British troops in Ukraine as 'advisors' - under radar.
RepublicOfYorks
Posts: 3,013 Forum Member
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Surprised that there are no threads on this, either here on in Politics.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/uk-stuns-europe-by-sending-troops-to-ukraine-381775.html
I think the way this has slipped under the radar is very sinister. On the face of it, having British 'trainers', 'advisors' or whatever the description doesn't seem too important, but in such a dangerous situation?
Nobody believes Putin that the Russian troops fighting for the 'rebels' are 'volunteers' on leave, but should we really have any more faith in Cameron's description?
It's worrying that this item is so far down the TV news. Do people really think that Malcolm Rifkind and, laughably, a football tournament 8 years away are more important that UK servicemen and women being sent to yet another theatre of operation? When the idea of intervening in Syria arose, there was plenty of debate and information available. Cameron lost the vote, did not intervene as planned, and claimed that he 'got it' about no more foreign adventures after Blair's disasters and his own fiasco in Libya.
He clearly hasn't 'got it'. He's sneaked this in, not in an address to Parliament, but in some obscure committee nobody watches. I bet if there was an opinion poll about it, a large proportion of people won't even have heard about it. There's been no vote, no debate, and the BBC and ITV seemed to have been complicit in ignoring Ukraine news over the last 2 days or so - but serious things are still happening! And now we are involved whether we want it or not.
Quite apart from the fact that this, potentially, could be another small step in eventually provoking nuclear war, the way the 'powers that be' and media are operating makes me think this country isn't a million miles away from the shady autocracy of Putin.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/uk-stuns-europe-by-sending-troops-to-ukraine-381775.html
I think the way this has slipped under the radar is very sinister. On the face of it, having British 'trainers', 'advisors' or whatever the description doesn't seem too important, but in such a dangerous situation?
Nobody believes Putin that the Russian troops fighting for the 'rebels' are 'volunteers' on leave, but should we really have any more faith in Cameron's description?
It's worrying that this item is so far down the TV news. Do people really think that Malcolm Rifkind and, laughably, a football tournament 8 years away are more important that UK servicemen and women being sent to yet another theatre of operation? When the idea of intervening in Syria arose, there was plenty of debate and information available. Cameron lost the vote, did not intervene as planned, and claimed that he 'got it' about no more foreign adventures after Blair's disasters and his own fiasco in Libya.
He clearly hasn't 'got it'. He's sneaked this in, not in an address to Parliament, but in some obscure committee nobody watches. I bet if there was an opinion poll about it, a large proportion of people won't even have heard about it. There's been no vote, no debate, and the BBC and ITV seemed to have been complicit in ignoring Ukraine news over the last 2 days or so - but serious things are still happening! And now we are involved whether we want it or not.
Quite apart from the fact that this, potentially, could be another small step in eventually provoking nuclear war, the way the 'powers that be' and media are operating makes me think this country isn't a million miles away from the shady autocracy of Putin.
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Because a lot of people won't like the idea, the Russians as well...
What would happen if British service men/women get shot at by Russian forces, or vice versa?
We also know from recent statements the U.S. was considering supplying defensive weapons to ukraine.
If anything goes wrong, you won't be alive to say "I told you so" to the politicians.
To all intents and purposes, they probably are now. Ukraine has signed a 'defence pact' with UAE, which is almost certainly a middle man for the States.
I think Obama has turned out to be a shocking President. Nobel Peace Prize? Don't make me laugh. And Hillary Clinton will be worse - her husband started all this chaos with his adventures in what was Yugoslavia. That nearly caused war with Russia, but for the intervention of our General Mike Jackson at a particularly crucial juncture.
Cameron seems bent on doing USA's bidding. How many people realise this is all being done to support a government which is using Nazi militias?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf0vbGj9cO4
After all that was said about Auschwitz last month, I find this unquestioning support for Ukraine sickening. And I'm no Putin fan, he's a kind of Nazi also. We should keep well out of this.
The rest of the news was about Rifkind, the Green Party leader 'cocking up' a radio interview, and concern over a football match in Qatar being 'too hot' to play.
I'm planning on touring around the Northern Baltic countries this year.....before it's too late! Also going to Ukraine which should be fun.
Tell that to the scumbags in Parliament who talk good wars, discuss sanctions at international meetings arrange ceasefires but when the ceasefires fail, they expect us to fight the wars for them and bring in conscription to force people into the armed forces.
The US were in Vietnam as 'advisors' and look at how they ended up.There's am election this year so any politician wanting a vote off me can do the fighting themselves as one of the conditions I'll vote for one of them (they're going to have to realy earn ans sweat buckets for my vote this time)..
As I recall General Mike Jackson told his (American) superior that he wasn't going to to start world war 3 for him over the the incident with the Russiams,
Let's face it, what we're talking about is Russia attempting to annex parts of a sovereign nation and this is happening right on our doorstep and nobody seems to be that bothered.
I guess Cameron has decided that the likelihood of looking like the guy who was "leading the way" outweighs the possibility of looking "gung-ho" if the situation escalates.
PM's always appear to do this before they are ousted out..."jolly good war" that will impress the pollsters...unfortunately for Cameron he just hasn't told these pollsters, the closest I found of him mentioning anything was last September when he rambled on about Exercises 3,500 in total.
This time round its 75, apparently...still worth it for a few votes. >:(
From last September.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11077237/Britain-to-send-3500-troops-to-Eastern-Europe.html
But it isn't that simple either. No-one in our media is exploring the role of the US in the coup against the previous pro-Russian Ukraine leader. The alleged phone call by the Assistant Sec of State Victoria Nuland, "Yats is our guy". If it's true, what right have the US got to be deciding the Prime Minister of a supposed sovereign nation? Haven't we been there before?
Then, it's a question of how far back do you want to go? Stalin ethnically cleansed Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in the 40s and 50s, sowing the seeds of the emnity we see now. Kruschchev gave Crimea to Ukraine as an anti-Stalin reaction.
It's a bloody complicated situation, and UK has no hope of properly understanding it to be involved like this. Merkel grew up in the Soviet bloc, she at least has some understanding of the Eastern European situation. The unilateral and sudden announcement is a slap in the face to her, a supposed EU partner. Cameron has 'gone rogue' and that's scary.
I don't understand this idea that war is supposed to rally electors round the government. It happened in 82 with Thatcher and the Falklands, but that was a one-off. Blair won despite, not because of, Iraq.
Yet people like James Forsyth in the Mail are still wedded to this idea. He states that foreign affairs becoming an issue in the election will favour Cameron, as the electors will think 'it's no time for a novice'. I'd think the opposite. Cameron has shown already what a mess he can make of things in Libya, and he was stopped from doing it again in Syria, so to give him another go in Ukraine would be madness, if people are voting on that issue.
Not entirely sure what you think was going on there.
Is it really such a big deal to find that foreign officials might be discussing who they'd rather see gain power?
In this particular situation, where you've got a country in a precarious position, it seems pretty reasonable to prefer that a more moderate, liberal, democratic, regime is formed rather than one that might prove less amenable to western policies.
And, besides, there's a GIGANTIC difference between using political machinations to assist a preferred regime and supplying troops, tanks and anti-aircraft batteries to get your desired result.
Nothing that has happened historically justifies the current military action.
since we're so brilliant at everything and all and everyone else can't apparently shoot proper .....
pointless
Not really sure that's fair.
I'm no fan of Cameron but there was an immediate threat to many lives during the unrest there and Britain has a lot of business interests in Libya so sending in troops to assist with resolving the conflict was a legitimate response.
Alas, as it turned out, the Libyans didn't seem capable of sorting things out for themselves in the aftermath.
I think PM's like to go out as the noble fighter, the hero who saved the day. It doesn't impress me in the slightest.
We actually sat and wondered which war will Cameron stick his nose in...Middle East or Ukraine? Looks like he has proved us right...I guess he realises that he actually has to do something to prove his existence and go down in the history books for something other then a u-turning, ineffectual twit.
This is going to take some U-turn indeed if this all blows up in our faces.
Clearly, people who're smarter than you think differently.
The initial government that came to power in 'EuroMaidan' was not liberal or democratic. The coalition included a neo-Nazi party, who wanted to force the Russia-speakers to speak only Ukranian, for example.
Isn't that exactly what John McCain and Liam Fox want to do as well?
Quite right. On both sides. Pro-Kiev Nazi militias have been said to have murdered ethnic Russian civilians in revenge for what Stalin did. Pro-Putin Russian militias have been doing the same to Ukranian civilians for their ancestors supporting Hitler in 1941. Both sides are as bad as each other, Putin just looks worse because he has better weapons.
Personally, I think it's the whole "supplying troops and arms to fight in a civil war where victory will be a direct benefit to his own country" while, at the same time, not even having the courage to admit that he's doing it which makes him worse.
But, y'know, just surreptitiously supplying troops and arms, alone, is bad enough.
As the Iraqis and the Afghans. Cameron seemingly learned nothing from Blair's mistakes. Nobody wants to see lives lost, but the blunt truth is that the British government is primarily there to prevent British lives being lost, with business interests secondary. Many more British lives have and will be lost through the messes we have in Libya and Iraq today than if we had never got involved as supposed 'saviour of oppressed peoples'.
If Ukraine is handled badly - and I have no trust in Cameron or Obama - then eventually, 60 million British lives could be lost in about two hours. It really is potentially that serious.
Look at Iraq, Libya, and Syria......all a complete mess.
More or less what the Americans will be doing as well. Victory for the anti-Russian forces would be of huge military and economic benefit to the US. Google Hunter Biden, son of the US Vice President, he has a lot invested in this for one.
Neither the US or Russia cares about Ukranian people or they would stop this now, instead of escalating it. They truly have the power that Merkel doesn't.
Again, to be fair, I got the impression that Cameron was trying to apply the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghan' by assisting to resolve the conflict and then not sticking around to police the aftermath and end up becoming a target of hatred for the indigenous population.
Seems like we're damned if they do and damned if we don't.
Clearly, these places don't exactly embrace democracy and if we attempt to install a government which is likely to be pro-democracy we're accused of meddling and if we leave them to it and an objectionable regime arises, that's our fault as well.
So what are we supposed to do?
Just leave the entire region to itself and, effectively, return the planet to a feudal state where individual countries subsist in isolation?
You're not being terribly objective there.
Suggesting that a victory for Ukraine might have benefits for individuals, or even economic benefits, isn't anything like the same as what a victory for Russia would mean directly in terms of expansionism and strategic military value.
And, besides, let's not forget that Ukraine is more than just an asset for the various antagonists here.
It's a sovereign nation which deserves to have it's integrity secured.
Once that happens, everybody who wants a slice of it can get round a table and see if they can work it out.
Unfortunately, the world is such now that 'western values' are so toxic in certain countries - which now seem to include Russia - that the best we can do is leave them alone, whilst offering shelter to those who wish to leave these countries. Plenty of Iraqis were able to come here to live peacefully during the time of Saddam Hussein, it wasn't a perfect situation, but a better one that going over there to 'save' them and land them with something even worse.
If we'd attempted to bomb Assad out of existence, you can bet your life IS, not 'the moderates', would be controlling Damascus now. By their very nature, fighting is not a natural state for 'moderates', only peaceful revolutions - Czechoslovakia in 89, for instance - produce truly moderate governments. Once fighting starts, extreme fanatics will always win in the end.
It's awful but this idea of 'democratising' the whole world could ultimately cause enough trouble to finish it.
And to be honest, in the past both UK and USA have supported objectional regimes when it has suited us (Chile, South Africa), so to think that we are always on the side of the good guys is naive.
Not really sure about all of that. Plenty of countries manage to end up with democratic governments despite violent histories. Democratic doesn't have to mean "passive".
Course, having said that, it certainly doesn't seem to be the case in a lot of these middle-eastern countries.
The fact remains, though, that leaving these places to sort themselves out is not a viable course of action for an industrialised world.
First of all, it wouldn't be a victory 'for Ukraine'. It would be a victory for the faction that leads Ukraine currently. 18 months ago, 'Ukraine' was the pro-Russian leader. The only true victory for Ukraine would be no more fighting.
Secondly, 'expansionism' and pursuing military strategy is exactly what USA and NATO is being seen as doing in Russia - the sort of sentiment Putin is peverting and controlling in the country with his censored media and propaganda.
But among the points in my OP, much media coverage here in the UK, and the USA, although ostensibly free, is censoring - promoting only the anti-Russian side. Right from one year ago, when the original EuroMaidan protestors were described as 'pro-western'. Were they? With SS logos and ethnic prejudices among them? 'Anti-Russian' or 'anti-Putin' would've been a better description, many of them just want to use the west to get at Russia. I've seen it said that some ethnic Ukranians, having felt they've lost everything to Russian violence, would even be fine with a nuclear war that destroys the west, as long as it destroys Russia too.
Do we seriously want to get involved with such levels of desperation?
Link I know there's a level of anti-American establishment in this piece, but the words of the Ukranian official aren't in doubt. "We are not frightened anymore". Well I am, and I'm not afraid to admit it.
And like Libya, what a clever war you have chosen to get involved in. So many potential benefits for the UK. Holidays to Donbass etc... Thousands of Ukrainians setting up home in London as soon as we fast track them into the EU. That will help the immigration/housing Ponzi scheme! Win win situation.
Cameron truly is a better statesman than Blair!
Firstly, I'm still not sure how you can equate anything that the US or UK might be doing with what Russia is doing.
Annexing Crimea gains Russia sole control of access to a strategic naval base and a large portion of the Ukrainian coastline as well as control of all the industry in the area and it gains Putin the gratitude of a population who're likely to support him in future elections.
I see nothing that the US of UK can gain which even begins to compare with the direct benefits to Putin and Russia.
Secondly, it's rather disingenuous to hold up something which some people might "want" in order to justify something which, again, IS actually happening.
It's hardly surprising that the people of a country oppressed by Russia for 50-odd years harbour resentment for Russia.
If bad things actually happen they can be dealt with. At the moment the bad things which are happening are being caused by Russia.