Dead souls

In her book 'A dirty war' Anna Politovskaia describes how russian soldiers were sent to Chechnya without identification tags, without fingerprints recorded or blood sample taken, and mother of the missing soldiers had to wait months or years to receive an answer if their missing sons were dead or not.
Sometimes they traveled to Chechnya to ransom the body of their sons from the mafia.
Now the relatives of MH17 crash victims know that they are dead, but they are in same situation as mothers of young Russian soldiers, without a body to grieve.
It seems that in Russia nothing has changed since Nikolai Gogol wrote the story "Dead Souls".
If in the story a man called Chichikov wants to buy names of dead peasants to increase his social status, now Putin uses dead passengers bodies as bargaining chips in a poker game against the world.

Russia will be the next Yugoslavia?

A communist multiethnic federation breaks up.
Some authoritarian president wants to patch his state, but he cannot overtly use force, so instead he supports with training, guns and men creation of paramilitary forces in claimed territory.
These paramilitary soldiers are pawn of this psychopathic president who publicly denies any involvement and urges for peace. The relations between the paramilitary and secret services of president states are always at low level, without any written orders.
Finally the paramilitary makes a mistake and enrages the public community, and the president distance himself from  paramilitary leaving them to pay the bill.
This happened in Yugoslavia 20 years ago and the president was Milosevic, and the incident was Srebrenica_massacre but the situation is similar  with what is happening now in Ukraine.
Then and now the West was slow to react, and violence spread. Then West supported Slovenian,Croats and some muslims, Russia and China supported the communist Milosevic and Serbian side, Saudi Arabia supported the radical Muslims.
Now West supports the Ukrainian government, the Islamic states support the Muslims and Russia supports the separatists from eastern Ukraine.
It seems that it is the same play,almost the same actors but the ending could be different now.

What will happen next?
First of all the Ukrainian crisis is global, it is not longer regional, before shooting of the plane, if you lived in Australia,Malaysia or even Holland, you could care less about fighting in Donetsk.
These affected countries need to retaliate, in order to maintain their internal cohesion. The frustration must be vent up through aggression towards the culprit. And the culprit is Russia, even they didn't ordered the shooting of the plane.
Australia cannot impose sanctions on separatists from Ukraine but it can do that on Russia.

What Russia will do?
First they tried to blame others, Ukrainian in this case, but even separatists themselves bragged that they shoot a plane.
So now they will blame the separatists, a faceless force, of people who bought their guns and uniforms from Donetsk mall.
But the problem is that without proper training the separatists couldn't not have operate the BUK anti-aircraft system. This article shows how difficult is to operate this system.
The people have to be trained.No ragtag militia can operate such a system, and don't think that Ukrainian army surrender their rockets to the people of Donetsk willingly.

If indeed the Ukraine military switched sides and gave the BUK system, why till now the separatist didn't shut down an high flying plane? So the BUK came recently after the separatist were losing ground because of lack of air power.
The only source for separatist BUK rockets is Russia.

What will do Russia next?

Rationally demands to  negotiate an exit from Ukraine, in order to avoid complete isolation, and economic sanctions now when everybody is demanding it.
But  Kremlin doesn't behave rationally. They will continue to support insurgents,  but they will provide for air cover themselves. Already they bombed one of their village to provide a motivation for the Russian public to support this action "to protect the motherland".

NATO in his turn will provide air cover for Ukraine, and Soviet Union and NATO will fight in the sky as in Korean War. NATO will try to do this by a UN resolution. In Security council Russia will veto and China will support it by abstaining.

How it will be the end?
In Yugoslavian wars Milosovic was beaten because his country was small isolated, had weaker air power than US and internal opposition was well organized.
Russia now is big, it doesn't care too much about isolation, has big air power and opposition is weak.
So the economic sanctions will have effects only on long term, and bombing is not an option.
The bombing was ineffective also in Yugoslavia, people united against foreign aggression and Milosevic lose power only in face of opposition demonstrations against rigging the elections.
The only people who can stop this madness are the russians, they have the mandate to overthrow Putin, but the country is big and it is hard to organize a opposition against Putin, without the risk of being poisoned.
Only in 2018 when  Putin will arrange some elections it is possible to change him.
I think till 2018 the involvement of Russia in Ukraine will continue, despite the sanctions and despite the impoverishment of ordinary Russians.
If the conflict will escalate, after the air fight between NATO and Russia, will follow naval battles, commando incursions and sabotages, and finally a full scale war.  NATO will try to avoid war but Putin will go too far.


After the Yugoslavian war Milosevic and Karadzic were trialed and convicted by an UN penal court, I hope that the authors of yesterday massacre and of crimes in Ukraine will have the same fate.

Razboi mediatic si capitalism

Daca in perioada crizei economice din 1929, Uniunea Sovietica se sprijinea pe comunistii idelisti, acuma rusia se sprijina pe dezamgitii capitalismului, din est. Astfel pe forumuri nu mai apar comentarii pro-ruse si anti-americane, ci mai degraba comunist nostalgice,anti-capitaliste si uneori anti-semite.

Oare cine a pus la TVR filmul lui Michale Moore "Capitalism a love story".
Exista o dicrepanta intre teoria si practica capitalismului.
In teorie a piata perfecta a un numar mare de firme care sa ofere produse similare la un pret jos.
In realitate chiar daca toti pornesc de la aceiasi conditii datorita diferentelor individuale unii au succes si altii nu. Altii se extind si altii pier. Competitia darwinista face legea, si piata este acaparata de un numar limitat de firme, care se pot carteliza si dicta pretul pietei.
Asupra econmiei mai afecteaza si socializarea umana, cum spuneam mai sus, competitorii se pot carteliza si fixa preturile.
Politica poate avea un rol foarte mare, unele firme reusind datorita influentei politice sa se aboneze la contracte cu statul sau sa nu fie controlate la impozite.

Capitalismul nu e perfect dar merge, si trebuie perfectionat,nu trebuie sa ne aruncam iar dupa utopii.
Cica in vremea perestroikai, rusii au trimis pe cineva la Londra sa afle care este sistemul lor de alimentare cu paine, ceea ce a derutat gazdele engleze. In capitalism nu ai un sistem de aprovizionare cu paine, dar totusi ai paine la fiecare colt de strada.

Ponta: "Ne descurcam noi,domnule Presedinte"

Daca nu as fi auzit asta de la Ponta la televizor as fi crezut ca aceasta perla a iesit din gura unui elev care nu a invatat pentru BAC si se bazeaza pe copiat.

Stiind ca Ponta e duplicitar, eu cred ca el saboteaza aceasta masura, stiind ca nu poate acoperi gaura de 5 miliarde, dar fiind obligat de cineva/ceva sa o ia.
Neputand sa bage copilul inapoi in pantec, Ponta il lasa sa moara de foame.
Alfel nu imi explic de ce nici Ponta nici ministra finantelor nu au oferit datele solicitate de presedinte.
Pana la urma este o chestie bun simt, daca iei de undeva trebuie sa pui la loc.