More Propaganda from the NY Times.

[Togo]

Except that both the US and Russia had signed a treaty to keep Ukraine as a single unit, which by your arguement Putin is breaking and the US is not.

...

And actually there was no such treaty signed. Not even Ukraine signed it and since it was part of the Ukraine (Crimea) which decided to leave, then everything is fine treaty wise.

Source?

For reference we're talking about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, articles 1 and 6. Signed by Russia, the US and Ukraine.

 

[barbos]

Except that both the US and Russia had signed a treaty to keep Ukraine as a single unit, which by your arguement Putin is breaking and the US is not.

...

And actually there was no such treaty signed. Not even Ukraine signed it and since it was part of the Ukraine (Crimea) which decided to leave, then everything is fine treaty wise.

Source?

For reference we're talking about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, articles 1 and 6. Signed by Russia, the US and Ukraine.

Memorandum is not a treaty. They forgot to ratify it in in both parliaments in Russian and in Ukrainian. And US forgot to remind about it, must have been too happy that Ukraine gave up their nukes and forgot.

It's irrelevant either way. Crimea voted and left, Obama is not even mentioning it anymore.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

The KLA was all over the place in Kosovo when they voted and there were NATO troops as well and NATO was supporting independence despite NATO's promise that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia.

The KLA weren't foreign and NATO isn't a country. So you haven't debunked what I said.

 

[dystopian]

Memorandum is not a treaty.

A fact utterly irrelevant to whether or not nations are expected to abide by it. Hint: they are.

They forgot to ratify it in in both parliaments in Russian and in Ukrainian.

You don't ratify a memorandum, and it is valid as soon as it is signed. Both Russia and Ukraine signed it.

It's irrelevant either way. Crimea voted and left, Obama is not even mentioning it anymore.

The notion that the memorandum does not apply because Crimea 'supposedly' seceded on its own thereby making it an internal matter is pure Russian propaganda straight from the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. It's also completely untrue since even if we were to accept that Russia didn't incite and interfere with the referendum (which it obviously did); there's still the fact that its troops were engaged in hostile occupations of Ukrainian facilities and buildings; which is a violation of the agreement no matter what absurd justification you or the Russians try to use.

And just because Obama hasn't mentioned it in a while, doesn't mean the US doesn't still maintain its position that Russia violated the agreement. What are you, a fruitfly with ADHD who thinks a leader not mention something for a while is equivalent to a policy change?

 

[boneyard bill]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

No. There was no invasion of Crimea. Russia had a right under its treaty with Ukraine to maintain up to 25,000 troops in Crimea.

But they so not have the right to move those troops out of their designated areas and take over governement buildings, cities and blockade the Ukrainian army. An invasion is an invasion irregardless of whether the enemy troops start across the border or as invited guests within your borders.

Since Crimea was already an autonomous republic, they already had their own president and parliament so it was easy for them to simply vote for secession. I don't know how proper the election was but, since 60% of Crimea is Russian and there are various other ethnic groups besides Ukrainians, the vote to join Russia is not surprising.

This is still the sticking point. You seem to be saying here that it doesn't matter if the election was fair or not, because they would have voted to succeed in any case. However, you don't apply the same standard to Kiev.

That is not at all the same situation as you had in Kiev where there was an out-and-out coup d'état against a democratically-elected government, but even if it were, that merely would put Putin in the position of doing the same thing the US was doing since we were, and still are, actively supporting the coup leaders both with diplomatic support, money, ..

Except that both the US and Russia had signed a treaty to keep Ukraine as a single unit, which by your arguement Putin is breaking and the US is not.

I didn't say that Putin didn't make Russian troops available for the Crimean government so that it could enforce its secession. Yes, the Ukrainian troops surrendered to the Crimean government without firing a shot, and they wouldn't necessarily have done that if the Crimean government didn't have some muscle at hand. (Although they might have because many of them are Russian and the Ukrainian army has yet to weigh in on the events that have transpired so far in Ukriane). But no, that doesn't constitute an invasion. The Crimean government requested their help. Calling it an invasion is an extreme exaggeration on Kerry's part, and he didn't use that term in his Senate testimony. He only said that to the media.

Certainly, it was an intervention, but so were our actions in Kiev. We spent five billion dollars on this "democracy movement" that overthrew a democratically elected government, we warned the Yanukovych government not to use force to suppress the demonstrators. We secretly connived to sabotage the EU-negotiated settlement to bring the man we wanted, Arsenyuk, into the premiership.

The unity of the Ukraine is irrelevant when the elected government is overthrow in a coup d'état. Of course, the unity of the country is going to throw apart when an ethnic minority seizes power. Crimea has seceded, but there is no unity in the remainder of Ukraine in any case and it is the Kiev regime, NATO, and the US that is balking at negotiations.

 

[boneyard bill]

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

The KLA was all over the place in Kosovo when they voted and there were NATO troops as well and NATO was supporting independence despite NATO's promise that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia.

The KLA weren't foreign and NATO isn't a country. So you haven't debunked what I said.

You're quibbling over words, not substance.

 

[boneyard bill]

A fact utterly irrelevant to whether or not nations are expected to abide by it. Hint: they are.

They forgot to ratify it in in both parliaments in Russian and in Ukrainian.

You don't ratify a memorandum, and it is valid as soon as it is signed. Both Russia and Ukraine signed it.

It's irrelevant either way. Crimea voted and left, Obama is not even mentioning it anymore.

The notion that the memorandum does not apply because Crimea 'supposedly' seceded on its own thereby making it an internal matter is pure Russian propaganda straight from the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. It's also completely untrue since even if we were to accept that Russia didn't incite and interfere with the referendum (which it obviously did); there's still the fact that its troops were engaged in hostile occupations of Ukrainian facilities and buildings; which is a violation of the agreement no matter what absurd justification you or the Russians try to use.

And just because Obama hasn't mentioned it in a while, doesn't mean the US doesn't still maintain its position that Russia violated the agreement. What are you, a fruitfly with ADHD who thinks a leader not mention something for a while is equivalent to a policy change?

The Ukrainian government that agreed to the Budapest Memorandum was overthrown in a coup d'état. The new government is not the constitutional government of the Ukraine. If Putin's actions offend the constitutional government of Ukraine, it is up to President Yanukovych and the full, entire, legally-elected parliament of Ukraine to protest it. The Kiev regime has no legitimacy to demand enforcement of the Budapest memorandum since their regime is totally dependent upon force, not constitutionality. Crimea seceded from an illegitimate government, a rather common occurrence in various countries.

The US Senate did not ratify the Budapest Memorandum either.

 

[barbos]

Yes, current ukrainian junta can not appeal to a law and unfinished paperwork to overwrite basic rights of self determination.
They actively alienated their own population and should not be surprised by a result.

The question is, why are they doing that?
Some people think it was US plan all along. US wants NATO troops and anti ballistic missile defense (against Russia) in Ukraine. They knew with Crimea being part of Ukraine they will not be able to do that. So they decided to shed parts of Ukraine that would be problematic and blame Russia for that in the process. Apparently US hawks think they can win nuclear war with Russia now. So it's not about democracy in Ukraine at all, it's about reducing Russia to nothing militarily.

 

[dystopian]

The Ukrainian government that agreed to the Budapest Memorandum was overthrown in a coup d'état.

Nice try, but it wasn't. Yanukovich was voted out of power by parliament, making the current government the legal government regardless of your perception to the contrary. And don't give me that nonsense about the vote being illegal because it supposedly needed to be signed by Yanukovich himself; that technicality ceased to have any meaning the moment he fled to Russia.

Secondly, even if what you're saying were true: so fucking what? It would *not* change the validity and legality of any agreements signed by previous governments under the succession of states principle in international law.

The US Senate did not ratify the Budapest Memorandum either.

Once again, you don't ratify a memorandum; but this is completely *irrelevant* to whether or not its signatory nations are expected to abide by it. I did mention this explicitly in the post you're quoting, so I'm struggling to come up with a valid reason for you to just blindly repeat your argument as if I never pointed it out.

 

[Togo]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

No. There was no invasion of Crimea. Russia had a right under its treaty with Ukraine to maintain up to 25,000 troops in Crimea.

But they so not have the right to move those troops out of their designated areas and take over governement buildings, cities and blockade the Ukrainian army. An invasion is an invasion irregardless of whether the enemy troops start across the border or as invited guests within your borders.

Since Crimea was already an autonomous republic, they already had their own president and parliament so it was easy for them to simply vote for secession. I don't know how proper the election was but, since 60% of Crimea is Russian and there are various other ethnic groups besides Ukrainians, the vote to join Russia is not surprising.

This is still the sticking point. You seem to be saying here that it doesn't matter if the election was fair or not, because they would have voted to succeed in any case. However, you don't apply the same standard to Kiev.

That is not at all the same situation as you had in Kiev where there was an out-and-out coup d'état against a democratically-elected government, but even if it were, that merely would put Putin in the position of doing the same thing the US was doing since we were, and still are, actively supporting the coup leaders both with diplomatic support, money, ..

Except that both the US and Russia had signed a treaty to keep Ukraine as a single unit, which by your arguement Putin is breaking and the US is not.

I didn't say that Putin didn't make Russian troops available for the Crimean government so that it could enforce its secession. Yes, the Ukrainian troops surrendered to the Crimean government without firing a shot, and they wouldn't necessarily have done that if the Crimean government didn't have some muscle at hand. (Although they might have because many of them are Russian and the Ukrainian army has yet to weigh in on the events that have transpired so far in Ukriane). But no, that doesn't constitute an invasion. The Crimean government requested their help. Calling it an invasion is an extreme exaggeration on Kerry's part, and he didn't use that term in his Senate testimony. He only said that to the media.

Certainly, it was an intervention, but so were our actions in Kiev. We spent five billion dollars on this "democracy movement" that overthrew a democratically elected government, we warned the Yanukovych government not to use force to suppress the demonstrators. We secretly connived to sabotage the EU-negotiated settlement to bring the man we wanted, Arsenyuk, into the premiership.

So you're still on the same theme. You're claiming:
-that Russian troops moving out of the barracks in violation of their agreement and seizing government buildings, military installations and media centres through force of arms is somehow not an invasion.
-That it doesn't matter whether the referendum conducted at gunpoint was fair or not, because the result was probably what people wanted
-That it does matter that the president was ousted without all the legal forms being observed, even thought the result was probably what people wanted
-That US supporting one candidate over another in an election is somehow equivalent to Russian troops with guns ensuring that there won't be elections ever again.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes, current ukrainian junta can not appeal to a law and unfinished paperwork to overwrite basic rights of self determination.
They actively alienated their own population and should not be surprised by a result.

The question is, why are they doing that?
Some people think it was US plan all along. US wants NATO troops and anti ballistic missile defense (against Russia) in Ukraine. They knew with Crimea being part of Ukraine they will not be able to do that. So they decided to shed parts of Ukraine that would be problematic and blame Russia for that in the process.

Wow! If that was the plan it was so remarkably run and successfully executed, I'm having a hard time thinking someone in Intelligence and the Federal Government could have pulled it off. Tom Clancy wouldn't have been able to put that in a book, being too unbelievable and all.

- - - Updated - - -

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

The KLA was all over the place in Kosovo when they voted and there were NATO troops as well and NATO was supporting independence despite NATO's promise that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia.

The KLA weren't foreign and NATO isn't a country. So you haven't debunked what I said.

You're quibbling over words, not substance.

Umm, no. Kosovo isn't a good parallel as they voted for their own independence, not to join another nation who at the same time, had unmarked troops in their territory.

 

[ksen]

Wow! If that was the plan it was so remarkably run and successfully executed, I'm having a hard time thinking someone in Intelligence and the Federal Government could have pulled it off. Tom Clancy wouldn't have been able to put that in a book, being too unbelievable and all.

- - - Updated - - -

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

The KLA was all over the place in Kosovo when they voted and there were NATO troops as well and NATO was supporting independence despite NATO's promise that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia.

The KLA weren't foreign and NATO isn't a country. So you haven't debunked what I said.

You're quibbling over words, not substance.

Umm, no. Kosovo isn't a good parallel as they voted for their own independence, not to join another nation who at the same time, had unmarked troops in their territory.

We're the smartest country in the world.

 

[funinspace]

That's about the only thing left to do

No you can do other things while the adults are talking. If your're unhappy that you haven't been persuasive don't blame the audience. You're unpersuasive because you haven't made good arguments. Instead you've tried grade school distraction tactics ie calling us Putin fanboys, sarcastic remarks, and smilies and meme photos.

Pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of the people who've been reading the Ukraine-related threads aren't on your side of the fence. It's hard for a forum dedicated to skepticism to take you guys seriously enough…

Only speaking for myself, but I’ve generally ignored threads like this after the first couple threads some months ago on the old board. I see lots of quibbling over agreements/memorandums, lots of broad brushes strokes, even while little truth can be really known as to what is happening. And I don’t agree with much of boneyard bill’s opening post either. Yet, I still see the saga playing out as all too typical geopolitics, with both sides maneuvering to improve their leverage and power. My short take:

*Both Russian and US propaganda requires waders. The Russian BS is probably somewhat deeper regarding the Ukraine. And the western mainstream media covers it poorly, like most things.
*Yeah, Putin is more corrupt than Obama. And Putin would probably act more ruthlessly than Obama, if he had the power.
*Ukraine was a corrupt mess before this springs collapse/revolution. It probably will remain a corrupt mess, even if Russia isn’t (or if it would refrain from) interfering.
*Yeah the Crimean independence vote was fraudulent. However, the Crimeans don’t seem too bothered by it, nor was it done with excessive violence. And they are kissing cousins of Russia.
* The US has kept a military base on Cuba, even though their Govt. has repeatedly requested that the US leave, for over half a century now. Some respect for sovereignty… The US ignored the Algiers Accord it made with Iran within just one year, aiding Iraq in its war with Iran.
*Eastern Ukraine is a mess, and I have no idea how much Russia is egging on rebellions. But Russia probably is providing at least a modest amount of aid even if it is just logistics.
*The US hypocrisy about the problems annoy me because our Govt. has no problem helping arm the crazy ME terrorists that greatly escalated the Syrian civil war, which they evidently started doing in 2011. Far more people have been killed, butchered, and displaced in Syria than we have seen in the Ukraine so far. Yet, almost no one calls to boycott or blacklist the US or Saudi Arabia…
*Syria’s Assad is not a nice guy. However, until this civil war spun out of control, it was one of the lesser fucked up ME nations IMPOV. The US doesn’t mind despots, they only mind despots that aren’t in their pocket. And the US especially doesn’t like despots that are aligned with Russia or Iran.
*Sure the US wasn’t going for an annexation of part of Syria. And I’m sure all the dead Syrians and their families really appreciate the fact that we don’t want to annex their country.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Only speaking for myself, but I’ve generally ignored threads like this after the first couple threads some months ago on the old board. I see lots of quibbling over agreements/memorandums, lots of broad brushes strokes, even while little truth can be really known as to what is happening. And I don’t agree with much of boneyard bill’s opening post either. Yet, I still see the saga playing out as all too typical geopolitics, with both sides maneuvering to improve their leverage and power. My short take:

*Both Russian and US propaganda requires waders. The Russian BS is probably somewhat deeper regarding the Ukraine. And the western mainstream media covers it poorly, like most things.

Agreed. But one thing just won't leave my mind... Russia tried to kill Viktor Yushchenko. So while both sides have agendas, Russia has a much higher bar to reach as we typically only try to do away with leaders in third world nations, not first world.

 

[funinspace]

Only speaking for myself, but I’ve generally ignored threads like this after the first couple threads some months ago on the old board. I see lots of quibbling over agreements/memorandums, lots of broad brushes strokes, even while little truth can be really known as to what is happening. And I don’t agree with much of boneyard bill’s opening post either. Yet, I still see the saga playing out as all too typical geopolitics, with both sides maneuvering to improve their leverage and power. My short take:

*Both Russian and US propaganda requires waders. The Russian BS is probably somewhat deeper regarding the Ukraine. And the western mainstream media covers it poorly, like most things.

Agreed. But one thing just won't leave my mind... Russia tried to kill Viktor Yushchenko. So while both sides have agendas, Russia has a much higher bar to reach as we typically only try to do away with leaders in third world nations, not first world.

Meh...not that I want to quibble buuuuuut I will. Have you seen the Ukrainian GDP per capita? Iran has a higher GDP per capita. Or maybe I should ask what makes the Ukraine first world... You don't think we'd try to assassinate/kill an Iranian prime minister (or the Islamic head dick), if we thought we could get away with it, or that it would help our ME checkers game?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Only speaking for myself, but I’ve generally ignored threads like this after the first couple threads some months ago on the old board. I see lots of quibbling over agreements/memorandums, lots of broad brushes strokes, even while little truth can be really known as to what is happening. And I don’t agree with much of boneyard bill’s opening post either. Yet, I still see the saga playing out as all too typical geopolitics, with both sides maneuvering to improve their leverage and power. My short take:

*Both Russian and US propaganda requires waders. The Russian BS is probably somewhat deeper regarding the Ukraine. And the western mainstream media covers it poorly, like most things.

Agreed. But one thing just won't leave my mind... Russia tried to kill Viktor Yushchenko. So while both sides have agendas, Russia has a much higher bar to reach as we typically only try to do away with leaders in third world nations, not first world.

Meh...not that I want to quibble buuuuuut I will. Have you seen the Ukrainian GDP per capita? Iran has a higher GDP per capita.

Ouch! Of course, this is one of Ukraine's problems... they be broke.

Or maybe I should ask what makes the Ukraine first world...

Because I didn't know Ukraine's GDP.

You don't think we'd try to assassinate/kill an Iranian prime minister (or the Islamic head dick), if we thought we could get away with it, or that it would help our ME checkers game?

Iran isn't third world, though... they have oil.

Regardless, Russia tried to kill him. Then they tried to fix the election. To the best of my knowledge, we have not fixed any Afghan or Iraqi elections.

 

[boneyard bill]

dystopian writes:

Nice try, but it wasn't. Yanukovich was voted out of power by parliament, making the current government the legal government regardless of your perception to the contrary. And don't give me that nonsense about the vote being illegal because it supposedly needed to be signed by Yanukovich himself; that technicality ceased to have any meaning the moment he fled to Russia.

Nonsense. Yanukovych was not voted out by parliament. Another completely misleading news report by the Western media. Yanukovych's party held a majority in parliament, but they fled for the lives the same as Yanukovych did. It was the rump parliament, which lacked even a quorum much less any other constitutional procedures, that voted Yanukovych out. Meanwhile, even that rump parliament was surrounded by armed neo-Nazi street thugs who STILL occupy the Maidan. It was a farce bearing no legal value at all and certainly nothing approximating a democratic procedure.

Secondly, even if what you're saying were true: so fucking what? It would *not* change the validity and legality of any agreements signed by previous governments under the succession of states principle in international law.

Again nonsense, this government is not a "successor" government to the Yanukovych government. It has usurped power, it did not succeed to it legally.

The US Senate did not ratify the Budapest Memorandum either.

Once again, you don't ratify a memorandum; but this is completely *irrelevant* to whether or not its signatory nations are expected to abide by it. I did mention this explicitly in the post you're quoting, so I'm struggling to come up with a valid reason for you to just blindly repeat your argument as if I never pointed it out.

I read your previous point, I was correcting Bardos who said, or at least implied that US had ratified the agreement. But that does not matter. The agreement has no bearing on the present situation.

 

[boneyard bill]

Togo writes:

So you're still on the same theme. You're claiming:
-that Russian troops moving out of the barracks in violation of their agreement and seizing government buildings, military installations and media centres through force of arms is somehow not an invasion.

I do not know what the terms of the agreement between Russia and Ukraine were so I can hardly claim that they violated it. But characterizing the assistance that Russian troops gave to the government of Crimea as an invasion is definitely an overstatement which leaves an entirely incorrect impression. As I noted, Kerry did NOT use the term invasion in his Senate testimony, but he did acknowledge that Russia had a treaty right to maintain 25,000 troops in Crimea. It was only in his appearance before the media that he called it an invasion. Had he called it an intervention I would not accuse him of reciting propaganda, but he didn't call it that because he knew very well that the US was also guilty of intervention in Kiev.

-That it doesn't matter whether the referendum conducted at gunpoint was fair or not, because the result was probably what people wanted

I didn't say it didn't matter. We simply can't know how representative the vote was, but it is likely that a majority of Crimeans wanted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia due to the events in Kiev. The issue has been on the table in Crimea ever since they chose to affiliate with Ukraine, and the Crimean president was known to favor union with Russia even before the coup d'état in Kiev, but he couldn't get parliament to move on it until the coup.

-That it does matter that the president was ousted without all the legal forms being observed, even thought the result was probably what people wanted

There's no reason whatsoever to assume that the people wanted the ouster of Yanukovych. A few thousand demonstrators in the capital do not establish the will of the people, especially when they have 5 billion dollars of US aid to work with, and some of the demonstrators admitted that they were paid to be there. (Look it up. It's on YouTube). There's a reason why we hold elections, and it's because we DON'T trust mobs. There is no evidence at all that the people of eastern Ukraine were represented in any way by the mob in the Maidan.

-That US supporting one candidate over another in an election is somehow equivalent to Russian troops with guns ensuring that there won't be elections ever again.

The US wasn't supporting any candidate in any election. We were trying to install our guy OUTSIDE the electoral process.

Reference the Nuland "fuck you" conversation with our ambassador in Ukraine. The EU was trying to work out an agreement in which the opposition would be included in the government. Remember, Yanukovych's party held a majority in parliament so we're talking about a coalition government in which the opposition would get some ministries. The were promoting Klitchko for Deputy Premier. Presumably, the premier would still be from the majority party. Nuland didn't want Klitschko, she wanted Yatsenyuk. That's why she said, "Fuck the EU."

So an agreement was reached a month later. I don't know if Klitschko was a part of it or not. But the day before the agreement was to go into effect, the protestors, some of whom were armed, attacked the police protecting the government buildings, who were not armed, and took them captives. Shots were fired and about 90 people were killed. The killings were blamed on police snipers, but we now know that there was shooting from both sides and people on both sides were killed.

At any rate the situation broke down and armed protestors took control of the Maidan forcing Yanukovych and his allies to flee, and lo and behold Yatsenyuk becomes the new premier voted in by the rump parliament just and our Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland had called for a month earlier. Meanwhile, those armed protestors STILL control the Maidan. So even this rump parliament is acting under the gun of neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalist Ukrainians.

 

[boneyard bill]

ksen writes:

Wow! If that was the plan it was so remarkably run and successfully executed, I'm having a hard time thinking someone in Intelligence and the Federal Government could have pulled it off. Tom Clancy wouldn't have been able to put that in a book, being too unbelievable and all.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think that was our plan. We wanted to put a US puppet in power in all of Ukraine as we had done in 2005 when Yanukovych had won that election as well. That was the "Orange Revolution." If it's a color revolution, there's a good chance that CIA front groups are behind it. It was one of their tactics. Protestors took to the Maidan then also and succeeded in preventing Yanukovych from taking power. But the last election was monitored by international observers so it wasn't possible to keep Yanukovych out.

But, while Putin sat by and did nothing in 2005 when semi-peaceful compromises were worked out, the violent removal of Yanukovych was a different matter. Putin may also have been inspired by the election in Crimea of a president who already favored Crimean unification with Russia.

So any hope of grabbing Sevastopol was now gone, but I believe that plan B was to provoke Putin into sending troops into eastern Ukraine, that was the point of the massacres at Odessa and Mariupol. If he did that, we could use that as a pretext for sending NATO troops to Kiev. We want Ukraine in NATO, and if we can't get all of it in NATO, we'll settle for half. That still puts NATO troops just a couple of hundred miles from Sevastopol.

Putin, in my opinon, wants Ukraine as a neutral buffer zone between NATO and Russia.

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

The KLA was all over the place in Kosovo when they voted and there were NATO troops as well and NATO was supporting independence despite NATO's promise that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia.

The KLA weren't foreign and NATO isn't a country. So you haven't debunked what I said.

You're quibbling over words, not substance.

Umm, no. Kosovo isn't a good parallel as they voted for their own independence, not to join another nation who at the same time, had unmarked troops in their territory.

But that vote was a violation of our agreement with Yugoslavia in which we stated that Kosovo would NOT become independent but would remain an autonomous republic within Yugoslavia. And yes, you're still quibbling over words. The US and NATO's position on Kosovo was very clear. We wanted them to vote in favor of independence even though we had promised the opposite.

We're the smartest country in the world.

I don't agree with that, but we are the most aggressive country in the world and the most dangerous. We are risking nuclear war over Ukraine even though we are in a bad position tactically and don't really have much to gain there.

 

[boneyard bill]

That's about the only thing left to do

No you can do other things while the adults are talking. If your're unhappy that you haven't been persuasive don't blame the audience. You're unpersuasive because you haven't made good arguments. Instead you've tried grade school distraction tactics ie calling us Putin fanboys, sarcastic remarks, and smilies and meme photos.

Pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of the people who've been reading the Ukraine-related threads aren't on your side of the fence. It's hard for a forum dedicated to skepticism to take you guys seriously enough…

Only speaking for myself, but I’ve generally ignored threads like this after the first couple threads some months ago on the old board. I see lots of quibbling over agreements/memorandums, lots of broad brushes strokes, even while little truth can be really known as to what is happening. And I don’t agree with much of boneyard bill’s opening post either. Yet, I still see the saga playing out as all too typical geopolitics, with both sides maneuvering to improve their leverage and power. My short take:

*Both Russian and US propaganda requires waders. The Russian BS is probably somewhat deeper regarding the Ukraine. And the western mainstream media covers it poorly, like most things.
*Yeah, Putin is more corrupt than Obama. And Putin would probably act more ruthlessly than Obama, if he had the power.
*Ukraine was a corrupt mess before this springs collapse/revolution. It probably will remain a corrupt mess, even if Russia isn’t (or if it would refrain from) interfering.
*Yeah the Crimean independence vote was fraudulent. However, the Crimeans don’t seem too bothered by it, nor was it done with excessive violence. And they are kissing cousins of Russia.
* The US has kept a military base on Cuba, even though their Govt. has repeatedly requested that the US leave, for over half a century now. Some respect for sovereignty… The US ignored the Algiers Accord it made with Iran within just one year, aiding Iraq in its war with Iran.
*Eastern Ukraine is a mess, and I have no idea how much Russia is egging on rebellions. But Russia probably is providing at least a modest amount of aid even if it is just logistics.
*The US hypocrisy about the problems annoy me because our Govt. has no problem helping arm the crazy ME terrorists that greatly escalated the Syrian civil war, which they evidently started doing in 2011. Far more people have been killed, butchered, and displaced in Syria than we have seen in the Ukraine so far. Yet, almost no one calls to boycott or blacklist the US or Saudi Arabia…
*Syria’s Assad is not a nice guy. However, until this civil war spun out of control, it was one of the lesser fucked up ME nations IMPOV. The US doesn’t mind despots, they only mind despots that aren’t in their pocket. And the US especially doesn’t like despots that are aligned with Russia or Iran.
*Sure the US wasn’t going for an annexation of part of Syria. And I’m sure all the dead Syrians and their families really appreciate the fact that we don’t want to annex their country.

Generally I agree with the main point of this post. This is all about geo-politics and what is said is all posturing and propaganda. However, I do think the Western media coverage in ridiculously biased as it should be expected than anyone at the European desk of the MSM would know that the Yanukovych government was democratically elected and that our support of the coup is directly opposite to our position on Egypt where we have cut off aid to the Sisi regime after it overthrew Morsi. So why are we giving aid to the Kiev regime instead of cutting them off? Clearly, the MSM in the pocket of the White House and the State Department. They've become like Pravda in the old Soviet Union except that, apparently, denying them leaks or shutting them out of press conferences has become a bigger threat than Siberia.

The other point that I would make is that, from a geo-political point of view, our actions there are extremely reckless and extremely stupid. Of course Putin will fight over Sevastopol! You don't need to be an evil genius to figure that out! And if he decides to take Ukraine, there is little that we could do about it. He holds all the cards here from a military point of view. Our only option would be nuclear war.

But Putin doesn't want Ukraine. He wants Ukraine as a neutral buffer between Russia and NATO. The Kiev regime will not, indeed cannot, survive and I think Putin realizes that. Right now it's a sinkhole for Western money, but if their finances are bad now, they are getting even worse because they can no longer collect taxes in east Ukraine or Crimea. So Putin is biding his time.