This is completely false. South Korea’s armed forces answer solely to the Republic of Korea. The Commander-in-Chief is the President of South Korea.
Well, no, you can’t. They’re not occupations. The term “military occupation” has a rather distinct meaning that clearly isn’t met in those cases.
I mean, did Canada ALSO occupy Germany when it had troops there up until the 90s? Gosh, who was in control of that country?
That’s not the argument. The argument is that America has repeatedly invaded countries and stayed there whilst they voted, and so has no right to criticise Russia. The official position of America is that Iraq was not wrong, which means that they are hypocrites.
That doesn’t mean I think you, or any other poster here, are necessarily hypocritical. I do think you’re wrong in saying that Russia shouldn’t have entered the Crimea when explicitly invited to by it’s people. To go back to Iraq, the US and allies should have kept their promise to the Iraqi people in 1992 and invaded then. Doing it so many years later was cowardly, and doing it on a false pretext was dumb and, frankly, wrong.
Repeating a claim ad nauseum doesn’t make it true.
In fact, there are some ultra-right types within the protest movement. They are, however, a minority within that movement. Their participation does not make the movement as a whole “fascist” any more than the participation of parties of the ultra-right in the politics of Spain and France makes those countries “fascist”.
It really is time to move on from that tired ad hom propaganda.
Bringing up what the US did in Iraq - whether that was analogous or not - is a compete red herring. It is a textbook example of the tu quoque informal fallacy.
Actually, it technically was an occupation in Germany. Many people don’t realize that while the United States, Britain, and France allowed the West German government to manage its own affairs, it was technically being run by an occupation government until 1991.
But as I forgot, this specific Ukraine thread is about Western hypocrisy so tu quoque argument is in fact quite proper.
That’s precisely true, and I’ll repeat–the US had broad international support. It did not have UN support, but the UN is not a valid measure of justified international action because we have given two autocratic regimes that believe it is in their self interest to protect other autocrats veto powers over all UN sanctioned military actions.
FWIW I think the invasion of Iraq was badly conceived, unnecessary, a waste of resources and an all around bad idea. However, Australia, the United Kingdom, Poland, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Norway and Netherlands are not “Micronesia”, but are respected countries of fairly large size and standing in the international community. Hell, even Canada covertly supported us in Iraq.
Not all things are equivalent, while the invasion and long occupation of Iraq was far bloodier than anything is likely to be in Crimea, the fact it is that it was much less internationally condemned than this Crimea territorial grab. Iraq is now a genuinely free, sovereign country–and not even all that politically friendly to the United States (we couldn’t negotiate a BSA with them and now they appear to be taking the Iranian side in the grand Middle East proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.) The idea that we gobbled up a bunch of territory in Iraq is simply false, and thus makes it a wholly different thing than the annexation of Crimea.
Well, you can’t tu quoque Obama on this since he was opposed to the Iraq War. I don’t know how one can characterize the position of “Western Media” wrt said war. What does the term “Western Media”, taken as a whole, even mean?
Well the OP was restricted to hypocrisy on the Kiev vs Crimea revolts and I think it’s fair to say most Western nations and their major media outlets supported one and not the other.
As far as comparing Iraq and Crimean votes, I think there’s enough to fend off total hypocrisy charges. Firstly the allowing of international observers and secondly the vote subject matter. “Who do you want in charge” is pretty different than “would you like to give up sovereignty?”.
My understanding is that the Crimean referendum will give them the chance to assert their sovereignty for the first time since 1992, or to join Russia. I don’t read Russian, so that may be an incorrect translation, but the first option is supposedly to restore the Crimean constitution from then that Ukraine overruled.
And here I was thinking they were just reporting about both. I didn’t know that “Western Media” was taking sides.
And the OP only chose to elaborate on Obama, so maybe we can focus on him. But then, I think the hypocrisy charge has already been debunked. Whatever one might think of what happened in Kiev, it didn’t involve military force from another country.
Not sure what you mean by “debunked”.
I saw njtt say this:
(Bolded for emphasis.)
And I think he’s right: what’s happening is realpolitik. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hypocritical.
John, my impression of the “just reporting” is that the Kiev protests really were painted in a much more heroic light.
Ymmv but I thought it was rather obvious.
Actually Steophan there is no independence choice. Either join Russia or use the 1992 constitution that explicitly stated Crimea is part of Ukraine. But I don’t speak Russian either.
[**The ‘We-Hate-Putin’ Group Think
The only foreign policy show on the U.S. media dial this past week has been the endless bashing of Russian President Putin over the Ukraine crisis – with an occasional slap at President Obama for ever having worked with Putin on issues like Syria and Iran.**](http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/07-2)
– much more at source.
For your complete merriment. Do keep the funnies and ad-homs coming fast & furious. Becuase as we all know, everyone but the pro-American faction is wrong (and lying) on this matter.
I think it’s overly simplistic to assume that the Russian speakers in Crimea would prefer to join Russia than to be independent. If the vote were being held under Ukrainian authority, I would assume that latter option would be available. It’s not as things are, with Russia calling the shots.
I don’t feel I’m in that crowd. But I will admit I have difficulty seeing the sense in the “Russia invades Ukraine over Crimea and somehow America is at fault” faction.
I read your “Interview with Dmytro Yarosh, Leader of Right Sector” article from your link vomit post. What do you think that story proved? Honestly curious.
I’m going to let this go with a gentle reminder that accusing other posters of lying is a warnable offense on the SDMB.
Just sayin’.
You have yet to provide proof that 1-the people who were protesting the Ukrainian government were fascists and 2-the US and Europe were behind it. Other than that, yeah, great.
So what? I’m not American.
It should be very easy for you to provide evidence of this explicit invitation. And, frankly, I’m not sure I’d buy the argument anyway.
Suppose the Mexican state of Sonora is pissed off with Mexico City and a representative of its state government “invites” the U.S. to occupy Sonora; would that justify American troops marching in there? Or do you think maybe the USA should say “Um, that’s really not our business”?
This is, again, a complete irrelevance when discussing the crisis in Ukraine. But I’m honestly a bit confused; when in 1992 did the United States promise to invade Iraq, and why would this constitute a promise its people wanted kept?