White House Adviser: More Weapons Not The Answer To Ukraine Crisis

[Purveyor]

Source: REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes economic sanctions remain the best way to influence Russia on the Ukraine crisis and that injecting more weapons would not necessarily solve the problem, Deputy White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes said on Monday.

"We still think that the best way to influence Russia's calculus is through those economic sanctions that are biting deep into the Russian economy," Rhodes said in an interview with CNN.

In response to comments by senior administration officials that Washington is reconsidering whether to provide weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists, Rhodes said: "We don't think the answer to the crisis in Ukraine is simply to inject more weapons."

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/150202/white-house-adviser-more-weapons-not-the-answer-ukraine-crisis

---

Merkel: Germany Will Not Provide Ukraine With Weapons

Germany will not provide Ukraine with weapons to fight Russian-backed rebels in the east, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday, stressing the need for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

"Germany will not support Ukraine with guns and weapons," Merkel said at a press conference after meeting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest.

"It is my firm belief that this conflict cannot be solved militarily," she added.

"We are pledging all our bets on sanctions and do our utmost to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict."

more...

http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/59836-150203-ukraine-separatists-vow-to-mobilise-100-000-fighters

[newthinking]

1. Good to hear. Now is time to pour on the pressure for a solution

Hmm, on second read:

"We don't think the answer to the crisis in Ukraine is simply to inject more weapons." . Not sure if that is saying that we won't or saying that weapons alone won't solve the problem.

[JonLP24]

2. Oh hell no

But the most objective (Western media actually wasn't too bad) source I found. A poll rergerading German citizens view of Ukrainian 2013-2015 coverage but a lot of this reminds of "Earlier 2002-2003 traitor." Certainly Fox News played a role quickly adapted a view but many citizens filled by quickly labeling a "skeptic" a "Saddam Lover". "Cowards" "Support our troops(AKA support our wars but he should the truth as it is. Really painting a human rights the violator the bad guy we need to remove power but HOW WAS NONE OF THAT CORRUPT? The Ukrainian reminds of that X4

The Ukrainian government is a "kleptocracy". a government that is basic openly bribing, political favors, aligning with billionaire interests & corrupt. It ranks in the bottom 15% in all corruption categories. Ukraine ranks as the most corrupt European country. Yemen was an example of "kleptocracy" a lot of money=politics.

In War Time, Corruption in Ukraine Can Be Deadly

I care deeply about my country and I want to defend it. But I was facing a dilemma: Should I go to war knowing that I will have to pay more than $2,000 out of my own pocket to get the military equipment that could save my life because official corruption has left the Ministry of Defense without enough adequate supplies to issue to new recruits? Or should I pay a $2,000 bribe to obtain papers falsely testifying that I am medically unfit and should thus be taken off the conscript list?

I’ve always been deeply opposed to corruption, a major problem in my country, not least for our soldiers fighting the insurgency. My brother, who is serving in the east, wasn’t issued anything but an old-fashioned AK-47 when he joined the army. My family, like too many others, had to spend their own money to buy what he needed: We found a secondhand NATO uniform, body armor, a helmet, a gun sight for his weapon, and kneepads and boots, all for roughly $2,400, including winter gear.

We were fortunate to have the money. The median monthly salary in Ukraine is about $260, which means that it’s impossible for the average family to equip their sons and brothers for war. The salary of a conscripted soldier varies from $185 to $417, depending on rank and specialty.

In times of peace, corruption hurts people indirectly. In times of war, corruption can be as deadly as a bullet.

Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists came suddenly and caught the government unprepared. In Soviet times the military was relatively well equipped, but in the decades since that era ended our forces have deteriorated as defense spending has shrunk. In recent times, the Defense Ministry’s processes of procurement have usually been kept secret — specifications for body armor, for example, aren’t published. This means that the government can get away with purchasing low-quality gear. And it usually does.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/in-war-time-corruption-in-ukraine-can-be-deadly.html?_r=0

Ostrich zoo and vintage cars

THE Mezhyhirya compound, the residence of Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president, sits on a beautiful plot of land on the Dnieper river outside Kiev. Mr Yanukovych fled Mezhyhirya on February 22nd under the cover of night. Since then, it has become an open-air museum of the trappings of corruption: at weekends families stroll the manicured grounds and take pictures in front of Mr Yanukovych’s vintage-car collection and ostrich zoo.

Sitting in a guesthouse on the property, Anna Babinets, one of the founders of YanukovychLeaks, a website that archives the thousands of documents found at Mezhyhirya, talks of the “power of documents, of numbers, of knowing how politicians spend money”. Ms Babinets says that first walking through the gates of Mezhyhirya and discovering the detailed schemes that underlined Mr Yanukovych’s rule was a “fairy tale”. The details that have emerged since have led to new demands for transparency.

Corruption in Ukraine did not begin with Mr Yanukovych—nor will it end with him. Weak institutions, low morale, and an underdeveloped sense of public service have made everyone from judges to traffic police liable to corruption over Ukraine’s entire post-Soviet history. Murky privatisation overseen by the former president, Leonid Kuchma, in the mid-1990s created a class of oligarchs who came to exercise outsized influence on politics and business. That the two main candidates for the presidency in the recent election—Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko—both made large fortunes through opaque dealmaking in the 1990s shows the unshakable dominance of the power structure formed in that era.

Mr Yanukovych managed to create a centralised hierarchy of corruption. He placed himself and a group known as “the Family”, led by his 40-year-old son, Oleksandr, at the top of a funnel that sucked up corrupt rents from all of the country’s economic sectors and institutions. Mr Yanukovych’s attitude, says Andrei Marusov of Transparency International in Ukraine, was that “there should be only one empire in this country, and all other empires should become vassals”. This scheme led to an ever more rapacious spiral of graft: as Mr Yanukovych’s increasingly brazen corruption made him less popular, he needed more resources to buy police, judges and electoral officials to keep himself in power at elections planned for March 2015.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21604234-fight-against-corruption-steep-uphill-battle-ostrich-zoo-and-vintage-cars

The question is why would give weapons & pick an ally is an very corrupt. Whoever the leaders of the fights in need to halt conflict & go the negation table, talk until you're blue in the face but don't continue the war, work out a political decision that benefits its citizens. You don't want lingering bad blood. War crimes waiting to happen if send in arms.

On edit the thing about media coverage regarding Russia in Germany is why I started this post.

A poll conducted in December 2014 found that 63% of Germans have "little or no trust" in the coverage by German media of the Ukrainian conflict. This is compared to 53% for the coverage of the Islamic State and 40% for coverage about the recent strike of German locomotive drivers. When respondents who said that they do not trust German media when it comes to Ukraine were asked why they have mistrust, 31% gave the reason as "coverage is one-sided/not objective", 18% said that "the coverage does not correspond to reality", and 9% said "the coverage is imprecise/not sufficiently comprehensive"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_portrayal_of_the_2013%E2%80%9315_Ukrainian_crisis

In reference to my early Iraq media flag waving journalist there was..[

[Sherman A1]

3. Good to hear that said

as more weapons are rarely the answer to much of anything.

[ColesCountyDem]

4. The adverbs matter.

"...injecting more weapons would not necessarily solve the problem" ... "We don't think the answer ... is simply to inject more weapons."

The administration is not ruling out supplying weapons to Ukraine, by any means-- it's simply not their preference, at this time.

[pampango]

5. Always true. The tough part is when one side says "More weapons do not help" while the other side

says "Yes they do." The ideal solution would be for both sides to adhere to the "no weapons" for 'my' side solution. The problem is when one side supplies plenty of weapons. Does the other side say, "Sorry we can't help you. Our idea is better in an ideal world." FDR sent lots of navy ships to the UK prior to US' involvement in WWII.

[another_liberal]

6. Good to finally hear a little sanity in regard to Ukraine's bloody civil war . . .

American weapons will just make the war bigger and deadlier, but so will just handing the Kiev government American money they can then spend on the international arms market (there are plenty of Russian designed weapons available from east European and other sources).

If we really want to see this fighting end, we should drop the non-stop blaming and harassing Russia, and instead really make an effort to bring the Separatists and Ukraine together, without preconditions, face-to-face at a negotiation table. That is what will bring an end to the fighting, and as a champion of peace and freedom, that is what America's focus should be.

[bemildred]

7. The light dawns, eh? nt