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Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

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Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#211
post #75

From what I gather, Obama has some of the same foreign policy advisors as Bush did. We are pursuing some backdoor strategy to get Ukraine to join the EU. The democratically elected president chose to ally with Russia instead, because Russia offered them more. We set up riots over there, and he flees the capital. The leader is declared to be deposed, and now a leader friendly to the west can take over. Russia can't st…

That's a nice conspiracy theory, would you care to cite anything to support it?

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#212

"The potential strike by the [Russian Federation] against [Ukraine], despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond [Ukraine]’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve t…

I'm not so sure you can use brackets to replace any noun with another noun. It's clearly satire but some people might think this is a direct quote of Putin.

At the time that op-ed came out, people did similar things with an even earlier op-ed of his: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/14/opinion/why-we-must-act.ht...

Clearly, his position is whatever is convenient at any given time.

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#213
post #204
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some pile of bullshit. Who are "we" that set up the riots? Those people stayed there since November, with wide popular support, risking life and limb. It is unbelievably obtuse to echo Kremlin propaganda that those were but the agents of US State Department. One has to be either exceptionally ignorant or exceptionally motivated to find a way to blame America to believe this canard. >>> Question is - who is the…

If today, you just came back from a year long vacation in a country without papers, internet access or TV, had no idea what happened in Syria, and was unaware of the back-and-forth struggle to get Ukraine to align with the EU ... Woke up today for the first day back in civilization, opened the papers, and see that Putin was mobilizing forces ... then I guess yes, my whole argument is a "pile of bullshit" and the guy…

USA Today reports that protestors were being paid to show up and protest:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/16/ukraine-...

"Protesters said those who stay at the government rally 24 hours a day earn as much as $94 per diem, the highest amount possible."

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#214
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are placing me in an uncomfortable position of spewing pro-Kremin propaganda. Ok. >Presenting this as if it is some sinister technique freshly invented Well, I didn't go into details, and I'm not an expert, but Color revolutions in ex soviet countries have certain common qualities to them. The main is "nonviolent action" of Gene Sharp. Holding a square for weeks, and waiting for violence to discredit government w…

The main is "nonviolent action" of Gene Sharp. Holding a square for weeks, and waiting for violence to discredit government wasn't a normal normal way to make a revolution before this method was used. What about Ghandi in India? Or Mohism in China in 400BC? The idea that the color revolutions are the first to popularise using nonviolent resistance to gain a moral upper hand against an opponent, is plainly ridiculous.

>are the first to popularise

Where did I say they are the first?

Ghandi's struggle against colonialism, and I suppose Mohism are not about government coups, especially in modern context, and modern understanding of what the state is. And Color revolutions are not exactly nonviolent - they are non violent at the initial stage.

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#215
post #203
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, US sent financial aid to Ukraine. And dozens of other countries too. But you talked about setting up the riots. >>> with Color revolution technique, where large groups of people occupy squares and then capture government buildings. You must be kidding. That's how revolutions are done since inventing of squares and government buildings. That's what revolutions are - a lot of people gather together and oust the ex…

You are placing me in an uncomfortable position of spewing pro-Kremin propaganda. Ok. >Presenting this as if it is some sinister technique freshly invented Well, I didn't go into details, and I'm not an expert, but Color revolutions in ex soviet countries have certain common qualities to them. The main is "nonviolent action" of Gene Sharp. Holding a square for weeks, and waiting for violence to discredit government w…

>>> Holding a square for weeks, and waiting for violence to discredit government wasn't a normal normal way to make a revolution before this method was used.

Protest which turns out violent is a normal way of revolution to happen. The protest can either end up in nothing - in which case it is called protest and forgotten soon - or can turn out violent and spread, in which case it is called civil war, or revolution, or such.

>>> Other than that there is financing of pro-Democracy NGOs,

That is very sinister, to finance NGOs that promote human rights and democracy.

>>> that work under assumption that there is a lack of democracy(no matter what),

It's not an assumption, it's a fact. "No matter what" is your addition, which is false.

>>> leaders with western eduction or ex-Reagan administration staffer wives.

I'm not sure how western education or having wife working for US administration is sinister, but I'm sure you'll explain it to me soon. For now I conclude obviously nobody having western education can be trusted. Those college things, they are obviously set up by CIA.

>>> it's too subjective and CNN-like to call Putin a dictator.

It's the fact - he's a an authoritarian unchangeable ruler, and has been for some time. The fact that a lot of people like him doesn't matter - a lot of people liked Stalin or Lenin or Hitler or Mao too. That doesn't make their regimes non-dictatorial.

>>> The US will support revolutions on Russian border no matter how democratic Russia is.

That is a baseless conjecture, but even if it were true, that doesn't make Putin less of a dictator.

>>> Even more, it's easy to argue that Russia is not democratic as say western europe or the US, precisely because The US is very capable at overthrowing governments.

It's very easy to argue, but it is false. Russia is not democratic because it is convenient for the ruling clique, not because of the US. If the US didn't exist at all, Putin were the same dictator, maybe even worse at the loss of deterrent - though to be frank Obama administration couldn't deter a kid from eating a booger.

>>> it certainly assisted the forces which performed an illegal government coup.

There's no such thing as legal coup, so your insistence on it being illegal is useless - every revolution is illegal by definition, it happens when citizens lose their faith in legal. As for assisting the forces, the assistance has been mainly in words, which are never in short supply, but don't matter too much usually.

>>> There is even a recording of ambasaddor Nuland on youtube.

That seems to be the ultimate argument in support of the "meddling" hypothesis. Except that Nuland did nothing but express her wishes about the future Ukraninian government. That doesn't even relate to "assisting" charge, let alone "setting up" charge. Of course they were talking to opposition leaders and of course they said what US would like to see from them - that's what diplomats do.

>>> As for me personally, being a Russian with pro-Liberty ideology,

Voe is for Russia if pro-Liberty Russians spend their time on proving how Putin is a nice democratic leader and US is to blame for "meddling" with everything and making it worse, while denying agency to anybody else completely. If this is a position of pro-Liberty Russians - that everybody in the world hates Russia and wants it to be harmed and weak and only Putin is the alternative for that - Liberty obviously means something different there. I certainly hope not.

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#216
post #33
post #17

See what happened in Ukraine's neighboring country, Moldova, 24 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Transnistria Moldova had a population of ethnic Russians that lived on the Eastern bank of the river D'niest'r. (Similar to the Crimean region in Ukraine.) Eventually a civil war broke out, and Russia stepped in to back the ethnically Russian region (sound familiar?). The end result was a stalemate. A ceasef…

Same thing happened in Georgia in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#The_South_Oss...

And by "same thing" you mean that Georgia started an invasion of South Ossetia and then forced to retreat when Russian forces counter-attacked?

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Name those advisors. Every country in teh world recognizes Crimea as being Ukraine. Russia has just announced its invading that.

The Crimea was part of Russia until 1954. there is a very large Russian military base there. In 1992 the Ukrainian government ceded that the Crimea was almost completely autonomous of Ukraine. How is Russia invading when it already has a massive military base there, in the Crimea, which was Russian until 1954?

> How is Russia invading when it already has a massive military base there, in the Crimea, which was Russian until 1954?

The same way the US would have been invading if it invaded the Phillipines in 1991, where it had a massive military base and which had been American up until 1946. Neither "this was our territory ~50 years ago" nor "we have a massive military base in this territory" gives a country permission to invade and occupy a territory.

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#218
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2004 the Communists were in power in Republic of Moldova. But in December 2013 Moldovan court rules official language is 'Romanian,' replacing Soviet-flavored 'Moldovan': http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/12/05/moldovan-court-rules... Just as there is no 'Austrian language', is German only. Or 'Switzerland language', is German, French and Italian. Edit: Of course there is heavy dialect or accent of the language in…

Swiss German is a real thing and quite different from high German.

What would linguists say if, for political reasons, Swiss German starts being called simply "Swiss"?

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#219
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was actually a brilliant FUD strategy to buy the Russians time and stop the West from intervening in a timely (from their perspective) fashion.

As if somebody would be intervening. EU bureaucrats plan to hold "emergency meeting" on Monday - because occupation of a foreign country and potential war near their borders is not a reason to work on Sunday, you see. One can be sure nothing would come out of it on Monday either but empty "we are very worried" declarations.

> As if somebody would be intervening. EU bureaucrats plan to hold "emergency meeting" on Monday - because occupation of a foreign country and potential war near their borders is not a reason to work on Sunday, you see.

Or because the actual work to develop options and brief on the facts prior to the emergency meeting of decision makers is going to happen through Sunday.

Most of the work related to any meeting of decision-makers, even an emergency meeting, happens before the meeting.

Re: Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

#220
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss German is a real thing and quite different from high German.

Sure, we can argue about Italian dialects varieties, but in fact all are the same language: Italian.

Italy is not a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy

There are languages and dialects here that are incomprehensible to a native Italian speaker.

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