BrentWil

BrentWil's Journal

March 23, 2014

Nate Silver: GOP favored to win Senate

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fivethirtyeight-senate-forecast/

March 13, 2014

Russia Massing Military Forces Near Border With Ukraine

Russia Massing Military Forces Near Border With Ukraine:

http://nyti.ms/1kmhzE7

Looks like a full scale war could start shortly.

March 11, 2014

Bernie Sanders would give the White House to Any Republican, including Ted Cruz

Stop living in a fantasy world. Despite what multiple threads say, he has no chance. Being a socialist is a political slur for the vast majority of Americans. Running someone that says they are a socialist and have far left views will give the White House to the GOP. He would be the only way Ted Cruz makes it into the White House.

March 10, 2014

Russia Versus US: Who is the better/worse/more just nation?

Simple, yet complex question. Comparing Russia and the US, which nation acts more justly both internationally and domestically?

March 8, 2014

U.S. Special Forces Sent to Train Iraqi Special Forces in Jordan

Source: New York TImes

The United States recently sent a small number of special forces soldiers to Jordan to train with counterparts from Iraq and Jordan, a new step in the Obama administration's effort to help Baghdad stamp out a resurgent al Qaeda threat, a U.S. defense official said on Friday.

The U.S. contingent was dispatched to take part in a training exchange with counterterrorism forces from Iraq and Jordan, allowing the administration to provide a modest new measure of support to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

"The training will bolster skills in counterterrorism and special operations tactics, techniques and procedures," a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity.

The training, which includes less than 100 elite soldiers from the three countries, began last weekend. It will continue through the end of April, although the Iraqi soldiers will only take part through the end of this month, the official said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/03/07/world/middleeast/07reuters-usa-iraq.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

March 4, 2014

Russia sent in busloads of “protest tourists”

This is absurd. Have they not heard of this thing called the internet. This sort of stuff gets out nowadays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/world/europe/russias-hand-can-be-seen-in-the-protests.html

It is clear that in this part of Ukraine, many ethnic Russians distrust the fledgling government, and some would indeed welcome Russian troops. But the events unfolding in major Ukrainian cities in recent days appear to match a pattern played by the Kremlin in Crimea, where pro-Moscow forces paving the way for Russia to seize control were neither altogether spontaneous, nor entirely local.

March 4, 2014

WP: President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy

Very good read by the editorial board of the Washington Post.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-obamas-foreign-policy-is-based-on-fantasy/2014/03/02/c7854436-a238-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html

But it’s also true that, as long as some leaders play by what Mr. Kerry dismisses as 19th-century rules, the United States can’t pretend that the only game is in another arena altogether. Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not. While the United States has been retrenching, the tide of democracy in the world, which once seemed inexorable, has been receding. In the long run, that’s harmful to U.S. national security, too.

As Mr. Putin ponders whether to advance further — into eastern Ukraine, say — he will measure the seriousness of U.S. and allied actions, not their statements. China, pondering its next steps in the East China Sea, will do the same. Sadly, that’s the nature of the century we’re living in.

March 3, 2014

Not deterring Russia will have the same effect as not deterring Germany in Czechoslovakia in 1938

There are Russian ethnic groups throughout the old Soviet Union. If Putin is allowed to annex the eastern Ukraine and perhaps the whole state, it will have the same effect as it did for Hitler in 1938. Aggression will be rewarded. There is no political will to stop it. This will continue. Putin has said that the USSR dissolving is one of the biggest mistakes in history. Unless he is deterred here by some means, he may continue to try to make the map look like this:

March 3, 2014

Putin's War in Crimea will Soon Spread to Eastern Ukraine And nobody can stop it

Gets it right. In the end, Russia will expand and nobody will stop them or can stop them.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116810/putin-declares-war-ukraine-and-us-or-nato-wont-do-much

Neither America nor NATO can stop this. They've shown they won't in Georgia, because nobody wants to start a war with nuclear-armed Russia, and rightly so. So while Washington and Brussels huff and puff about lines and sovereignty and diplomacy, Russia will do what it needs to do and there's not a thing we can do about it.

Russia's next target is eastern Ukraine. Because pessimism conquers all, don't bet that Putin is going to stop once he wrests Crimea from Kiev's orbit. Eastern, Russian-speaking Ukraine—and all its heavy industry—is looking pretty good right now. And if you're thinking "Why would Putin take eastern Ukraine?," well, you haven't been reading very carefully.

March 3, 2014

Kremlin TV Loves Anti-War Protests—Unless Russia Is the One Waging War

RT is such a joke. The fact that it is taken seriously here is ridiculous.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116816/whataboutism-russia-protests-against-war-ukraine

But where are the pacifists, the ones who thing language isn't worth starting a war over? Russia Today generally takes an anti-war stance, right?

Well, oddly enough, RT has no coverage of the anti-war protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which, shockingly enough, were brutally broken up by police. In Moscow alone, some 350 people were arrested today. There were arrests in St. Pete, too. Here's what it all looked like, since you won't see it on Russia Today.

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