Ukraine

[Vouthon]

BTW

11:46: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has condemned Russia’s actions as unacceptable: “The Russians consider that countries which belonged to their empire at one point or another should not be outside a certain amount of their control. In the Crimea case, they already have a base in Sevastopol and considering what happened in Ukraine - the overthrow, or at least the departure of Yanukovych - they want to get their hands back on Crimea. Obviously, as far as international law is concerned, it is unacceptable,” he told French radio.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26413953

 

[JordanJD]

Hitler was begged by the Sudeten Germans and the Austrian Nazis to takeover both their countries. The Sudeten Germans had already declared their own independence and Nazi dominated assembly.

The same thing occurred with the Danzig Germans.

So the German minorities acted exactly like the Russian minorities have in the Ukraine, in Crimea.

And the Ukranians have acted exactly like the Czechs and Poles did: Get out of our country!

The Czechs were willing to fight alone without Western help but were eventually tied into a corner by the Munich agreement.

I won’t disagree, Hitler went into areas that wanted him, but he then pushed into areas that did not want him.

But I ask yet again, why didn’t Russia continue into Georgia? Why did they only defend the 2 northern provinces? and Russia did not even annex them despite the fact the two areas requested that.

And yet again we see Russia in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea at their request but not moving into any of Ukraine proper so far.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has not once invaded and occupied any sovereign nation outside it’s own borders. Also if people are worried about the freedom of Ukraine, why don’t they ask why Ukraine does not respect the freedom of Crimea? They literally a few days ago passed a law banning the use of the Russian language in government documents despite a large portion of the country only knowing how to speak and read that language

 

[Nelka]

Don’t worry about it.

 

[JordanJD]

BTW

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26413953

Funny France talking about “former empires”, funny how they were trigger happy to oust Ghadafi from their former colony Libya despite him being around for decades and they never were desperate to get him before, and funny how right after he was killed the French government energy consortiums got first dibs on energy contacts in Libya…

 

[Vouthon]

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has not once invaded and occupied any sovereign nation outside it’s own borders. Also if people are worried about the freedom of Ukraine, why don’t they ask why Ukraine does not respect the freedom of Crimea? They literally a few days ago passed a law banning the use of the Russian language in government documents despite a large portion of the country only knowing how to speak and read that language

Well, you may receive a rude awakening in the coming months…

Henry Kissinger once pointed out that since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year. All undone, of course, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Russian President Vladimir Putin called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.”

Putin’s mission is restoration. First, restore traditional Russian despotism by dismantling its nascent democracy. And then, having created iron-fisted “stability,” march.

buckscountycouriertimes.com/opinion/op-ed/putin-s-plan-a-new-russian-empire/article_8752decc-9bed-56c9-8f26-a5ef00b58b96.html

Putin is in a process of land-grabbing by piecemeal minority separatism.

 

[JordanJD]

Well, you may receive a rude awakening in the coming months…

buckscountycouriertimes.com/opinion/op-ed/putin-s-plan-a-new-russian-empire/article_8752decc-9bed-56c9-8f26-a5ef00b58b96.html

Putin is in a process of land-grabbing by piecemeal minority separatism.

Aaaaand you totally ignored my previous post destroying this argument completely

 

[JordanJD]

By the way, something anyone reading this should see, if you don’t believe our whole media is in cahoots to demonize and slander Russia, and that they are taking orders from a single source, I ask you to watch this:

Last winter on the Conan show he showed a segment where dozens of different “independent” news stations across North America all read from a single script given to them by one source, see for yourself:

youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA

 

[Vouthon]

Aaaaand you totally ignored my previous post destroying this argument completely

No, I’m answering it by stressing what I believe Putin is enacting through his foreign policy. The next couple of months will answer your question, whether he makes the same ultimate decision Hitler made, to occupy the remainder of the countries he is chipping land and reserves away from.

Only time will tell.

 

[JordanJD]

No, I’m answering it by stressing what I believe Putin is enacting through his foreign policy. The next couple of months will answer your question, whether he makes the same ultimate decision Hitler made, to occupy the remainder of the countries he is chipping land and reserves away from.

Only time will tell.

So now you are using the argument “Well he hasn’t done it yet, but he might later on…”

And since Putin has been in control for 15 years now, you wanna tell me just how long it will take?

I can play this game too: “Well the Prime Minister of Japan hasn’t admitted he is a reptilian alien from the Andromeda Galaxy, but that doesn’t mean he won’t in the future…”

 

[Vouthon]

So now you are using the argument “Well he hasn’t done it yet, but he might later on…”

And since Putin has been in control for 15 years now, you wanna tell me just how long it will take?

I can play this game too: “Well the Prime Minister of Japan hasn’t admitted he is a reptilian alien from the Andromeda Galaxy, but that doesn’t mean he won’t in the future…”

Russia’s actions in Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea have all been aggressive.

Its actions in this example are clearly illegal and expansionist. So no, I am not in any respect arguing that.

Putin has been using soft power over Eastern European nations for years. Gas supply cuts, harsh import and export policies…you name it. He has bullied and threatened these smaller countries in more ways than I can tell.

Since the Georgia debacle in 2008, however, he has begun to take a much more aggressively militarist turn.

Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all started off using soft power.

In 1939, when Stalin invaded Finnland and the Baltic states after seizing the window of opportunity granted by Hitler’s distraction of the West with the invasion of Poland and the start of the European Theatre of War, he had been in power since 1924. 15 years, longer than Putin and for that entire time there was not a hint of the Iron Curtain that was later to fall across Europe.

He had done practically nothing aggressive in his foreign policy. In fact he had repelled an aggressive invasion by Japan in early 1939. Most of his policies were internal to the Soviet Union, industrializing it so that it could one day make its mark on the world stage (and murdering 3 million Ukranians in a man-made famine, as well as uncountable numbers of his own people, dissidents etc.).

Then in 1939, he tried to occupy Finnland, took part of Poland to “defend Soviet citizens” there in collusion with Hitler’s occupation of the other part of the country and invaded the Baltic states.

By late 1945, Stalin was in de facto command of all of Eastern Europe. In the last five years of the 40s decade he set about creating Stalinist totalitarian terror regimes in every single one of them, which he had had “liberated” from the Nazis (in truth, Hitler planned to murder roughly 50 million Slavs and depopulate their lands, so at the very least Soviet rule still left these countries in existence but it was a frightful, terrifying, joyless existence with secret police, terror squads and armed occupation by the Soviets in Hungary 1946 and Czechoslovakia 1968 if any country tried to liberalize).

Putin idolizes Stalin.

 

[gilliam]

Andrew Wilson at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a leading think-tank, has published a quick guide called Ten things you should know about Crimea. He notes that the proposed pro-Russian referendum in Crimea “is against the Ukrainian constitution” and the new local leader, Sergiy Aksyonov, won only 4% at the last elections in Crimea.

The Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has ordered the construction of a bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.

 

[Vouthon]

Lord Paddy Ashdown, former leader of the UK Liberal Party, has spoken very well here about the crisis:

youtube.com/watch?v=vDUOqAJQ9xY

 

[Vouthon]

As per my other post on the previous page, the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 is an interesting comparative example as well. There is precedent in Russian history for using Hitler’s tactics:

On 17 September, sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east. The invasion ended on 6 October 1939 with the division and annexing of the whole of the Second Polish Republic by Germany and the Soviet Union.[7]

In early 1939, the Soviet Union entered into negotiations with the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Romania to establish an alliance against Nazi Germany. The negotiations failed when the Soviet Union insisted that Poland and Romania give Soviet troops transit rights through their territory as part of a collective security agreement.[8] The failure of those negotiations led the Soviet Union to conclude the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August; this was a non-aggression pact containing a secret protocol dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[9] One week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited the French and British support and relief that they were expecting. The Soviet Red Army invaded the Kresy, in accordance with the secret protocol, on 17 September.[10][Note 5] The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the Nazi German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.[13][14][15][16] Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded that the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.[1]

The Red Army achieved its targets, vastly outnumbering Polish resistance and capturing some 230,000 Polish prisoners of war.[4][17] The Soviet government annexed the territory under its control and in November 1939 made the 13.5 million formerly Polish citizens now under its control citizens of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union immediately started a campaign of sovietizing the newly acquired areas. This included staged elections, the results of which the Soviet Union used to legitimize its annexation of eastern Poland. The Soviets quelled opposition through summary executions and thousands of arrests.[18][19] The Soviet Union sent hundreds of thousands of people from this region to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union in four major waves of deportation between 1939 and 1941

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland

 

[JordanJD]

Russia’s actions in Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea have all been aggressive.

Chechnya is a part of Russia proper and it was harboring Al-Qaeda terrorists, the attacks on their camps was a blessing for both us and Russia. Georgia was shelling and attacking the northern provinces which were de-facto independent in the first place and they requested Russia to assist which they did. And Crimea yet again requested for Russia to police and protect

Its actions in this example are clearly illegal and expansionist. So no, I am not in any respect arguing that.

How can they be expansionist when Russia has not illegally annexed even one foot of land out of it’s borders?!

Putin has been using soft power over Eastern European nations for years. Gas supply cuts, harsh import and export policies…you name it. He has bullied and threatened these smaller countries in more ways than I can tell.

All countries use soft power all the time, you think Russia only does this? All the eastern European countries do this to themselves, Western Europe does it, Africa does it, Asia does it, North and South America do it

 

[Vouthon]

Chechnya is a part of Russia proper and it was harboring Al-Qaeda terrorists, the attacks on their camps was a blessing for both us and Russia. Georgia was shelling and attacking the northern provinces which were de-facto independent in the first place and they requested Russia to assist which they did. And Crimea yet again requested for Russia to police and protect

Did I say it wasn’t part of the Russian Federation? No. I never intimated this was illegal, as with this current episode, however it was aggressive and brutal suppression of the population. I believe the capital of the province was blitzed. Chechnyans have never been given the right to self-determination which btw I am in favour of having for the Crimeans, just minus a Russian occupation of what is currently a foreign country.

 

[JordanJD]

Andrew Wilson at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a leading think-tank, has published a quick guide called Ten things you should know about Crimea. He notes that the proposed pro-Russian referendum in Crimea “is against the Ukrainian constitution” and the new local leader, Sergiy Aksyonov, won only 4% at the last elections in Crimea.

I am sick to death of “think tanks”, these organizations are filled with delusional people who see their ideas of bringing perfect utopia to a sinful world can somehow magically work. The last think tank paper I read was on the US Navy College website. It was a scanned PDF from the early 90’s by some professor who actually believed that America should embark on taking over the world, and he used as an example of what he saw as a perfect tactician: The Roman emperor Diocletian

 

[danrooke]

Did you know that hitlar spoke German? Does that make speaking German Bad?
Did you know that hitlar ate food? Does that make eating food Bad?
If there was a significant number of ethic German Austrians, why is it wrong for hitlar to respond? Of course his response was to occupy the whole country which was Bad.

Point is that not everything “hitlar did” is all evil and poison. So even if events seem similar, I don’t think it is fair to tarnish the Russian nation because of this. Though I might be wrong.

As for the current situation, I think it’s all about waiting. So far the only effect that Russian troops have had on Ukraine has been stabilising. I would argue for an independent Crimea. And so far Russia is enabling this. Russia is recognising the Crimean authority and responding to it. Now it might transpire that thing escalate, and if/when that happens i think one can then legitimately fear the situation.

Remember, the heart of this situation was political economics - EU or Russia. For me the initial protest seemed to be far too much. But then I do not live there or know the situation very well.

Ultimately the ONLY way to think about this situation is to think Catholic. We need to consider what is best for the welling being of the people, The Faith. With that in mind I advocate patience

God bless

 

[JordanJD]

Did I say it wasn’t part of the Russian Federation? No. I never intimated this was illegal, as with this current episode, however it was aggressive and brutal suppression of the population. I believe the capital of the province was blitzed. Chechnyans have never been given the right to self-determination.

I am in agreement that it is possible that the Chechnyan affair could have been too extreme but I do not know enough about it to give an opinion. However it is still true that almost the majority of terrorist attacks that happened in Russia originated from that province. Trust me Russia has had bombings even in the capital Moscow dozens of times now, just like the UK had with the IRA in the past, and if America had whole shootings of operas and subway bombings like Russia has had we would have found those camps and turned them into glass craters by now

 

[Seamus_L]

The Chechens had been ethnically cleansing Russians since at least the late 80’s, and the Georgians invaded South Ossetia, so I don’t see that as Russian aggression. A majority of Chechen Muslims ended up siding with Russia against the Jihadists anyway.
If Ukraine eventually joins the EU, after the initial high experienced from massive loans, the people will begin seeing the downside. Austerity measures, Gay pride parades, and culturally incompatible immigrant communities.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Did you know that hitlar spoke German? Does that make speaking German Bad?
Did you know that hitlar ate food? Does that make eating food Bad?
If there was a significant number of ethic German Austrians, why is it wrong for hitlar to respond? Of course his response was to occupy the whole country which was Bad.

Point is that not everything “hitlar did” is all evil and poison. So even if events seem similar, I don’t think it is fair to tarnish the Russian nation because of this. Though I might be wrong.

As for the current situation, I think it’s all about waiting. So far the only effect that Russian troops have had on Ukraine has been stabilising. I would argue for an independent Crimea. And so far Russia is enabling this. Russia is recognising the Crimean authority and responding to it. Now it might transpire that thing escalate, and if/when that happens i think one can then legitimately fear the situation.

Remember, the heart of this situation was political economics - EU or Russia. For me the initial protest seemed to be far too much. But then I do not live there or know the situation very well.

Ultimately the ONLY way to think about this situation is to think Catholic. We need to consider what is best for the welling being of the people, The Faith. With that in mind I advocate patience

God bless

Yes, and the leaders of the Faith in the Ukraine have made it rather clear their views regarding Russia making the situation worse by it’s actions.