Merged Ukraine erupts in riots and general strike.

[crescent]

I didn't see this one here yet, real bad stuff happening! Sounds like a lot of gunfire.



Pics here: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-crisis-shocking-photos-injured-dead-kiev-1437260

That last pic is a protestor with an air rifle, they'll need better than that.

Is it just me, or do those police look poorly trained? I mean, it looks like the protestors are able to separate out at least three that are clearly seen and capture them - with it looking like others are also captured, but not so clearly seen on camera. This within 10 feet of other masses of police who do nothing to recover them.

I wonder if some (but not all, by any means) of the police violence is due more to incompetence than malice - it might be the only way some of them know to protect themselves. That said, the police leadership and national leadership have a lot to answer for it they put such poorly trained people in such a volatile situation.

The situation is clearly polarized, multiple news sources have reported that this most recent day of violence started when the protestors/rioters attacked retreating police forces. It seems a good many protestors will not stop until they get everything their way - and with the ethnic divisions within the country, they are unlikely to get everything they want. I generally support closer ties between Ukraine and the EU, but I am not sure how realistic some of these protestors are about the ability to drag the ethnic Russians along west with them.

Maybe this will settle out even as early as tomorrow - but it could get much worse before it gets better. Much, much worse.

 

[Childlike Empress]

If you are just going to "reply" to me by saying "Yawn", then lying about what you had previously said, then calling me a stubborn child then why should I continue to engage you in good faith as I have done up until now on this thread.

You started by lumping me in with McHrozni and went downwards from that, hitting solid ground with your little hilite nonsense. I see no reason for further "engagement".

 

[NoahFence]

You started by lumping me in with McHrozni and went downwards from that, hitting solid ground with your little hilite nonsense. I see no reason for further "engagement".

He was right by the way.

 

[angrysoba]

You started by lumping me in with McHrozni and went downwards from that, hitting solid ground with your little hilite nonsense. I see no reason for further "engagement".

Of course you see no reason for further "engagement" because it will be less embarrassing for you to boldly storm off now that I have caught you telling porkie pies.

But as you have a problem with highlighting, maybe bolding is more your thing.

Now, you need only use one word - "Yes" or "No". Isn't this a contradiction to write both of these bolded statements?

"Look at around 20 seconds in, how the bullet hits the tree and where the people are looking at. They get shot from behind - the people filming are the people shooting."

And:

"I didn't make any statements about who I think is shooting here."

Now, I watched the video you posted. I gave you my honest opinion, and you merely insulted me saying I was "acting like a stubborn child", and you told a lie, which everyone can see.

So, if you want me to stop acting like a stubborn child, all you have to do is admit you lied, or at least that you said something untrue. If you show good faith now, I might be inclined to believe it was just an accident. And then we can talk like adults again. Sound good?

 

[McHrozni]

If nothing else, this thread shows that "Useful Idiots" are alive and well.

I don't see the "useful" part. They certainly aren't fooling anybody.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Is it just me, or do those police look poorly trained? I mean, it looks like the protestors are able to separate out at least three that are clearly seen and capture them - with it looking like others are also captured, but not so clearly seen on camera. This within 10 feet of other masses of police who do nothing to recover them.

I wonder if some (but not all, by any means) of the police violence is due more to incompetence than malice - it might be the only way some of them know to protect themselves. That said, the police leadership and national leadership have a lot to answer for it they put such poorly trained people in such a volatile situation.

You're right on this one - the police act as one would expect from a bunch of schoolboys with riot gear. There is little organization beyond the shield wall they constantly use. That video with 10 or so civilians clearly trying to kill the many more policemen, in riot gear and in shield wall formation strikes me as fake for that very reason. No police force in the world would tollerate that. Either Ukrainian police is restrained to the point of irrelevance - in which case there should be zero deaths and close so zero wounded among the civilians - or it's a staged scene.

McHrozni

 

[Klimax]

You're right on this one - the police act as one would expect from a bunch of schoolboys with riot gear. There is little organization beyond the shield wall they constantly use. That video with 10 or so civilians clearly trying to kill the many more policemen, in riot gear and in shield wall formation strikes me as fake for that very reason. No police force in the world would tollerate that. Either Ukrainian police is restrained to the point of irrelevance - in which case there should be zero deaths and close so zero wounded among the civilians - or it's a staged scene.

McHrozni

There's another possibility: significant variance in competence and being active. I would be bit wary with alleging staging.

 

[McHrozni]

There's another possibility: significant variance in competence and being active. I would be bit wary with alleging staging.

I see now I was a bit unclear.

The notion about police restraint was means sarcastically and has no relation to reality. Certainly a police force that kills a hundred of it's own civilians over protests while suffering nearly 70 of their own captured and several dead is not competent and it certainly is not restrained.

Look at 2001 riots in Genoa. 200,000 took part, clashes lasted a day and a night, there was quite a bit of violence and rioting and hundreds of injured - but only one death and no police hostages.

That scene in particular strikes me as staged because you have a large group of well equipped policemen cowering from a much smaller group of civilians clearly intent on killing or at least severely wounding some of them. This is basically cowardly rabble in riot gear, strongly implying a staged scene. No one could complain if the police lashed out and arrested those particular troublemakers - but they don't even make the attempt, just stand there and take firebombs and trucks in their formation. They're either extremely well trained to restrain themselves from all violence (in which case see above), or they're basically actors playing an act. Without further evidence I strongly believe the scene was staged by RT for propaganda purposes.

McHrozni

 

[angrysoba]

You're right on this one - the police act as one would expect from a bunch of schoolboys with riot gear. There is little organization beyond the shield wall they constantly use. That video with 10 or so civilians clearly trying to kill the many more policemen, in riot gear and in shield wall formation strikes me as fake for that very reason. No police force in the world would tollerate that. Either Ukrainian police is restrained to the point of irrelevance - in which case there should be zero deaths and close so zero wounded among the civilians - or it's a staged scene.

McHrozni

Are we looking at the same video?

If this is "faked" then the director must have quite the budget to have employed more extras than Kubrick used in Spartacus.

 

[McHrozni]

Are we looking at the same video?

I'm talking about the one CE posted in post #238.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9848795&postcount=238

If this is "faked" then the director must have quite the budget to have employed more extras than Kubrick used in Spartacus.

My view on the matter is that the Ukrainian police gave him a squad to shoot the video somewhere in Kiev, but away from protests, specifically for propaganda purposes.

McHrozni

 

[angrysoba]

I'm talking about the one CE posted in post #238.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9848795&postcount=238



My view on the matter is that the Ukrainian police gave him a squad to shoot the video somewhere in Kiev, but away from protests, specifically for propaganda purposes.

McHrozni

crescent was commenting on this video:



But also I see no reason to think that the one posted by CE was faked either.

 

[Klimax]

Frankly, right cropping and/or timing can alter message of picture way too much.

Also regional police force often might have worse/cheaper training and not being really ready for such events.

BTW: Why do we se all mistakes and error repeated by govs and protesters over and over?

 

[McHrozni]

crescent was commenting on this video:

I also see just poor police work here. Not staged, but nowhere near as incriminating as the one I was talking about

But also I see no reason to think that the one posted by CE was faked either.

It's radically different, I stand behind my analysis of that video

McHrozni

 

[angrysoba]

I also see just poor police work here. Not staged, but nowhere near as incriminating as the one I was talking about



It's radically different, I stand behind my analysis of that video

McHrozni

Well, the only analyses that are similar that I have found on the web are those by Alex Jones and Paul Craig Roberts.

 

[McHrozni]

Well, the only analyses that are similar that I have found on the web are those by Alex Jones and Paul Craig Roberts.

Yeh Those nuts decry everything they see as inconvenient as fake.

Seriously, the video CE has posted could easily be fake. Most of the shots are of the police line, and the few shots of protesters are of a very small group of apparently very violent men. If it's not fake it's a very good effort at making it look fake.

I concede there is a possibility it's not fake, but that it's just horribly selective in what it chooses to show. If it's the latter it might as well have been faked, it makes no noteworthy difference.

McHrozni

 

[Caustic Logic]

If nothing else, this thread shows that "Useful Idiots" are alive and well.

By the time of that comment, at the latest.

I just uploaded an enhanced video for the tree shooting in the video (NSFW) CE posted earlier, plus another interesting spot in the same video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fi5BIOtDeg (more SFW)
For the first scene, I don't know for sure. Could be ricochet. It doesn't seem to have much power or weight. It seems to come from behind the "protesters" - relative to the camera, I think, a ways to the right, and lower. A chip of bark the size of a thumbnail is taken off, and a little cloud of wood dust fans out to the left. Or - the two-branches 3-D effect is enough thats a hit to perpendicular surface of a shot from our left here, the dust puffing back on the trajectory. I don't think it's coming from in front of them at all, but maybe to one side more than behind. A few of the people do look back almost to the camera, perhaps from the sound of the wood chipping alone. I'm not sure which shooting sound is supposed to correlate - the loudest one has a drastic delay if that's it.

For the second scene, ???

The whole video - There are a lot of edits, context not shared. Maybe the tree shooting should've been edited out. Maybe not. People do seem to be getting shot here, mainly from ahead, it seems. This place looks like a war zone already, and I think "protester" is starting to deserve the scare quotes.
Because there may be multiple directions bullets are flying here.

 

[Caustic Logic]

For the record, one incident CE and I both might be thinking of, from Libya, 2011. Took a little work to show it, but cameras on the same side and rooftop as the sniper, two teams in fact a couple rooftops apart. Two unarmed funeral marchers are shot dead and documented right below them - the only videos of that happening I could actually find, BTW)

(NSFW - teenager headshot)
(sorry about the horrible narration - it's a visual argument mainly but some explanation is needed.)

Anyway, this is the kind of thing we watch for, and here maybe CE got a bit carried away to suggest exactly that here, and what's happening here is more like what they present. But I'm still not sure what I'm seeing, and I suspect the scene is way murkier than advertised, and missing context, and with bullets coming from behind as well ahead and all over.

I don't think the police went picking any of these fights, but they do seem to be fighting. And that's yesterday.

Saw Wildcat's video. Yikes. Svoboda rebels posted that themselves? With the RFE/RL-inspired logo? I had the feeling the one cop who passed out short of the police line and was dragged back would wind up dead, but that's just me being dark. He clearly didn't want to loose consciousness in their grasp, anyway. Poor guy.

Luckily we can be sure "protesters" did not steal thousands of rifles from an armory. Because RT reported that as fact, it can only be the opposite. If it's reported they used the rifles to score some RPGs and a tank, that too will be untrue, except hopefully. [/sarcasm]

So what's the death toll by now?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Death toll on all sides: I'm seeing reports of 75 and 77, and a new CNN report on diplomatic talks mentions it could be 100.

Kiev: We don't want civil war. Find out what the Americans want - an anti-Russian transitional government I think is specified. We shall agree to this and see if John McCain will call off his Nazi thug militias.[/smart-ass]

 

[WildCat]

That scene in particular strikes me as staged because you have a large group of well equipped policemen cowering from a much smaller group of civilians clearly intent on killing or at least severely wounding some of them.

Are you talking about the video I posted? The police are greatly outnumbered in it, look at the size of the civilian mob in the beginning. Later in the video you are only looking at part of them, the rest are out of the shot but they are there.

 

[McHrozni]

Are you talking about the video I posted? The police are greatly outnumbered in it, look at the size of the civilian mob in the beginning. Later in the video you are only looking at part of them, the rest are out of the shot but they are there.

No, this one is CE's. The one you posted is the one I agree is genuine

McHrozni