BBC journo’s seem to like the romance of the AK47 wielding terrorist
‘Today’ (08:40) brought us Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, who after a spell educating himself in Soviet Russia, pre the collapse of the Berlin Wall (No surprise there….a BBC journo studying in Moscow), and continuing to live there for the next 15 years (I’m sure he’s not gone native) tells us that the fall of the Berlin Wall was a disaster leading to war and conflict. The Soviet Empire was a peace keeper that meant the world could relax in the knowledge that having a Soviet jackboot on your neck and AK47 toting insurgents murdering anyone who didn’t agree with their world view was in fact a welcome sign of a benevolent regime much preferable to the unconstrained freedoms that would allow an outbreak of the nightmares that come with democracy, free speech and liberty.
Russia invading the Ukraine isn’t a sign of Russian aggression trying to re-establish its old empire but a reaction to EU aggression led by NATO which has egregiously agreed to allow countries that ask to join its ranks.
It’s the old BBC meme…just as poor old Iran is only reacting to the aggression of the US and the enemies that surround it, Russia is similarly beset by sabre rattling enemies….yes…I can see his point…..
Poor old Russkies. Just have to keep arming most of the world’s terrorist and insurgent groups to maintain world peace.
Wander what the BBC will make of the Israeli security barrier in 25 years…unlike the Berlin Wall which was designed to keep people inside the world’s biggest prison camp, the Israeli barrier is designed to keep out murderous terrorists.
But of course it is the Israeli barrier that is the target of the BBC’s provocatively misleading reporting.
What drugs do these lefties take??
He is a useful idiot to the Left, but a worse than useless idiot to the rest of us.
The Twitter screengrab at the top of this article – is that from a BBC employee?
This Ukraine business is such a dangerous game, which could easily escalate with disastrous consequences. Already there are 4,000 dead and many hundreds of thousands of others displaced, injured and a Malaysian airliner shot down.
In my view, this is certainly one ‘bag of worms’ which the EU and NATO could have easily avoided with a foreign policy geared more towards trade and security, rather than re-igniting a Cold War strategy, (plus now very damaging trade sanctions are biting on both sides and an escalation in these could engender more world-wide economic misery).
http://online.wsj.com/articles/eu-projects-impact-of-sanctions-on-russian-economy-1414583901
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29952505
One has to ask why has NATO and EU both deliberately prodded the Russian Bear without necessarily thinking through the end game, (just like Bush & Co with Blair did in Iraq and Afghanistan – just look at that mess now). It looks to me like a similar Bush ‘gung-ho’ Foreign Policy, perpetrated by the EU and NATO has been adopted for the Ukraine.
The Ukraine was not directly threatening our security until we decided to go against agreements made when the Berlin Wall came down.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9304652/russias-nato-myth/
Quote:
Gorbachev says he agreed to withdraw from Soviet central Europe only after being promised that ‘NATO would not move a centimetre to the east’. This claim would seem to be corroborated by the handwritten notes of James Baker, the former US Secretary of State. ‘Nato — whose juris. would not move eastward,’ he scribbled during a conversation with Gorbachev in 1990. He then wrote to Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany, that he had offered the Soviets ‘assurances that Nato’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position’.
One can appreciate that East Germany, Poland and most other ex-Warsaw Pact countries were not traditional Russian Lands and would naturally turn West. Indeed the EU and NATO did take advantage to take these nations under the West’s wing whilst the old Soviet Union was going through it’s chaotic restructuring phase, but the Ukraine, (mainly the Eastern part), is not traditional West territory.
I believe the EU and NATO have given false hope to Western Ukrainians, (the Eastern part of the country is almost part of Russia and has been for hundreds of years and naturally does not turn West). Kiev was the first East Slavic State capital – Kiev Rus – and Crimea was only handed over to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954.
My main point is why have we gone further than mutual beneficial trading partnerships with Ukraine?
We appear to be deliberately looking for a conflict with Russia, which is not something that should ever be contemplated lightly, particularly when a pragmatic Foreign Policy could have totally avoided this crisis when rich mutual trading deals could have been the other side of the coin.
The likes of Rosenberg never ask why if the end of the Soviet Union and the fall of the wall has proved such a disaster then why haven’t all the eastern European countries and Russia got back together to build it again and go back to how things were.
The fact is that the end of the Soviet Union was fantastic for most of the people of occupied eastern Europe but bad for western ‘liberal’ apologists for Soviet totalitarianism who once looked forward to the whole world living in total obedience to a communist elite.
“Russia invading the Ukraine isn’t a sign of Russian aggression trying to re-establish its old empire but a reaction to EU aggression led by NATO which has egregiously agreed to allow countries that ask to join its ranks.”
That is exactly the same assessment of the situation that I make, and is also the same assessment as Nigel Farage.
“Poor old Russkies. Just have to keep arming most of the world’s terrorist and insurgent groups to maintain world peace.”
Russia hasn’t had the resources to fund terrorism since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is true that back in the 1970s the USSR supported the IRA, ANC, PLO and a myriad of dodgy revolutionaries.
But if you look who is funding the worst terrorists today it is America, Britain and the Saudis. Look how well Libya turned out, or Eqypt or Syria or Iraq. We are still supplying ISIS with non lethal aid.
Cameron recently gave a billion pounds to that corrupt terror state Pakistan. And Putin is supposed to be the bad guy?
The West didn’t want Saudi Arabia to become an Islamic republic like Iran, but at what cost ?
The dangers of realpolitik.
I was actually there when the wall came down, and even have a bit of concrete on a shelf. But I wasn’t too happy with the demolition. Even today there is a feeling that the whole thing should still be up as a punishment to those bastards, and a reminder to their descendants of the unspeakable crimes they committed.