Our new friends seem intent on invading each other

Published: March 2, 2014 at 10:15pm

China Japan

Russia, which is shielding the fugitive Yanukovych, has sent troops in to Ukrainian territory. Now China seems intent on causing a major upset with Japan.

These are the people we’re meant to be ‘globalising’ with. Muscat and his friends have missed, inevitably, the starting-point of and fundamental reason for the existence of the European Union.




37 Comments Comment

  1. Joe Fenech says:

    China is the Frankenstein that the west chose to create.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Well, I always thought MacArthur should have pushed north of the Yalu and used the nuclear option. But then the USSR would have responded in kind and it would have been a mess.

      No. The Chinese themselves created that Frankenstein.

      We’re just aiding and abetting them when we refuse to look beyond the terracotta army and the calligraphy.

    • Say it straight says:

      So very well said.

  2. Painter says:

    I don’t know about you but if WWIII breaks out, I would definitely want Malta to become a ‘Switzerland in the Mediterranean’. A few bombs is all the Maltese Islands need to end up in ruins.

    However, that title with China and Japan on the brink of war is most probably exaggerated.

    • La Redoute says:

      It isn’t. They’ve been rattling sabres at each other years. Now it seems like things are about to spill over.

    • albona says:

      Let’s hope it is as you say. I would hate for more than 3 or 4 bombs to be wasted on Malta. How about three for Malta and one for Gozo? Would that do it?

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Do you know how difficult it is for anything to end up in ruins? You’d have to carpet-bomb the whole place like we did in Dresden. That sort of thing isn’t done nowadays. Not unless it was China doing the bombing, of course.

  3. David says:

    Ukraine may be more democratic now but it has lost Crimea and maybe also East Ukraine. It’s being argued that the West has its fault in this debacle. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ukraine-crisis-no-wonder-vladimir-putin-says-crimea-is-russian-9162734.html

  4. David says:

    On a possible third world war http://www.bbc.com/news/world-26290477

  5. ciccio says:

    I am wondering if Yanukovych has briefed Joseph Muscat about the situation in the Ukraine in the last couple of days?

    http://www.di-ve.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_player_slider_image/public/article/media/PM%20Joseph%20Muscat.jpg

    • La Redoute says:

      I was wondering about that. No one’s bothered asking Muscat for his views on what’s happening in Ukraine and whose side he’s on now that Yanukovych has fled to Russia and Ukraine is in the hands of his political enemies.

      • ciccio says:

        There is complete silence from the government on the matter.

        I think we are going to have another call for “prudence,” like the one during the Libyan revolution against Gaddafi.

        The incompetent clowns. They might be calling on Lawrence Gonzi soon to give them advice on what to say and do in the present circumstances.

      • La Redoute says:

        All these mad plans Muscat had are, quite literally, blowing up in his face. No wonder he needs a police escort at all times. It’s not because he’s important. It’s because he’s afraid someone might get close enough to ask him a question.

      • Jozef says:

        Yes, it’s what happens when you go after distorted economics concentrating on one aspect alone.

        He was fond of bulk buying remember?

        Muscat doesn’t believe in the inextricable link between a mature democracy and its economy, prefers the illusion these can be piloted separately.

        Russia has become the place for illicit dealing, China refuses to admit internal demand, both averse to open democratic administration of internal affairs.

        Both determining a distortion of global capitalism, the effects all over the place. It’s a fact China’s oppression of its people reduced global competition to a vicious cycle. Russia remained closed to internal competition, relying mainly on its arms industry selling mainly to China.

        Mad plans indeed. Same old.

        Where there’s no rights, there’s no economic future. Doing business with these places isn’t sustainable, unless you’re some nomadic speculator of course. And that isn’t what 99% of the planet is.

        Funny though, how the preachers of doom all go silent as their heroes let them down.

        Muscat has some very serious decisions to make. If he can.

      • Tabatha White says:

        Jozef, I so look forward to your comments.

        There is a timeliness in them that draws in the wisdoms required to reach those decisions.

        A sense of timing is so often neglected – and by this I focus on the sensory ability that permits the laying out of the picture at any particular time.

      • Tom Double Thumb says:

        The past twelve months have seen the fulfilment of the Labour Party’s slogan in the election campaign: We are in.

        But typical of the PL and of Joseph Muscat personally, they gave us only one half of the truth then. The left-out second part now reveals the whole truth: We are in . . . serious trouble, or to put it crudely.

    • Rahal says:

      Vera wicc ta’ patatu.

  6. Aunt Hetty says:

    What’s a good old -fashioned invasion or two amongst friends?

  7. La Redoute says:

    In case anyone had any doubt about the sanity of the Labour Party, Muscat rooted for this man and then took his place:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRr9lVQ54hM

  8. ciccio says:

    It is interesting how Malta and Crimea seem to be destined to play a role together in European history. From “Yalta to Malta” refers to the events between the Yalta Conference (also the Crimean Conference) of 1945 which determined the post-War European political landscape and the Malta Summit of 1989 which marked the end of the Cold War.

    This time, the connection is joined along the dots called Joseph Muscat, Viktor Janukovych, Vladimir Putin, and most probably, Xi Jinping. We are in with the Axis of Evil.

    • Nik says:

      Not too sure our PM makes the cut, simply because he is hardly relevant. He has abetted the principals by providing them with a haven, in the form of a secure passport and some basic assets, but surely they would not consider him one of their peers. He’s the tea boy.

      • La Redoute says:

        Tea boy? If only. He’s their catamite and we’re all being shafted by proxy.

        Muscat thinks he’s emperor but, as he famously said on stage in the People’s Republic, “the king is naked.”

  9. David says:

    Italians say that fra due litiganti il terzo gode.

  10. Antoine Vella says:

    Just when Michelle Muscat was intent on making the most of it…

    I hope The Royal Couple have prepared a nuclear shelter under Castille or Villa Francia. The world cannot afford to lose them.

  11. Eric Le Rouge says:

    When i was a student in Paris, in the 80s, there used to be this African ‘Cicero’ who’d indulge in long political speeches, perched on a stool on the parvis of the Georges Pompidou cultural center. I remember this terrible sentence which, to this very day, resonates in my mind as it is very true and topical:

    ” Might is white. White is right”. Bonne nuit à toutes et à tous !

  12. Random says:

    ‘China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.’

    – A quote from Napoleon Bonaparte.

    It seems that the giant has awakened and now may destroy us all.

  13. Lestrade says:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/02/not-too-late-for-ukraine-nato-should-back-off

    I know it’s the Guardian but read it carefully. Did NATO ever think that Russia would be a push-over about Crimea and its Black Sea Fleet base?

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/graphic/2014/mar/03/russia-ukraine-military-imbalance-graphic

  14. P Shaw says:

    China and Russia are taking advantage of the weakest US president in history, except for Jimmy Carter.

    Obama’s red lines have already been tested by Syria with no consequences. All the dictators and terrorists now take him for a ride.

  15. Frank says:

    http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/NG – Maybe this is reason for his (our) headache.

  16. Gaetano Pace says:

    The world was in consonance at the UN Security Council that Russia is pushing its ghost into the 21st century. All civilised, democratic countries agreed that Russia is repeating the invasion of Czechoslovkia.

    The only ridiculous, puerile, banal, stupid excuse the Russians could bring forth was the they had a letter from the deposed Yanukovych requesting Russia to intervene in the Ukraine. The Russians obliged.

    This is the type of new politics that Labour is befriending and hugging.

    This is what Maltese people have been saying all along, from Labour we are getting more of the same, 1970s and 1980s.

    No one could tell Labour better than the Lithuanians who were suppressed and oppressed but are now free and a democracy. If only our Pinocchio could bypass his nose and let his ears listen.

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