Alarm at Russian expansion had at this time caused a flurry of British intelligence activity. Russia was fighting a tremendous spirit of resistance in its newly conquered territories in the Caucasus, and in a secret service operation Palmerston sent a British ship, the Vixen, into the Black Sea in 1836 to run arms to Chechen resistance fighters there. It caused a diplomatic incident when the ship was intercepted by Russian forces, but Palmerston sent an assurance to Russian foreign minister Count Nesselrode that the British government had no knowledge of the venture – just as Nesselrode was to assure Palmerston two years later that the Russian government had not authorised Witkiewicz’ mission to Kabul. Both men were highly accomplished liars.
I am still working very hard indeed on Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game and I thought you might enjoy that paragraph as a little teaser, given its contemporary relevance. The world hasn’t really changed that much in the intervening 180 years.
“Putin dismissed the notion that the uniformed armed people without insignia who are currently present in Crimea are Russian soldiers.”
“That could well be true.”
But it isn’t – funny he had a mercenary force just ready to go. There is plenty of evidence around that the force is made up of Russian regulars if you care to look.
Someone: curious that Sir Paul Dukes didn’t make any mention of it. In fact with Dukes there might be quite a bit in what he chose not to speak of, or changed the appearance of. Although not now in print he is worth reading and he clearly found a great deal of what he was looking for in Russia.
Great teaser. I’m looking forward to this book when it is published.
Perhaps even more pertinent is Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). Yes, we’ve been there before. As with Afghanistan we have never learnt, but that was a particular mistake, like our adherence as pawns to US foreign policy. The US does not mind how many British troops die in its pursuit of world domination. It will be more than 600.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Fred 8.41pm
Any fool knows what Johnson really meant was that “patriotism is the FIRST refuge of scoundrels”…:.)
How right he was.
Res Diss
“Putin dismissed the notion that the uniformed armed people without insignia who are currently present in Crimea are Russian soldiers.”
Nothing like you originally claimed he said:
“Putin’s lie that there are no Russian troops in Crimea”
Don’t blame you though. There’s so much propaganda coming from Fascist Central in Kiev that it must be quite difficult to keep up with it all.
Feel free though to rebut what he actually is saying.
Been reading this, Marx’s write-up of his research into what makes the Russians tick. Cannot fault his assessment. A lot of his research was done at the British Library, reading British diplomatic correspondence from Russia. Quite a lot of that is reproduced verbatim.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/index.htm
It’s half 9 so Habbabkuk must be on the night shift…:.)
No zero hour contracts for these fellows.
(Life so good-so long as you’re not in a food bank queue rejecting certain foodstuffs because you cant afford to heat them up).
Clark,
you should relax about the AGW theory. It is a political theory, not a scientific one.
In this audio Willy Wimmer, a German lawyer, discusses the Coup d’etat in the Ukraine. He, quite rightly in my opinion, believes that the US is trying to set various countries against each other in Europe in its perpetual war, and that all this started with the war in Serbia.
http://nsnbc.me/2014/03/10/coup-detat-ukraine/
Dunno if anyone’s seen this:
“Address of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to European and international organisations and human rights institutions”
http://www.ccu.gov.ua//en/publish/article/239275;jsessionid=447A6B91CE60E6D52D1DDF7CFAA7375C
I think the fascists abolished them because they were being very boring over the constitution and law and stuff.
But then, that’s what fascists do.
Some things never change.
John,
“Perhaps even more pertinent is Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). Yes, we’ve been there before. As with Afghanistan we have never learnt, but that was a particular mistake, like our adherence as pawns to US foreign policy. The US does not mind how many British troops die in its pursuit of world domination. It will be more than 600”
So you do actually understand the great game – “full spectrum dominance”.
CB
I certainly do Courtney and only wish others beyond this blog could see it.
Herbie,
Yes, I think you may be making the grave mistake of imaging judges in the former soviet union countries to be in any way independent, creditable or distinguished
Problems then arise when you get some complete cunt like Berezovsky who played a major role in stoking war in Chechenia so as to line his filthy pockets. (There’s a good story about Berezovsky in Ilyumzhinov’s autobiography.)
N- to what extent does the story there correspond to John Dunlop’s considered opinions on the Moscow apartment bombings, which also implicted Berezovsky ?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/nov/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/?page=1
Evgueni, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”; Milan Kundera, 1978. I remember when politicians were dismissive of global warming, always saying how the economy had to be put first. That was before the Stern Review translated habitat loss and human suffering into monetary figures and loss of profits. As usual, money is the only thing that can change politicians’ minds.
The science has never changed; the greenhouse properties of CO2 were just the same then as now. As the CO2 concentration increases so does the temperature, just as we’d expect. If the temperature wasn’t increasing there’d be a major scientific anomaly to explain.
There’s political involvement, sure enough, but it’s in the opposite direction:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2014/756-the-fateful-collision-floods-catastrophe-and-climate-denial.html
http://www.monbiot.com/2007/12/11/rigged/
John,
My problem is the following:-
A. I tell ’em where I see the short failings.
B. They tell me I am wrong.
C. Events and history tell me and ’em – I am right.
Over to you and all bloggers.
CB
Wasn’t the Constitutional Court then one that was set up to restore lost gas licences (Regal etc).
Clark,
I have done my research and I am satisfied that there is no such thing as ‘the science of AGW’. That only leaves the politics of AGW, religion even – for many.
Epidemiology is another deeply corrupted ‘science’.
By William Blum
” Putin’s calm leadership, the absence of provocative statements and threats, and his insistence on legality and will of the people stand in stark contrast to the West’s threats and support for violent overthrow of a democratically elected government. It is astonishing that the only leadership the world has comes from Russia, China, and three or four countries in South America. The Western world no longer has diplomatic capability. Instead, the Western world relies on propaganda, threats, force, and schemes to overthrow governments that it first demonizes.
Notice that Putin repeatedly asks why the West created the crisis in Ukraine. He makes the important point that in post-Soviet countries, legality and democracy are fragile. Democracy and legality are not furthered by overthrowing democracy before it has taken roots and placing in office an unelected government by force and illegality. It is impossible to argue with this point. Why, indeed, did the West murder democracy and constitutional order in Ukraine?
The fact that Putin asks the question does not mean he does not know the answer. He does not give the answer, because he is a diplomat and still has some hope for common sense and good will to prevail. He knows that the West supported the overthrow of the Ukrainian government as part of its strategic thrust against the sovereignty and independence of Russia. Aligning Ukraine with NATO means US missile bases in Ukraine. Remember how terrified Americans were of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
Putin knows that Washington in pursuit of world hegemony is driving the world to a dangerous war in which neither side can accept defeat. Thus, nuclear weapons would be unleashed. Putin knows that the reason Washington withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty and installed anti-ballistic missiles in Poland is to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Putin knows that the reason Washington changed its war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack is to carry out a first strike against Russia.
Putin also knows that only Europe can prevent this final devastation. Therefore, Putin does not make provocative statements or take strong actions. He hopes that Europe will notice his reasonable behavior in contrast with the reckless behavior of Washington and realize that Europe and NATO must cease enabling Washington’s pursuit of hegemony, a pursuit that is driving the world to its destruction. Putin hopes that Europeans’ sense of self-preservation will prevail over their lust for Washington’s money and invitations to dinner at the White House.
By taking this humane and rational approach, Putin has established himself as the true leader of the world. Washington counters Putin’s leadership with demonization. Putin’s leadership frustrates Washington and makes Putin a candidate for assassination.”
When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.
The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.
And who threatens United States domination?
Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building one base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine; one missile site after another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one former Soviet Republic after another. The White House, and the unquestioning American mainstream media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism. “Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years ago, “is this is a military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving towards our border? It’s moving towards our border. Why?”
The Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military action.) Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!
The Ukrainian insurgents and their Western-power supporters didn’t care who their Ukrainian allies were in carrying out their coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month … thugs who set policemen on fire head to toe … all manner of extreme right-wingers, including Chechnyan Islamic militants… a deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s nukes in three to six months.… the snipers firing on the protestors who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A bugged phone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.”… neo-Nazi protestors in Kiev who have openly denounced Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
The wider Article @
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-and-americas-strive-for-world-domination/5372400
Evgueni, we may be off-topic here (I’m not sure this thread has a topic), but I’d be interested in how you’ve come to such a conclusion. If you can spare the time, please either e-mail me, or we could discuss the matter at Squonk’s; Squonk would probably start a new thread for the purpose, but for now there’s the General Discussion thread:
https://squonk.tk/blog/2014/01/20/the-general-discussion-thread/
yes, the great game continues … at a rapid rate these days:
10 March – Businessweek: Switzerland Seeks Precision as Nations Shape Carbon Markets (1)
South Africa, Brazil and Ukraine are among countries considering carbon markets that met last week in Mexico City under the auspices of the Partnership for Market Readiness, a World Bank program to develop nations’ emissions trading…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-10/switzerland-seeks-precision-as-30-nations-shape-carbon-markets
World Bank Carbon Finance Org: The Partnership for Market Readiness
Shaping the Next Generation of Carbon Markets
PMR Implementing Country Participants—Proposed Activities in Other Regions
(SEE UKRAINE SECTION)
https://wbcarbonfinance.org/docs/PMR_Brochure_v2.pdf
PMR Update: Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR): Update Since PA7
Eighth Meeting of the Partnership Assembly Mexico City, Mexico
March 3-5, 2014
http://www.thepmr.org/system/files/documents/PA8_Update.pdf
speaking of Great Games, Craig, how do you rate Antony Sutton?
i don’t think he could have encapsulated what he discovered, by way of documentary evidence, better than he did in this short interview:
Wall Street Funded the Bolshevik Revolution – Professor Antony Sutton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaFklTLNy8c
“Putin’s calm leadership, the absence of provocative statements and threats, and his insistence on legality and will of the people ”
This must be another Putin we’ve not heard about.
The only Putin I have heard about is the one who gave Snowden refuge from the Great Satan when the PRC asked him to leave Hong Kong. That Putin is worth more than a nmillion yids or yats !
As I haven’t already thought it would be possible, I found now an article, which I find quite reasonable, on what’s going on in a British paper, namely The Guardian.
Marina Lewycka: Ukraine and the west: hot air and hypocrisy
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/ukraine-and-west-hot-air-hypocrisy-crimea-russia
I recommend it to read, and to think about it, though “thinking is dangerous”, because “it can lead you to see the other person’s point of view.”
The only thing I see Marina Lewycka got wrong is that she states, Viktor Yanukovych resigned, when in fact he didn’t resign. But the narrative is otherwise honest and written quite powerfully.
As we return to Victorian values and notions of the deserving poor, it behoves us to admire the sanctity of this good man, who has given millions in total to the Conservative Party:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-11/red-kite-evangelicals-reap-47-sowing-bet-on-china-copper-market.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-13m-cash-boost-3150628
We are utterly unworthy. Praise!
Fred
“and you get a flame war.”
_____________
You’re not important enough for that, Fred. Just drop it and stay O/T.
I actually only mentioned it en passant, but why try and deny that you’re against Scottish independence when all your contributions to that particular debate indicate that you are? It’s a perfectly respectable position to hold and I’m genuinely puzzled that you’re getting so hot under the collar about it?
Oh, I forgot ! There was another Putin too, who shot down a training missile fired at Damascus by a benzion melikowski aka bibi satanyahu at the height of the Ghouta false flag gassing. That Putin did not even take credit for it, leaving the Beast to reluctantly deny it had been involved in a “training exercise” as intimated by its zio partners. Neither of them knew it was Putin, just like the telephonic leaks of satanic intrigue we are getting from him now.
Resident Dissident
“But it isn’t – funny he had a mercenary force just ready to go. There is plenty of evidence around that the force is made up of Russian regulars if you care to look.”
______________
I think that’s correct. After all, the UK is regularly accused on this blog of sending in undercover SAS and other military to various conflicts, so why should the very same contributors get so hot under the collar about rasPutin doing the same? Beats me!
Hurby
““Putin dismissed the notion that the uniformed armed people without insignia who are currently present in Crimea are Russian soldiers.”
Nothing like you originally claimed he said:
“Putin’s lie that there are no Russian troops in Crimea””
____________________
Those two points of Resident Dissident’s seem perfectly consistent to me. In both quotes, rasPutin is claiming that there are no Russian soldiers in Crimea (other than those allowed there by treaty to support the Black Sea fleet of course). But please do point to any inconsistency if you wish.