Maidan 2017: Why no coverage in the Western Press?

Then why would Putin's economic advisor advocate going back to a similar system? Because the Jews are still ruthless and need to be killed?

By the way, 2005 is not that long ago.

 

Quite a few world leaders are dictators with bad mindsets. If they are not a threat to our interests, why do we care? Not my Crimea, not my problem. We are not the world police and I do not think it our place to police how Russia deals with its non-NATO members anyway.

We do not need the Ukriane in NATO at all and if Russia wants to waste its own resources invading it, so what?

Many in Europe want one united Europe or revenge against Russia and that is what the Ukraine is about to them. One united Europe and revenge against Russia are not and should not be the mission of the United States.

 

Because the world is not static and the phrase "not a threat to our interests" is almost meaningless. They may not be a threat today, but before you know it they invade Kuwait, or Poland, or bomb Pearl Harbor, or fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Not my Japan or Germany, not my problem. Not hardly.

Regardless of what the Europeans want, we would be better off if Crimea, and soon the Ukraine, were democracies instead of being run by a dictator.

How many wars were started by truly democratic (those elected absent of fraud) countries?

 

How will russia bomb pearl harbor or invade poland as long as the nuclear deterrent exists? Is there a Ukraine domino theory? Russia is a shell of its former self. Draining our resources picking every fight like Libya or picking completely unnecessary fights with a nuclear armed country are bigger threats to our long term security than Russia occupying parts of the world they have generally occupied.

That is my whole point. You have to ask "does this action build to anything?" In the case of Russia and the Ukraine, what would Russia taking the Ukraine build to? It does not affect america either way. Not every bad action in the world will affect us and not every bad action must be stopped. Intervening in matters that do not pertain to our interests will more likely hurt us than help us.

If making the Ukraine a pro western democracy causes war with Russia, we are not better off. If it causes Russia to stir up trouble elsewhere, we are not better off. We are better off finding ways to work with Russia against ISIS. Not every little country in the world needs to be a democracy to keep us safe.

The War of 1812 (we started it to try and take Canada)
The Mexican American War (sort of. Mexico wasnt a true democracy and Mexico did start it. However, the US certainly wanted to fight it.)
The War Between the States.
The Spanish American War.
The Boer Wars.
Democracy has not changed the fact India and Pakistan hate each other and have fought over the last century.

Democracies are only good for us if the people elect pro US leaders. If a pro US dictator is overthrown and the people are very anti-american, we would be better off with the dictator.

 

Democracy? Do you have any clue of what that word means?

If you recall, the citizens had a free election with an extraordinarily high participation rate in which over 90% of the people voted to secede from the Ukraine. These same Crimeans, mostly of Russian decent, had requested a vote several years prior to the conflict, but were denied. The secession was democracy in action. Forcing these citizens to live under the rule of a government inserted via coup is the dictatorial route. What are you smoking?

 

And that vote was criticized by everyone but Russia as totally fraudulent, which makes sense given that the usual voter turnout was 30-40%.

 

Talk about conspiracy theories.

 

Yeah, the whole world conspired against a dictator to make his rigged election seem.. uh..rigged.

 

I think Turkey and Greece fought a one day war also, but I think you get the point.

I think we agree that intervention to protect our interests is okay, but we differ on when that intervention should occur (and a little on where it should occur).

 

That's a good summary. We both got off into grander philosophies, but the central debate is how invested should we be in the Ukraine and that is where we disagree.

All of the above said, a lot of unpredictable things have occurred around the world the past 10 years and I do not think any nation or interest is entirely sure what the right plays are at the moment. The US, Canada, China, Russia, the UK, the EU, Turkey, etc all seem to be moving in different directions and are clearly uncertain about what lies ahead. I think Obama had more "bbs in the box" internationally on his direction, but I personally think his direction was the wrong one for foreign policy and am happy it did not continue under Hillary. It is too early to tell on Trump either way.

I am happy to see China cut off North Korean coal and my guess is resolving North Korea will be the next major non middle eastern challenge the international community faces. My hope is China, Russia and the US can somehow work together and replace the current regime with a more stable regime that is not looking for nukes, even if that regime is not the ideal resolution of north korea reuniting with a democratic south korea.

 

Lately, for good reason, there has been much skepticism about the integrity of the US and Western media. Southfront made a video comparing US and Russian media pointing out the contradictions within the US media as well as the false assumptions about Russian media.



If anybody wishes to challenge the assertion that opposition media exists inside Russia, I'll be more than glad to provide links which support that it does.