So, we did not steal Hawaii from the Hawaiians in 1893 at the point of US Marine Corps gun barrels?
I’m confused.
Now you don’t like conquering countries at gunpoint. Then, you did.
We absolutely Putined Hawaii.
We rolled in with the Marines, pointed guns at the Hawaiins, and said, “We own your country now. Or, we’ll shoot you. Your choice.”
And you seem fine with this, but not when Putin does it.
I guess it was because in grade school, you smiled when you learned about “Manifest Destiny.”
Meaning, “It’s okay when Americas conquers places, because we are very nice people who mean only the best. Not like those mean ugly Russians.”
Don’t you see, that you must choose one way or the other?
“So, we did not steal Hawaii from the Hawaiians in 1893 at the point of US Marine Corps gun barrels?”
The US marines who did the deed are all dead. The individuals who had it done to them are all dead. Honolulu is a modern city, and the life of the native Hawaiians living there has nothing whatever to do with the lives of the Hawaiians of 1893. Moreover, neither you nor I were born in 1893, and our grandparents were nowhere near Hawaii. Mine were living in Eastern Europe and some of them were newborn infants.
And yes, the theft of Hawaii was a dastardly deed. It is important only as a point of reference, and a caution against overly aggressive imperialism. In point of fact, however, it’s in the past.
“I’m confused.”
Why, yes. You are. I noticed. Here’s the difference. Putin’s prolonged rape of Ukraine, started in 2014 after his stooge was unseated during the Maidan revolution, is going on right now. People are really being killed. Innocent people. The Ukraine presidency has changed hands, and now VZ is the President. But Putin is the same criminal now that he was when he waged war against Chechnya and Georgia, and started his war against Ukraine.
Forget all about your maps and shmaps, and get your head around one fact: The rape of Ukraine is ongoing.
Now that that’s established, there is the concern about it turning into WW III. If NATO or the US gets involved, that will happen. But VZ giving up all claims to eastern Ukraine will not stop it, because once Yogi Putin has robbed the Ukrainian picnic basket and murdered the tourists, he will go on to the next, which is Moldavia, since it’s not in NATO and is a former Republic. Just like Hitler, he will go as far as he can before triggering all-out war, when he invades Lithuania, Estonia, or Latvia, which ARE in NATO. And what will embolden him to go that far, the fact that NATO is chicken sh!t and won’t adequately supply Ukraine through third parties. Those MIGs, or rather their absence in Ukraine, is what will cause WW III.
Proxy wars have rules. You don’t want the great powers butting heads, because that will lead to nuclear war. Instead, you have a small war involving two lesser countries or two halves of one country, such as Vietnam. When a great power tries to move in and fight directly with a smaller country, it gets seriously ugly. Because the small country can’t just have a set-piece battle with the big country, and so they wage guerilla warfare, and the other big country supplies the little country with what it needs. The result is, the great power that stepped into a proxy war gets screwed, blued and tattooed.
But if Russia is going balls to the wall in Ukraine with all it’s got, Ranger Smith either supplies Ukraine with what it needs to fight a guerilla war and humiliate Yogi Putin, or Yogi Putin finishes off Ukraine, burps, and moves on to the next picnic basket, until it grabs a NATO picnic basket and WW III commences.
As for the final disposition of Ukraine, that will have to wait until the war is over and Russia has lost. “You can’t negotiate with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.” Did Joy Behar say that? At any rate, negotiating with a bear can be done, after you whip it and tame it, which is Ukraine’s job, to be accomplished with the toys that the West provides it.