Ukraine exploding

[Julius Seeker]

Ukraine is game to you?!

What are thoughts on this potentially explosive situation?

* Last week Ukrainian nationalists ousted the pro-Russian government.
* Ukrainian nationalists start vandalizing Russian buildings and monuments, and openly propose banning all things Russian, including the Russian language.
* In 1954 Russia gave Crimea to the Ukraine, and so it has a large ethnic Russian population. They are currently counter-revolting against the revolt.
* Crimea, being situated on the Black sea, is important for Russia as it is a strategic post for the Russian warm water fleet.
* Yesterday, an organized mob of ethnic Russian counter-protesters seized and fortified parliamentary buildings and other strategic locations Crimea.
* Yesterday, the Ukrainian interim government authorized the military to free the occupied buildings in Crimea from the ethnic Russian counter-revolt.
* 3 hours ago, the Crimean airport was seized, and the ethnic Russian counter-protesters seem to be awfully well organized. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Armed ... story.html
* Yesterday, Russia began conducting military readiness exercises with 150,000 troops http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 24006.html
* Earlier, US issues warning to Russia: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/f ... ine-border

[Eric]

If anti-American nationalists ousted that Canadian Government I'd certainly hope we'd be conducting "Readiness exercises" on the Canadian border. :p

[Julius Seeker]

Just some updates.

As it turns out, the organized Russian nationals were actually Russian soldiers. There are now an estimated 16,000 Russian troops deployed in Crimea. There seems to be uncertainty of what they're doing. It right now looks like they're holding back Ukrainian troops as well as protecting Russian nationals.

"It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country...You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext." - US Secretary of State

REEEEEEEALLY?

Here is an interesting write-up

Very good article:

Putin's army salutes a Nulandized Kiev By Peter Lee

What amazes me is the widespread desire to turn this rather sordid escapade into a "good vs evil", "US vs Russia" cage match. It began even before the Crimea crisis with disregard for the fact that the protesters, instead of standing up against tyranny, were simply trying to overturn an election whose results they didn't particularly like. It continued with the uncritical valorizing of the protesters in Maidan, who relied on some unsavory neo-Nazi extreme right Ukraine chauvinists to serve as shock troops in violent attacks upon the police.

But after the coup, despite the fact that the new government relies on a slate of fantastically rich oligarchs both at the national and local level to sustain its rule, Western commentators immediately spun the coup as a popular uprising against a kleptocratic regime.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_As ... 40314.html

[Eric]

There were fascists involved in the Maidan protests, and once the riot police got violent they were the ones who were the most prepared and willing to fight back. This is what Russia latched onto but it's not accurate to say that neo-nazis are in control of the Ukrainian government. The make-up of the parliament is still the same as it was before Yanukovich left, and the current government is only temporary until new elections can take place in May, so whatever increased influence the fascist elements might have right now it's not in any way permanent or long-lasting.

[Shrinweck]

WTF Russia MAYBE not the best time to be TESTING ICBMs for the hell of it.

[Julius Seeker]

[Julius Seeker]

There is now a referendum happening this weekend on whether or not Crimea should reunify with Russia, or stick with Crimea.

The pro-Russian side has been using these billboards, the right side with the Russian flag, and the left side with the ... uhhh ... new Ukrainian flag?

[SineSwiper]

The pro-Russian side has been using these billboards, the right side with the Russian flag, and the left side with the ... uhhh ... new Ukrainian flag?

Yes, because the hostile takeover of countries while the rest of the world watches it happen reminds you of democracy? Or Nazi Germany?

Now, 10,000 Russian troops have been spotted massing near the Eastern Ukraine border, doing "training exercises", which code for "we're going to invade this bitch". You thought it was bad now? Shit just got real.

[Julius Seeker]

Crimea voted 95% in favour of joining Russia.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah with a great deal of the Tatar population boycotting the election altogether. North Korea's Parliament voted Kim Jong-un in again a week ago at 100% support, this is just about as meaningful.

The vote itself was a barely even a choice - they could either vote for independence from both Ukraine and Russia or joining Russia.

[Julius Seeker]

Nonsense! It's just a coincidence that most USSR elections ended with a 95% yes vote for the Soviet party =P

The Canadian government officially does not recognize the referendum vote. US politician Ron Paul supports it, not sure why this guy is speaking and not Obama though.

[kali o.]

Nonsense! It's just a coincidence that most USSR elections ended with a 95% yes vote for the Soviet party =P

The Canadian government officially does not recognize the referendum vote. US politician Ron Paul supports it, not sure why this guy is speaking and not Obama though.

If Ron Paul supports it, I support it. I am too lazy to find out why he does though.

[Shrinweck]

Ron Paul supporting the referendum is more about being against United States-lead regime change and interventionist policy. It completely ignores the ideals that Libertarians are supposed to epitomize in these situations, namely individual rights and non-violence. I agree with a lot of what Ron Paul usually says, but let's face it, a lot of what Russia is doing and saying here is basically ending with "... or else"

[Julius Seeker]

Oh, libertards...

[Shrinweck]

I think you may have gotten turned around in the minutiae of our political parties, the Libertarians have very little overlap with the Tea Party. Basically the only thing they have in common is small government, and even there the Tea Party wants a bastardized version of that.

[Eric]

Interesting watching the news media pretty much ignore the issue now and just focus on a missing plane since it's become apparent there's no stopping Russia and all the US can do is use harsh language.

[Julius Seeker]

Russian and Ukrainian troops have fired on each other now.

And Eric, I agree, the situation is very similar to Georgia during the Bush years; except instead of Republocans saying "we shouldn't get involved" they're saying Obama should not take the military option off the table.


UPDATE

Crimea is now a part of Russia.

In Putin's speech he brought up points about how Americans used the gun to separate Kosovo from Serbia, and invaded Iraq without the consent of the international community because they (the US) believe that they are morally exceptional and can decide the destiny of the world.

Putin also added that Crimea was always a part of Russia, and this referendum corrected a great historical injustice - he is referencing the 1954 USSR decision to give Crimea to Ukraine.


A co-worker of mine who is from the Czech Republic brought up the point that this might actually be good of Ukraine, as it will wake up the west into strengthening the area, and that means boosting the economy of the region.

My personal opinion is that we should remember the lessons of 20th century history and that isolationist policies and sanctions just do not work. They didn't work in Iraq, they didn't work in Germany - both ended in much more war and death. All they tend to do is keep people separate from each other creating a huge amount of suffering. The world needs to be much more open.

[Julius Seeker]

Here's some footage of what it looks like when a rioting pro-Russian mob takes over a police station.



I have noticed a major inaccuracy of the coverage this situation. Many sources are reporting on this as thought it is some random Russian incursion; and imply that the Russians will afterwards attack other countries - this does not follow the reality of the situation at all. The reality of the matter is that the Ukraine has a large population of Russian nationals and pro-Russian citizens; they had elected a leader (Yanukovych) into power who supported strong relations with Russia. He was violently ousted by Ukrainian nationalists. What these ignited these pro-Russian riots were the destruction of Russian monuments by Ukrainian nationalists, talks of banning the Russian language, and installing a new government by force. Logically, there was going to be a huge amount of backlash, and logically it is in Russia's best interest to have the pro-Russian back in charge of the country. I don't think Eastern Ukraine will be annexed into Russia, but the potential is high that they will form an independent pro-Russian break-away nation state.

[Shrinweck]

Win or lose, Russia loses in this no matter what happens. Crimea and the Ukraine would be gigantic head aches in terms of cost. Even an independent state would need lots of help or it would just become a hell hole. And the pro-Russians just seem like criminals in their masks, going around bullying people at best, killing when they want. I haven't heard anything from anyone credible about Russia using this to piggyback more annexations and the idea isn't worth giving too much thought to right now. What matters is what their supporters are doing here is pretty fucked up.

In a world where people were FURIOUS at the American president for getting a blowjob and lying about it, a president being accused of mass killings of civilians (Yanukovych) probably deserved to be ousted from office if there's any truth to it whatsoever. And I don't see anything about him being 'violently' ousted, as much as he just fled since there are reports of corruption and basically everything he was doing was exacerbating the situation. Yanukovych signed laws including several anti-protest laws that basically put restrictions on free speech and rights of assembly. That's not something leaders should really expect to get away with these days.

[Julius Seeker]

When it came to Clinton's blowjob, I don't think anyone outside of the US was actually angry about it. I think for the most part people were amused by the whole situation, and the huge negative overreaction in the US which really didn't make any sense to us. Our mainstream media went so far as expressing regret that our boring Prime Minister didn't have a similar scandal


This is the part that the US media might not have reported on.
http://world.time.com/2014/02/22/ukrain ... ture-kiev/



Question, did the pro-Ukrainian rioters look like criminals in their masks too?

[Shrinweck]

I more meant my comment on Clinton's blowjob wasn't a reference to world outrage as much as a country's outrage at something. If Obama suspended freedom of speech and the rights to assembly in reaction to a riot we would tear our country apart in a similar way. It's only natural that a leader that did something like that who didn't also exercise the necessary military power to basically put their country into martial law was going to get booted from office.

[Julius Seeker]

Actually, Obama and the US government did legislate anti-protest laws in 2012 with the aim of ending the occupy Wall Street protest movement.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/restricted.asp

One thing that I found interesting is that one of the Yanukovych laws was that people were not allowed to wear masks during protest rallies. I found that kind of funny =P

Anyway, I am definitely with you that anti-free speech laws are never good for the middle and lower classes - even if we do have to put up with certain rallies we don't necessarily agree with. I do think that, even, if we put up anti-demagogy laws that will just lower our guard for times when a demagogue does make attempts to be elected. In Canada, it doesn't work anymore, and even now in the US we are seeing demagogues failing to be elected even with giantly funded campaigns.

[Shrinweck]

89% is still unbelievably high. I don't even think you could get 89% of the USA to agree that slavery was a bad thing.

[Don]

89% is still unbelievably high. I don't even think you could get 89% of the USA to agree that slavery was a bad thing.

I think you wouldn't get 89% even if the question is 'is the sky blue?' It'd be like Obama says yes and then 15% oppose because Obama supported it so it must be wrong.