to remove a pro-Russian leader and bring in a corrupt pro-Western oligarch, igniting a vicious civil war in the process. So the Russian majority in the Crimea understandably voted themselves to return to the motherland as Ukranians went on murderous rampages. The West refers principally to the US/NATO and those European nations which follow it, plus its faithful satraps Down Under, as you well know. But if you think Russia is even remotely as evil as the US and Britain, then you also are only exposing your own socially ingrained prejudices.

[kk67]

2009.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/ ... es-gazprom

[rowan]

Exactly where you get your hypocritical Russophobic delusions from. You've been brainwashed since the day you learned to read and watch TV. The story on the Ukraine has been completely reversed by the Western mainstream media, just as they convinced you that Saddam had WOMDs and Gaddafi was about to genocide his people. So with a chip like that on your shoulder how can you possibly view things from a balanced perspective?

The Guardian is the Blairite Bugle. No right-thinking person should buy it. Still less donate towards their "journalism". The Guardian's principle whipping boys over last five years were Chavez, Maduro, Putin and Jeremy Corbyn whom they have set out to destroy.

George Galloway

[morepork]

Adder is French.....or Scottish. Perhaps an unholy amalgam of both. Hence his comment on the Iraq jolly, which France were not part of.

[Digby]

I quite like the Guardian, providing I don't have to read too much of it. Pretty sure I have (or maybe had) some sort of subscription, but certainly worthwhile commentary and the sort of voice which is important given other publications which tend to dominate the UK market

[rowan]

You need to get away from the mainstream brainwashing propaganda machine. Much of it comes straight from your government. This was a great article by multi-awarding winning, long-serving journalist John Pilger, who has been on the scene since Vietnam:

The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since world war two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out. Evidence that contradicts propaganda that Russia was responsible for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner is blacked out.

And again, supposedly liberal media are the censors. Citing no facts, no evidence, one journalist identified a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine as the man who shot down the airliner. This man, he wrote, was known as The Demon. He was a scary man who frightened the journalist. That was the evidence.

Many in the western media haves worked hard to present the ethnic Russian population of Ukraine as outsiders in their own country, almost never as Ukrainians seeking a federation within Ukraine and as Ukrainian citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government.

What the Russian president has to say is of no consequence; he is a pantomime villain who can be abused with impunity. An American general who heads Nato and is straight out of Dr. Strangelove - one General Breedlove - routinely claims Russian invasions without a shred of visual evidence. His impersonation of Stanley Kubrick's General Jack D. Ripper is pitch perfect.

Forty thousand Ruskies were massing on the border, according to Breedlove. That was good enough for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Observer - the latter having previously distinguished itself with lies and fabrications that backed Blair's invasion of Iraq, as its former reporter, David Rose, revealed.

There is almost the joi d'esprit of a class reunion. The drum-beaters of the Washington Post are the very same editorial writers who declared the existence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to be "hard facts".

"If you wonder," wrote Robert Parry, "how the world could stumble into world war three - much as it did into world war one a century ago - all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire US political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats versus black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason."

Parry, the journalist who revealed Iran-Contra, is one of the few who investigate the central role of the media in this "game of chicken", as the Russian foreign minister called it. But is it a game? As I write this, the US Congress votes on Resolution 758 which, in a nutshell, says: "Let's get ready for war with Russia."

http://johnpilger.com/articles/war-by-m ... propaganda

[cashead]

You need to get away from the mainstream brainwashing propaganda machine. Much of it comes straight from your government.

Don't you repost RT content?

[WaspInWales]

and the Grauniad

[rowan]

RT? Not usually. They used to put out some good stuff but (like Democracy Now) started to get a bit weird. Definite signs of infiltration. Counterpunch remains solid, however; since it's only a domain for expert political views and not an actual news site in its own right anyway. This site also runs some good stories:

Lithuania has confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression.
Supposedly, Vladimir Putin has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad, an area that borders Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about Russian military activity.
“The United States was the first to offer additional safety assurance measures to the Baltic countries following the deterioration of the security situation in the region after the annexation of the Crimea,” Lithuanian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Asta Galdikaite told local media on Tuesday, as reported by International Business Times.
Russia has made it clear that its deployment of missiles is a deterrent against NATO expansion along its borders. It is effectively a cat-and-mouse game that continues to be played with catastrophic consequences.
“Why are we reacting to Nato expansion so emotionally? We are concerned by Nato’s decision-making…We must take counter-measures, that is, strike with our missile systems the targets that in our opinion begin to threaten us,” Putin said previously in an interview with Oliver Stone last November.
Come spring of this year, NATO is expected to send battalions of 800 to 1,200 troops to each of the Baltic States and Poland. The mainstream media has even dubbed NATO’s recent buildup the alliance’s “biggest military buildup on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.” Even Great Britain will be sending fighter jets, as well as troops to Romania in order to counter Russia in the region.
Speaking at a conference in Sochi, Putin previously said it was “stupid and unrealistic” to think Russia would attack anyone in Europe. His American counterparts are well aware of this but press on with NATO’s expansion, anyway. Why?
Russia has intervened in the Middle East and made the U.S.’ role as both caretaker and destroyer of the Muslim world largely redundant. Russia has been a spectacular caretaker and destructive force in the United States’ place, relentlessly bombing al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels in Aleppo into submission — and killing civilians in the process. Now, there are real hopes that a lasting peace deal might actually form in Syria, a development Washington had no hand in producing.
We’ve all seen this story before, except this time it is being done more overtly as NATO desperately runs out of options.
In 2013, Obama vowed that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, needed to be punished for his alleged use of chemical weapons (the evidence pinning Assad’s forces to the attacks was dubious at the time). Russia intervened, foiling Washington’s plans for regime change. Not long after, the United States went to work and plotted to topple Viktor Yanukovych’s government in Ukraine, which was ultimately replaced by neo-Nazis and, eventually, Petro Poroshenko, who worked as a “Ukraine insider” for the U.S. State Department.
In essence, Russia’s actions, which are interfering with Washington’s plans in the Middle East, attract unwanted activity across its borders — a harsh truth that Russia will have to accept if it is to have a say in global affairs.

http://wearechange.org/us-begins-amassi ... an-border/

[cashead]

If you're going to give out over news outlets receiving their news or being affiliated with some governments, then the same standards and scrutiny should apply to those that are affiliated with the Russian government. Like RT.

[rowan]

If you're going to give out over news outlets receiving their news or being affiliated with some governments, then the same standards and scrutiny should apply to those that are affiliated with the Russian government. Like RT.

Seems you misunderstood my last post. I do not generally source RT. I rarely ever look at it, in fact. Sorry to disappoint you.

[Sandydragon]

A perspective from the countries in Eastern Europe, who are actively preparing for a potential conflict with Russia. Strangely, NATO isn't seen as the enemy.

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/easte ... ggression/

[rowan]

Most Eastern Europeans I've known and befriended are highly astute on international politics and actually share my views on the US and West in general. At the same time, they are also highly suspicious of Russia and remain haunted by the specter of the USSR, Eastern Bloc and communism, and all that. & then there are the economic conditions. Though it's been a while since I traveled to Eastern Europe myself I must say it was like going through a time warp - backward a century or so. There's simply no money there, no modern infrastructure, and relatively little attention was given to aesthetics during the Soviet era. So there's no surprise where Eastern Europeans would rather be.

[Digby]

A perspective from the countries in Eastern Europe, who are actively preparing for a potential conflict with Russia. Strangely, NATO isn't seen as the enemy.

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/easte ... ggression/

It's one of the defining features going across eastern Europe just how much the ordinary person hates the Russians, and I don't tend to find hate would be the wrong word. Russia doesn't really feature that much in British culture, we're much more likely to consider/discuss Germany, France, Spain, Australia, the US and probably a good few more before we'd get onto Russia, but for those who've been subject to Soviet/Russian rule or the threat of such there's much more consideration and disregard for Russia

[Sandydragon]

A perspective from the countries in Eastern Europe, who are actively preparing for a potential conflict with Russia. Strangely, NATO isn't seen as the enemy.

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/easte ... ggression/

It's one of the defining features going across eastern Europe just how much the ordinary person hates the Russians, and I don't tend to find hate would be the wrong word. Russia doesn't really feature that much in British culture, we're much more likely to consider/discuss Germany, France, Spain, Australia, the US and probably a good few more before we'd get onto Russia, but for those who've been subject to Soviet/Russian rule or the threat of such there's much more consideration and disregard for Russia

Indeed. Aside from the ethnic Russians living in these countries (obviously) it's not surprising to find wariness and indeed hatred for Russia amongst the rest of the population.

[rowan]

A perspective from the countries in Eastern Europe, who are actively preparing for a potential conflict with Russia. Strangely, NATO isn't seen as the enemy.

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/easte ... ggression/

It's one of the defining features going across eastern Europe just how much the ordinary person hates the Russians, and I don't tend to find hate would be the wrong word. Russia doesn't really feature that much in British culture, we're much more likely to consider/discuss Germany, France, Spain, Australia, the US and probably a good few more before we'd get onto Russia, but for those who've been subject to Soviet/Russian rule or the threat of such there's much more consideration and disregard for Russia

Indeed. Aside from the ethnic Russians living in these countries (obviously) it's not surprising to find wariness and indeed hatred for Russia amongst the rest of the population.

Many Africans, Indians, Native Americans, Polynesians and Aboriginals feel the same way about the British, of course.

[Digby]

It's one of the defining features going across eastern Europe just how much the ordinary person hates the Russians, and I don't tend to find hate would be the wrong word. Russia doesn't really feature that much in British culture, we're much more likely to consider/discuss Germany, France, Spain, Australia, the US and probably a good few more before we'd get onto Russia, but for those who've been subject to Soviet/Russian rule or the threat of such there's much more consideration and disregard for Russia

Indeed. Aside from the ethnic Russians living in these countries (obviously) it's not surprising to find wariness and indeed hatred for Russia amongst the rest of the population.

Many Africans, Indians, Native Americans, Polynesians and Aboriginals feel the same way about the British, of course.

Firstly when that says British I suspect we should be saying American, Australian, New Zealanders, and then for all a lot of our (British) history is appalling we're both a long way out of the picture, without wanting to suggest history dosesn't inform the present, and not threatening to come back or running military manoeuvres on their borders or even in their country.

I also can't say I've met any Africans or Indians who feel the same way about the British as one finds for Russia in FInland, Sweden, Georgia, Poland, Romania... maybe that is the case for those other groups I've not spent enough time with or met enough members from those groups

[rowan]

Indeed. Aside from the ethnic Russians living in these countries (obviously) it's not surprising to find wariness and indeed hatred for Russia amongst the rest of the population.

Many Africans, Indians, Native Americans, Polynesians and Aboriginals feel the same way about the British, of course.

Firstly when that says British I suspect we should be saying American, Australian, New Zealanders, and then for all a lot of our (British) history is appalling we're both a long way out of the picture, without wanting to suggest history dosesn't inform the present, and not threatening to come back or running military manoeuvres on their borders or even in their country.

I also can't say I've met any Africans or Indians who feel the same way about the British as one finds for Russia in FInland, Sweden, Georgia, Poland, Romania... maybe that is the case for those other groups I've not spent enough time with or met enough members from those groups

I agree with your last comment, because the resentment among the native peoples in Africa, India, North America, Australia and Polynesia toward the British runs much much deeper than that of Eastern Europeans toward the Russians. & that is because the crimes were much much greater, of course. & while Russia, with its capital in Moscow, is rightly perceived as the natural successor to the former Soviet Union, let's not forget that the leader widely regarded as the perpetrator of much of the suffering that occurred was not Russian but Georgian. Very different.