Saturday, March 8, 2014
Ukraine and the media
Seen so many leftists articles proclaiming Ukraine was the work of Neo-Fascists. Funny how the Neo fascists were supporting economic freedoms while the old guard wanted to align with Russia. Funnier still is that these same reporters completely worship the alter of Obama who tells business exactly what they can do, tells average Americans what they must purchase or be heavily taxed for not doing so. Who forces GM to produce the money losing Volt but subsidizes it with taxpayer money. NOTHING COULD BE MORE FASCIST THAN OBAMA.
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I liked this article. http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/opinion/miller-five-myths-about-ukraine-crisis/index.html
ReplyDeleteLive Free.
ReplyDeleteA bit strong there mate, Obama a Fascist and is allowed to remain both a Fascist and your President while you all proclaim the wonders and freedoms of the Bill of Rights!!
Surely this is a contradiction in terms and you are simply getting carried away on a wave of bile generated by the Repubs having not won the white house last election.
The article cited by Mick is instructive and it becomes more so if you care to read the remarks by Clinton.H concerning Hitler and Putin. Here in Australia we see the beginnings of a movement which is following the US in that various organizations and identities use world events to make a point to detract from their political opponents.
An extreme example of the point I made above is the latest air crash with Malaysian Air Boing 777 crashing yesterday. No trace of the aircraft has yet been found and there were no warning signs that something was amiss. On Australian TV this morning it was mooted that sabotage was the cause and no doubt by tonight there will be a story blaming a rocket from North Korea.
Now back to the story of the cruel Russian Bear who has invaded the Crimea. Surely this is a purely domestic affair and apart from diplomatic pressure, the rest of the world should not become engaged. If Ukraine decides on partition, what right does the west have to use force to intervene? How and why should we criticize Obama who appears to have done little or nothing to inflame the situation? In fact if reports are correct the Americans are doing all they can to defuse the situation.
It seems to me, if you wish t be critical of your President you have plenty of reasons to do so on ideological grounds, the excess in spending being one obvious factor. As I have said here before, I have no dog in the fight but I do have a very warm regard for America and her people, it is sad to see otherwise good and decent folk using hatred and bile to proclaim a cause considered worthy only because it is opposed by ones political opponents.
Surely this is a purely domestic affair and apart from diplomatic pressure, the rest of the world should not become engaged. If Ukraine decides on partition, what right does the west have to use force to intervene? How and why should we criticize Obama who appears to have done little or nothing to inflame the situation? In fact if reports are correct the Americans are doing all they can to defuse the situation.
ReplyDelete1. Domestic affair? Should Mexico invade California, would it be a domestic affair?
2. Doesn't this fall under the mandate of the United Nations?
3. Should Crimea have sole decision making authority or is it in the entire nations interest? It would be like Texas leaving the US, should Texas be allowed to decide their future or a question of the country?
4. Why is it that Russia is allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation?
Just a few questions.
Yes Lou an Texas has the right to leave the USA
Delete"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Probably not.
DeleteCan a state legally secede from the Union? Many, including Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, suggest no. In a 2006 letter, available here, Scalia argued that a the question was not in the realm of legal possibility because 1) the United States would not be party to a lawsuit on the issue 2) the “constitutional” basis of secession had been “resolved by the Civil War,” and 3) there is no right to secede, as the Pledge of Allegiance clearly illustrates through the line “one nation, indivisible.”
Scalia is not the first Supreme Court justice to establish this position. In the case of Texas v. White in 1869, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote that, “The union between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.” The majority opinion struck down the Texas Ordinance of Secession, calling it “null,” and crafted a decision that rendered all acts of secession illegal according to the “perpetual union” of both the Articles of Confederation and subsequent Constitution for the United States. Chase did leave an opening, “revolution or the consent of the States,” but without either, secession could never be considered a legal act.
The arguments against legal secession are generally based on both a historical concept of the Union and the language of the Constitution itself. In the Texas v. White decision, Chase began his legal challenge to secession with a historical discussion of the Union. He suggested that the Union predated the states and grew from a common kindred spirit during the years leading to the American War for Independence. This “one people” mentality was best articulated by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.
DeleteStory, who channeled John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, reasoned that the Constitution was framed and ratified by the people at large, not the people of an individual state and thus held the same legal position of a state itself formed from many counties. “The constitution of a confederated republic, that is, of a national republic, formed of several states, is, or at least may be, not less an irrevocable form of government, than the constitution of a state formed and ratified by the aggregate of the several counties of the state.” In one sentence, Story reduced the states to the status of a county, shire, or province, and this general argument was used as a hammer both during Reconstruction and after against the sovereignty of the states.
Story additionally concluded, as did Chase in 1869, that the term “perpetual” found in the Articles of Confederation, deemed the Union indissoluble. Chase surmised that the Constitution simply made the Union “more perfect” while Story suggested that the Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation but did not change the permanent and “perpetual” nature of the Union. Story defended his position with the “Supremacy Clause” found in Article VI, which states that all laws or treaties made “in pursuance of the Constitution” were the “supreme law of the land,” and he pointed to the letter sent by the Philadelphia Convention accompanying the Constitution to the state ratifying conventions that the Constitution aimed at a “consolidation of the Union.” Hence, to Story and Chase, the Union continued to exist in an altered—i.e. consolidated—form and could not be dissolved.
Another argument against secession centers on the language of Article I, Section 10, which declares that “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….” To proponents of this position, Article I, Section 10 unequivocally shows that the states which formed the Confederate States of America were in clear violation of the Constitution, thus invalidating their government and the individual acts of secession which led to it. Abraham Lincoln indirectly defended this position by declaring the seceding states were in “rebellion” and therefore still members of the Union. The Constitution, then, was still legally enforceable in those states, including Article I, Section 10.
Lou my thanks. I shall try to answer your questions in the order they are asked.
Delete(1) If Mexico invades California it would be a foreign invasion. Totally different to the Ukraine situation (see below)
(2)Yes, this is my point, the world created the UN to maintain peace. They have done a god awful job for over half a century but they are still there.
(3)Texas and Mexico are sovereign nations. Your comparison appears meaningless in the context of this debate. I believe many in Texas believe that since the formation of the Union, Texas has the right to secede. It was a somewhat tenuous claim but I believe it is taken seriously by some constitutional lawyers in your country. The analogy between Texas, the Crimea and Russia may yet prove to be quite apt.
(4) I suspect this question was asked tongue in cheek! The Crimea is a bit of an add on to the Ukraine, having been gifted to Ukraine by Russia some sixty years ago. Most of the inhabitants are of Russian descent and have close ties with Russia. You ask why Russia is allowed to interfere. It would embarrass us both if I listed all the countries which have been interfered with by America since WW2. Korea, Vietnam and Iraq should be a sample to support my case.
To conclude: The present shift in power within the old USSR has a way to go, NATO and the EU will have strategic interests and there are potential problems there. Leave it to the UN and the belligerents, the rest of us keep well out. I am old enough to remember Chamberlain, Hitler, Munich and appeasement
Mexico would be invading a sovereign nation, the US.
DeleteIn this case Russia has invaded the Ukraine, a sovereign nation.
The point is, a nation invading another sovereign nation would be the business of the UN.
The Crimea may have been an add on, gift, the reality it is part of Ukraine. It was a bit tongue in cheek. In any case, The US has no business in the Ukraine as it has no business any where where we are no allied by treaty with a country. The interesting thing is that the NATO countries had the opportunity to add the Ukraine to NATO as they requested it in 2006. Germany objected as felt there government was neither stable or permanent. Probably would have prevented the hand wringing today should they have decided differently.
As to Texas and their right to secede,
Texas v. White in 1869, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote that, “The union between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.” The majority opinion struck down the Texas Ordinance of Secession, calling it “null,” and crafted a decision that rendered all acts of secession illegal according to the “perpetual union” of both the Articles of Confederation and subsequent Constitution for the United States. Chase did leave an opening, “revolution or the consent of the States,” but without either, secession could never be considered a legal act.
Lou yes for whatever his reasons Nikita Kruschev gave the Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954. It was an internal transfer within the Soviet Union at a time when the Soviet and the rest of the world believed that the Soviet Union would last forever. But historically the Crimea has been a part of Russia and Ukraine a vassal state of Russia even before the Bolshevik Revolution.
DeleteBecause the Crimeans want to secede and become part of Russia?
Delete"- People give the government power. Only the people are sovereign. This is what you’ll learn. Only the people can grant power. In the grant of power, if there is no mechanism to take it back, then you’re not sovereign. This is something that I’m just learning from going back and reading source documents written by Jefferson, Taylor of Caroline and other luminaries, David Hume and others at the time. So if you people in Massachusetts or in whatever state, if you don’t like what it is that your legislature is doing or how it is consecrated, if you don’t have the power to take it back, then you’ve already lost your freedoms and you’re not sovereign anymore and then you’re in really big trouble."
Deletehttp://www.mikechurch.com/transcripts/what-it-means-to-be-sovereign/
Is Secession Legal?
DeleteWithdrawal from the Union may be overkill, but America is no "one nation, indivisible."
With all fifty states offering petitions to the central government to leave the Union, the legality of secession is now front page news in the United States. Can a state legally secede from the Union? Many, including Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, suggest no. In a 2006 letter, available here, Scalia argued that a the question was not in the realm of legal possibility because 1) the United States would not be party to a lawsuit on the issue 2) the “constitutional” basis of secession had been “resolved by the Civil War,” and 3) there is no right to secede, as the Pledge of Allegiance clearly illustrates through the line “one nation, indivisible.”
Scalia is not the first Supreme Court justice to establish this position. In the case of Texas v. White in 1869, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote that, “The union between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.” The majority opinion struck down the Texas Ordinance of Secession, calling it “null,” and crafted a decision that rendered all acts of secession illegal according to the “perpetual union” of both the Articles of Confederation and subsequent Constitution for the United States. Chase did leave an opening, “revolution or the consent of the States,” but without either, secession could never be considered a legal act.
The arguments against legal secession are generally based on both a historical concept of the Union and the language of the Constitution itself. In the Texas v. White decision, Chase began his legal challenge to secession with a historical discussion of the Union. He suggested that the Union predated the states and grew from a common kindred spirit during the years leading to the American War for Independence. This “one people” mentality was best articulated by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.
Story, who channeled John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, reasoned that the Constitution was framed and ratified by the people at large, not the people of an individual state and thus held the same legal position of a state itself formed from many counties. “The constitution of a confederated republic, that is, of a national republic, formed of several states, is, or at least may be, not less an irrevocable form of government, than the constitution of a state formed and ratified by the aggregate of the several counties of the state.” In one sentence, Story reduced the states to the status of a county, shire, or province, and this general argument was used as a hammer both during Reconstruction and after against the sovereignty of the states.
DeleteStory additionally concluded, as did Chase in 1869, that the term “perpetual” found in the Articles of Confederation, deemed the Union indissoluble. Chase surmised that the Constitution simply made the Union “more perfect” while Story suggested that the Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation but did not change the permanent and “perpetual” nature of the Union. Story defended his position with the “Supremacy Clause” found in Article VI, which states that all laws or treaties made “in pursuance of the Constitution” were the “supreme law of the land,” and he pointed to the letter sent by the Philadelphia Convention accompanying the Constitution to the state ratifying conventions that the Constitution aimed at a “consolidation of the Union.” Hence, to Story and Chase, the Union continued to exist in an altered—i.e. consolidated—form and could not be dissolved.
Another argument against secession centers on the language of Article I, Section 10, which declares that “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….” To proponents of this position, Article I, Section 10 unequivocally shows that the states which formed the Confederate States of America were in clear violation of the Constitution, thus invalidating their government and the individual acts of secession which led to it. Abraham Lincoln indirectly defended this position by declaring the seceding states were in “rebellion” and therefore still members of the Union. The Constitution, then, was still legally enforceable in those states, including Article I, Section 10.
Finally, some will concede that the original thirteen states may have an argument for secession due to the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson’s language establishing thirteen “free and independent states.” But the other thirty-seven, formed at least in part through the common territory of the United States, have no claim to secession. They were not states until Congress granted them statehood and consequently never constituted a sovereign legal entity, Texas and Hawaii to the contrary (though even Chase suggested that Texas lost its sovereignty when it joined the Union in 1845).
DeleteThese arguments seem like a fairly strong case against secession. Three Supreme Court justices, one famous president, a bloody war, and the language of a modern pledge of allegiance offer conclusive proof that secession, while an entertaining philosophical exercise, has no legal basis. Their various opinions and conclusions, however, all have gaping holes.
Scalia’s positions are the most vapid. Secession, as accomplished by the Southern states in 1860 and 1861 and as discussed by the North at the Hartford Convention in 1815, is an independent act by the people of the states, and accomplished in the same fashion as the several conventions that occurred throughout early American history. The United States would never be a party to a lawsuit on the issue because secession, both de facto and de jure, is an extra-legal act of self-determination, and once the States have seceded from the Union, the Constitution is no longer in force in regard to the seceded political body. This same rule applies to the Article I, Section 10 argument against secession. If the Constitution is no longer in force—the States have separated and resumed their independent status—then the Supreme Court would not have jurisdiction and therefore could not determine the “legality” of the move.
The Union, then, through a declaration of war could attempt to force the seceded States to remain, but even if victorious that would not solve a philosophical issue. War and violence do not and cannot crush the natural right of self-determination. It can muddle the picture and force the vanquished into submission so long as the boot is firmly planted on their collective throats, but a bloody nose and a prostrate people settles nothing. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut said in 1788 that he feared a “coercion of arms” in relation to a delinquent state. “This Constitution does not attempt to coerce sovereign bodies, states, in their political capacity. No coercion is applicable to such bodies, but that of an armed force. If we should attempt to execute the laws of the Union by sending an armed force against a delinquent state, it would involve the good and the bad, the innocent and the guilty, in the same calamity.” Ellsworth recognized, as did the majority of the founding generation, that force did not destroy sovereignty. It created artificial supremacy, but sovereignty, the basic tenant of the founding, could not be surrendered in such a manner. Sovereignty, in fact, cannot be surrendered at all; it can be delegated, as in the powers granted to the general government in Article I, but never surrendered.
His “Pledge of Allegiance” analogy is the most absurd argument of the bunch. The modern pledge was written by Francis Bellamy, a socialist minister who wanted to indoctrinate American schoolchildren with a nationalist message, one based on the “great speeches” of Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln in relation to the “One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove.” Sprinkle in some “liberty and justice” from the French Revolution and you have a message that any good leftist nationalist can embrace. The founding generation would not have said such a pledge, if for no other reason that most did not view the United States as a “nation” in the strict sense of the word, a single people.
DeleteThe other issues involved in the debate are slightly more complicated, but in several instances come back to Scalia’s more simplistic analysis. In the Texas v. White decision, Chase implicitly reasoned that the Union was an “indissoluble” contract between the “American people” and the federal government, or in this case the people of Texas and the federal government. All contracts are intended to be perpetual. But if this were the case, how could nine States ratify a new Constitution while four States remained part of another Union in clear violation of the language of the Articles of Confederation. Changes to the Articles required the consent of all thirteen States, not nine, and thus the Constitution can be viewed, in part, as an act of secession.
Moreover, James Madison argued that the Union was a different type of contract. “We are not to consider the Federal Union as analogous to the social compact of individuals: for if it were so, a majority would have a right to bind the rest, and even to form a new constitution for the whole… .” The Constitution was framed by the unanimous consent of the States present in convention assembled in Philadelphia, but it had no teeth until the States, in convention, ratified it. Even at that point, Madison suggested, the States could not bind the rest into accepting the document or remaining in the Union. The Constitution does not have a coercive principle, as Ellsworth called it. An “indissoluble” Union would suggest that it does.
Waging war “against them (the States)” is an act of treason, and as per the Constitution, a State can only be “protected” by the central government on the application of the legislature or the executive in the case of invasion. Lincoln violated both constitutional safeguards against coercion by the central government in 1861, of course only if the states remained in the Union, as he insisted they did. If not, war required a declaration from Congress, something Lincoln did not have, and by declaring war, Congress would have recognized the Confederate States as a legitimate government. Either way, Lincoln violated the Constitution, thus rendering the “bloody nose” argument against secession void.
The “one people” argument was dissected by John Taylor of Caroline and Abel P. Upshur in their respective commentaries on the document. In his New Views of the Constitution of the United States, Taylor contended that the continuity between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution reinforced the sovereignty of the states, and declared that, “There are many states in America, but no state of America, nor any people of an American state. A constitution for America or Americans, would therefore have been similar to a constitution for Utopia or Utopians.” This view is in sharp contrast to Chase, who argued that continuity maintained a “perpetual” Union. Taylor wrote, “This construction bestows the same meaning upon the same words in our three constituent or elemental instruments, and exhibits the reason why the whole language of the constitution is affianced to the idea of a league between sovereign states, and hostile to that of a consolidated nation.”
Deletehttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-secession-legal/
So Iouman, I do not agree with you. We the people are sovereign, our States are sovereign. I simply do not believe we are slaves to the Federal leviathan.
DeleteWilliam, at one time you were correct. Today as the government continues to take power from the states, that concept is quickly becoming history with the people serving the central government, not the government serving the people.
DeleteThe Tea Party does not share your defeatist attitude. Returning to limited government and restoring our founders ideals is an ongoing struggle.
Delete1773-2009 Join Us
A return to states rights and limited government is the only way this will end well. Until that the the Federal Government via the commerce clause will continue to usurp power from the states.
DeleteThe Commerce Clause is a grant of power to Congress, not an express limitation on the power of the states to regulate the economy. At least four possible interpretations of the Commerce Clause have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that the Clause gives Congress the exclusive power to regulate commerce. Under this interpretation, states are divested of all power to regulate interstate commerce. Second, it has been suggested that the Clause gives Congress and the states concurrent power to regulate commerce. Under this view, state regulation of commerce is invalid only when it is preempted by federal law. Third, it has been suggested that the Clause assumes that Congress and the states each have their own mutually exclusive zones of regulatory power. Under this interpretation, it becomes the job of the courts to determine whether one sovereign has invaded the exclusive regulatory zone of the other. Finally, it has been suggested that the Clause by its own force divests states of the power to regulate commerce in certain ways, but the states and Congress retain concurrent power to regulate commerce in many other ways. This fourth interpretation, a complicated hybrid of two others, turns out to be the approach taken by the Court in its decisions interpreting the Commerce Clause.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/statecommerce.htm
Untangling this judicial web is probably not worth the effort. Secession among like minded States, clearing the slate, erasing progressive cancer, and reinstating individual responsibility.
DeleteClear the decks.
Secession is not legal. Secession will not be allowed. It's been tried. Remember a little incident called the Civil War. The right of revolution is laid out in the Declaration of Independence which is not the legal document of governing the United States. That right was not included in the Constitution then or ever James Madison stated in a letter to the New York ratifying convention " The Constitution requires ratification in toto and forever. New Yorkers favored a secession clause. Hamilton and John Jay pointed out that the clause was inconsistent with the language of the constitution and New York finally ratified the document as written. There has never been a right of secession included in the constitution and there has never been that implied right. The Constitution was written to form a new nation not a confederation of the several states. When the state signed on it was with permanence and forever. In order the Constitution gives these rights :to the people, to the national government , to the states. It's clearly right there in black and white, and the treasonous talk of secession only clouds the issue. True Patriots would never think of dissolving our imperfect Union. Imperfect yes but still the best plan on earth. You write of love of country? Bullshit.
DeleteJust because Lincoln's killed about three quarters of a million soldiers and countless other casualties occurred does not make you correct. You may choose to live in a mental slave state of perpetual permanence, I do not.
DeleteI and the the State I live in are Sovereign. Not some Hamiltonian Federal collective utopian wet dream.
You may, like Lincoln and Putin, resort to the use of arms to disagree with me/us but that does not make your thesis valid.
I believe in "We the People" determining our future.
You sir on the other hand consent to live in a statist nightmare.
Bravo William, well said.
DeleteYou can believe what you want but the above is the actual law of the land. See William here's the difference. I am an American first, a North Carolinian second. Our country was founded and thrived on discussion and compromise. It will continue to flourish on discussion and compromise. You are too stuck on principles and never deviating from them. It doesn't work. We all have principles but we all have to bend those every day of our lives to get through this life. We don't have to break them but we have to give them so flexibility. No one ever gets everything exactly as they want it. I love my country, obviously you love your state more. If we elect Ted Cruz for you in 2016 you will again love your country. That's not flexible principles that's no principles.
DeleteHere here Bravo Rick. Well said. Thought I needed a magpie behind my comment as you had.
DeleteIf you loved your country you would vote for what's best for your country not your party.
DeleteIf you loved your country you would be outraged at the excesses of executive power and the administrations over reach of power.
If you loved your country you would be concerned about the growth of spending and the uses of tax dollars.
If you loved your country you wouldn't support decisive politics.
With you it's party first.
Country sometime after that.
Nope lou that's your opinion I am an American first a North Carolinian second. What makes you the all knowing guru that knows what's best for me and my country. Hell you'd just as soon overthrow the country.
DeleteOverthrow the country? No we need a president that represents all Americans not just the democratic party. A president that does his job, enforce the law not just the parts he likes and changes the rest. We need a president that will unite the country not demonize business, and some of the American people.
DeleteYour country is certainly different from my country as I watch an out of control president doing what every he pleases. The part you will not like is the next president may do the same and deal with issues in a way contrary to your way of thinking.
Here's what is most likely to happen. Russia's taking of the Crimea was purely political. Not because 90% speak Russian that is the given reason. The real reason Sevestopol the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Russia's only warm water port for it's navy. Think about it. Were Ukraine to fall under the umbrella of NATO and the west where does that put this put this important naval base? Under the control of a NATO/West ally. Would we want Pearl Harbor under the control of a Chinese lead defense pact? Putin will take and hold the Crimea the rest of that floundering country is going to be dumped on the west. It's his only two choices, resurrect the Ukraine which Russia cannot financially afford to do or take his naval base and leave the garbage for someone else.
ReplyDeleteRick
ReplyDeleteA good analysis and along the lines of my thinking as evidenced in my last Para in a response to Louman. (NATO and the E U will have strategic interests here) I do fear this has potential for big trouble as the possibility of a new cold war emerges
K,
DeleteNothing will be done as what's done is done. After much bluster from the EU, the US, nothing will be done. There will be no embargo of oil, Natural Gas from Russia as there is no replacement. To export US natural resources to the EU would raise prices in the US to a breaking point for US citizens.
In the end, the EU needs Russia as much as Russia needs the EU. The US is but a outsider with no interests in the area.
King as much as Putin would like that the Russian bear has been stripped naked. We know now that they are not the military power we once thought they were. Also Russia needs the west especially the Europeans. Russia is a one trick pony basically with the bulk of their income and trade coming from the oil and gas that they sell to their European neighbors. Russia raises too much hell and Nato kicks in all that is lost. It is believed that Reagan thwarted the Russians with his "Star Wars" scheme. That was not it at all. He convinced the European contractors who were building this pipeline to stop construction so no oil could be shipped. He economically strangled the USSR using that method. No oil to Europe no money to Russia.. It was the only way they were not afraid of the "mutual destruction " tenet and were just crazy enough to try us at some point.
ReplyDeleteA central instrument for putting pressure on the Soviet Union was Reagan’s massive defense build-up, which raised defense spending from $134 billion in 1980 to $253 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP, dramatically increasing the federal deficit. Yet in its efforts to keep up with the American defense build-up, the Soviet Union was compelled in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels.
DeleteReagan’s most controversial defense initiative was SDI, the visionary project to create an anti-missile defense system that would remove the nuclear sword of Damocles from America’s homeland. Experts still disagree about the long-term feasibility of missile defense, some comparing it in substance to the Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars. But the SDI’s main effect was to demonstrate U. S. technological superiority over the Soviet Union and its ability to expand the arms race into space. This helped convince the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev to throw in the towel and bid for a de-escalation of the arms race.
Particularly effective, though with unintended long-term side effects, was the Reagan administration’s support for the mujahideen (holy warriors) that were fighting against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Reagan was determined to make Afghanistan the Soviet Vietnam. Therefore in 1986 he decided to provide the mujahideen with portable surface-to-air Stinger missiles, which proved devastatingly effective in increasing Soviet air losses (particularly helicopters). The war in Afghanistan cost the United States about $1 billion per annum in aid to the mujahideen; it cost the Soviet Union eight times as much, helping bankrupt its economy.
Apart from his defense policies, Reagan also weakened the Soviet Union through economic moves. His supporters’ claims that he brought about the fall of the Soviet Union are somewhat weakened by the fact that he ended Carter’s grain embargo, which had produced alarming food shortages in the Soviet Union. On the other hand Reagan was able to reduce the flow of Western technology to the Soviet Union, as well to limit Soviet natural gas exports to Western Europe. One of the most effective ways in which his economic policies weakened the Soviet Union was by helping bring about a drastic fall in the price of oil in the 1980s, thereby denying the Soviet Union large inflows of hard currency".
Here are two more rebuttals of Christopher Jones' assertion that Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Miles Seeley writes: "I cannot agree with Mr. Jones that Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yes, it collapsed mostly from its own weight, but his unrelenting pressure certainly had an effect, as many former Soviet officials have said. I was no fan of Reagan, but you can't just write him off, either. Mr. Jones somehow seems to overlook the obvious. Ronald Reagan was at the helm when the USSR collapsed. I have not heard people say “He won the Cold War,” nor that “he defeated the Soviet Union.”
http://wais.stanford.edu/History/history_ussrandreagan.htm
Peter Schweizer, based at the Hoover Institution, was the first scholar to significantly make the case that Ronald Reagan deliberately set out to win the Cold War. In two books—Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1994) and Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism (2002)—Schweizer used interviews with some of Reagan’s national security and foreign policy staffers, national security directives, Reagan’s speeches and private correspondence, and documents from several foreign countries, to argue that Reagan intentionally abandoned détente, moved beyond a passive containment policy, and pursued a strategy of victory.
DeleteSchweizer noted that at the heart of Reagan’s strategy was a sophisticated effort to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities, especially its economic vulnerabilities, which included: (1) covert financial and intelligence support to the Solidarity union in Poland and other opposition groups within the Soviet empire; (2) financial and military support to the Afghan resistance; (3) cooperative efforts with Saudi Arabia to drive down the price of oil, and limiting Soviet natural gas exports to the West, thereby reducing Soviet hard currency earnings; (4) a campaign to limit Soviet access to Western high technology; (5) a technological disinformation effort to help disrupt the Soviet economy; (6) a massive U.S. defense buildup, including the SDI program, to put more pressure on Soviet economic resources; and (7) financial, military and logistical support for anti-communist forces in several Third World countries. “Reagan,” concluded Schweizer, “did have a well-developed plan seeking the demise of the Soviet Union.”
Paul Kengor, a professor at Grove City College and the author of two books on the impact of religious belief on the presidencies of Reagan and George W. Bush, wholeheartedly agrees with Schweizer. In The Crusader, Kengor builds on Schweizer’s foundation to bolster the case for Reagan as the architect of the West’s victory in the Cold War. According to Kengor, Reagan told staffers during the 1980 presidential campaign that his strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was simple: “We win and they lose.” In press interviews that same year, Reagan opined that the Soviets could not keep up with us in an all-out arms race, and that it was time for the United States to play that card in the Cold War struggle.
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2007/0103/book/book_sempa03.html
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/08/01russia-talbott
Deletehttp://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp
http://www.e-ir.info/2012/07/30/a-critical-evaluation-of-the-role-of-mikhail-gorbachev-in-ending-the-cold-war/
Seems the world disagrees with the pipeline theory.
They may not be the powerhouse we thought they were but make no mistake, the cold war only ended in the minds of idealists who see them and for that matter China as fundamentally changed.
ReplyDeleteKGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn wrote the following paragraph in his February 1993 memorandum to the CIA:
"The United States does not understand the real nature of relations between the Russian and Communist Chinese leaders. Washington believes that a genuine improvement took place in relations in the 1980s between the Chinese and … [Russians]. I see these contacts as evidence that ‘perestroika’ in Russia did not take the Chinese by surprise, that they have a complete understanding of the realities behind it and the their strategic cooperation with the Russians continues as it has done since the late 1950s though now with open acknowledgement of their good relations. The United States views the Russian sale of complete factories and new weapons systems to the Chinese as dictated by Russian desire to ease their current economic difficulties. To my way of thinking it amounts to the deliberate transfer of advanced technology to an old and trusted ally."
The mistake of US foreign policy is that we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by things that are of no concern to us (I say distracted... perhaps opportunistic might be more appropriate). We call all events even the war on drugs a matter of national security.... Our real national security threat is still alive and well and no one has any reasonable idea just what China's long range goals are or for that matter even how much they actually spend on their military.
It is interesting that all during the years preceding the breakup of the USSR, the US preached 2 things: 1) A peoples right to self determination and 2) National borders and sovereignty is paramount. After its collapse we immediately start our own ventures in political interference and nation building and stopped uttering those words... but just the other day I heard those old admonishments again...
I is hard for your friends to trust you and your foes to respect you when you have no steady message or that your message doesn't match your actions.
Unfortunately that message and actions changes with each new administration.
DeleteWe should more fear the Chinese then the Russians. Russia is not much above the Ukraine as far as financial basket cases go and Putin's recent actions won't help. Foreign investment will leave Russia and if we could get the E.U. to shut off the pipeline as Reagan did we could reduce it's ability to start trouble even more. Financially weak countries cannot wage war. Fear China if you need a common enemy they have the economy, the man power and the technology to rise to be the #1 power in the world. Russia doesn't have that ability. Thankfully for now, China is only an economic warrior
DeleteI don’t know that it has so much to do with individual administrations as it does with identity Lou. Either we are a freedom loving, sovereign nation who will defend ourselves with ferocity against all that attack us and our allies or we are an imperialist nation bent on expressing our will on all other nations regardless of their hopes, dreams, desires and beliefs or we are a nation destine to cede its sovereignty as a liberty loving people and republic to a top down socialist run world. We appear to have an identity crisis...
DeleteYes we do. It's been that way for some time now and we took a hard left 5 years ago to further distance our selves from a freedom loving, sovereign nation.
DeleteI've been disturbed by the new progressive turn as it takes more freedom from the people. Perhaps times have changed and people no longer want independence, freedom, personal responsibility and want mommy government to fix everything.
Whether you agree with legalization of marijuana or not this article is a perfect example of where our international treaties are taking us as a nation.
Deletehttp://reason.com/archives/2014/03/10/un-drug-warriors-stand-athwart-reform-ye
Louman read up more on this. Yes we increased military spending, SDI a highly unproven technology, not highly effective, was and is a sham. Have we ever hit an ICBM in space yet? I don't think so. For SDI to be effective it has to be can't miss. Not one missile can get through. We never got close to that. Reagan convinced the pipeline builder to stop construction and he got it stopped for years. He economically strangled the USSR more then he drove it into fear. The USSR was never close to us in military technology and equipment as we soon found out.
ReplyDeleteyou should have/will have this information if you read/read the books you mention above. In fact the second paragraph of your last post goes into the financial instability Reagan caused on the USSR. A major part of this was the blocking of the European pipeline. In was the financial decisions Reagan made not the military that broke, yes literally broke the USSR.
Link for your pipeline story?
ReplyDeleteI've given you numerous links, they mention the financial aspects but no pipelines.
If you had the documentation which is obvious you didn't, the USSR imploded from within for various reasons.
SDI provided the technology for the Patriot missile systems which have proven quite effective against the SCUD threats in Israel.
As to the Star wars system, the work had begun on the program, the technology proved to be too complex and much of the research was cancelled by later administrations.
It was actually a book about Ronald Reagan. "The Crusader" by Paul Kengor. I find books much more reliable then online links. Books take a great deal of Research and the writing must stand the test of time. So my friend it is there but I ain't gonna post the book online for ya.
DeletePatriot Missile system really lou? The Patriot System was in development as early as 1975. It was first deployed in 1984. It made Reagan sound reasonable in his threats but his threats had nothing to do with the development of the system. Hitting a SCUD is a lot different then hitting a ICBM. A scud is a low altitude slow flying dumb missile. You shoot it, it lands... somewhere. An ICBM is a fast, missile shot from ground to space and back again with an on board guidance system that can be changed while the missile is in flight.
The pipeline project was proposed in 1978 as an export pipeline from Yamburg gas field, but was later changed to the pipeline from Urengoy field, which was already in use. In July 1981, a consortium of German banks, led by Deutsche Bank, and the AKA Ausfuhrkredit GmbH agreed to provide 3.4 billion Deutsche Mark in credits for the compressor stations. Later finance agreements were negotiated with a group of French banks and the Japan Export-Import Bank (JEXIM). In 1981-1982, contracts were signed with compressors and pipes suppliers Creusot-Loire, John Brown Engineering, Nuovo Pignone, AEG-Telefunken, Mannesmann, Dresser Industries, and Japan Steel Works. Pipe-layers were bought from Caterpillar Inc. and Komatsu.
DeleteThe pipeline was constructed in 1982-1984. It complemented the transcontinental gas transportation system Western Siberia-Western Europe which existed since 1973. The official inauguration ceremony took place in France.
On 19 July 2011, UkrTransGaz started modernization of the pipeline.
Route
The pipeline runs from Siberia's Urengoy gas field to Uzhgorod in Western Ukraine. From there, the natural gas is transported to Central and Western European countries. It crosses the Russian–Ukrainian border north of Sumy. In Ukraine, it takes gas to the Uzhgorod pumping station on the Ukrainian border with Slovakia and to smaller pumping stations on the Hungarian and Romanian borders. The pipeline crossed the Ural Carpathian mountains and more than 600 rivers including Ob, Volga, Don and Dnepr rivers.
Link not required as you don't read them anyway.
Of course your right or I should say left as your always right no matter what the evidence.
DeleteYou win, I no longer have the patience to paste in links you ignore as your book is always right. Just like obama's life story. dreams of my father which was a dream. Standing the test of time, ROTFLMAO.
Read the book. Reagan prevented the gas from flowing.
DeleteCommunism along with all types of utopian socialistic wet dreams are doomed to failure. It's a matter of time. Ronnie, Maggie, and the Pope expressed philosophical ideals that took root in the Soviet population.
DeleteIt had nothing to do with a gas pipeline and little to do with Star Wars.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! The wall wasn't so much a physical barrier as a mental one.
read the book???
DeleteGAS ARRIVING IN FRANCE
By PAUL LEWIS
Published: January 5, 1984
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PARIS, Jan. 4— The Soviet Union has begun exporting some additional Siberian gas to Western Europe, saying that the shipments are flowing through a showcase pipeline project that has been vigorously opposed by the Reagan Administration.
But the supplies are not believed to be coming any substantial distance through the 2,800-mile pipeline, which was designed to run from Siberia through Eastern Europe into Austria, West Germany, Switzerland, France and perhaps Italy. Soviet and European sources, in fact, differ as to whether the much-publicized pipeline is near completion.
But for the Soviet Union, the important thing for the moment is that with its prestige on the line, Moscow is able to announce to the world that gas, albeit in small quantities, is being delivered.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/05/business/gas-arriving-in-france.html
Trans –Siberian Pipeline:
The Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhgorod pipeline (also known as the West-Siberian Pipeline, or Trans-Siberian Pipeline) is one of Russia's main natural gas export pipelines, partially owned and operated by Ukraine. The pipeline was constructed in 1982-1984. It created the transcontinental gas transportation system Western Siberia-Western Europe.
Controversies surrounding the pipeline
The erstwhile Soviet’s plans to build the pipeline were considered a threat to the balance of energy trade in Europe, and were strongly opposed by the Reagan administration. The United States prevented U.S. companies from selling supplies to the Soviets for the pipeline, as part of what was also retribution against the Soviets for their policies towards Poland.
America's Western European allies, however, refused to bow to U.S. pressure to boycott the pipeline, insisting that contracts already signed between the Soviets and European companies needed to be honoured. This led to several European companies being sanctioned by the U.S. Government. Reagan reportedly said "Well, they can have their damned pipeline, but not with American equipment and not with American technology." The efforts by the U.S. pressure to prevent the construction of the pipeline, and its export embargo of supplies for the pipeline (1980–1984) constituted one of the most severe transatlantic crises of the Cold War.
Russia-Ukraine gas dispute
The Russia–Ukraine gas disputes refer to a number of disputes between Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy and Russian gas supplier Gazprom over natural gas supplies, prices, and debts. These disputes have grown beyond simple business disputes into transnational political issues—involving political leaders from several countries—that threaten natural gas supplies in numerous European countries dependent on natural gas imports from Russian suppliers, which are transported through Ukraine. A number of issues that keep emerging as a result of this
But the supplies are not believed to be coming any substantial distance through the 2,800-mile pipeline, which was designed to run from Siberia through Eastern Europe into Austria, West Germany, Switzerland, France and perhaps Italy. Soviet and European sources, in fact, differ as to whether the much-publicized pipeline is near completion.
DeleteI have read the book and these are the key words Lou the oil never left Russia. It was Russian propaganda that oil was flowing to Europe. Where does it say that Europe admitted receiving any oil or gas? It doesn't because they weren't. This situation broke the Soviet Union, again, literally broke the Soviet Union.
In 1986 Gorbechev suggested the meeting in Iceland to discuss eliminating all ICBM's. Why? Because his country was broke. He couldn't keep up.
PARIS, Jan. 4— The Soviet Union has begun exporting some additional Siberian gas to Western Europe, saying that the shipments are flowing through a showcase pipeline project that has been vigorously opposed by the Reagan Administration.
DeleteThought Reagan halted the pipeline?
Reagan convinced the pipeline builder to stop construction and he got it stopped for years.
Guess that was a mis statement.
- People give the government power.
ReplyDeleteOh like North Korea with 100% turnout and 100% vote for Dear Leader Jr.?
As for Texas. No way would Obama let Texas leave and form it's own country. I guarantee you that.
Besides that, we had a little thing called the civil war. It was all about states seceding from the Union. That didn't work out very well for the confederates.
DeleteAnd yet Live Free 150 years following your vaunted Civil War many States are talking secession once again.
DeleteAnd yes the people do give the government power.
Just recently:
The Ukraine
Eqypt
Myramar
Syria in revolution
Venezuela in revolution
Upcoming:
Cuba
Geez William there are no states talking secession. All these petitions have been filed by individuals on behalf of the states. Not one state has formally asked to leave the union. There are candidates in Texas trying to woo voters like you by talking that stuff but they are candidates only not sitting officials. Sad thing in Texas that this is all they can campaign on. I am sure it shares many of the more important problems other states have.
DeleteOf course none have "formally" seceded nimrod. I said "talking" as in "discussing." There is a cold civil war going on in our country.
DeleteOf course we love our country but we love our families, towns, and states first. Not the other way around. To many in our nation put a party, an administration, a skin color, or a leviathan on the Potomic who sends them a check each month first.