Tag Archives: freedom

“Peace” in Donbas

Posted on by
Reply

Russia and Ukraine say they have agreed a ceasefire, to be effective by year’s end, in eastern Ukraine, currently occupied by Russia (along with Crimea) and Russia-instigated and -backed “rebels.”  It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

There is no agreement on a timetable for free elections in the occupied eastern oblasts, even assuming the dubious need at all for elections there separate from the regular national elections. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants Russian troops out of those oblasts before the elections; Russia’s President Vladimir Putin insists merely that Ukraine should give those oblasts autonomy before the elections. Zelenskiy is right: elections have no possibility of being free with Russian troops occupying the region.  It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

Zelenskiy had hoped for more from these…discussions…among Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany.

Many questions were tackled, and my counterparts have said it is a very good result for a first meeting. But I will be honest, it is very little; I wanted to resolve a larger number of problems[.]

Not only was Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine given short shrift, the subject of the Crimean Oblast didn’t even come up. I suspect that was one of the larger number of problems Zelenskiy wanted resolved. Unfortunately, Germany, though an actual signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity if it gave up its nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the USSR (which Ukraine did), long ago utterly betrayed Ukraine with its decision to walk away from that agreement. Merkel reinforced her government’s perfidy with her decision to ignore the fate of the Crimean Oblast in the just concluded talks.  Russia also is a signatory, but dishonesty and betrayal are the norm with that nation.  The Crimean Oblast will continue to be partitioned off and occupied by Russia.

It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

Short and Sweet

Posted on by
Reply

I watched the Nadler burlesque show that’s masquerading as the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing yesterday so you didn’t have to.  Here is the short and sweet of it.

The three Progressive-Democrat law professor witnesses each opened their opening statements by saying President Donald Trump was guilty and should be impeached even before they knew the impeachment charges being preferred.  They couldn’t know the charges because the Judiciary Committee has not written the articles of impeachment. Indeed, the committee chairman, Jerry Nadler (D, NY) has refused—and he refused repeatedly during yesterday’s show—even to say when the next hearing would be held or what witnesses would be called.

Those three Progressive-Democrat law professor witnesses went further: they pronounced their guilty verdicts even before they expressed their opinions of what might constitute an impeachable offense.

Like any burlesque show, we know how this will end because the script and choreography have long been written.

Surveillance

Posted on by
Reply

It turns out the People’s Republic of China government is a collection of pikers compared to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pair of bills Monday, one of which will require all consumer electronic devices sold in the country to be pre-installed with Russian software, while the other will register individual journalists as foreign agents.

Government spyware pre-installed on Russian citizens’ devices, so Russia’s modern-day KGB successor can track where Russian citizens are, with whom they’re communicating, what they’re doing, down to the last detail.

Government spyware that will not only identify who is a journalist (Russia’s definition of “journalist”), but register them as foreign agents—right alongside diplomats, diplomat staff, foreign-declared agents of a diplomat staff, but without any of the protections of those diplomats and staffs.

PRC President Xi Jinping seems yet to have lots to learn from the Russians.

Expanding Surveillance State

Posted on by
Reply

Want a new phone in the People’s Republic of China? You have to give up an image of your face to the government.

The requirement, which came into effect Sunday, is aimed at minimizing telephone fraud and preventing the reselling and illegal transfer of mobile phone cards, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a notice in September.

Right. That’s believable.  Never mind that

…facial recognition becomes more and more prevalent in [the PRC], with authorities applying artificial intelligence to sift through reams of data collected in a bid to boost the economy and centralize oversight of the population.

These are the guys our Big Tech is so anxious to do business with—especially in facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology development.

Nuclear Disarmament

Posted on by
Reply

Pope Francis wants it—completely, totally, for any purpose, even deterrence (assuming, for now, that this can be done verifiably and verifiably maintained).  The Pope thinks an arms race involving nuclear weapons adds to the danger of their existence, never minding the race, at least on the US’ part, is for self-defense and the defense of our friends and allies—the very purpose of NATO stationing nuclear weapons in Europe, for instance.

The Pope, though, avoided addressing how a non-nuclear nation with a small conventional military establishment would defend itself against an aggressively acquisitive non-nuclear nation with a large military establishment.  Like, say, the Soviet Union against the nations of Europe, individually or collectively. Or like, perhaps, the People’s Republic of China against the Republic of Korea or Japan—or us.

He appears unconcerned that this might lead to a conventional arms race and conventional military building-up race, a race whose deterrence exists only in the ability to conduct a follow-on mobilization race to the frontier—sort of like what turned out to be the first steps of European wars in the latter half of the 19th century and of two global wars in the first half of the 20th.

Of course, in the case of the PRC, the Pope already has abjectly surrendered control of the Catholic Church and of Catholicism—the Universal Church and universal religion—to the PRC government inside the PRC.

Maybe he expects the rest of us to meekly surrender politically, like he has done religiously.

No, I’m not going to turn the other cheek to conquerors and slavers. Not even St Augustine suggested that, for all that he decried preemption.