Posted on 03/16/2014 5:16:44 PM PDT by mandaladon
Crimean voters on Sunday overwhelmingly backed a referendum to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, in an election denounced by the United States, Europe and the Ukrainian government as illegal and destabilizing.
Fireworks exploded and Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds after the vote, which election officials said stood at 95 percent with more than half of the ballots counted.
The vote, the final results of which were not expected until Monday, offered voters on the strategic Black Sea peninsula the choice of seeking annexation by Russia or remaining in Ukraine with greater autonomy.
Opponents of secession appeared to largely stay away Sunday, denouncing the vote as a cynical power play/land grab by Russia. But turnout was reported to be well above the 50 percent that would make the referendum binding -- and secession was expected to be approved overwhelmingly.
"We want to go back home, and today we are going back home," said Viktoria Chernyshova, a 38-year-old businesswoman. "We needed to save ourselves from those unprincipled clowns who have taken power in Kiev."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Not a bad idea. The producer’s country might be able to help the parasites rebuild their country after they run it over the cliff.
I was trying to see if you knew the history. And, when people figure out something unpleasant on their own, like facing up to moral obligations, they are a bit more likely to accept it. Oh, well, then, briefly, because I’ve been up all night...
The 5000 nukes the Ukraine gave up in return for our promise, repeated promises, in fact, last reaffirmed in 2009, of our protection, is the magnitude of the morality, one might say. We convinced the Ukraine to give up every last nuke, in return for our assurance of their security if attacked by Russia. (Russia was / is the only conceivable “agressor” country the agreement could apply to, despite Russia’s co-signing of at least the original assurance: The Ukrainians surely recalled the Russians’ treatment of the Ukraine in the last century or so, not to mention Russian duplicity...)
On the global stage, effectively abandoning a Security Assurance of this magnitude is TOTALLY different than, say, if we had never gotten involved in Libya in the 1st place.
If we prove to be unwilling to live up to our obligation (I don’t buy the “unable” bit for 2 seconds, except in the context of what’s happening to the intrinsic moral strength of most individual US citizens), it is worse than “Obama is weak”. Heck, most of us here agree, though perhaps not all for the same reasons, that Obama does have reason to get involved in the Ukraine. The reason he does not is because the politics are against it: He doesn’t have the popular support, and evidently is clueless on how to rally it. His worthlessness on any other moral issue harpoons him here, as well. But the real message to the world is: The American people are weak, and cannot be trusted to support agreements their gov’t made that were obviously right overall (even if not “perfect” to the last detail.)
This is utterly devastating. A slow slide might be one thing, but, “overnight”, this “failure” destroys “the entire post Cold War construct”, as another poster correctly put it several days ago. I have Filipino friends who see this in abject horror, and are saying “America is weak. We have to find some way to defend ourselves.” Of course, it is not the Filipinos who are likely to have nukes anytime soon. And it is even reasonable that countries we have sheltered for decades should assume more of the burden. But... WE have to be the difference maker. Otherwise, if I am a leader in Taiwan or Japan or S. Korea, and many others as well, I am ramping up plans to have weapons at all levels, especially nukes, as nukes provide the most bang for the buck. They are not even that hard to make, if one can get the material, and is willing to take a few risks. The Saudis, I expect, will talk more seriously to perhaps the Paks. There is no way this can be held back - “The West” will have been discredited. Plus, we cannot sanction half of everybody else of significance, even now.
The world is mostly a bad neighborhood, and the only real cop is saying the heck with it.
The odds of this ending in anything but horror and millions dead are minimal.
Scotland is also voting to break from the UK
We conservatives should support all these movements so that if and when the time comes for the red states to split from the socialist ones, we can point to these other recent precedents.
The propoganda on both sides is irrelevant noise.
we agreed to protect the democratically elected government of Ukraine, not a bunch of leftist occupiers who have taken over Kiev.
Hey remember Kosovo. They said it would set a precedent.
Yes. If we get involved that is exactly what will happen.
“I want to live in the most FREE country in the world! I don’t care about world power.”
And your getting neither...
Wednesday, March 18th, Putin will announce to his Parliament that the people of Crimea, under duress and after being abused by the rest of Ukraine invited Russia to help, and then voted to become a part of Russia and that it is imperative for the Russian assembly to vote equally unanimously to annex Crimea according to their wishes. Then a vote will follow that does exactly that.
It will not matter to Putin or those Russian elected officials what Barack Obama or John Kerry say about it or drone on regarding it. Those two have done NOTHING to stop or deter a man like Putin. He understands one thing...force.
The only question now is whether the will be satisfied with just the one Province of the Ukraine.
Potential things the US could have done (or still could do):
1. Immediately begin sending C-17s into Kiev with military supplies, military advisors, military trainers, humanitarian supplies, and small security detachments to protect the same. Make it a river of C-17s, and ensure those aircraft are escorted into and out of Kiev and other major cities in the Ukraine at the invite of the Ukraine.
2. Immediately release all restrictions on the exploration, extraction, and production of natural gas and oil, and restrictions on its import to Europe. Sadly, this should have been done (and was in the process of being done) in 2008 as Bush left office...but Obama turned it all off. It will now take 3-5 years to be in a position to address Europe’s needs, but starting the process will send the message and impact the Ruble.
3. Take whatever financial means necessary to isolate the Ruble as a world currency.
Europe will never join with us in number 3, until they are sure we are serious about number 2. Putin will never believe we are truly serious about number 2, until we do something like number 1.
But Obama and Kerry will never do one and two and will try and start with number 3 which the Europeans will not join in with because of the issues associated with number 2. Putin has already figured this out, and so has acted with impunity.
Too bad Obama doesn’t take OUR borders as seriously as he does Ukraine’s.
The Ukraine parliament failed to get enough votes to recall/impeach the leader and the people revolted ousting the leader. I’m not saying he wasn’t a corrupt leader who was actively imprisoning his opposition.
Now the Crimean people vote to overwhelmingly vote to join Russia. Eastern Ukraine is vastly different from the rest of Ukraine and because of that we’re supposed to go in and stomp around to change the situation to suit our interests?
If Russia has the EU by the hairs controlling their energy, no one held guns to their heads to sign the contracts and become dependent on those energy sources.
I do blame the envirowhackos for generally hindering our advancement of energy and maintaining our dependence on fossil fuels. We should have not let them stop development of more advanced, safer nuclear energy. Instead we have 40 year old aging nuclear plants that get more dangerous with each passing year.
"Too bad Obama doesn’t take OUR borders as seriously as he does Ukraine’s. "
We need to concentrate on removing the criminal element from our Government first. The Russians can handle their own problems, if and when they want to with out interference from Obozo's criminal thugs.
Ukraine and Russia will eventually sit down and flesh things out, without our “help”.
“If we could have our Monroe Doctrine, why couldn’t Russia have theirs’?
Remember we went into the Dominican Republic in 1965.”
Don’t forget Panama, when we sent 29,000 troops to take out Fidel’s drug running buddy Noriega.
United States invasion of Panama - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama - 169k - Cached - Similar pages There had been numerous clashes between U.S. and Panamanian forces.
Also, most sane Americans don’t want us to give up Gitmo, our naval base that covers a lot of potentially dangerous waters and countries.
“Ukraine and Russia will eventually sit down and flesh things out, without our “help”.
Yes, hopefully, those still us and others wanting to fight wars based on what happened one to two hundred years ago will be ignored by both sides.
Really.
So you want to start a world war, with a nuclear power, over an agreement that we should have never signed.
Sorry, no sale.
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