Caption on the above picture at flickr says Foros, Crimea. It is apparently a Russian Orthodox Church built in 1892. Link to flickr location of original at bottom of this post. Link above also shows various residences of the Russian Czars in Crimea which they "owned" for 130 years and the Soviets controlled through links to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist State.
I just read a long screed at Politico about Crimea and why Putin sent in the troops. It took me back to college days and the times we sat writing reports with our foreheads filled with sweat and our stomachs churning until we learned that the old saw was true.If you can't win the argument with facts, then baffle them with bullshit.
After the US started bombing Iraq in preparation for a ground invasion, I realized that war was a huge benefit the news media and it's pundits, especially when the "big" game is afoot. But even more than that, there are signs the news media fear
The title at Politico was "Why Russia Doesn't Fear the West", but it seems to obscure the real reason: We and our Western European allies still are beholden to outdated fossil fuel industry.
Yes, Europe is directly involved in buying Russia's natural gas because of their proximity to it's production fields and it's generally colder weather (though we should note they dumped overlarge vehicles many years ago), but it's actually the fault of our own (US) acquiescence to the stolen election of 2000.
By the end of the 20th century we were at the cusp of advances in solar, wind and other energy that would have cost the government less and added more to alternative and natural energy advances than 8 years of invasive war helped anything. Like Fat Albert on skates US could have grabbed the hand of Europe and built momentum with solidarity and whipping actions that drove alternative energy development along like a speed skater.
Instead, thanks to GOP backers like Halliburton, Big Oil, and the Koch brothers' industries (yes they made millions off the Iraq War despite their protestations that they do not like armed conflict) we invaded a nation that posed no threat but had large stocks of oil.
The GOP also passed a bill while in control of the House, Senate, and White House that actually gave tax breaks for businesses to buy big gasoline and diesel powered vehicles.
If all that money had been used to convert to solar, wind and other alternative energy industries, the US could have built a massive stockpile of natural energy producing resources and technology. We could have supplied Europe with more and better natural energy technology so they could have avoided buying petroleum products from the Kremlin.
Instead the Bush administration opted for Global Climate Change boosting, and inducing war for more fossil fuels from the Middle East.
And now the news media needs to only cover the "facts" that please Big Money, Big Energy, and the backers of the American political right.
The Soviets would have been proud of Putin maybe, but definitely of the way that the West has learned to control people's minds by crafting garbage news and opinion to feed them and therefore how their teachings and tactics have continued to cripple the West.
In fact, Russia does have some historical claim going back to a time when white Europeans and their descendants were expanding in North America which we say gives us a valid claim to that territory we call The United States of America.
That may not be cool today, but it gets real sticky when we mention that though Truman did not start a war when China took over Tibet and East Turkmanistan, neither did Eisenhower when he came into the office two years later, and the venture into Vietnam that the great WW2 that the general did start as president to block "the Commies", didn't work out so well.
Picture of (presumed Russian Orthodox) Church in Crimea used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to flickr user Lexus_2k who has no connection to this blog or blogger.
Map showing the expansion by Catherine the Great into the Crimea:
Entire map of Russian Imperial expansion, apparently in German, found at Old Map Blog. To see this version more clearly save to disk, find, and open ( which in Windows 7 can then be enlarged)
