Occupied parts of Ukraine vote on joining Russia in ‘sham’ referendums

CNN.com ^ | September 23, 2022 | Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva, Olga Voitovych and Simone McCarthy

[bert]

Why settle when you are kicking Mother Russia’s ass?

[Travis McGee]

When you say "Ukraine's leaders," you are not referring to any actual Ukrainians, but their globalist puppet masters.

The puppet masters have an agenda, and it's not a peaceful solution.

[Travis McGee]

By far the best Ukraine war article I’ve read all week:

“Brainwashed for War With Russia”

by Ray McGovern Posted on September 22, 2022

https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/09/21/brainwashed-for-war-with-russia/

Thanks to Establishment media, the sorcerer apprentices advising President Joe Biden – I refer to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jacob Sullivan, and China specialist Kurt Campbell – will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China. And, shockingly, under false pretenses.

Most Americans are oblivious to the reality that Western media are owned and operated by the same corporations that make massive profits by helping to stoke small wars and then peddling the necessary weapons. Corporate leaders, and Ivy-mantled elites, educated to believe in U.S. “exceptionalism,” find the lucre and the luster too lucrative to be able to think straight. They deceive themselves into thinking that (a) the US cannot lose a war; (b) escalation can be calibrated and wider war can be limited to Europe; and (c) China can be expected to just sit on the sidelines. The attitude, consciously or unconsciously, “Not to worry. And, in any case, the lucre and luster are worth the risk.”

The media also know they can always trot out died-in-the-wool Russophobes to “explain,” for example, why the Russians are “almost genetically driven” to do evil (James Clapper, former National Intelligence Director and now hired savant on CNN); or Fiona Hill (former National Intelligence Officer for Russia), who insists “Putin wants to evict the United States from Europe … As he might put it: “Goodbye, America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Absent a miraculous appearance of clearer heads with a less benighted attitude toward the core interests of Russia in Ukraine, and China in Taiwan, historians who survive to record the war now on our doorstep will describe it as the result of hubris and stupidity run amok. Objective historians may even note that one of their colleagues – Professor John Mearsheimer – got it right from the start, when he explained in the autumn 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault.”

Historian Barbara Tuchman addressed the kind of situation the world faces in Ukraine in her book “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.” (Had she lived, she surely would have updated it to take Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine into account). Tuchman wrote:

“Wooden-headedness…plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.”

more at link
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/09/21/brainwashed-for-war-with-russia/

[thegagline]

Prediction:

Pro-annexation will receive over 81 million votes which is more votes than any previous annexation referendum.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

I remember elections in many troubled countries, but I don’t remember the American media ever referring to them as a “sham”.

Your memory is about as reliable as a Russian referendum. Here's a 2013 article referring to Robert Mugabe's 2013 election in Zimbabwe as a "sham".

https://www.cfr.org/blog/zimbabwe-elections-sham

Here's an article referring to the 2002 Iraqi referendum that gave Saddam another 7 year term as a "farce".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2331951.stm

And Ghaddafi was never actually elected to anything.

[Flick Lives]

Did you see who was sitting behind Blinken yesterday at the UN?

—

The puppet master always sits behind the puppet. It allows her to use her hand to move the puppet’s head, arms, and mouth.

[Flick Lives]

Here’s an article referring to the 2002 Iraqi referendum that gave Saddam another 7 year term as a “farce”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2331951.stm

And Ghaddafi was never actually elected to anything.

—

How’d our intervention in Iraq and Libya work out?

[MalPearce]

What do you mean,nothing sham about it?

Zaporizhzhia Oblast has 720,000 registered citizens MINIMUM in the capital city in the Ukrainian controlled north. On top of that, Zaporizhzhia’s Ukrainian controlled areas are hosting thousands of people who fled Kherson, Mariupol, Donetsk and Luhansk.

Not one of those people has a vote in this referendum.

Russian rhetoric is that Russian speakers deserve the right to vote for Russian annexation. Well, every adult over the age of 47 who lives and grew up in Zaporizhzhia Oblast HAD to learn Russian. And the generation after definitely grew up in Russian speaking households. Don’t they get a vote?!

At best 300,000 citizens of voting age live in the Russian controlled south. They all get a vote - delivered door to door, with their vote cast on camera. Nobody voting “no” in this vote can do so without the separatists and Russian state officials knowing that they have effectively self-identified as enemies of the Russian state.

Booths to vote in the Zaporizhzhia referendum are set up in Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea and Russia. No identity checks, no measures to prevent ballot stuffing.

Not even one ballot box has been put into the northern third of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Stupid thing is, there are more ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian held territory than in the separatist south - people it insists wouldn’t be opposed to Russian federation integration.

If Russia really wanted a legitimate referendum they would’ve crowed at Kyiv banning “collaboration” and invited the city to vote. Instead the separatists ruled that out completely and said if 50% + 1 of their 300k voters choose “yes” then they’re going to say to the 720,000 in the city “welcome to Russia!”

It’s been deliberately rigged to ensure that 150,000 “da!” votes can trump up to 870,000 combined “nyet!” and “you didn’t let me vote”.

To say it lacks legitimacy is an understatement.

What’s more, any residents of Zaporizhzhia city who refuse to be Russified against their will at the stroke of a pen, Russia has already said, is an “invader” and enemy of the state.

So perversely, even a pro Russian family will end up a legitimate military target if they don’t help to overturn Ukrainian control over the city.

If you think Mariupol was a bloodbath, consider the potential of destruction in Zaporizhzhia Oblast to surpass it.

There’s one possible solution: partition the Oblast so the city and the north/west banks of the river becomes a natural border between Ukrainian North (Enerhodar in the south would be on the Russian side).

Problem: the separatists ruled it out. If the south becomes Russian, Russia takes the north too.

[oldvirginian]

“Don’t talk to me about sham elections in Ukraine. /spit”

You make one hell of a point.
Any country that has a brain dead vegetable as it’s “leader” shouldn’t throw stones.

[dforest]

Now we get CNN. Why are you even here? Can’t you find any conservative sites for your propaganda?

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Here’s an article referring to the 2002 Iraqi referendum that gave Saddam another 7 year term as a “farce”.

The point to which I was responding was the bogus claim by another poster that we never criticized the elections in those countries, which we very clearly did.

I'm not playing the game of indefinitely shifting arguments each time the last crappy one gets trashed.

Nor am I advocating sending U.S. troops to fight in Ukraine as we did in Iraq, so your question is irrelevant.

[dforest]

That has them pegged to a T. People do not like the facts to get in the way of what they have been conditioned to believe as truth.

I always like Paul Joseph Watson’s clips of “it’s okay when we do it”.

[ExTxMarine]

Kinda like how West Virginia was created, huh?!?

[woodbutcher1963]

Tucker pointed her out last night during his opening monolog too.
She did such a great job with Iraq. Now, they want regime change in Russia.

They want to push Putin into using a nuclear weapon. Then they can bring us to the point of an all out nuclear war. Then they will “save” us.

[Not_Who_U_Think]

Thanks for the reply, and I’ll grant you the CFR article about Zimbabwe, but it was written after the election. What I am pointing out is that calling an election a ‘sham’ before it happens is future reporting, not fact reporting.

And really, not news reporting at all.

[AAABEST]

Oh look - the biggest trashbag trollboy on FR posted another article from CNN.

This must be true.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Sham elections” means there are votes.

After Obama and Soros overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine in the Orange revolution, the simply installed the leader they wanted.

Could you link to some of your previous posts opposing that??

I’d like to read them.

[ought-six]

“Curious, under what circumstances would they need allowed to vote to leave Ukraine and it not be a sham because they clearly don’t want to be a part of Ukraine.”

Easy. Follow the Ukrainian constitution. It specifically addresses the issue. Such referenda are allowed under the constitution, ONLY if all the citizens of Ukraine get to vote on it, not just those in the affected territory. This was brought up years ago vis-a-vis the Minsk Agreements, but the Russians — not surprisingly — opposed it.

So, hold the referenda votes pursuant to the Ukrainian constitution, and the results will get international recognition and acceptance.

It’s really pretty simple.

[chopperk]

Elections have become a joke. As Stalin said; its not who casts the vote, its who counts the vote that matters.

[NorseViking]

Thank you! A fantastic read.