Those who cheer on the belated attempt by the U.S. to gain control of the world must be tearing their hair out.

The U.S. has managed to convince nations like Australia that it will win any confrontation that might occur. Australians who believe this are deranged.

No one will win a nuclear war. It will be a Pyrrhic victory of gigantic proportions. The only good part of it is that the U.S. will be destroyed and most of its killer-people will die leaving what's left of our world to try peace and sharing as a way of life (as opposed to endless killing and greed).

Let's have the nuclear war, get it over and done with. And let those who brought it about be severely punished for their stupidity!

I despair when looking at the state of the world that we are leaving to our children. More and more often of late I believe that Australia, with the U.S., is backing the wrong side, and in the process making the world a far more dangerous place.
In Eastern Ukraine we have a Russian speaking people, frightened of what they see as a fascist administration in Kiev, who were given to Ukraine when Ukraine was essentially still part of Russia, and who now demonstrably wish to be re-united with Russia, fighting, as I see it, for their right. Russia, understandably, wants the territory back. They have fought for a southern ocean access for centuries. One could say that this conflict has nothing to do with us, but I, for one, sympathize with the separatists.
In Syria, Abbott did not want us to get involved as it was a fight of "Baddies verses Baddies". So it was, but at least under Bashir the minorities - Christians, Jews, Alawites and other minor Muslim sects - were able to live in peace. If we had picked sides, it should not have been with the rebels.
If we are to have another major war, surely it will be with Islam. We have suffered from Islamic terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, New York City, Boston, among many others, while seemingly oblivious of the threat posed by our tolerance of Islam in the West. Russia is so obviously a potential ally in the dangerous times ahead, and, like us, is already suffering from Islam. Let's give them back their access to the Black Sea, in exchange for their help against ISIS.

For reasons that I do not fully understand there is a continuing flood of misinformation about the origins of the Ukrainian crisis. Abbott and Bishop parrot their nonsense and this is faithfully reinforced by the mainstream media. So far, so usual.

What puzzles me is that the so-called alternative media are no better other than in their comment sections where there is an attempt to discuss the issues. But they refuse, and OLO is no exception, to invite a contribution from someone who is au fait with other explanations.

Ordinarily it might not matter, but in the Ukraine we have potentially the most dangerous situation in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I went to hear Malcolm Fraser last night. He used the word "betrayal" in describing Australia's current foreign policy, elements of which are not even discussed in the mainstream media. When one is aware of even some of the facts, that is not too strong a word to use.

There is a strong need for a rational, evidence based, discussion about our strategic imperatives. Graham, this is your chance to lead the way.

I often comment on Malcolm Faser's facebook giving words of support. He only has some 1500 followers while Abbott numbers in the 200,000.

Time to wake up Australia, or lose both freedom and wealth.

Russia and Ukraine are seamlessly - in the cultural as well as economical sense - connected, and in 1991, when Ukraine became independent, the boundary between them became the one existing between the two Soviet republics. During those years of confusion the week Yeltsin did not realise, or care, that the geopolitically important for Russia soft underbelly - access to the Black Sea, notably Crimea with Sevastopol (c.f. my previous post re George Freedman’s admission of American intentions in the Black Sea region) - became part of the, assumed to remain militarily and economically neutral, Ukraine.

I think these were the main reasons (beside economic - much of Russia’s industry, including military, depends on Donbas) why Putin got involved, after Ukraine proclaimed its abandonment of neutrality, in spite of his proclamations of ethnic, or even humanitarian, motives.

“Fascists” or “Nazis” have become standard invective names hurled at each other in the present Ukrainian-Russian propaganda war by both sides, with not much actual content. Nevertheless it is a fact that East Ukraine separatists did not have much support among the local population until Kiev decided to bomb them.

“Back in April, we asked only about federalization and the status of the Russian language. That was all. We could have negotiated. But Kiev preferred to start to kill us for our unpretentious requirements. And now, of course, we have nowhere to retreat, there can be no talk about federalization any more - only about independence” Alexander Zakharchenko, a separatist leader (who represented Donbas also at yesterday’s Minsk meeting supervised by OSCE) in an interview - http://www.mk.ru/politics/2014/08/28/plan-opolchencev-donbassa-tolko-otdelyatsya-pri-pomoshhi-amerikanskogo-oruzhiya.html - of 31. August.

Well, that is a an extremist requirement so have become Poroshenko’s. Nevertheless, yesterday’s acceptance in Minsk of Putin’s seven-point ceasefire plan (and its apparent implementation) might suggest that both Russia and USA (suddenly in immediate dire straits because of the ISIS advancements in Iraq) were successful in exerting some pressure on their respective proteges in the Ukraine conflict.

Sorry, "economic" not "economical"!