Posted on 03/15/2014 7:36:26 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
“why do you care whether Russia takes over Crimea, seriously?”
The right of nations to self-determination is the cardinal principle in modern international law. The United Nation Charter stipulates that “nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status”. The Crimea republic is entitled to no less than that. It was never fully part of Ukraine, as it has its own Constitution, government and parliment.
Read post #80, you might be able to get it.
None of your business. Have I ever asked personal questions on this forum? Nope.
The right of nations to self-determination is the cardinal principle in modern international law.
A “vote” under the barrel of a gun is never “self determination”. Who is your dog in this fight? No self respecting conservative would ever cheer for Team KGB. So FRiend, what is your allegiance?
why do you care whether Russia takes over Crimea, seriously?
It is not in the interest of the United States to have a murdering KGB thug attempt to reassemble the USSR. Freedom through strength, FRiend.
Really? I haven't seen NATO get us into trouble lately. It's more a club to keep up relations with Europe in case some new threat arises somewhere in the world. If some new menace develops, we shouldn't have to recreate connections and alliances all over again from scratch.
You have to balance the dangers of isolationism against those of interventionism. Retreating from involvement in foreign affairs after WWI may likely have helped make WWII possible. (I know there's the argument that our involvement in WWI itself made WWII possible, but that's the kind of clever argument that dodges the point of what we should do if a real threat to world peace does arise somewhere).
And what might that be that doesn’t then require a firm, in turn, response from Russia until there is no turning back?
Diplomacy is the only route in atomic warfare. It’s as they say on Wall Street, avoiding war is too big to fail.
Putin isn’t going to mess with a muscular NATO. He’s a bully and thug who only tangles with those weaker than him. So give him Crimea and humiliate him by reinforcing NATO in other parts of the FSU. He won’t be rolling a fifth column into any country with major NATO facilities. If Putin wants to play economic terrorist then just expropriate Russian owned assets. Putin only has a winning hand when the west doesn’t play.
I have some Russian immigrant friends who say that Reagan really defeated the Soviet union through the people on the street. They say he didn’t speak over them as a ruler but spoke directly to them as a leader.
One who died a few years ago was a middle aged professor in a crowd Moscow university when Reagan spoke. Rather than the usual politicians who spoke over the crowd, it was as if Reagan sought out faces in the crowd and spoke to individuals. He said that simple act broke the hold the soviets had over the people.
The speech
http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3416
Each time, he spoke directly to me.
So you're not an American, but you're promoting a consistently anti-American view on an American forum. Got it.
In fact, just looking at your comments list I don't think I've seen a single comment that could be considered positive about America. For that matter, just looking at your 50 most recent comments I don't think I can see a single comment that is not about Ukraine.
Each comment is, without fail, either something derogatory about the public officials of the United States, the foreign policy of the United States (both past and present), the American public or something that puts Russia in a good light.
Your apparent view is that Putin is only acting to protect ethnic Russians from the US/NATO/EU/Soros neo-Nazi conspiracy, and that the warmongering Americans are just spoiling for a fight with a Russia anxious only to protect its backyard. This also happens to be the viewpoint propagated by the Kremlin.
That's what I know, and that's more than enough to write you off for what you are.
This is a false dichotomy.
Obama will be listening to the Realists
Listen to Kissinger, James Baker, Bob Gates, Brzezinski
There's a realistic happy medium, but the last three presidents have been totally incapable of restraint. Given the quality of current American politicians, finding the optimum middle out of them is like trusting the alcoholic to administer himself the proper dosage of medicinal liquor.
As far as NATO, the one reason I see for us remaining would be the fact that our presence prevents significant German rearmament. But I think a strong case can be made that the negatives outweigh the positives. I suspect Putin would be distressed at the idea of a NATO without the US, but for him a NATO that ends at the German-Poland border would be ideal.
Very well said. My thoughts exactly.
Knowing what I know now, I would never go fight again, and I never encourage anyone to do so. Their blood, and our fortunes, are not being sacrificed for the sake of our country at all anymore.
I notice that almost no current politicians, media personalities or even Conservative spokes-people have ever served in any of these wars. Almost none. It certainly was never like this before in our history, and I can’t help but think that this is all orchestrated by the design of the globalist powers behind the scenes.
It would be as if Russia reestablished the Warsaw Pact with Mexico as a member.
you didn’t answer my question. what difference does it make whether Russia controls Crimea. Give me specifics.
As for “reassembling” the Soviet empire, if they try to retake Poland, Hungary, etc, now that would be a problem. Crimea makes no difference to the US, and you haven’t offered any argument otherwise, just empty rhetoric.
Oh, and It’s not “anti-American” to oppose unnecessary wars. If it were, Reagan would be an anti-American by your definition, because he didn’t invade any countries, didn’t get us into any wars.
Grenada isn't a country?
Reagan was a great man and a great president.
And he didn’t get the US into any wars. He won the Cold War without firing a shot. Wish George W Bush had been a Reaganite instead of a Woodrow Wilsonite.
that was a two-day rescue operation. if you’re likening it to real wars, you’re joking of course
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