According to Forbes the vote in Crimea was massively different than Russia reported:
"Official Kremlin results: 97% for annexation, turnout 83 percent, and percent of Crimeans voting in favor 82%.
President’s Human Rights Council results: 50% for annexation, turnout 30%, percent of Crimeans voting in favor 15%."
But none of the other media seem to be carrying this story so apparently it is quite questionable.
[bolding mine]
What on earth are you talking about? I’m thoroughly confused How is the act of denying a group of people, who, by the way, are mostly of Russian ethnicity, from choosing which country they want to belong to (Russia) an act of “supporting and spreading democracy”? Is it not rather the exact opposite? Here’s a quote from Wikipedia:
As the quote suggests, the behavior of the US and its European allies is contrary to the ideals of democracy in every sense of the word. Besides, the western media has been obfuscating the fact that this whole crisis was actually started when the west aided and funded a coup in the Ukraine. And yet Russia is the one being the “naughty boy” [in response to the second post on the thread]?
You are clearly very naïve about the realities of international politics and the true nature of US foreign policy. If the US government is being the “world police force” in any way, it isn’t policing it in the interests of justice, human rights and democracy like you and many people are deceived into believing. Rather, it is policing the world so that it conforms to its material interests. For example, the US state department has been refusing to designate the Boko Haram organisation as “terrorists” despite all the unspeakable terrorist atrocities they’ve been committing in Nigeria for the past several years. This has even led to allegations that the CIA is actually responsible for the creation and funding of Boko Haram. I’ve seen no evidence that these allegations are true but I wouldn’t be too surprised if they were. Also, if you want more evidence that the uproar about the Crimea has absolutely nothing to do with the West’s love of democracy, I can give you a parallel situation which also involves West Africa. This parallel also highlights the hypocrisy of the UN’s stance over the Crimea. In 2002, Nigeria was forced by the US and its European allies into handing over the region of Bakassi over to Cameroon despite the fact that the region was Nigerian territory and despite the fact that Cameroon was (and still is) being run by an oppressive dicktator (Paul Biya) who has being in power for more than thirty years. They did this because they believed it would give them much easier access to and control over the oil if it was under the control of Biya who is a good buddy of theirs.
By the way, trust me bro; the US government cares far more about the welfare of its own citizens than it does about that of other countries (ie: better than zero). So you don’t have to sweat yourself on that. The idea that the US government is some kind of Mother Theresa is a romantic myth that many Americans like yourself naively believe.
Actually, only a tiny proportion of US budget is actually spent on any foreign aid. And most of that goes to Israel and some other countries the US government wants to give aid for strategic reasons (not for bleeding-heart altruistic reasons). Much of the so-called “aid” it gives to other countries is actually in the form of loans and they always have strings attached to them that ultimately favours the US. (And as for the billions of dollars donated to Africa to combat a disease that many Africans believe the West deliberately created to afflict them, those billions are ultimately going to western – mostly US - pharmaceutical corporations. Why else do you think George Bush, for example, supported it?)
You need to take the sweet-talk of your politicians with a grain of salt and do some actual research on US foreign policy and you will see that it is a far cry from the cartoonish sugar-candy policy that is often presented to the public.