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Originally Posted by Walkabout
This reflects on "real politik" - how the rhetoric rarely matches the reality, especially because the public have short memories.
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As a dearly departed atty friend said, so long as people have their bread, they are happy.
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That gas supply has been something of a political football for a while.
It amounts to about 10% of the gas supplies from East to West into Europe (from reading elsewhere) and most of it ends up in Germany, as it happens.
The Ukraine takes a "piece along the way" as payment for the leasing of the pipeline which is handy for them because their economy is bust.
Some commentary says that a reason to depose the Assad regime in Syria is to enable the construction of a "Sunni" pipeline from the middle east into Europe, thereby putting more pressure on Putins' Russia.
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Rarely are our conflicts ever about anything other than industry in some capacity.
I would encourage anyone to read http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...e_Pirate_Coast which covers how Americas policy of installing puppet dictators for commerce got started.
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