Russia has invaded Ukraine. How will the West respond?

[Terr]

@NotfooledbyW

a genuine Russian area similar to Kaliningrad."

A “genuine Russian area” of Kaliningrad that was settled by Germans in 1255, and was part of various German states continuously (except for a 5-year occupation by Russia in 1700s), until 1945, when the German population was expelled by force and Russians brought in. That “genuine Russian area”?

[NotfooledbyW]

@Terr

A “genuine Russian area” of Kaliningrad that was settled by Germans in 1255, and was part of various German states continuously (except for a 5-year occupation by Russia in 1700s), until 1945, when the German population was expelled by force and Russians brought in. That “genuine Russian area”?

What is your point?

[Terr]

@NotfooledbyW

What is your point?

That your understanding of what a “genuine Russian area” is seems to be… well I think “ridiculous” is the word. Or “pathetically uninformed”. Take your pick.

[NotfooledbyW]

@Terr

That your understanding of what a “genuine Russian area” is seems to be… well I think “ridiculous” is the word. Or “pathetically uninformed”. Take your pick.

Why would you think that is my understanding? I posted Martin Hyde’s 03-01-2014 at 12:03 PM comment simply to show that Crimea’s borders have been discussed on this thread. I explained that. Your point should have something to do with the current matters being discussed. Do you not know what the current matter is that is being discussed. Are you snippeteering to find unrelated errors in other people’s posts?

[NotfooledbyW]

@RickJay

, and you’re now saying that Crimea announced it intended to separate from Ukraine before holding a referendum you say is a legitimate one that will decide whether or not they will separate from Ukraine.

Yes indeed on 03-14-2014 at 06:43 AM I wrote, “Following the total collapse of law and the illegal overthrow the Executive Branch in Kiev Crimean Leaders seized control of all its own security and announced it was separating from Ukraine.”
Yes they had to announce an attempt to separate prior to holding a referendum. Do you think their announcement to hold a referendum to separate is legal all of a sudden? If they lose the referendum and Ukraine resumes full constitutional authority over Crimea and could actually enforce anything again, the question is would these leaders and activists all face arrest or exile.

Obama said standing right next to the non-elected/installed Yaz…1/2 President of Ukraine … that even if the referendum is stopped Crimea is not going back to the same relationship it had before with Ukraine.

it will be separation regardless and as I have written… it will be a matter of to what degree.

4.49pm GMT The Crimean parliament has passed a resolution agreeing to hold elections in May, as well as a referendum whose language has been reported by Interfax:

Crimean parliament seizure inflames Russian-Ukrainian tensions – live

[Rune]

The West responds by jumping up and down and throwing around condemnations and other useless stuff.

The West should have responded by inserting itself in the referendum process in a positive way, working with the Russian to push it towards a as fair and representative referendum as possible. By having pushed it a little further into the future, etc. A referendum by itself ought never to be a controversial issue. Of course they can vote on their own future. And by all accounts, a majority of Crimeans would rather be part of Russia, so they should naturally be allowed to chose that path if they wish. Ukraine will be stronger for having shed parts of the nation which wish no part of it.

[Batistuta]

@RedFury

Most European nations are lackeys of the US, which surely must come as a huge surprise to you.

As for Spain, the ruling PP Party, is fraught with left-overs with neo-nazis from the Franco era.

So what else would anyone expect but butt-licking?

Just want to come in and say that this is complete and utter bullshit. Jesus Christ, the stuff you guys make up to avoid facing the truth.

Signed: a left-wing Spaniard.

[Rune]

@John_Mace

Have the governments of any of those countries demanded we leave? If not, I don’t see why you think those comparisons are relevant.

Nja. A government is just a bunch of people. Seldom with mush legitimacy.

In a number of those nations you have merely replaced the government which was against your presence to one which is in favour. Presumable the Russian will do the same.

[Rune]

@Grim_Render

I don’t think that is a very functional analogy. Throwing stones in a glass house is always bad, regardless of your previous behavior. Whereas protesting lawless behavior is always good, regardless of previous behavior.

Protesting lawless behaviour s only good when the laws are good and just. Whereas breaking bad laws - that is laws that are not wanted by the people - is neutral at worst.

The thing about people or nations vehemently protesting when others do as they do themselves is that it’s hardly credible that their protests are based on the actual principle, rather some other issue at stake. The USA is not really protesting that the Ukraine has been invaded, but that US interests has been compromised by Ukraine having been invaded by Russia. Why should I be overly concerned that the USA feels its own national interests are being upset by Russia and are now using Ukraine as a weapon in its arsenal? Looking at the matter through the interests of USA does not seem to be conductive to a workable solution.

[cckerberos]

@Rune

And by all accounts, a majority of Crimeans would rather be part of Russia, so they should naturally be allowed to chose that path if they wish.

Serious question: do we have any way of knowing if that is actually the case? I know that there’s a small ethnically Russian majority in Crimea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they all support joining with Russia.

[Rune]

@cckerberos

Serious question: do we have any way of knowing if that is actually the case?

That’s what the referendum is for, and why the West should have contributed in a positive way to make it fair and representative. Now we’ll only have a rather suspect referendum, never have a really believable measure of the Russian vers. Ukrainian support, and the Russian vers. the West wound can go on to fester for years and decades.

I only have my information from people I know in the region, which I’m sure are biased for being Russians.

[Human_Action]

@NotfooledbyW

Why would you think that is my understanding? I posted Martin Hyde’s 03-01-2014 at 12:03 PM comment simply to show that Crimea’s borders have been discussed on this thread. I explained that. Your point should have something to do with the current matters being discussed. Do you not know what the current matter is that is being discussed. Are you snippeteering to find unrelated errors in other people’s posts?

That’s where properly coding quotes would do wonders for people understanding you. This is the second time that I can recall a poster mistaking you quoting someone else for you writing your opinion, and it’s because of your coding, or lack of same.

It’s really simple:

[noparse]

@Poster you are quoting

Text you are quoting

[/noparse]

Or, click the multi-quote button in each post you wish to quote.

[John_Mace]

@Rune

That’s what the referendum is for, and why the West should have contributed in a positive way to make it fair and representative. Now we’ll only have a rather suspect referendum, never have a really believable measure of the Russian vers. Ukrainian support, and the Russian vers. the West wound can go on to fester for years and decades.

Why should “The West” try and influence an illegal referendum? That would give it legitimacy.

[RedFury]

@Batistuta

Just want to come in and say that this is complete and utter bullshit. Jesus Christ, the stuff you guys make up to avoid facing the truth.

Signed: a left-wing Spaniard.

If this post is any indication, it seems you’re quite the uninformed left-winger at that.

Alianza Popular, which morphed into the Partido Popular, originally had in its make-up no less than seven ex-Franco Ministers. Begining with the infamous Manuel Fraga and including Cruz Martínez Esteruelas, Federico Silva Muñoz, Laureano López Rodó, Enrique Thomas de Carranza, Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora y Licinio de la Fuente. Not to mention over 180 Procudadores (procurators) from his Courts. Not quite a break from Franquismo, wouldn’t you say? Well, in a more subdued way – thus the reason for the name change – the Partido Popular is doing much the same thing.

Watch Gallardon praise Franquismo: Gallardón ensalza el franquismo

Nothing to see here, move along…

Yeah, the same guy who is all in favor of reforming abortion laws in Spain. Or Esperanza Aguirre, Spain’s own far-right Iron Lady…though I seriously question the “lady” part.

Lastly you have the imbecil, Rajoy and his stand on gay marriage:

Mariano Rajoy said allowing same-sex couples to marry was ‘unnatural’ and ‘went against the basic social and legal institution of marriage’, which he said the Spanish Constitution described as a romantic union between a man and a woman.

Good for you to know what is happening in our own country – I go back every year for a couple of months and keep up with Spanish politics fairly well. You should, for instance, watch a couple of short videos on the issue:

Nuevas Generaciones del PP: de los enfrentamientos con ancianos a los saludos y símbolos fascistas

Or PP’s Nazi Youth in Valencia: Las Nuevas Generaciones del PP valenciano

So yeah, damn right the PP hasn’t shed, nor will they, their Franco roots nor their core facists values. It’s who they are.

<end of off-topic>

[Batistuta]

And yet, RedFury, you have failed to name a single leading member of today’s Partido Popular who is a “neo-nazi from the Franco era”. Which, you know, is exactly what you said upthread.

This is akin to criticising the Democratic Party for being segregationists. Many were some time ago, but that means nothing today.

[RedFury]

[Propaganda, lies and the New York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukraine

The media keeps buying the American spin on what’s happening in Ukraine. Let’s cut through the fog](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/12/propaganda_lies_and_the_new_york_times_everything_you_really_need_to_know_about_ukraine/)

You need a machete these days to whack through the thicket of misinformation, disinformation, spin, propaganda and straight-out lying that daily envelopes the Ukraine crisis like kudzu on an Alabama telephone pole. But an outline of an outcome is now faintly discernible.

Here is my early call: We witness an American intervention in the process of failing, and the adventure’s only yields will be much pointless suffering among Ukrainians and life for years to come in the smothering embrace of a justifiably suspicious Russian bear.

It is difficult but not impossible to interpret these narratives. The first step, admittedly hard for many Americans, is to drop all Cold War baggage and see beyond the West’s century-and-a-half habit of demonizing Russia as the emblematic power of the inherently autocratic East. “Oriental despotism” was a passing fad conjured by a scholar-stooge named Karl Wittfogel in the late 1950s. It died a deserved death — around the time of hula hoops, I think — but the prejudice lingers, remarkably, in many Western minds.

Here comes the bitter bit. The Russian take in the Ukraine crisis is more truthful than the artful dodge Washington attempts. The above forecast of the outcome rests on the thought that the dodge is simply too flimsy to last.

<snip>

On the diplomatic side, the big charge now is intransigence. Washington calls Moscow intransigent because Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, decline to talk to the self-appointed government in Kiev, which Putin refuses to recognize. Moscow calls Washington intransigent because Kerry declines to meet Lavrov unless the latter agrees first to meet the Kiev provisionals.

The American line: The provisionals are legitimate, they are democrats worthy of support, and there was no coup when they hounded President Viktor Yanukovych from office Feb. 21. The protesters behind them with clubs, pistols and bottle bombs are democrats, too.

The Russian line: The provisionals are illegitimate, they took power in a coup driven in considerable part by nationalist fanatics with a fascist streak evident in their ranks, they are now dependent on same, and they merit neither support nor recognition.

This is it as of now, simplified but not simplistic, story and counter-story.

<snip>

**Here comes the bitter bit. The Russian take in the Ukraine crisis is more truthful than the artful dodge Washington attempts. The above forecast of the outcome rests on the thought that the dodge is simply too flimsy to last.

You cannot make a call such as this without looking closely. So let’s.

Putin and Lavrov are open to negotiations with the U.S. and the European Union. Putin commits to supporting Ukrainian elections set for May and backs the agreement struck between Yanukovych and his opponents just before the latter abandoned it and deposed him, even as Putin did not like it at the time. No, Moscow does not recognize the provisionals in Kiev, with sound reasons, but it does not require that Washington drop its support before getting to the mahogany table.

In the climate our media have generated, I almost feel the need to apologize for this but will refuse: I cannot locate the intransigence in this.

Now to Kerry and President Obama. Last week Lavrov invited Kerry to Sochi for face time with Putin, and Kerry considered it. Then he abruptly declined on the argument that the Russians must first commit to talks with the new crowd in Kiev. Here is the problem: Kerry’s demand does not hold up as a precondition; it is logically a point of negotiation. Set it as a precondition and you have, so far as I can make out, intransigence.

What is the preoccupation with a Moscow-Kiev gathering, anyway? This gets interesting, and you have to recall the dramatis personae in the Nuland tape of Feb. 7.

Insisting on direct talks between Russia and the provisional government in Kiev is to insist the former recognize the latter, a trap Putin cannot possibly be stupid enough to fall into. Recognition, in turn, would complete the Nuland-Pyatt project to gift Ukrainians with a post–Yanukovych puppet government. This is Kerry’s unstated intent.

It is remarkable what a good road map the Nuland tape has proven. She mentioned three names in her exchange with Pyatt: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok and Vitali Klitschko. The first, Nuland’s favorite, is now prime minister; Tyahnybok was running ahead of Yanukovych in polls at the time Nuland was taped and remains the vigorously anti-Russian head of Svoboda, a power-balancing party of rightists; Klitschko is not in the government but plans to run for president in the May elections.**

This is precisely the constellation Nuland described as her work in progress: Yatsenyuk in, the others more useful outside for now. As a measure of Washington’s unseemly haste to lend legitimacy, Obama meets Yatsenyuk in Washington as I write — an unelected leader of who knows whom sitting in the White House.

Just for good measure, Nuland also mentioned one Robert Serry, a U.N. official Washington arm-twisted Ban Ki-moon into sending to Kiev to give a veneer of multi-sided consensus. And there was Serry in the news last week — when Crimeans chased him across their border at gunpoint. They must be reading the papers carefully, those Crimeans.

At writing, the Obama scrum is debating whether to impose swift, cutting sanctions on the Russians (the political people) or ease off for fear of self-inflicted damage (the trade and business people). Leading the charge for tough stuff are none other than Nuland and Pyatt.

Maybe they are scared of getting sent to Kansas if the project does not come good.

The more I scrutinize it, the more the American case on Ukraine is held together with spit and baling wire. Were I Obama or Kerry, I would be looking for an out by now, cutting losses on a commitment to intervention that was sheer hubris from the first.

– much more at source.

[NotfooledbyW]

@Human_Action

That’s where properly coding quotes would do wonders for people understanding you. This is the second time that I can recall a poster mistaking you quoting someone else for you writing your opinion, and it’s because of your coding, or lack of same.

It’s really simple:

[noparse][/noparse]

Or, click the multi-quote button in each post you wish to quote.

Perhaps you could launch a crusade against snippeteering. When ax grinders are not really reading my posts for context but looking for one word or a few to nit-pick away at such as was the case here there is no matter the format - they do it all the time. It doesn’t matter who said what in this case, because the sidebar the snippeteer wanted to go down had absolutely nothing to do with the valid point I clearly written had written.

[RedFury]

@Batistuta

And yet, RedFury, you have failed to name a single leading member of today’s Partido Popular who is a “neo-nazi from the Franco era”. Which, you know, is exactly what you said upthread.

This is akin to criticising the Democratic Party for being segregationists. Many were some time ago, but that means nothing today.

Open a new thread if you neeed schooling on who exactly the PP is/stands for.

PS- some “left-winger” you are. Bwahahahaha!

[Human_Action]

@NotfooledbyW

Perhaps you could launch a crusade against snippeteering. When ax grinders are not really reading my posts for context but looking for one word or a few to nit-pick away at such as was the case here there is no matter the format - they do it all the time. It doesn’t matter who said what in this case, because the sidebar the snippeteer wanted to go down had absolutely nothing to do with the valid point I clearly written had written.

Ignoring the whole to attack a minor part is an issue in message-board debate, certainly. That said, I don’t know that I have the energy for a crusade.

Anyway, just trying to help with another issue that’s caused communication problems a few times, in relation to your posts. ‘Advice is one thing that is freely given away, but watch that you only take what is worth having.’

[RedFury]

Batistuta, did you not watch the video of Gallardon defending Franco? Anyway, here’s a primer – forget the thread, already busy enough. It’s an easy Google though, so you might want to self-educate prior to defending a Party who welcomes the ultra-right into its rank and file.

[Franco-fascism on the march in Spain: Is the government doing enough?

Critics say Spain’s fascist threat comes not from small groups like those set to march in Barcelona Saturday, but from the radical fringe that is part of Spain’s governing Popular Party.](Franco-fascism on the march in Spain: Is the government doing enough? - CSMonitor.com)

The government has been criticized by the opposition, regional governments, and human rights groups for condoning fascist public support among its own followers – which even if small in number, were unheard of until recently – even if violent groups are suppressed.

Such criticism arose again on Thursday, when PP legislators voted down a motion like that in the Catalonian parliament to criminalize public support for fascism, Franco, and the Nazis. The PP said the move was unnecessary, because such a ban is already implicit in the law.

“They publicly condemn it, but they clearly tolerate it,” Ortega says.
Franco nostalgia

The crisis has brought an unprecedented public display of Franco nostalgia, with some public officials and members of the PP openly making the Nazi salute, displaying the former regime’s flag and other memorabilia, and posting pro-Franco messages on social media sites.

Municipal, regional, and even country legislators have reminisced about Franco’s era, mostly subtly, though some have openly said those killed by Franco’s forces deserved it.

On Thursday, the PP mayor of a Madrid suburb tweeted that he would send some “skinheads” to target the Socialist Party as part of a broader public debate. He later said he was just joking.

The mayor of a small town in Galicia showcased the picture of the dictator in his office and played the fascist anthem – that is, until a small bomb partially damaged the municipal building early Monday. Although no one has claimed responsibility, anarchist groups are suspected.

And earlier this month, a small town governed by the PP near Madrid allowed a fascist group to put up a stand in a public school exhibiting Franco-era and Nazi memorabilia. Officials later apologized and said that they weren’t aware of the stand.

The government and the PP leadership so far have limited their reaction to condemning violence and pro-fascist displays within its ranks. No officials have been reprimanded. “The problems are not majors or councilmen. It’s that high-ranking legislators and ministers condone this,” says Ortega.

Additionally, the PP is trying to revise history to paint a rosy picture of the Franco dictatorship, while blaming the deposed and democratically elected left-wing government for the brutal Spanish Civil War that ended in 1938.

The PP-controlled parliament last month voted down proposals from opposition parties that would have penalized pro-Franco propaganda and banned pro-Franco political parties.

<end of that obvious topic>