set up the coup that would then allow them to install 'our guy', which they did. War is their bread and butter. The Kiev Govt is doing exactly what the neocons want.

Anyone who followed this from the beginning knows who originated the tragic war now going on in that country.

We have no business there. The EU and Russia could have worked it out, many from the EU are livid at the interference of the US as it is costing THEM. Not us.

We get nothing but propaganda here. Meantime, as happens wherever the neocons interfere, thousands of innocent people are dying. Too bad we never locked up those war criminals. The world won't be safe until all the war criminals are safely in prison.

to Russia. Instead of "Putin = Satan and Hitler!" they will likely be more pragmatic, and relations will get better between the two countries. Because Putin will be in charge over there a long time to come, and we can't do a damn thing about it. Unless we want to be really stupid, and start Word War III that is.

.......


Aside from that...good grief. It's well documented that the USA has interfered in other nations...and shit, the war in Georgia all but proved the USA was still active in former Soviet Republics...but when it comes to Ukraine...all the sudden its different. Its ok to topple a government (oh...wait, they say it wasn't toppled despite the US spending 5 Billion on "democracy advancement"...yeah and Air America was legit)..so long as they yield to "western influences". If its ok for the USA to spend 5 Bil on "democracy" in Ukraine...then I guess its perfectly ok for Russia to spend 5 Bil in Mexico on "democracy".

And then you here from the fruit loops.....

"Its ok for Putin to invade a sovereign nation?"...uh, obviously no. But nice attempt at deflection. Putin was reacting....to what HE perceived was a threat, no matter if you believe it or not, he saw it...and somebody in the intelligence agency should have saw it, that he would react accordingly. Knowing full well sanctions would come.....and we all know sanctions work great at toppling governments /sarcasm.

"Putin is a homophobic monster!!!"....yeah, and? Shoving them into a corner promotes human rights, how? The Castro regime would have probably been a footnote in history....if it weren't for the sanctions. Putin portrayed the USA as a boogey man...surprise, surprise...the USA plays the role. And guess what? They get to violate human rights even more without impunity.

"He's going to invade Lithuania, Estonia, Poland...all of Eastern Europe...blah blah". Did you ever ask your self, why would he want to do that? Propping up eastern Europe helped contribute to the Soviet Empire's demise...so why on earth would they want to do that? And if they did...how would they contend with an even more rebellious populace that wasn't subjugated by the Nazi's before (and feeling a debt of gratitude to Moscow)?

I've seen some on here gleefully state "The Evil Empire is back!!!"....and I've had to resist the urge to say "Ghost of Ronald Reagan...is that you?"

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/

It certainly doesn't help your arguments to keep running with that one.

And "Putin was reacting" regarding Crimea--Putin was reacting to what? There was no threat to ethnic Russians in the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian government was in disarray after Yanukovych fled the country and had no ability to exert pressure on Crimean Russians. In fact, it was literally less than a week from when Yanukovych had choppered out of town that unmarked Russian tanks started rolling in all over Crimea. It was a power grab by Putin, plain and simple. He knew he could easily take Crimea for Russia because he knew Ukraine was in no position whatsoever to fight back, just having undergone a major crisis.

You're not helping your argument by sticking to that one, either.

Do liberals now support the idea big, powerful countries have the right to tell smaller, weaker neighbors what they can and can't do? Does Ukraine have the right to tell Moldova what it can and can't do? Do the US have the right to tell Venezuela what it can and can't do? Times have indeed changed.

Ukraine's sovereignty is limited by it's inability to defend it, from the west, or from the east. It is not a theoretical right given by some agreement, or some "leader". Right now the question is whether it is going to be carved up into smaller pieces.

I would think that American (and Russian?) neocons would be quite happy to know that liberals believe that a small country's sovereignty is up for grabs unless they can fund a military that can stand up to larger, more powerful neighbors.

Perhaps I misunderstand your point. It seems to be an argument for increased defense spending on all sides since sovereignty is not a 'theoretical right' but one only secured by force of arms.

The argument from the beginning has been that Russia had much greater interest and commitment to its interests in Ukraine than the EU or USA or NATO do, and that therefore we would do well not to meddle, and especially not to meddle militarily. Instead we have been encouraging and supplying these violent and incompetent fuckwits in Kiev.

That does not mean I like Putin, it means I recognize that the self-absorbed nitwits in DC are over their heads in trying to deal with him. They have been so used to bullshitting their way through that they don't know what to do in a situation where that does not work.

But you go ahead, don't listen to me. We're the good guys so we get to win. That worked so well in Iraq and Afghanstan and ...

They can't even stand up to a bunch of 'rebels' who are not a real army (assuming we accept that there are not Russian army 'volunteers' among them).

Did Ukraine have 'sovereignty' under Yanukovich, then lost it and can't get it back without a stronger military than Yanukovich had?

Has anyone been encouraging and funding the "violent and incompetent fuckwits in" Donetsk?

Is it wrong for one side to receive support but 'understandable' for the other side to benefit from it?


Ahh, the Iraq and Afghanistan strawman - because that is what I am supporting - a foreign invasion.

No, that is what I am opposing and wonder if you do too. I am supporting the end of all foreign involvement in Ukraine. That was not exactly our policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, was it? Do you support foreign involvement in Ukraine if its military is not strong enough to prevent its sovereignty from being "taken"?

You cling to your illusions of moral superiority, pie in the sky by and by. Meanwhile Ukraine is being turned into an abbatoir.

Let the Ukrainian people decide what they want to do and whom they want to do it with. Neither side that intervenes in Ukraine has and 'moral superiority'.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't snap at you, I get annoyed looking at this mess and knowing it could have been avoided.

We never learn

On a good day, when it's convenient for their Fraternal Nation.

Mearsheimer basically says that in all the tussle, the former colonized people and those moved there have no say in how their betters decide their fate. And people quote him as some kind of progressive thinker, mostly because it supports what they want to say not about Russia but about their more important enemies.

As for the "most people in the Donbas are Russians" sort of rhetoric, note that in the census taken 14 years ago the highest percentage of people claiming to be "ethnic Russians" was in Luhans'k oblast', with a whopping majority of 39%. In Donets'k oblast', a bit over 38%. In some cities it was a majority--Donets'k proper, for instance--but those populations tended to assume everybody was like them. Russian majority in the capital means Russian majority in the entire province. To produce the average means that much of the territory was overwhelmingly ethnic Ukrainian.

In some cases, the territories are overwhelmingly Ukrainian speaking. (A lot of DUers have fallen for Putin's redefinition of "ethnic": If you speak the language and that's your dominant culture, that's your ethnicity. By that definition, if you're from Mexico in the US or African-American and speak English and observe mostly European holidays and eat mostly European foods, it means, apparently, you're an anglo.)

Now, due to the de facto ethnic cleansing that's occurred the DNR and LNR areas are probably more ethnic Russian than before. Always something we DUers should support. Dehumanization, armed conflict to preserve spheres of influence, and ethnic cleansing.

Apparently Ukraine isn't REALLY, an independent sovereign nation that gets to choose it's own fate. It can only do what Mother Russia will permit.

And it's utterly shocking to me the number of "progressives" here that support that insane line of reasoning.

Someone on the left actually states that the Ukraine, an area that suffered greatly in the history of the USSR, and an independent country, isn't allowed to act as anything other than a vassal state of Russia, because....Russia says so.

Wow.

Clearly Ukraine is not ready to stand alone.

Small countries have to be vassal states?

And GREED.

They might beg to differ.

How about poor people? Are they destined to be 'vassals' of the rich and powerful or do they have rights irrespective of their incomes? It is hard to imagine that liberals would back a policy that "the poor being vassals is acceptable."

... At the very least they should be able to choose their own path.

Ukraine has been under the colonial control of Russia for a long time. It's not surprising that they might naturally trend away from their former masters.

Ukraine is more Russian than French or German or American.

The majority of Ukrainians don't identify as Russians. They identify as Ukrainian, and a away of their history as imperial subjects. In fact, ethnic Russians are less than 20% of the population in Ukraine, most being concentrated in the east, naturally.

It is not at all surprising that as a whole,me Ukraine would resist imperialist bullying from it's former imperial master.

What IS surprising to me, is the number of people here who support Russian imperialism in the name of poking the eye of the West.

What a great guy.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

I sincerely wish they could live in their beloved Russia under putin.. they think he's so dandy.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/06/06/rise-and-shine-837/

Starting with:

And continuing with:



And lots in between and afterwards as well.

in a foreign country who are burning policemen and the surroundings as they call for the removal of a democratically elected President? Is that 'fomenting revolution'? Violent revolution?

...before even a shot was fired at the "protesters"? I do suggest watching those videos.

The result of the richest and most powerful country in the world approving of the above "protests": Armed thugs storming government buildings calling for the execution of Yanukovich.


And now, a word from US President Obama:
"Yanukovich then fleeing after we brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." (@ 1:10)

You'd be seriously mistaken.

Yanukovych began his bloody crackdown on protesters from almost the very get-go. What you saw in January and February 2014 was the result, not the cause.

Protests began around November 21, 2013 and were for the most part very peaceable. Things escalated on November 30, 2013:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Euromaidan#21.E2.80.9329_November_2013

Things deteriorated from that point on, with laws being passed by the Yanukovych government attempting to squelch public protest. However, it bears noting that even at the height of the protests in January and February where you might have seen several hundred protesters clashing with Berkut police, behind them there would be tens of thousands more protesters who were doing nothing more than giving speechings, waiving flags, singing songs, etc. In other words, perfectly peaceful protests.

So I think you are just a tad mistaken as to your characterization of events there, buddy.

As to the President's comments, they are essentially accurate. During the very height of Maidan, the EU--in alliance with the US--had brokered a deal where Yanukovych would remain in power for the time being but new presidential elections would be held before the end of the year. This happened February 21, 2014. Unbenownst to most everyone, however, Yanukovych had already been packing up his belongings at his mansion for over two days at that point. He left very early the following morning. So he had no intention of sticking around for new elections. His decision to leave had already been made.

not to mention all the neocons known as "liberal interventionists," such as Powers and Rice.