Kiev Burning

[UNT90]

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Fortunately some of you are not in power and think we are "king of the world"....They get to make their own decisions.

As for History ... Texas decided to split from Mexico and then become part of USA .. ... bad decision and did Europe or anyone interfere ??

Who gets to "make their own decisions?" The people of Ukraine? The people that have been invaded? They get to make "their own decisions?"

What the hell does the Texas analogy have to do with anything? Are you comparing Crimea to Texas? Well, Russia is intervening in Crimea, so strike one.

Isolationism always fails in the face if a tyrant. Always. Why? Because the tyrant doesn't respect you and eventually will want what you have.

Really not surprised you hold this view, as I doubt you think anything is worth standing up for. I really don't blame you, just a reflection if the current culture in which we live.

People get to make their own decision? With the Russian Army "encouraging" them, eh? All we would be doing is protecting a sovereign nation from being invaded AT THEIR REQUEST.

Why do you hate this country so much? Why do you think everything we do us evil? Why are you siding someone who would like nothing better than to reunite the old USSR and bring America to its knees? Do you really long for the Cold War days?

I fear for American youth if you actually teach this garbage in your class room.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

The people of Crimea are wanting to switch (READ) ... and Texas..... I am pretty sure a lot of 1836/1845 Texans were actually from the USA.

Garbage in classroom .?? .. I teach college mathematics including calculus... not history or government .. so don't worry.

Also ...where will I be next week ?? ... Europe (again)... It is possible I do understand the situation somewhat.

Edited March 6, 2014 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[Cerebus]

Some extreme leaps here, don't you think?

Well, no. I mean why else would I have made them if I thou.. oh, I see. A rhetorical question. Well played UNT90, well... played.

There was a shooting war between 2 Nuclear powers. It was called Korea. No one got nuked.

Not really. North Korea didn't have a nuclear weapon, China didn't get a nuclear bomb until 1964, 11 years after the armistice. Russian/American fighting really only went on between pilots in MiG Alley, and at the Americans could not prove any of the pilots were Russian instructors instead of North Korean.

Besides, this is before ICMBs, Nuclear Submarines, Long Reach Launchers and especially the automation of the Soviet default launch computer system. A system that is still in place, and that require human over ride to NOT LAUNCH when a computer sees a possible incoming strike.

Aside: My absolutely "favorite" failure of military intelligence happens in this war. Truman flies out to meet Mac on Wake Island. Truman is concerned about pushing so close to the Chinese border and was concerned about Chinese intervention. MacArthur tells him there is no chance that they would get involved. At the time of the meeting about 300,000 Chinese "volunteers" had crossed the Yalu into what is now North Korea.

Not that anyone wants a shooting war, but to assume a mistake by a Russian NCO will lead to an all out shooting war, much less nuclear war is quite the leap, don't you think.

Not really. It's a terrible fucking NCO corp. The only thing that averted war int he past was there good officers, and since the fall of the USSR most of the bright young men who made that a career are becoming businessmen. We're talking about an NCO corp that perpetuates the Dedovshchina and hazes to death several hundred recruits a year.

[Army of Dad]

The people of Crimea are wanting to switch (READ) ... and Texas..... I am pretty sure a lot of 1836/1845 Texans were actually from the USA.

Garbage in classroom .?? .. I teach college mathematics including calculus... not history or government .. so don't worry.

I did read (I think is was link posted by cerebus) that said only 20% of the Crimean wanted to be a part of Russia.

[Cerebus]

Hiding behind our oceans has cost us more blood and treasure than being more proactive. We can do more than huff and puff, its only a matter of will.

Actually there is a really good argument that hiding behind our oceans is what lead to the rise of America to the world stage in the first place. At a time when most euro powers were spending 30%+ of their GDP on defense, a young America was spending about .1% and was able to spend money and energy expanding across a continent instead of fighting over Liechtenstein. Free Land (well, land populated by people who couldn't stop us from taking it) and Free Security are what lead to America becoming great.

Now, since the advent of the ICBM, the strategic bomber, the nuclear submarine and actual global trade networks, we no longer have free security. A lot of people go on and on about the rise of the percentage of the budget spent on defense since WWII, but that is mainly because 1) we decided to be a world power, and 2) technology made Free Security (oceans) obsolete.

[MeanGreenTexan]

I did read (I think is was link posted by cerebus) that said only 20% of the Crimean wanted to be a part of Russia.

Right. I read that too.

What happened here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26465962

[Cerebus]

Flashback: Senator Obama pushed bill that helped destroy more than 15,000 TONS of ammunition, 400,000 small arms and 1,000 anti-aircraft missiles in Ukraine

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2573557/Flashback-Senator-Obama-pushed-destruction-15-000-TONS-ammunition-400-000-small-arms-1-000-anti-aircraft-missiles-Ukraine.html

Hat tip to PMG on this article.

Rick

I know it's almost irresistible to get a dig across the aisle, but I would like to ask everyone to refrain and try to keep the discussion in a geopolitical framework, not so much a Repub/Dem thing. As far as getting the wrong read on the Russian/East Euro situation, George W. Bush is the guy who said this about Putin:

I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.

And George H. W. Bush is the guy who gave the "Chicken Kiev" speech, in which he pretty much backed Gorbachev's call for the Ukraine not to leave the USSR.

So lets stop sniping, this problem is big enough to not complicate it by trying to score local points.

[Cerebus]

Right. I read that too.

What happened here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26465962

People get paid off, people get scared. No western news source is mentioning that the Tartar representatives did not cast votes or even show up, and they claim they were strong armed away.

In fact today the Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisi, the official representative body of the Crimean Tartars, is calling for protest rallies to denounce this.

None of this even addresses the fact that the Ukrainian Constitution has no method for a region to secede, so there is no legal standing behind the vote. In fact, the regional councils are not even separate bodies, like State Congresses are here in the US. They are sub bodies of the Ukrainian Parliment, and was in fact disbanded by the Ukrainian Parliament before the vote.

[Cerebus]

Whether we like it of not, the duly elected government of Ukraine was overthrown

It's like no one is even reading this thread.

He wasn't deposed he was impeached, completely within the constitutional rights of the Ukrainian Parliament. The nearest analogy would be if Bush or Obama was impeached and then the Russians demanded he be out back in power or else.

[Cerebus]

Open letter of Ukrainian Jews to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin

You have stated that Russia wants to protect the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of the Crimea and all of Ukraine and that these rights have been trampled by the current Ukrainian government. Historically, Ukrainian Jews are also mostly Russian-speaking. Thus, our opinion on what is happening carries no less weight than the opinion of those who advise and inform you.

We are convinced that you are not easily fooled. This means that you must be consciously picking and choosing lies and slander from the entire body of information on Ukraine. And you know very well that Victor Yanukovich’s statement used to describe the situation after the latest treaty had been signed – “…Kyiv is full of armed people who have begun to ransack buildings, places of worship, and churches. Innocent people are suffering. People are being robbed and killed in the streets…” – is simply a lie, from the first word to the very last.

[Cerebus]

The Crimean Tartars

I realized I have been talking about the Tartars and very few people probably know any of their history. First off, there are only about 800,000 ethnic Crimean Tartars left in the world. They are an offshoot of the ethnic Turkish Tartars, of which there are about 7 million in the world. Of the 800k Crimean Tartars, the largest population is in Crimea, about 300k. The second largest group is Uzbekistan, and how they got there leads to...

Why The Crimean Tartars are Anti Russian

The Crimean Tartars had their own kingdom, the Crimean Khan-ate (obviously most of them are Muslim) from the 15th to late 18th centuries. At that point they were subjugated by the Russian empire. A long history of rebellion and recapture lasts until the rise of the Soviet Union. Several purges killed tens of thousands of them, and then in 1944 the Sürgün happened.

Every single ethnic Crimean Tartar was deported to Uzbekistan, and given unusable land. Modern estimates say that about 50% of the population died because of disease and malnutrition.

Return to Crimea

The Crimean Tartars began returning to their homelands in the late 1980s as Perestroika programs allowed them to. After Ukrainian independence they worked with the leadership in Kiev to form the Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisi (Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People) a representative body that was allowed to bring issues to the Ukrainian Parliament and also to speak with other national bodies, especially Turkey.

Tensions between ethnic russians and the Crimean Tartars has been high, including an attempt in 2010 to disband the Mejlis, lead by ethnic Russians in the Crimea.

The Mejlis has made it clear they do not want to be part of Russia again, and have started a program to supply the Ukrainian military bases in the Crimea.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Cerebus

[UNT90]

The people of Crimea are wanting to switch (READ) ... and Texas..... I am pretty sure a lot of 1836/1845 Texans were actually from the USA.

Garbage in classroom .?? .. I teach college mathematics including calculus... not history or government .. so don't worry.

Also ...where will I be next week ?? ... Europe (again)... It is possible I do understand the situation somewhat.

So where the the American troops that invaded Texas on the behalf of Davey Crockett and William Barrett Travis?

Oh, that's right, they were non-existent.

Thank god you teach mathematics.

I've been to Cancun a lot. Guess that means I understand immigration, eh?

Edited March 6, 2014 by UNT90

[UNT90]

The Crimean Tartars

I realized I have been talking about the Tartars and very few people probably know any of their history. First off, there are only about 800,000 ethnic Crimean Tartars left in the world. They are an offshoot of the ethnic Turkish Tartars, of which there are about 7 million in the world. Of the 800k Crimean Tartars, the largest population is in Crimea, about 300k. The second largest group is Uzbekistan, and how they got there leads to...

Why The Crimean Tartars are Anti Russian

The Crimean Tartars had their own kingdom, the Crimean Khan-ate (obviously most of them are Muslim) from the 15th to late 18th centuries. At that point they were subjugated by the Russian empire. A long history of rebellion and recapture lasts until the rise of the Soviet Union. Several purges killed tens of thousands of them, and then in 1944 the Sürgün happened.

Every single ethnic Crimean Tartar was deported to Uzbekistan, and given unusable land. Modern estimates say that about 50% of the population died because of disease and malnutrition.

Return to Crimea

The Crimean Tartars began returning to their homelands in the late 1980s as Perestroika programs allowed them to. After Ukrainian independence they worked with the leadership in Kiev to form the Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisi (Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People) a representative body that was allowed to bring issues to the Ukrainian Parliament and also to speak with other national bodies, especially Turkey.

Tensions between ethnic russians and the Crimean Tartars has been high, including an attempt in 2010 to disband the Mejlis, lead by ethnic Russians in the Crimea.

The Mejlis has made it clear they do not want to be part of Russia again, and have started a program to supply the Ukrainian military bases in the Crimea.

15th to the 18th century?!?! Psssh...

What about 1949 - 1991? Everyone knows those are the only years that matter (because we lived in them, dude...)

[Cerebus]

What about 1949 - 1991? Everyone knows those are the only years that matter (because we lived in them, dude...)

I didn't live anything until about 1976.

[FirefightnRick]

I know it's almost irresistible to get a dig across the aisle, but I would like to ask everyone to refrain and try to keep the discussion in a geopolitical framework, not so much a Repub/Dem thing. As far as getting the wrong read on the Russian/East Euro situation, George W. Bush is the guy who said this about Putin:

And George H. W. Bush is the guy who gave the "Chicken Kiev" speech, in which he pretty much backed Gorbachev's call for the Ukraine not to leave the USSR.

So lets stop sniping, this problem is big enough to not complicate it by trying to score local points.

I understand the need for keeping this great informational on track. and I understand that the Bush's were not conservatives, but there's three major points that cant be ignored...1) Neither are in charge now,..2) Neither were overheard by an open mic telling the Russain president for time to deliver on some promis?,..and 3)...neither were raised by a pro Soviet-Communist family as best I can recall about them.

Either way, as important as it is to understand the historical background of the Crimean Tartars of the 15th-18th century I can't help but remember the background and upbringing of our own current leadership in all of this.

Rick

[Cerebus]

Rick, I almost didn't quote your post because I didn't want to seem be calling you out personally,when I was actually taking to everyone in general. There are plenty of people, from both sides, who are either 1) basing their view point not on any actual evidence or a decision they made themselves, but on what the party they support would want to push, and 2) are trying to spin every possible angle to back their party, regardless of what actually happened.

The reason I did quote your post is because in the end it was a good example. Yes, Obama as a junior senator went to the Ukraine and gave a bunch of speeches because lets face it at the time it was a no brainer win win. A young senator got to make some speeches and look like he was involved in global politics, and very few people thought that decision could come back to bite him in the ass. But people are trying to spin it (its all over talk radio) as something that Obama did over the brave efforts of Republicans.

The Nunn-Lugar bill was a bipartisan bill that was signed into law in 1992. Obama was a newlywed who has just graduated Harvard Law in 1992. The bill we reauthorized and refunded many times by Congressmen and the President. In fact what people are glossing over is that when Obama went over in 2005 it was as at George W. Bush's behest, who called the CTR program an important and vital program, and who later signed the bill into effect again.

Any attempt to score points against Obama for it, is pretty silly.

ETA: I just wanted to add I see the political free for all thread as a pit of despair and I DO NO WANT this thread to go that way. If it does, I'll just stop posting and never post any world event again. I am just trying to bring some new topics to the board.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Cerebus

[yyz28]

I'm not going to read all of this. I'm not going to point fingers.

Bottom line is this. We are weak. We can sit here and point, bicker and argue about why we are weak, but we are in a weak foreign policy position right now, today.

It is NOT GOOD for the US for Russia to be intervening and thus ultimately controlling the outcome of this civil war in the Ukraine. They see it as an opportunity, and they are acting on it to empire build.

Imagine the reaction on the world stage if the US invaded say, Mexico, using the defense (in many ways rightfully so) that the lack of stability south of the border puts our national security interests at risk, and then planned to annex Mexico. ...cause essentially, that is what is going on here.

...and because of our world standing, we don't have really anything we can do about it.

I'm getting really tired of this "well Bush said/did" crap, because he was no saint and was certainly challenged by me and others when he was wrong, and then using it as moral equivalencies as to why it is ok if the current President did it... I also notice it is people who hated Bush and criticized everything he did who now use this defense? ...is it the person or the action? If you don't like the things they did, don't show up here arguing that now that your guy is doing it is A-OKAY! ...You couldn't be any more intellectually dishonest in doing so.

[Cerebus]

I'm not going to read all of this.

I'm also going to add I will mercilessly mock anyone who has an HSO without reading this thread.

[Cerebus]

Russia Today TV Channel Already Has A Map Showing Crimea As Part Of Russia

[yyz28]

HSO?

High School Only?

Head Shot Option?

Highly Sensitive Olfactory?

[yyz28]

Hot Sports Opinion, right ya'll live and die by the Ticket. Sorry.

...interesting stance. Are you arguing that someone has to have read THIS thread to have an opinion on what is going on in the Ukraine? Mock all you want. What I said is right.

Russia controlling the Ukraine is bad.

We are in a weak position to do anything.

Pointing political fingers is pointless.

Which part do you disagree with or plan to Mock, oh mighty one?

[Cerebus]

Which part do you disagree with or plan to Mock, oh mighty one?

If you read the thread you would know why

Oh wait, forgot to mock: Everyone knows the Z28 in inferior to any decent pony car.

[Cerebus]

A little levity:

[Cerebus]

Levity over.

Obama Signs Order Declaring Ukraine Crisis an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to National Security

The order allows the administration to impose visa restrictions on Russians and Crimeans which are identified as threats to Ukraine’s security or territorial integrity. The order also paves the way for the imposition of sanctions on individuals the government determines are responsible for “undermining democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine.”

This is done under the auspices of Section 1702 of the International Emergency Economic Power Act. The WSJ was calling for this yesterday.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Cerebus

[FirefightnRick]

Oh wait, forgot to mock: Everyone knows the Z28 in inferior to any decent pony car.

That's not right right there! LOL

By the way, Im currently growing the most awesome mullet. The downside is its days are numbered as the Cheif won't allow it to touch the collar.

Rick