Russia has invaded Ukraine

[ohmymimi]

Not a shot fired. Putin outwits the West and who/what will stop him getting his way?

Mobs on the streets don't always turn out to have the best ideas.

And mobs on streets are not tolerated in the US or in the UK, or in EU cities in general.

How do you think that mob compares with the others I mention?

Is there any hope for an Arab spring?

How do you feel about the collapse of the Berlin wall?

Or the occupation of the Polish shipyards?

It doesn't matter how anyone feels about events. You don't base policy on sentimentality, and western governments do not encourage mobs in their own backyards for good reason. When it comes to policy, either you are for democracy or you are for mob action. The two are not the same. Democracy involves a process where the principle of one citizen-one vote is honoured. Mob action involves small self-appointed groups forcing the course of events regardless of the wishes of the majority. Yes, the wheels of democracy sometimes grind slowly. No, that is not a bad thing when the alternative is being dictated to by self-appointed groups with their own agenda.

While mobs in streets in the US are met with the business end of billy clubs, it seems perfectly fine to throw support behind mobs of dubious composition elsewhere, and seemingly without much regard for the consequences, either in the far off places that Americans can't find on a globe or in Washington. US support for the so called Arab Spring was a disgraceful policy conducted under the leadership of Hillary Clinton, whose policy expertise lies -- I am not exactly sure what her Special Subject is but it sure isn't foreign policy.

Whether this was misguided or not, Mubarak was an American ally, and America turned its back on him. He was succeeded by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose term in power saw very troubling signs of intolerance in Egypt. Assisting the toppling of Ghadaffi was opportunism, and the US didn't escape unscathed from that adventure. (It may yet be the undoing of Hillary Clinton.) How do other allies of the US look at these developments? What encouragement does American lack of attention to detail in the rush to support the 'Spring' movements (and wax lyrical for the camera about democratic values) give fundamentalists mixed in with the mobs?

The very term 'Spring' signifies a dangerous misapprehension about their nature. They are not the Prague Spring. There are Islamists involved and they have agendas that have nothing whatsoever to so with democratic values. Or Russian tanks.

OK, so you say you disapprove of the Storming of the Bastille, the Boston Tea party, the Russian Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the restoration of democracy in Poland, the overthrow of Gaddafi, and regime change in Egypt and Tunisia.

Each and every one of those events could have resulted in massive bloodshed (and some did) and a happy ending was never guaranteed at the time of the event. Moreover, none of them occurred in a situation where the democratic process was an alternative.

In some cases, disaster followed revolution the independence of America was not great news for slaves - American democracy had serious flaws until the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (democracy in America has only been guaranteed for all for 50 years and it is still being challenged by efforts to restrict suffrage); the French Revolution unleashed the Terror, the Directory, and eventually the Napoleonic Wars, which devastated Europe and affected Britain too; the Russian Revolution civil war, millions dead from starvation during war, easing of pressure on the Eastern Front resulting in massive casualties in the West and prolonging of WW1, millions of lives spent imprisoned under Stalin, reparations to Germany by Russia under ill-advised treaty ending hostilities assisted Germany right up to the eve of Operation Barbarossa; the overthrow of Gaddafi has resulted in rule by militias who like the feel of a gun in the hand and Libyans live in chaos; meanwhile in Egypt the outcome of regime change has been 'more regime change' and the emergence of the army as a major force in politics.

parties who honoured Bandera and didn't participate in WWII are a MINUTE number of population of then 50million Ukrainian republic population!
Kiev fought in the War and was bombed, great patriotism there about the war as in most of hte Ukraine.
Soviet indentity of the older generation in Crimea is not to do with the war purely, it's yto do with Soviet way of life which they see as secure (jobs pensions) and community based and non-materialistic. But obviously it's people for whom democracy doesn't matter much as they have been brainwashed and actually never experience life in the West but have been put off by it by propaganda - I'm talking about the 'masses' not highly educated or well travelled people. Most young people are leaning towards Europe/democracy in Ukraine, Crimea, and also in Russia (though russia is huge and more complicated).

So many lives lost in Central Ukraine and Kiev itself, the fight against facsism and occupation was the priority. It was the same country then quite happily (USSR) but the Western Ukraine around Lviv was NOT then part of the USSR and was under Poland mainly and didn't fight the Germans with Russians or Ukrainians who were both friendly parts of the ussr.
So no one in West Ukraine will be trusting or voting for right radicals - there will be elections. Also there will be protests if the right starts tying to opress use of Rus language which again is used in Kiev by 70-80% be it with 'ukrainian accent', they just can't dictate to anyone - the people are in a no-nonsense mood. It's about becoming a democratic country like in europe, not about being extremely nationalist, for the vast majority.

math, I was talking then about deciding future of Crimea, not Ukraine. The protesters on street are not 'mobs' - just old soviet generation from ryssia who now live in crimea. I'm worried about presence of anyone young in these 'celebrations' and the fact that te young who spoke up were chased away. The demographic may be skewed in Crimea as the young are masinly away working elsewhere, so why should the old guard decide the future in crimean referndum (even though I understand that they aer nostalgic for ussr as they feel displaced after the collapse of the old system and too old or brain washed to know any different).

I think Crimea should first hear out what being in Ukraine would entail now, there is really no threat to anyone as the new govt will make sure that there is no rught wing mob now and that militia arrests them. But the Russian and new crinmean leaders aer hurrying up the referndum so that no one could have time to stop and think and hear out ALL the options. Yes there was a threat from mob weeks ago but this is not going to be allowed, plus Ukr govt would more than agree to give Crimea autonomous status same as it had so far. But the pensions would be lower than in russia - yes, on te other hand, it would be moving towards europe which young people would welcome.

Yushchenko as president honoured Bandera with the title Hero of the Ukraine.

Very few people anywhere are interested in 'democracy' per se. They want jobs and cheap petrol. You can see that in low voter turnout figures.

Older people especially want heated home, orderliness, healthcare available, their pensions secure. There is nothing wrong with wanting those things. Their concerns are not just about right wing yobs roaming the streets though they worry about them.

If the people of Crimea who actually live there want to be part of Russia, then surely they have a right to express that and to vote on it moreso than people who do not live there? It's high handed to suggest that people who know better, are better educated, have travelled more, etc., have more of a right to decide the future of others than those people themselves. Elitism never ends well and often gives democracy a black eye.

The neo-nazi groups are merely puppets used to create boots on the ground to ovethrow the President and to put pressure on pro-Russian groups who do not want to go along with the coup. The new Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yatsenyuk, comes from a family of Jewish-Ukrainian professors. The people who have backed the coup are the real power and they are mainly oligarchs and outside forces, and many of these oligarchs have been appointed to roles in the South-Eastern part of Ukraine.

Some of Yatseniuk's political positions in the past were

"Yatseniuk does not want Russian to become the second state language in Ukraine"

"Yatseniuk was against the April 21, 2010 agreement in which the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea would be extended beyond 2017 by 25 years with an additional five-year renewal option (to 2042–47) in exchange for a multiyear discounted contract to provide Ukraine with Russian natural gas"

"The amendment of the terms and conditions of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's presence in Ukraine and a decision on Ukraine's membership of NATO and other military alliances are according to Yatsenyuk only possible through a referendum"

Clearly, the Russians are not going to accept this or control of the industrial Eastern base of Ukraine by oligarchs hostile to them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseniy_Yatsenyuk

Yatsenyuk is the man the West wanted, but I doubt Putin will deal with him.

Wikipedia also says that

"Yatseniuk opposes same-sex marriage, because it contradicts his personal beliefs as a Greek Catholic"

He has obviously got a lot to learn.

Where's Tony? Shouldn't they send him down there to do his peacemaking, faith work and philanthropic giving?

"Tony Blair’s faith foundation is being bankrolled by a Ukrainian oligarch, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose."

...

"Victor Pinchuk gave $500,000 (£320,000) to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation — a fifth of all the donations declared in its latest accounts.

The generous donation cements the friendship between Mr Blair and Mr Pinchuk, a steel magnate and philanthropist worth about £2.7?billion. Mr Pinchuk, 52, made his fortune after marrying the daughter of Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s former president."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9859780/Revealed-Tony-Blair-and-the-oligarch-bankrolling-his-charity.html

" Yatsenyuk's rise has indeed been meteoric* . He only reached age 35, the minimum required to stand for the presidency, in May. He served as foreign minister for a few months in 2007 and chairman of parliament in 2007-08, though he has never been in any position for long.

In the beginning, this seemed like an asset. On closer inspection, it seems he has been given a series of leg-ups by his patrons : unlike most politicians in Ukraine, Yatsenyuk has little wealth and few resources of his own.

Supported By Oligarchs

He was plucked from obscurity to become deputy head of the National Bank in 2003 by Serhiy Tyhipko. -His main patrons now are two of Ukraine's biggest oligarchs Viktor Pinchuk* and Dmytro Firtash along with smaller versions such as Donetsk tycoon Leonid Yurushev.

Pinchuk is an independent force, but has apparently made his peace with Tymoshenko. Firtash was with Yushchenko, then shifted to the Party of Regions, and more recently has been at daggers-drawn with Tymoshenko over the fate of the shadowy gas intermediary company RosUkrEnergo, where he controls the Ukrainian half. Yatsenyuk was therefore pulled in different directions by his different sponsors.

ecfr.eu/content/entry/commentary_yatsenyuk_radio_free_europe_wilson

claig, just to check, have you anything good to say about the Ukrainians, or anything bad to say about the Russians?

I have got nothing bad to say about Ukrainian or Russians. I am just calling a puppet a puppet and Tony Blair a philanthropist.

It is the billionaires, hedge fund managers, arms dealers and oligarchs who manipulate the puppets, appoint them, fund them, donate to them, give them leg-ups and pull their strings and who create the tensions that can lead to wars in which ordinary people suffer in order to enrich the plutocrats and pay for their puppets' expenses.

And it those same people who pay for and support the neo-nazi thugs who attack police officers doing their duty and who kill them, and no one lays flowers on their graves apart from their families. The puppets are nowhere to be seen at their funerals.

are you talking now about the billionaires, hedge fund managers, arms dealers, oligarchs, puppets and neo-nazis in Russia, or only about the billionaires, hedge fund managers, arms dealers, oligarchs, puppets and neo-nazis in the Ukraine?

Both and elsewhere too. But the major world crisis is now in Ukraine where an elected President was toppled and where EU leaders rushed to accept the new government, which includes some extreme far-right elements, as legitimate.

When this happens in Libya, Algeria or Egypt, it is not as serious, because it is unlikely to lead to world war 3, but when the billionaires do it in Russia's sphere of influence, it has the danger of escalating.

Certainly wasn't just 'mobs on the street'....

But the major world crisis is now in Ukraine where a military invasion by a foreign power has caused a European crisis directly comparable to the seizure of the Sudetenland.

Though an apologist for Russia may not like to hear that.

It is also not accurate to say the deaths of policemen are being ignored.....

'It is also not accurate to say the deaths of policemen are being ignored.....'

Has Yatsenyuk, the newly apppinted Prime Minister, placed flowers on ther graves?

You suggested that no one lays flowers on their graves.....I am telling you that you are wrong. I can't speak for Yatsenyuk.