I specifically stated that the referendum was illegitimate. It couldn’t be any other way - they only had a fraction of the voting stations they needed. And understand this already, the overwhelming majority of those who chose to participate voted in favor, no serious observers deny this. This was a federalist/separatist exercise. Those against it largely stayed away. It really isn’t that complicated. Still, a large number of people chose to participate. It wasn’t just a few thousand people. Kiev can’t seriously claim that this is just a handful of “terrorists” or “Russian agents” - that’s insane.
As for your points, your argument that ever-smaller subdivisions could try to secede is invalid. It is an appeal to absurdity. I don’t think you believe it yourself. We are talking about two clearly defined administrative regions the size of a small country. If, hypothetically, there were further major divisions within these regions (something you have not established), it should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. If there was a fairly large, clearly defined sub-region that wanted to secede from them, yes, it should be allowed to secede. Everything within reasonable limits.
As for your suggestion that the referendum was gerrymandered, I haven’t seen any indication of that. In fact, from what I’ve heard, many people who wanted to vote “yes” couldn’t because they didn’t have enough voting stations set up. It wasn’t due to any gerrymandering, they just didn’t have the resources and the time they needed, what with the “anti-terrorist operation” being conducted against them. The whole thing was very hastily organized.
Yet you continue, bizzarely, to also argue that it is legitimate! In the very same paragraph, no less! Apparently, because it shows … that many participated?
No-one seriously believes it is a “few terrorists”. The appeal being made is to an ethhnic difference, and there is no doubt that the appeal has succeeded to some extent - as such appeals usually do.
However, there is an awfully long distance between “a few terrorists” and “the legitimate majority opinion”.
What most unbiased observers believe is that this is an artificially stirred-up ethinc struggle by a large minority being stirred up and supported in every way by Russia. Why anyone would credit this with any legitimacy is truly beyond comprehension.
There is exactly zero evidence that anyone, one joined to Russia, is ever allowed to vote to leave. Clearly, in Russia’s opinion, referendums are a one-way ratchet - you can join, but others cannot leave. Fir example, last I checked, Chechnya was still part of Russia, right? There too, a “referendum” was held, taking away independence in favour of joining Russia. It’s clearly a favorite tool of Russia, apparenlty becaise it works - some people invest these with legitimacy.
You have not refuted the concern about reducing a country to meaninglessness through the use of referenda, other than to accuse me of not believing in it (?). Seems to me that as a Russian tactic, this one works - carve out bits of your victim in which large numbers of Russians dwell, infalme them with lots of crude propaganda about how non-Russians are all Nazis, get some percentage of them worked up, threaten the central government of your victim with invasion if they attempt to control the situation, hold a fake “referendum”, cite the existence of cheering crowds as “proof” that the cause is popular. You know that at least some foriegners will support you, as successful aggression never lacks supporters.
You miss my point. Selecting only those areas in which you are sure to win is the gerrymandering at work here. A legitimate process would involve the whole country. That is of course only a hypothetical, the notion that a rebel group could hold a legitimate referendum undere these cinditions is an absurdity.
There was no constitutional process followed for impeachnent. The interim government made up their own impeachment rules as they declared it. The people of Eastern Ukraine therefire have no obligation to submit to the dictates or elections of the interim makeshift government. The interim pro-Maidan government appears to have lost authority and ability to govern several cities in eastern Ukraine because of the Maidan protests turning violent and the breakdown of constitutional election law.
Apparently Kiev is not getting a mulligan on that mess from the folks in eastern Ukraine. So Kiev now must choose the amount military force to use to bring the separatist regions back to pre-Maidan-protest constitutional order.
I don’t see how any military action less than doing an all out ‘Sakaashvilli attack’ on a capitol city using GRAD missiles and tanks against civilian buildings would bring eastern Ukraine back to a pre-Maidan status.
Doing a Sakaashvilli assault on a few major city’s most likely will be seen as getting close to attempted genocide. I don’t think the interim government wants to go there.
Same old talking points, same old tactic of ignoring inconvenient facts (such as the lack of any such election in Iraq for the Kurds to participate in, one of several reasons your comparison is absurd).
Getting new elections after an improper impeachment is about the best outcome one could hope for. Certain groups are using it as a pretext for extremism, but there’s every opportunity for cooler heads to prevail. Luckily, not everyone involved maintains your violent-free-for-all approach to government.
Well, you’re no expert, plainly, are you? This fetish for the interim government attacking Eastern Ukrainians in the fashion of the Georgians in 2008 is getting pretty unseemly. And now you’ve upped the ante to “attempted genocide”. My skin is crawling over here.
Did your ‘unbiased observers’ believe it was an artificially stirred-up ethnic struggle that transpired in Crimea? If so, they may need to rethink their conspiracy theories going forward.
I don’t want the interim governnent to attack anybody. If you can guarantee that they won’t perhaps your skin would stop crawling. The eastern anti-Maidan Ukrainians do not appear to be interested in your fair national election since the last one was overcome by violence in Kiev.
So how are the pro-Maidans going to get the anti-Maidans to surrender to the central pro-Maidan interim government if use of force is off the table? What are your experts saying?
Certainly it was - it was an artificially stirred up ethnic struggle with popular majority support once it got rolling, as opposed to the one in eastern Ukraine, which currently lacks majority popularity.
Does anyone seriously doubt that the Russians are doing everything they can to stir up ethnic trouble in both places, and to support it? I would have thought that was undeniable, even for the most blinkered partisan.
And you know it was an ‘artificially stirred up ethnic struggle’ in Crimea, how? Are you suggesting that the majority in Crimea have no minds of their own, and had no reason to be angry and concerned about what was going down in Kiev.
I recall the celebratory atmosphere in all the pro-Maidan world during those first hours when Yanukovuch was forced to flee for his life. You think the majority in Crimea were unconcerned with what was going on.
Put your feet in the shoes of an anti-Maidan Ukrainuan while viewing a news photo of US Senator John McCain standing on a stage on Maidan Square with known right wing nationalists extolling the virtues of protest democracy. And you think they had no concerns until Putin sent his agents in to artificially stir them all up.
Yes, I’d say that they had no concerns until Putin’s pals decided to start taking over government buildings. It was pretty damn peaceful until then.
Moral support for a movement from a foreign politician doesn’t justify you rebelling. Particularly when said movement was due to the previous government selling out to a foreign power to the displeasure of what was obviously a larger group of your own countrymen, especially when you still have political routes to power that don’t involve violence.
Sure there is. But what middle ground military action will force the separatists to accept central government authority.
I’m going by the separatist leader’s statement that they will set up their own government and military now that they see the referendum as having passed. If they are organizing their own police and army as we speak, is the interim government losing the capability to put an end to the separatist movement with each day that passes.
You’d think Kiev would offer something with regard to guarantees to immediate autonomy ‘but within Ukraine’ by this time, but they seem to desire some kind of anti-terrorist military action. I just think we should be concerned about this interim government doing something brash and stupid as Sakkashvilli did against South Ossetia during the Olympic Games in the summer of 2008.
The stakes are higher this time because the real estate in duspute right now is quite valuable. Ukraine had less to offer the EU and the IMF bankers without that eastern region and Crimea under Kiev’s control.
The larger group cited for Yanukovich to be President for five years. Putin made a better offer than the EU did. John McCains over there hanging out in stage with right wing anti-Russia nationalists, but can’t put any money where his mouth is when it comes to bettering Putin’s offer.
Where is Ukraine now economically? Are the protesters all eagerly giving up something to confirm to the EU demands for austerity.
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Where is Ukraine now economically?
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Well, they are in a really shitty position atm, no doubt about that. I mean, Russia just snagged a big chunk of their territory, is fermenting strife in the rest, has troops ‘doing training maneuvers’ on their borders, and has upped the price of gas and called in their debt. Not exactly an environment for investment and growth right now, right? All for the good of the Ukraine, no doubt, and to help them see the light and welcome their new Russian overlords with open arms and good brotherly comrade-ship.
As opposed to opening their legs for their new Russian overlords, right?
Yeah, bummer that he broke his campaign promises, did a 180 in policy, then when folks had the temerity to protest he started ‘draconian’ measures and whacked a bunch of them, right? They should have just rolled since he was the PRESIDENT FOR 5 YEARS, AND HIS WORD WAS LAW BY THE GODS!! What the fuck where they thinking, ehe? :rolleyes:
And he backed it up with not only economic warfare but the physical kind too. Yeah, you are right…what were they thinking to protest when Putin had made up his mind and all?
Well, McCain is only the President of the US…oh, wait! He’s NOT the President of the US! Damn, well, he’s like the God Emperor of the US…Oh, wait! He’s not that either! But at least he has the economic and military power of a nation state behind him and…oh, wait (see where I’m going with this yet? Oh, wait! What am I thinking? Of COURSE you don’t)…he’s not that either. In fact, he’s really not much of anything, and has about the power on par with a flee against a tank when compared to Putin, who IS pretty much all of those things (well, he THINKS he’s God Emperor anyway).
Look up the words ‘blockade’ and ‘interdiction’, then if you still don’t get it (after Batistuta already spelled it out), feel free to come back and ask again. I’ll have some really good sarcastic and biting remarks that will hopefully be amusing (well, to me anyway) for you.
Certainly they had reason for concern - the media they listened to was telling them that the new government were a bunch of Nazis. Have you forgotten that part? Seems to me not a few posters right here on the Dope were saying the exact same thing.
In fact, just the other day, someone in this very thread offered a “translation” from a speech given by a Ukrainian official, claiming the speech was in praise of the Nazis. Later it turned out it wasn’t, but that poster chose not to comment on the correction!
If what you hear over and over and over again that the new government is really a bunch of Nazis, it is perfectly rational to get angry and want to rebel.
Unfortunately, if course, it was all a tissue of half-truths and complete lies, like the lie that the Ukrainian official was praising Hitler, designed deliberately to provoke the exact reaction that it got - ethnic conflict. When one lie is exposed, the liars just move on and create two more. It apparently doesn’t matter, exposing them changes nothing, because it is the atmosphere of fear and hysteria that they want - to stir up rebellion and, they hope, war. A war will naturally draw Russia in to “protect minorities” - Ukraine in its present bankrupt state could not possiblt win a conventional conflict.
And here you are, cheering it on.
Stripoped of all the bullshit, what, specifically, has the Ukrainian government done to oppress Russian Ukranians? Why, so far, a grand total of … nothing? Colour me surprised.
