Posted on 11/27/2018 2:48:33 PM PST by McGruff
Are you not a person capable of independent thought?
Russia invaded land that didn’t belong to them. PERIOD.
Does Crimea belong to the Crimean people? No one should be afraid of letting them decide their political arrangements, unless you actively oppose the central tenet of the Declaration of Independence.
Crimea was a state in Ukraine. Any of those people wanting to live in Russia could take a short train ride to Russia. You're advocating La Raza's position that parts of the US can once again become part of Mexico if enough of the residents vote that way.
Our coast guard wouldn’t be using a bridge deliberately built to prevent another nation from using sealanes to engage in free commerce.
I encourage you to examine the history. Crimea was conquered by Russia before the US conquered California.
It has never been ethnically Ukrainian, even before the Soviet Union and after.
Soviet Premier Khrushchev apportioned Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR, should that Soviet era bureaucratic diktat bind the people of Crimea for all time? I think not. I have no fear in letting the people there decide.
So we would let Cuban gunboats in our waters as long as they ran alongside commercial ships? Ya really think?
Crimea was predominantly Tatar until the Soviets(Russians) killed or deported most of them. Russians should not be rewarded for ethnic cleansing.
What this latest is really about is that Putin / Russia wants to cut off Mariupol’s ocean access. Period. The situation has no parallel in US waters, therefor your analogy is irrelevant.
The closest parallel is China occupying reefs near Philippines, claiming the territory is historically Chinese, and then trying to restrict traffic, to which actions we sent our warships right on through & told the Chinese to try to stop us if they wished. If the Euros had any stones, that’s what THEY’D do. Even the diminished Euros’ navies could put the entire Russian Navy on the bottom in short order, if it came to that.
You are exactly right about Ukraine. In 1994, they had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world and agreed to give them up and voluntarily joined the Treaty on non Nuclear proliferation of Nuclear weapons. Our Government ratified that treaty. They did this in exchange for security assurances signed in the Budapest Memorandum. That memorandum is signed by us.
Now some on here may pooh-pooh this but it’s serious. Our guarantee should mean something. If it doesn’t, how will we ever get North Korea to give up it’s nukes? We already screwed up in Libya thanks to us joining that coalition to oust Gadaffi who wasn’t doing anything to us at the time. We should have told those European countries to pound sand.
We assured Gadaffi we wouldn’t come after him if he gave up his nukes. We signed a memorandum with Ukraine assuring them if they gave up their nukes we would guarantee them security assurances. If we don’t live up to our legal guarantees we might as well let everyone go build nukes because none of these leaders will believe us anymore.
My opinion, our next move in the Ukraine should be to start sailing some big fat nuclear aircraft carriers into the region. See how Russia likes that. This isn’t just about the Ukraine either. Russia’s ultimate goal is to have full control of the Black Sea. The United States has long stood for freedom of navigation of the worlds waterways.
So are we giving back California, Oklahoma and the rest since it was owned by someone else before we took it?
Get real. Also, the fact that Russia took it from the Tartars hundreds of years ago doesn’t suddenly justify it being Ukrainian. Their claim is ridiculous and most importantly not supported by the people in Crimea.
So why didn’t they stop commercial traffic this summer?
Your premise wrong.
Russia objected to sending gunboats into her waters and not responding to comms.
We’d do the same thing to any foreign nations gunboats trying to operate in our waters.
You have a Ukrainian president that is a Western puppet and has <10% approval with an election months away trying to galvanize support by fomenting an external crisis.
The situation has no parallel in US waters, therefor your analogy is irrelevant.
You know we wouldn’t allow it, so your mind won’t even entertain it.
More like a manifestation of mental illness...these people a nuts.
According to your logic if enough people in California vote to join Mexico its okay. You're the one arguing borders(Crimea) should change in European by force even, if the locals approve it.
“Does Crimea belong to the Crimean people?”
Apparently only if the so-called ‘Crimean people’ are Russians. The Tatars and the Ukrainians don’t count, right?
Of course it is, unless you reject the central tenet of the Declaration of Independence: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
For it, or against it?
You're the one arguing borders(Crimea) should change in European by force even, if the locals approve it.
What I notice is that the last thing anyone in the West seems interested in it is what the people of Crimea prefer. Ask yourself: why is that?
Ethnically, Crimea is ~65% Russian, 15% Ukrainian, and 12% Tartar.
So with over twice as many Russians as Ukrainians and Tartars combined, how do you expect that to work out if the people are given a voice?
Looking at that math the last thing I'd want to do is allow the people to vote, if I wanted to force them to stay under Kiev's rule. Funny how that is the most consistent aspect of the West's approach to the situation in Crimea. Nobody in the West cares what the Crimeans want.
Clearly the Russians need to get their asses out of Ukraine and go back to Russia if they want to be ruled by Moscow.
I say the same about Mexicans who think California should be part of Mexico.
Thanks for the explanation of where you’re coming from. Problem I have with Crimea is that I feel it wasn’t a groundswell reaction from the locals but a directed uprising from “little green men”. Crimea used to be a semi-autonomous region and now its a “police state”. Is that better?
Clearly Crimea isn't Ukrainian, but the folks who want it 'ruled' don't seem to notice or care.
Next you’ll tell me that Estonia isn’t Estonian, that Latvia isn’t Latvian, that Lithuania isn’t Lithuanian and etc. all because some Russians happen to live there.
And the message Moscow is sending to these countries is that they need to purge themselves of Russians so the thugs can’t get away with another invasion.
The ethnic cleansing of Russians from any country neighboring Russia is absolutely called for in response to this aggression.
Russians are ~25% of the Estonian population.
Russians are ~26% of the Latvian population.
Russians are ~6% of the Lithuanian population.
Ukrainians are ~15% of the Crimean population.
Why do you think Crimea wants to be in Ukraine instead of Russia?
I just want to hear the logic behind the U.S. going halfway around the world to go to war to force some people to be part of a country they don't want to be part of all because of some bureaucratic shuffle by the Soviet Politboru in the 1950s.
Let's hear it.
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