FYI, the account that you are replying to has a very long track record of pushing this talking point (and other crank opinions), so do not think that you are engaging in a good faith discussion with someone who can be convinced (1) - if they could be, it would have happened long ago. They're here to push that opinion into the public sphere.
That account was even banned from posting for a while (2), thankfully. Why it was allowed back, I do not know.
I read this entire call. The CIA is not mentioned. It's talking about the situation on the ground and details how the US is trying to help the Ukrainian opposition . It does show the US lied when it said it was "working with all sides" but nothing in the call shows the US was directly involved in the start of the conflict, funded the opposition prior to the coup, or that the CIA was involved.
This article doesn't state that the CIA started the conflict. It says that the CIA was helping the interim government in Kiev end the rebellion. That occurred after the revolution. In fact the article states "The interim Kiev government took charge in late February after months of street protests forced the ouster of Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych."
"Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure. It said the agents were not directly involved in fighting with pro-Russian militants". Helping the new Ukrainian government end the rebellion would occur post revolution i.e. post coup. This doesn't prove earlier involvement.
This is a complex article with two sections so I divided it up
Part 1 - Marcy Wheeler, not the author of this article but is a senior policy analyst at Pando is quotes by the article's author
This article first says "Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site's "senior policy analyst," speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep" forces on behalf of “Pax Americana”:
“There's quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.” - Marcy Wheeler
What's Pax Americana? It doesn't offer any evidence of that. The term has a link to a tweet thread that says the Ukrainian parliament staged a coup but offers no evidence. The tweet links to "http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/06/28/the-next-honduras/" which is about the Paraguay coup in 2012 (I don't know anything about this coup except that it's not Ukraine). Is this some other conspiracy about American power expansion in South American? It doesn't matter, it has nothing to do with what we are talking about..
She also mentions Q. I'm not sure if she's referring to the cult or using it as a general term for deep state activities. Either way it's difficult to see a person use it and not lose respect.
Part 2 - The main article by Mark Ames
The main article is an investigation into Marcy Wheeler's more general claims about US involvement in the Ukrainian revolution. Why didn't she do that since she's part of this news source and made the accusation....
Here's are some of the people and organizations that the article implicates as assisting the opposition either fully or partially.
1. "PACT" - A very large NGO that works in many countries including Ukraine, receives funding by both USAID and Pierre Omidyar (eBay founder)
2. George Soros who funds the "International Renaissance Foundation " a Ukrainian NGO (Yes I thought also went crazy when they mentioned him but he really did have an NGO in Ukraine
3. New Citizen which is a part of the NGO "Center UA, Pierre Omidyar (eBay founder) also donated some money to this group)
So here's the main points that I have no problem accepting for the sake of this discussion.
- There are wealthily private citizens who funded opposition groups in the Ukraine in the form of NGOs.
- These NGOs may have implied they are for one purpose but were actually helping the opposition either directly or indirectly.
- These NGOs received some funding from USAID which is funded by the US government. However no where does it state that the funding form USAID was meant for opposition work or a coup.
There's alot in this article but thankfully the author himself saved from me going deeper with this statement:
----> "This was by no means a US-backed "coup," but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych." <---- THIS IS THE AUTHOR SAYING IT WASN'T THE US GOVERNMENT IN THE ARTICLE YOU PROVIDED A SOURCE
I want to note the use of "US investment" because that means both private citizens and funding from USAID or other government organization but no proof is offered to show money was intended for a coup (from the US government). So this article doesn't show a CIA or US government backed coup, in my opinion, by the authors own admission.
"Our use of CIA/State Dept Tech Camp to help foment revolution"
- No where is that statement mentioned or headline used. The YT video is titled "TechCamp Kyiv 2012" and the description is "The U.S. Embassy hosted TechCamp Kyiv at Master Klass Cultural Center in Kyiv, Ukraine on September 12 and 13. TechCamp Kyiv marks the 14th TechCamp supporting Secretary Clinton's Civil Society 2.0, an initiative which builds the digital literacy of civil society organizations around the world."
- The video is about a tech camp in Kyiv, it's less than four minutes long and just has the most generic interviewsof people coming to the camp. for example "What are you expecting" and the person answers "I really liked the idea of speed geeking"
- The second article is talking about promoting subversive technologies around the world. For example Wikileaks.
- The CIA is not mentioned at all, including in the second article from fastcompany.com
- Neither article has anything about the opposition, any coups, Yanukovych, or Russia.
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This is all I can do for now but so far what I see is how crazy of a world you must think we live in. How connected, organized, and efficient governments must be. I guess also completely incompetent that while Hilary Clinton can run an NGO to influence around the world couldn't win the election? while at the same time incompetent? Richard Nixon, arguably the most powerful man in the world when he was president, gets taken down by incompetent burglars and a pathetic coverup but you think conspiracies like this exist? Haven't you worked at large companies?
I also see how these articles use what I am going to call "sugar words" to entice you to believe them. George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Q, Pax Americana, deep forces, dark forces 2, etc. Your brain tingles when you see one of these and I wonder if it makes it easier to digest these.
Finally the general format of these articles is that the author states an opinion and to back that up provides actual facts and connections between organizations. However the facts and connections don't support the opinion. What they do is make you even more suspicious because of all the circumstantial evidence so much so you get to the point where you accept the opinion as truth "because it just has to be".
It is interesting how you only have purely visual "signs" on your list ). It can't be only this for a tech crowd.
There is so much more about the way software is shipped, configured & used.
Also, the hardware. (It is much harder to make it work reasonably well across so many platforms without an army of full time devs.)
Do you mean that for a tech crowd, you'd expect people to have a more robust list of desires?
That's a genuine question, I just read yours in a few different ways.
However, I'd argue that relatively small details just fall into the category of overall interface polish. Not just aesthetic people polish, but the category of things that make you put your hands to your face and scream in frustration.
But yes, there are definitely important details in other layers that are worth considering. I think that when people make comparison's though, beetween macOS' level of finesse and something else, that finesse is defined by polish at most levels of interface with that hardware and so on.
It sounds like it is possible to justify the invasion, if you have a good enough story...
It is still not clear if the threat was real or imagined, I'd the "deescalation" proposition had real things or was just a very unrealistic set of terms and essentially an excuse to proceed.
NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.
>NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.
That's probably the case for many of the nordics but not Ukraine.
In 2021 NATO declared verbatim that Ukraine would become part of NATO and its process would proceed. Now it is on hold because NATO doesn't admit Nations with active conflicts and territorial disputes.
Of course russia doesnt get a formal vote in who NATO admits, but they have a de facto vote via the invasion. The US and NATO are scaling back military exercises in the Black Sea this year[1], which historically threatened Russia.
Coffee brewing. Both pour over and classical barista world championships are possible once you win your nationals.
I know someone who came 2nd in higly competitive nationals in my country and the person has a different full time job.
It is a very deep skill with a lot of science behind it, if you wish, and not fully explored yet.
First, there is no proof of the original claim, other than words of Ukrainian mayor.
Second, this explanation is much more logical than the version with russians firing superexpensive anti air weapons to random ground targets.
Third, there were photos of these missiles, and they belong to older series of rockets. Russia dismissed these old s-300 long ago, but Ukraine have plenty of them.
On the Kramatorsk train station attack. No, Russia had Tochka U officially in use (and of course we're also able to bring them up from storage, as it does with other old equipment now).
Can you show the source for the serial number?
https://t.me/CITeam/2463 I am linking a report by an inependent Russian citizens driven "Conflict Intelligence Team". This way it may look more credible or less biased in your eyes.
All in all, Russia can't deny these cerimes but makes everything to leave you uncertain and confused. Eventually you stop treating any version or investigate seriously. It seems this strategy works (
Fair enough. The report by the independent team makes compelling sense on why Russia fucked up and I am convinced that it is indeed Russia that miscalculated and blew up a civilian railway station.
Being in Ukraine, I appreciate such a cencire and public view on this war from a Russian citizen.
I have two major objections, though.
1) Solzhenitsyn & Brodskiy are very anti-soviet and famous guys, but they only go thus far. The first one was still an imperialist (at least in his later years) to a large degree and the second one had example(s) of a very anti-Ukrainian position in his poetry. Not the best characters to mention in the current context. And probably they illustrate a broader problem: it is so deep in the culture (history), that can not be treated as an accident.
2) The Man on top was not born out of a vacuum. Many generations before and during his "rise" share at least some of the responsibility. I don't want to blame the nation or "all the citizens", but too many individuals encouraged that. There was a point, when it was safe to protest, now it is not... but it is still much safer than to be in Mariupol.
> [...]a no-fly zone that no one will enforce given it would mean engaging with, guess what, the air force. Oh, and starting a nuclear war at the same time.
A thought experiment:
- if Putin is not insane and wants to live and enjoy his lifestyle (but plays his role to frighten everyone)
- that means he is unlikely to use nukes
- which means it might be practical to establish a no-flight zone, etc
If you believe he is insane, however, the West has nothing else to do than to let him grab whatever he wants (Estonia, maybe?). This is a dead end for NATO.
I was there. What about you?