Dally wrote:
Contrast Western support for the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine and you start to see that there is no interest in democracy just geophysical meddling in Russia's backyard.
The President left of his own accord, the government remained and it's structure ramains. Russia needs to get the f*** out of Ukraine and let them sort their own internal affairs. This isn't a country tearing itself apart, it's a people who got really angry with their President and got rid of him. Once he went the violence and the protests stopped - no civil war, no ethnic violence. In fact even the Crimean ethnic Russians and Ukranians have faced each other peacefully. There is absolutely no need for any Russian troops in Crimea.
I would say, if ethnic Russians in the Crimea found themselves the targets of violence, property seizures, murder, were being kicked out of their homes and business's, forced into camps, etc. then Russia could well be very justified in sending in troops to prevent that from continuing. But this is a land grab, pure and simple.
If you want an example of Russia intervening in the affairs of the former Soviet states then look at the devestation in Georgia. And boy, am I lovin the straight faced comments of Russian politicians talking about the West and Afghanistan - really? You can't remember Afghanistan, Soviet army, 10 years, ar$es handed to them etc...
If you want to talk about hypocrisy of the West then I would say that sitting on our bums doing nothing watching Russia invade another country that wanted to become part of NATO and eventually join the EU is a pretty good example. "There is nothing we can do, the Germans don't want to jeopardise their gas supplies...blah...blah..." Actually I think Russia is in a very vulnerable position right now. In the Cold War they were set up behind the iron curtain, self contained, ideologically driven with the sole intent of not ever being invaded from the West again. Now they have ventured into our world. They are capitalists who have all their business intrests in the West, they are run not by hardened communist party veterans who endured WW2 and Stalin's pogrom's they are run by gangsters who like fine champagne, big yachts and money - most of which they are stealing from their own people. And the place they spend it is in the West. Take that away from them and they will turn on Putin. If you ask them, do you want to carry on fleecing your country and partying at the most exclusive club in Europe or do you want to watch Putin wave his d**k around and annexe the Crimea, well, it's obvious.
