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Crimea votes to join Russia[W:223]

It is good to know Putin's propaganda .
 
I just don't understand this at all. WHO CARES HOW MANY PEOPLE IN CRIMEA WANT TO BE PART OF RUSSIA!!! Lets take a look at this for one second.
View attachment 67163566

Do you see Crimea.... now, take a look at Russia.. One thing should stand out to you almost instantly. Crimea is located right next to Russia and is tiny in comparison. If people in Crimea want to be a part of Russia so badly, WHY DON'T THEY JUST SIMPLY MOVE THERE!!!! The truth of the matter is that this whole thing is a test by Russia to see who will stand up to their military actions. They are also testing a strategy that could potentially be used again to annex other neighbors and may be watching closely to if the international community does anything about it. My fear is that if a precedent is not set here with Crimea, it may embolden Russia to try this same strategy on larger neighbors.

That map is of the USSR though.
 
Also, thanks to the efforts of many posters here, I learned that trying to influence events means you installed a government, and a friendly government is a puppet government.

I'm glad to get such intelligence analysis of international affairs here.
 
It is good to know Putin's propaganda .

So Putin was in control of Euromaidan? DANG!!! This was straight from Euromaidan's Facebook page

USA demands from Akhmetov and Kliuyev to rise a party revolt against Yanukovych. Sanctions otherwise
The USA anticipates that the Regions Party fraction will support all of four demands in order to begin peaceful negotiations:
1. To announce pre-term election of the President.
2. To announce pre-term elections of the Parliament.
3. To release Tymoshenko from jail and to recover her civic rights in full.
4. To open criminal cases on all the executives of the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the Berkut, who participated in dispersals of peaceful demonstrations.

Nuland was very precise that unfulfillment of these conditions will question any operational activities of the Metinvest and System Capital Management companies in foreign countries. The crucial moment is that the meeting was held with just Akhmetov.
 
The truth of the matter is that this whole thing is a test by Russia to see who will stand up to their military actions.

Here's why Ukraine matters. This is straight from the horse's mouth.

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia.

Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine…would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who…would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the south…

if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia

That's from Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and it’s Geostrategic Imperatives
 
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It is good to simply not even read their propaganda.
While they're spreading their manure, they should think of how FREE they are to do so in the USA.
They may want to think of human rights abuses to their fellow comrades in their own media in TV, radio and newspapers .

It's manure when you disagree and fertiliser when you don't.
 
So you don't see a difference between the land expansion of the Roman, Persian, and British empires versus the U.S.?

And for the record, no, I don't want to police the world, but the rest of the world EXPECTS us to. European countries RELY on it. They couldn't fight off a band of gypsies, tramps, and thieves.

Their problem. We have too many people at home that are expecting things from our government as well, stretched too thin already.
 
Where's the comparison with this, and FDR's provocations to Japan?

The level to which you're willing to go to vilify the US. I highly, highly doubt you'd give the US the benefit of the doubt. Be serious.
 
Here's an extract from an article that describes in detail why Ukraine is so important

Ukraine: Crucial ‘Geopolitical Pivot’

In the geopolitical calculus of both Russia and the NATO bloc, Ukraine is of crucial importance. Its interest to the West and to Russia entails a willingness to engage on the ‘Grand Chessboard’ of Eurasian geopolitics for influence or control over it.

For the West led by the US, influence over Ukraine is an opportunity to cut Russia out of European affairs and to bolster its continual push East through the expansion of NATO. This is seen, with good reason, by Moscow as an unabated drive towards encirclement. For Russia, Ukraine represents, inter alia, a potentially sensitive position from which it is vulnerable militarily; it is a cornerstone of viable Russian security in Europe.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski — US foreign policy guru who founded the elite Trilateral Commission along with David Rockefeller, as well as reputed teacher of Obama at Columbia University — Ukraine can be classified as a ‘geopolitical pivot.’ That is a state “whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geopolitical players.” For Brzezinski, a Ukraine severed from Russia consequently severs Russia from Europe, albeit in his terms in its “imperial status” as a Eurasian power. Severed from Ukraine, Russia would be reoriented towards Asia, which sets it on a collision course with an emerging China (an ideal scenario for Washington with its wont for buck-passing):

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian Chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians … China would also be likely to oppose any restoration of Russian domination over Central Asia…

For Russia, militarily, control of its eastern frontier has perennially poised a potential quagmire: it has been the point from which armies have invaded to push into the Russian heartland particularly for topographic reasons. Thus, for Stalin negotiating with the Allies at Yalta, the question of Poland was “one of life and death.” “Throughout history,” he cautioned, “Poland has been the corridor for attack on Russia.” With Poland today already an integral part of NATO, Ukraine, with even greater proximity to the Russian heartland doubtless presents an even greater worry. Indeed, the geopolitical analysis group Stratfor aptly characterizes Ukraine as the “soft underbelly of Russia.” “Ukraine is as important to Russian national security as Scotland is to England or Texas is to the United States. In the hands of an enemy, these places would pose an existential threat to all three countries. Therefore, rumors to the contrary, neither Scotland nor Texas is going anywhere. Nor is Ukraine, if Russia has anything to do with it.”

Topographically, a potential attack on Russia can be greatly reduced if Ukraine is in the Russian orbit; conversely, it can be augmented if controlled by a Western power:

Dominated by Russia, Ukraine anchors Russian power in the Carpathian [mountains]…If Ukraine is under the influence or control of a Western power, Russia’s (and Belarus’s) southern flank is wide open along along an arc running from the Polish border east almost to Volgograd then south to the Sea of Azov, a distance of more than 1,000 miles, more than 700 of which lie along Russia proper. There are few natural barriers.

Thus, a Russia bereft of Ukraine loses the crucial security safeguard of the Carpathians. The road to Moscow is one step closer through subverting the government in Kiev.

The continuing systematic Western military buildup surrounding Russia has doubtless already increased Russian anxiety in the present context. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the emergence of the unipolar world order — the US led West has steadily marched towards post-Soviet Russia, extending NATO menacingly all the way to its borders. In addition to official NATO membership the US has established a military outpost in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, leading to the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. This expansionist march of NATO is viewed by Russia as a betrayal of agreements it was given that such NATO growth would not occur.

Additionally, the ongoing provocative military ‘defensive’ shield installations in Poland and Romania — ostensibly to protect the West from Iran, which neither has has nuclear weapons or missiles with which to deliver them with — has been a point of tremendous concern. (A more rational location to place such installations, if we are to accept NATO’s motives at face value, would have been near NATO member Turkey.) To Moscow, this represents an existential threat to the critical Russian nuclear deterrent, a centerpiece of its military defesive strategy for decades. This fundamental reality informs the Russian stance when Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, threatened Russia would preemptively destroy such NATO military installations in the event of a crisis.

The current reshaping of Ukraine represents — yet again — a potential extension (de facto or officially) of NATO, part of its continual march east. Not least among concerns, a Ukraine in the NATO orbit leaves its “soft underbelly” accessible to the bloc. Far from the partisan portrayals of Western media concerning the EU’s association agreement — which it largely terms as a benign “civilizational” proposal to usher prosperity and to shift away from the Kremlin’s overbearing embrace — there is, in fact, a military component. As Russian expert Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, points out the ” proposal, for example, includes ‘security policy’ provisions, almost never reported, that would apparently subordinate Ukraine to NATO.” Ukraine would, in effect, have to abide by NATO military policies to the dismay of Moscow. Revealingly, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared the prospective agreement with Ukraine would have been “a major boost to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Ukraine in the NATO orbit would also potentially deprive Russia of its critical naval port and military presence in the Crimean peninsula. This would cut Russia off from access to the Black Sea and therefore the Mediterranean Sea. That Russia has a robust naval presence with access to the Mediterranean means the sea cannot become exclusively the province of NATO. This fundamental reality also frustrates NATO’s continuing efforts to unseat Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Energy exports are also a centerpiece of Russian foreign policy. Being excluded from the Mediterranean would also hamper this policy. Moreover, Moscow has watched as NATO has in recent times been very active on the world scene participating in ruthless military actions in Libya as well as aiding in the attempted smashing of the Syria state in the ongoing civil war. Western elites are seen increasingly as more unstable and willing to participate in wild military adventurism. These plethora of considerations weigh heavily on Moscow’s calculations, as they rationally inveigh against persistent and intensifying Western encroachment. In this fraught and tense scene of European and Eurasian affairs Ukraine is the ‘geopolitical pivot’ par excellence.
 
Haha, I saw "geopolitical pivot" and immediately thought "they're referencing the Grand Chessboard". Shame most people won't read the article, and even fewer well have read the book (or any like it), but they'll still weigh in with their uninformed opinions.
 
Some may at least read the article, and then they will be better informed.

But to the heart of the matter. Like I said before, where we stand now is that the US has it's puppet government in Ukraine and Russia has seized control of Crimea. That means that the US has deprived Russia of control of Ukraine, but at the cost of the loss of Crimea. Taken as a whole, from a certain angle, that's not that bad a deal for the US if it now plays it cool and makes a bold political move to it's advantage that would be to the detriment of Russia. Specifically, the US and Europe should improve their relations with Iran. This would be a great strategic coup that would be detrimental to Russia for many reasons and would furthermore provide great economic rewards to the US and Europe for doing so.
 
The fact is that the people of Crimea want to be a part of Russia. IN FACT CRIMEA WAS GIVEN TO UKRAINE BY Khrushchev in 1954.

The fact is that Stalin killed many of the Ukrainians who lived in Crimea and deported much of the Tatars.

Ethnic irredentism works both ways, you know.
 
Like I said before, where we stand now is that the US has it's puppet government in Ukraine

Yeah, but like everyone had been telling you, that's actually not true.
 
The fact is that Stalin killed many of the Ukrainians who lived in Crimea and deported much of the Tatars.

Ethnic irredentism works both ways, you know.

The fact is that the Europeans killed many of the native Americans and settled in what we now called the United States. What happened in Crimea was to be expected.
 
Yeah, but like everyone had been telling you, that's actually not true.

There been things put forward as truth in this thread, that turned out to actually be false when going back and reading what was actually said.

More importantly, not everyone agrees

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin - Forbes

After Yanukovych and the political opposition agreed to an orderly transition toward new elections, the opposition shattered the agreement quickly and took strategic positions around Kiev. Many voices in the Western press say the country could break apart.

Despite these ominous signs, Ukraine Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt hailed the current crisis as “a day for the history books.” Most of the mainstream media have leaned decisively in the anti-Yanukovych camp.

Ukraine’s new 450-seat parliament approved the appointment of the former Central Banker Yatsenyuk on Thursday by a vote of 371 to 1. Oddly enough, earlier this month, the pro-Western Yats trailed behind popular opposition leaders such as former heavyweight boxer Viltali Klitschko and the leader of the nationalist, Svoboda Party, Oleh Tyahnybok. But Yats had friends in high places and while he does not have strong support of the electorate, and would have no chance of winning an election, he is pro-IMF austerity and apparently the bulk of parliament is as well.
 
It's not just me. Apparently Euromaidan, the people that were protesting against Yanukovych, believed it. Here's something from their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/emaidanua/posts/558345107588502
Victoria Nuland wasn't just out there passing out cookies. She was threatening to kick some butt!
Facebook seems as good a news source as any coming from that area, and Victoria Nuland kicking Ukrainian butt must have been a sight to see. It's the one Obama appointee who seems more than capable at her job.
 
Facebook seems as good a news source as any coming from that area, and Victoria Nuland kicking Ukrainian butt must have been a sight to see. It's the one Obama appointee who seems more than capable at her job.

Yeah, I wish I would have been there to see her laying down the law to Akhmetov. That must have been a sight to see.

And yep, it was TACTICAL brilliance. The problem is that it was STRATEGIC foolishness. And you have made a point here. If you are going to put the biting dogs out, you need to be able to be the guiding intelligence to the dogs and be able to control them. And guess where the fault lies ultimately there? The President of the United States. He made a very big strategic error here. Why? Because it exposed the weakness with regards to Crimea, and although he gained the rest of Ukraine, it came at the price of relations with Russia going down the toilet and the loss of Crimea. And while the rest of Ukraine is of some strategic value to the United States, it was not worth the price that was paid for it.

Therefore like I said before, the way to strike at Russia now is to win over Iran. The big reason why Crimea is important to Russia is because it is from there that they can access and project power into the Middle East. That's why striking at Russia through Iran would pay off big dividends. Heck, if the US played that one right, Russia could lose the base they have in Syria as a result, because Iran is very good friends with Assad. But you need a different type of dog from Nuland for that project. I'm sure there is someone that could pull that off.
 
Had the west not interfered with president Assad's war on terror, he would have crushed the rebellion early on and there wouldn't be over a hundred thousand dead now.

Does Putin pay you to promote his propaganda?
 
So, Its back in the fold of Russia where it was from 1783 when it was taken from a islamic Khanate, long before Ukraine even existed. Interesting development, but not unforeseen.

No it wasn't unforeseen, which exactly why it was a big strategic blunder. Therefore the US needs to gain strategic advantage by using Iran against Russia. In this way Putin can be strangled without inflicting harm on the West.
 
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