The “Blue Helmets” nickname, a reference to the UN peacekeeping force, stuck after Delta’s unit last month prevented a mob from torching a building occupied by Ukrainian police, he said. “There were dozens of officers inside, surrounded by 1,200 demonstrators who wanted to burn them alive,” he recalled. “We intervened and negotiated their safe passage.”
The problem, he said, was that the officers would not leave without their guns, citing orders. Delta told JTA his unit reasoned with the mob to allow the officers to leave with their guns. “It would have been a massacre, and that was not an option,” he said.
No it’s Ukraine. Any amount of butthurt by people in the area doesn’t change that. What you’re saying is that Germans could all flood to an area of France and legitimately call it Germany. That’s bunk.
People in Crimea don’t want to lose their autonomy but there’s a reason that it’s labelled Ukraine on a map. There have been (FALSE!) rumours going around that the new Ukrainian government is looking to remove their autonomous status, which is the reason behind much of the public unrest there that Russia are using as the basis for the incursion. This is classic Russian misinformation at its finest.
Yeah well, the US invaded Grenada and Panama (and supported umpteen Latin-American dictators and/or guerrilla fighters). Why not Canada, should it ever fall under the spell of Russian or Chinese influence?
I hate the word “legitimate”. In international relationships, “legitimacy” is what everybody claims to have without ever agreeing on what it actually is until after controversies are settled. There are tons of books on this open, never-ending problem, and I’m not going to rehash them here.
Anyway, I’m not saying Putin is “legitimately” annexing Crimea; what I’m saying is that, from a strategic and geopolitical point of view, there wasn’t a good reason for him not to do it. That’s the reality on the ground, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
Please read up on Svoboda and Praviy Sektor. Yes, they are ultra-nationalist right-wingers with neonazi affiliations, something not particularly uncommon for the region. Again, look up the history of US intervention in Latin America, and you’ll find your fair share of fascists being supported by Uncle Sam. Just because Putin is evil, it doesn’t mean his enemies are good guys.
Are you pointing to Alsace-Lorraine, or just hit on this example by pure chance? Europe is full of these wonderful little clusterfucks, btw: South Tirol, Slovenia, Catalunya, Macedonia, you name it. Pretty much any of these places saw a huge “ethnic cleansing operation” at one point or another, all topographic names were changed, etc etc. That’s why “legitimacy” is so hard to define in most cases, around here; there’s too much history on all sides. Not everyone was blessed with inheriting a continent completely sterilised of former inhabitants.
Please point out where I said he was a monster. In fact, please point out where I said anybody was a monster in this thread. There are no monsters yet, just people and groups of people (governments, protesters etc) acting for this or that reason.
What you’re saying is that Germans could all flood to an area of France and legitimately call it Germany…
I think a better analogy would be
What you’re saying is that Germans could all flood to an area of Czechoslovakia and legitimately call it Sudetanland.
The problem seems to be a zero sum game between Ukrainian ethnic identity and Russian ethnic identity, with each side claiming that this or that ethnic identity should be coterminous with a nation-state.
Of course, France and England are named after Germanic peoples, and Germany [in English] and Bohemia after Gallic ones.
And of course, I can’t figure out what on earth you think I’m saying. Because there were Greeks before Tatars, and Tatars before Russians and Ukrainians, and more Russian than Ukrainian in their culture all along. It’s not like the Ukrainians were there before the Russians.
Whose map? It is labelled Tavrida or Crimea on most. It was only handed over in '54. It is only labelled part of Ukraine on newer maps because of deals among ruling politicians.
This isn’t fucking global warming. This isn’t something where there could be overwhelming scientific evidence.
There are the people who live there and those who have been exiled from there. There are the politicians who have warred on and deported and bargained away those who do. The question is whether the politicians and their bargains deserve more respect than the people living there and those who have been exiled from there, isn’t it?
I’m just talking about historical status. Russia is taking advantage of a destabilised nation for their own benefit, not that of the people who live there. The pro-Russian protesters have been violent against the opposition protesters in Crimea. There are few examples where opposition protesters have been anything but protesting peacefully.
They’re also giving refuge to a President who is rightfully wanted for mass murder, so fuck them.
Probably because if Canada falls under the influence of Russia or China, as you put it, then falling under their spell is likely to be a mainstream movement with broad democratic support. If Canada elected a Communist government I’m pretty sure the US wouldn’t invade. When Canada sheltered draft dodgers the US didn’t invade. When Canada had problems with the FLQ and during the October Crisis I don’t think the US was making plans for invasion. In the run-up to the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty I don’t think the US was getting ready to invade.
2: 1995 Quebec referendum - Wikipedia[quote=“toyg, post:104, topic:24467”]
Anyway, I’m not saying Putin is “legitimately” annexing Crimea; what I’m saying is that, from a strategic and geopolitical point of view, there wasn’t a good reason for him not to do it. That’s the reality on the ground, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
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Fair enough. But I think, from a Western perspective, there are a lot of reasons for Putin not to invade. Obviously he doesn’t see things the same way.
4: Putin Declares War on Ukraine. The Why and What Next | The New Republic[quote=“toyg, post:104, topic:24467”]
Please read up on Svoboda and Praviy Sektor. Yes, they are ultra-nationalist right-wingers with neonazi affiliations, something not particularly uncommon for the region. Again, look up the history of US intervention in Latin America, and you’ll find your fair share of fascists being supported by Uncle Sam. Just because Putin is evil, it doesn’t mean his enemies are good guys.
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Sure, part of the opposition may be nationalists (and ultra-nationalists). But I think there’s a very real distinction between supporting the protest movement (and I’m not sure how much and to what extent the US is supporting them) and supporting these specific nationalist groups, much less their Nazi or fascist agendas. And even in your Haaretz link about former-IDF troops says the following:
As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.
“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,’” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”
While I take your point about US actions in Latin America, I believe that things done in the cold-war context manifest a very different mentality (from the US, at least) to things done today. I mean, if the US is really behind the current putsch, coup, revolution, protest movement, or whatever you want to call it, one would really wonder why they hadn’t acted earlier and given more support to Tymoshenko or Yushchenko when they were in power. To me it makes more sense to view this simply as more-or-less passive support from the West of an organic protest movement as opposed to some sort of Western master plan to topple Yanukovich and institute an overwhelmingly pro-Western, anti-Russian government (which will be clearly unsustainable given the large proportion of Russian nationals in Ukraine).
and institute an overwhelmingly pro-Western, anti-Russian government (which will be clearly unsustainable given the large proportion of Russian nationals in Ukraine).
Why? Is Putin’s version of the Russian state so very compelling to all Russians? Is horsewhipping Pussy Riot part of what means to be be Russian? Is homophobia part of what it means to be Russian? Is corruption part of what it means to be Russian?
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In my experience the USSR and the West (or at least North Americans) have fundamentally different ways of thinking of people. In North America there are two general levels of identification: citizenship, and ethnicity. Generally speaking, all Canadians identify primarily as Canadians, regardless of whether their ethnic origins are from Africa, Europe, Asia, or North America. In the former SSRs, on the other hand, it seems like “Nationality” (which is close to ethnicity) is a much stronger identification than citizenship is. People in Kyrgyzstan, for example, will typically identify according to their nationality as Russian, Kyrgyz, or Uzbek, with being a Kyrgyzstani citizen a secondary concern. As a Canadian, it is bizarre to me that Kyrgyzstani national ID cards will carry your nationality on them, and that it’s pretty acceptable to ask someone what nationality they are.
So maybe this explains the disagreement here. To Western ears, calling someone Russian means they are Russian citizens. But to someone in Ukraine, it may simply mean their nationality/ethnicity is Russian, even though they are a Ukrainian citizen.
Huh? Why not include the rest of my sentence? I’m just saying I don’t think there was a Western master-plan to do this, or that the protests have been choreographed by the West. I have no idea where I suggested that Putin’s regime as good, great, or amenable to all Russians (though he does have broad popular support).
If you’re keying off my saying that being anti-Russian is not sustainable in a democratic government, then I’ll simply say that marginalizing a substantial proportion of your population is not a recipe for long-term success. Dropping Russian as a national language, for one, seems to be an astoundingly stupid idea.
Indeed. An alternative vision of what the political consequences of being culturally Russian should be requires the existence of a liberal state that allows its citizens to be culturally Russian without being members of the Russian nation state-- i.e. under Putin’s thumb.
Let me be that statist-- a society that accepts the “rule of law” is based on laws that apply equally to every member of the population, and it’s quite possible that in such a society, Yanukovych would not have been insulated from the legal consequences of some of his actions. Fear of such a legal regime might have precipitated his flight.
