Is Crimea In Russia? Internet Companies Have Different Answers 304
judgecorp (778838) writes "Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network, Vkontakte, still say Crimeans are located in Ukraine, while other Russian social networks say they are Russians. Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an edit war has resulted in Crimea being part of Russia, but shaded a different colour to signify the territory is disputed. Search engine Yandex is trying to cover both angles: its maps service gives a different answer, depending on which location you send your query from."
is this seriously (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is this seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Only the Russian websites will do so. The rest will list it as "Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation". Unwieldy, perhaps, but reflecting the truth.
Or, as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."
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Not even the West has the gall to claim Crimea is occupied.
Annexed, yes. Occupied, no. By who? Locals?
Re:is this seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
The current government there is a party that got less than 10% of the vote in the last Crimean regional election, and was essentially appointed by Putin after his troops moved in. So it owes its entire political existence not to local support, but to the support of some guys in Moscow.
Its possible that if you had a completely free plebiscite on the issue, without Russian troops and "militias" backed by them standing around with guns, the people of Crimea would have willingly voted for something similar to what they have now. Its also possible they wouldn't. We'll never know now, because it doesn't look like there will be anything like a free election there again for quite a while.
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And the people on the streets, celebrating after the referendum en masse were shipped from Moscow. In containers. Because that's how Russians treat their own people. You know it because you have been told so by the same sources.
And while at it, you may wish to check just how much support people currently installed by the West in Kiev command. May make for a good example of hypocrisy for which your types are known so well.
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Newsclips of people dancing around does not evidence of unimpeded electoral intent make. In an election such as this, where the borders of a sovereign state are to be redrawn and some of its territory annexed by a much more powerful neighbor, the standards of what constitutes a legitimate election are all the higher, and justifying it under the grounds that you watched a television program where a bunch of people were happy simply does not suffice.
Napoleon I and the III were famous for holding referendums,
Re:is this seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
How high are we talking here? They voted with participation of over 85%, and of that vote, overwhelming majority agreed to annexation.
To compare, average Western country has election for government with voter activity barely around 50% (often much lower) and ruling parties are often elected with very small minorities of under 20% of those who came to vote.
So your requirement is largely met, unless you're planning on insisting on 100% kind of numbers.
Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.
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To someone who modded this flamebait - presenting relevant facts that disagree with your point of view is not baiting flaming. It's bating an intelligent discussion.
If you disagree, grow a pair, show that you can be called a person who supports freedom of speech as a core Western value and present your counter arguments instead of downmodding it.
Especially when the issue is of that importance - voting apathy in the West is exceptionally destructive to democratic process, and one of the key elements which ha
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"Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation."
Wow, what an obscure twist on reality. The OECD observers were fucking shot at as soon as they tried to get near Crimea:
http://www.dw.de/warning-shots... [www.dw.de]
Being shot at and told you're not welcome is not even remotely the same as "They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.". Putin and his cronies make statements
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So in your opinion, if a state is not perfectly stable and/or has any issues that people are passionate about, it's not a "real Democracy".
I humbly disagree. I do believe that vast majority of sane population of the West is with me on this particular issue, regardless of their views on the Ukrainian conflict.
Since the only comparison you could come up with here is Nazi Germany, I think I will just label you a "standard, shameless militarist nut job" and stop talking. Arguing on merit of facts with your kind
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And I would agree. Which is why it's relieving that it in fact we have not seen those numbers in Crimea.
In fact, some of the more reliable and neutral press in the West, such as Der Spiegel (you'll know them from the fact that people like Snowden and Assange trusted them enough to give them the source materials for redaction) posts stories like these today:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat... [spiegel.de]
Juicy quote: "Nevertheless, the situation here is not as unambiguous as it was on the Crimean Peninsula" when talking ab
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Better examples might be Kashmir (India/Pakistan), or South Ossetia and Abkazhia (Georgia/Russia). Disputed territory is not that uncommon.
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It is de facto Russian. That is what matters. There is a number of disputed territories in the world. We might as well color Tibet differently by this token.
International "ethics" (Score:3)
I recently too a course titled "Ethics in International Relations" at a major college. (This was to fulfill a distribution requirement for an "ethics" class and the particular course had the bonus of also fulfilling an international affairs requirement.)
One of the first points made:
* Which regions are part of which countries is NOT a subject of international ethics.
A
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If you are a Polynesian, perhaps it is a trivial detail. If you live in the area itself, a country bordering one of the principles (eg: Most of Eastern Europe), or a country pledged to militarily protect [wikipedia.org] one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA), then this ought to matter a great deal to you.
This is essentially a story of an ongoing propaganda effort. Try as we might, there is flat out no way to classify any part of what a year ago was Ukraine without making a political statem
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or a country pledged to militarily protect [wikipedia.org] one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA),
Why do people keep saying this? According to that very article, Ukraine is not a member of NATO:
[In 2009] Ukraine and Georgia were also told that they could eventually become members.
After the 2010 election in Ukraine, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych declared his administration would not be pursuing NATO membership.
Those are the only 2 times Ukraine is mentioned in the entire article. Or is this "pledge to defend" a secret or something? Ukraine is neither a member of NATO nor the EU currently.
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Oops...those quotes were from the actual NATO article [wikipedia.org]. That list of member countries doesn't even have the string "Ukraine" anywhere on the entire page, though.
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Let me try again. I'll use a operating system analogy, so perhaps your geeky minds can understand better.
Much like an OS like Linux has levels of security organized into rings [wikipedia.org], there are essentially four "rings" of interest in this matter.
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If you are a Polynesian, perhaps it is a trivial detail. If you live in the area itself, a country bordering one of the principles (eg: Most of Eastern Europe), or a country pledged to militarily protect [wikipedia.org] one of those countries (essentially all of Europe, Canada, and the USA),
Your clauses and antecedents* were jammed together a bit squintingly, and I keep hearing lately that Ukraine is supposedly part of NATO, so I went with that interpretation. I took "a country pledged to militarily protect one of those countries" to mean "protect Ukraine" and asked where exactly that pledge was made.
You seem to think that I'm arguing that there's nothing to worry about with this whole situation. That is most assuredly not what I'm saying.
* I assume:
"the area itself" = Ukraine
"one of the princ
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You need to learn how to read. What he is claiming is that Ukraine borders NATO countries like Poland and Romania and if the war escalates it may end up involving all of NATO.
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I would argue that this is in fact a case of the GP needing to write more clearly and not assume everyone can follow his assumptions.
And you need to learn how to not insult people's language skills. It's rather rude.
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Yeah, I just found that. Apparently the "assurances" don't exactly include mandatory military intervention per se though.
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [wikipedia.org]
Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia annexed the province by use of force. Any and all counter-arguments like "but they voted" are meaningless: first, the voting took place under the "gentle" guidance of Russian military. Then, even if you think, it is legitimate for a referendum on whether to join a foreign power to take place while under occupation by that same power, the vote was fraudulent. For example, in Sevastopol the number of people showing up for vote was 123% of the eligible voters. [thegatewaypundit.com]
And, finally, even without the above two arguments, would Russia accept a referendum by residents of the Kuril Island [wikipedia.org], for example, on breaking away from the Motherland and joining Japan? Would the US accept the results of Southern California (or Southern Texas) voting to break away and join Mexico?
Neither would, of course. The Crimean referendum is a joke. A sad joke perpetrated by Russia-the-bully on Ukraine weakened by internal strife and years of mismanagement (to which Russia heartily contributed just for this purpose, BTW).
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia handled this badly in a lot of ways. But in the end what we know is that once Russia offered, if there were a fair and free referendum the Crimean people would like to join Russia and leave Ukraine. I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of. I believe self determination gives people, not just states, the right to change borders.
And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accept it. I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force. That would completely undermine everything else about American democracy. Americans like to have a government by the people for the people. A government imposed is not either.
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
You apparently never heard of the American Civil War then.
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What we did 150 years ago is not what we are likely to do today. The American Civil War the states breaking away wanted to maintain slavery. Had they not been slave states it is entirely possible that the moral case for the civil war would have turned out quite differently.
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People are exactly the same as they were 150 years ago. I imagine the exact same thing would happen: Texas would declare itself independent. There would be a thorny issue of a bunch of federal property still in Texas. For a short time, there would be an uneasy peace as the Texans tolerated US forces within their borders. Eventually, someone would do something aggressive and you would have war.
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No I don't think people are the same as they are. The horrors of the civil war were inconceivable to the people who started the civil war. Today we know what such a war looks like. That's real change.
The issue of Federal property would get settled by some sort of agreement. The property gets sold to Texas or leased or... I think everyone involved would want to avoid war. The south was reckless the north was aggressive and slavery made compromise difficult. There is no more slavery and both sides wou
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No state will ever give up land willingly. It is from that taxes are derived. You are naive if you think the only reason the South seceded from the Union was slavery. There was a lot more at stake than that. People tend to reduce issues to slogans or sum things up in simple sentences that do not explain the whole situation.
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The primary reason for the South to secede, according to leaders within the confederacy, was to maintain slavery. Slavery was an underpinning of the economy (and it was weakening to be sure but still dominant). Slavery was also a major political issue, it decided what sorts of power you had in relation to the federal goverment (the 3/5s rule gave slave states a disproportionate amount of political clout compared to the number eligible to actually vote). Sure there was more at stake but slavery was the ov
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a war over Federal vs. State control
Yeah, control of slavery.
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Before the civil war:
North was fighting for the union
South was fighting for slavery
Because the war was so destructive both sides had been discredit. So after the fact both sides used the reverse of the other side's arguments
North was fighting to end slavery
South was fighting for state's rights.
And of course slavery played a huge part in the issue. That was the issue they couldn't resolve that caused the underlying conflict.
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The South was not just fighting for the right of states to have slaves. The whole issue of the status of slavery in the states that would be formed out of the territories was probably the largest single factor. The slave states were not just interested in maintaining slavery within their borders, they wanted to have slavery perpetuated as much as possible throughout the Continent United States.
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I'm not sure how you are disagreeing with me above. I agree there were tensions. Things like the Fugitive Slave Act were required. But regardless the south (the CSA) is not a good example of self determination because of slavery while a modern succession would not have that problem.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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At the start of the war holding slaves was not unconstitutional, each state made their own laws and there was slavery on the Union side as well. The United States simply did not want 30% of their population and 70% of their exports seceding away, it would totally cripple their economy. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 - long after the war started - was just directed at the slaves in states in rebellion, those under Union control still remained in slavery. In short, it was a wartime measure to cripple a
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American Constitution does not provide for territories leaving the Union. At the least, it would require a Constitutional Amendment. Interestingly, Ukrainian law does provide for such border-changes — they can happen by nationa-wide referendum...
You have a very limited imagination then.
Now try imagining Russia letting Kurils Islan
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No it wouldn't. Congress doesn't appropriate money to fight a war against Texas and they leave. When we had our revolution we didn't check with what the British government's rules were.
I was alive 20 years ago when Russia (the Soviet Union) let 14 Republicans go. I have no trouble imagining them letting territory go.
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Which Republicans did they have captured? It was generous to let them go. On a serious note, the USSR was flat broke when the Iron Curtain fell. Russia could not have held onto those countries it if were threatening to use their nukes. The lack of Russian money was one of them main reasons why North Korea went through horrible starvation. It's why the DDR had rampant runaway inflation until they were absorbed back into Germany.
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Interestingly, Ukrainian law does provide for such border-changes — they can happen by nation-wide referendum...
Too bad we don't have that in America. We could hold a nation-wide referendum, and vote to give Texas back to Mexico.
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:4, Interesting)
> And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accep
Not a _chance_. Texas has oil, just like Iraq.
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Last I checked we didn't annex Iraq.
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Aye. US doesn't take that kind of responsibility for people it "liberates". It just leaves them to largely fend for themselves. Like in Iraq.
Mind telling us how that is a good thing, other than for your bottom line - i.e. less mouths to feed?
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The claim above was that Texas is like Iraq. Hence the response. As for how the USA handled Iraq... I think overthrowing the Ba'ath government wasn't a bad thing. Staying for years was a bad thing and very expensive. Leaving was a good thing. Iraqis didn't want to become Americans.
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And you chose to make an example that US didn't annex Iraq. Which lead to my argument.
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I didn't GP did. Your argument is that annexing Iraq would have been a good thing which is irrelevant to whether did in fact annex Iraq.
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My argument is actually that if US annexed Iraq, it would have had to take responsibility for people it left in an impossible situation after its invasion.
Russia is giving all Crimeans, regardless of ethnicity of vote a right to vote in Russian elections for example. When will people of Iraq, who are massively impacted by results of US elections be given the same right?
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Never. You don't get the right to vote by being impacted by a country. What Iraqis did get was the right to vote in their own elections. Now if Iraq wants to apply for statehood (which is incredibly unlikely) they have a responsive agency which could guide them through the process.
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Although that sounds reasonable at first, it leads to a lot of problematic situations. One obvious example in this case there is a minority of people in Crimea that are strongly against it, but because of the tyranny of the majority they have been forced to join Russia. Why should those people be "trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of"?
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They shouldn't. After Ukraine splits up ethnically there likely will and should be an exchange of minority populations so that people in the now smaller Ukraine who want to be in Russia are in Russian and the people in Russia who want to be in Ukraine are in Ukraine.
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So why don't the people in the Crimean area who want to be Russians just move into Russia? Why should a majority of of people in an area be able to vote and force an ethnic minority to leave their homes?
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That's called democracy. The majority get to decide on the form of government, within limits and people have the right to move to governments they approve of. No one is being forced to move. Crimea either has to be part of Ukraine or part of Russia. If it is part of Ukraine the majority is unhappy. If it is part of Russia a minority is unhappy. One of the basic ideas of government in such a situation is to side with the majority all other things being close to equal.
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This is why we don't have pure democracies. You can't just have the majority vote impulsively on every whim that pops into their heads.
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I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of.
You mean except for the part where Russia signed a treaty with Ukraine that they explicitly wouldn't fuck with their borders.
Ohhhh...we had our fingers crossed. Gotcha!
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [wikipedia.org]
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I don't think Russia in 1990 has the right to forever bind the Ukrainians to Ukraine. The idea of intergenerational unbreakable contracts is how one legitimized intergenerational slavery and serfdom. Absolutely Russia is in violation of the treaty with Ukraine. But the solution to that treaty violation is not to leave the Crimeans in a country they no longer want to be part of.
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But the solution to that treaty violation is not to leave the Crimeans in a country they no longer want to be part of.
Assuming the results of that referendum with 123% voter turnout is legit. I'm just gonna let you think about that sentence for a minute. (Putin seems to be adept at this maneuver...remember when his popular support totals jumped by 20% overnight, to over 100% total polling the last time he was elected?)
And you're complaining about "forever binding the Ukrainians to Ukraine"? How is NOT violating their border considered a transgression? This is/was a UKRAINIAN province.; why the hell should RUSSIA get to dec
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I understand the point of 123%. We had regions in Minnesota with turnout like that for Bill Clinton in 1996, that doesn't mean that Bill Clinton didn't win the American election.
They shouldn't. The people of Crimea however should get to decide where Crimea goes. The only thing Russia can do is either offer to annex or refuse to offer to an
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Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Informative)
Kosovo did not vote to join the US — nor any of the others, whose military was occupying the land.
As a matter of fact, India left the British empire without war. Look up Ghandi...
We'll never know, what roses (or stones) Crimeans would've thrown at Kyiv on their own — had it been so clear-cut, Russia would not have had the need to occupy the peninsula before the referendum — nor would they have had the need to shut off Ukrainian TV rebroadcasts over it, replacing them with Putin's lying propaganda.
What we do know is that the fraudulent vote took place under the guns of the occupiers.
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Ukraine is threatening to separate from the CIS. The international community should also be opposed to that.
You don't say. (Score:2)
Guess the percentage of currently existing and valid borders that weren't.
And while the Crimea case may be dubious according to international law, it is utter hypocrisy to insist upon that only when it happens in a part of the former Soviet Union and, this time, serves Russia, while Western countries fell all over themselves when it came to accepting the self-proclaimed status for each and every former Yugoslavian region, ripening it for all the economical exploitation by Western capital which was about to
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Sorry, still don't care.
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It's always nice to see the same, tired propaganda, that the person behind it himself officially admitted to being a lie repeated time and time again.
I'm sorry to tell you, but that particular number was in fact a misquote from the original announcement of results of referendum, where "1,5 million" said to the camera became "1,7 million" in the press. "Accidentally" of course. To provide people such as yourself ample talking points.
You russophobes are like the anti-vaccine crowd, who cares if the original s
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Yes. There's little difference between the morality of the militarist wing of East and West. Both are two sides of the same militarist coin, with same level of ethics.
Did the whole Snowden debacle show you nothing? Iraq?
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By that logic the vote for statehood in Alaska was meaningless as well - in fact it's even worse, because the US troops voted!
If you are just making an abstract point, fine, conceded. If you are implying that there is any legitimate US interest to be pursued through pressing that point and pursuing confrontation with Russia? I do not see one.
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The idea that the putsch in Kiev is legitimate successor to the elected government they deposed is... let's just say problematic. At best.
Re:"use of force" (Score:4, Insightful)
Kosovo was torn away from Serbia to become independent — not to be annexed by one of the powers doing the tearing away. That's the major difference.
NATO intervened in Yugoslavia after the Belgrade regime committed serious crimes against humanity — and only after the UN-forces demonstrably failed [wikipedia.org] to end the abuses. Now Russian propaganda keeps repeating the same accusations against Ukraine's current government — except Russia is obviously lying.
But, no doubt, Putin will thank you for this rhetorical cover. He needs every sympathizer (or even a neutral) in the West he get...
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Kosovo today is a de facto EU protectariat. Independent, it has a viability of a large, crime infested town with no industry of its own.
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Honestly I don't get the stance of some ppl from the US against Russia.
Russia is the best friend and has been the most loyal, the strongest and the most valuable ally for the USA. Really. At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together. It was before and it may be again when we have to save the Earth itself. Nobody can help the US but Russia when things get hot. Alienating Russians is what make things worse.
Those things are called movies. The space aliens didn't really invade Earth.
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the warm and close alliance between The US and Russia up until the 20th century
In other news, up until WWI broke out, Germany was still hoping for an Anglo-German alliance, and up until WWI France and Britain were at each others' throats in almost every war.
Times change. Talking about the tsars, the Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Russia as the same thing is foolishness.
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The USSR was a Western ally for precisely as long as it took to beat Nazi Germany. It wasn't a friend to the West before WWII (although I do concede Stalin had approached the Allies with concerns about Nazi Germany in 1938, though at the same time he had absolutely no problem exporting steel to Germany during the whole period), and it wasn't a friend after WWII. While Cold War propaganda may have exaggerated the economic and political ills of the Soviet Union somewhat, at the end of the day, it was no frien
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At times of apocalyptic events Russians and Americans stood together.
You mean the events that never would have happened if they weren't on opposite sides? I assume you're referring to the Cold War.
"Most loyal"? Dear lord...have you been *watching* Putin the last few years?
simple solution (Score:3)
Let the pandering begin! (Score:2)
Companies will likely be influenced by economics decisions when displaying who Crimea belongs to. The same thing happened to Taiwan -- you see it on a map in China and it's part of China; http://www.computerworld.com/s... [computerworld.com]
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According to the UN, Taiwan is part of China.
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According to the UN, Taiwan is part of China.
Yes, but there is no meaningful definition by which Taiwan is part of China. It is politically and economically separate in every regard, and the people living in it regard it as not China. They have different laws (PRC laws have no bearing in Taiwan), a different government and an independent military. It's also got a bunch of pretend-not-embassies from quite a large number of countries including the US.
The only reason the UN don't recognise it is because China
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My understanding is that the governments in Beijing and Taipei agree that there is only one China, which includes the territory effectively governed by Beijing and the territory effectively governed by Taipei. The point of disagreement is which of them is the lawful government of the whole thing.
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Well that, and the fact that Chiang Kai Shek insisted upon the pointless ruse that the Kuomintang was still the lawful government of mainland China, and was permitted to keep this delusion by US foreign policy for nearly a quarter century.
Doesn't matter. I block all of Ukraine anyway. (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone actually get legitimate traffic from the Ukraine anyway?
Sure, the real-world violence and power struggles are sad. But from an internet perspective, I have a hard time seeing much to care about.
Crimea being part of Russia .. (Score:3)
Depends on whether you ask the CIA or KGB (Score:2)
It's always funny when two puppet governments fight over who is the less puppetty.
Think Back to the 1930s (Score:4, Interesting)
The Crimea is Putin's Sudetenland.
The Ukraine will be Putin's Czechoslovakia.
See http://www.rossde.com/editoria... [rossde.com].
Google also gives different answers (Score:4, Informative)
Google Maps shows Crimea as part of Russia to users from Russia, and part of Ukraine to the rest of the world.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/12/302337754/google-maps-displays-crimean-border-differently-in-russia-u-s
This is nothing new. As the article above mentions the name of the Arabian Gulf also changes depending on where you are, and mentions that there are many more cases. I believe Taiwan may be another. This approach is clearly a compromise, and like all compromises, makes no one really happy.
IRL! (Score:2)
A few years ago we had some Chinese exchange workers come and work for us. At the end of their stint, they did a bit of a presentation about similar work in China. They did a bit of background on China, and were still calling Taiwan part of China! I was a bit flabbergasted...
Different perspectives or propaganda I guess. Eye opener either way.
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A few years ago we had some Chinese exchange workers come and work for us. At the end of their stint, they did a bit of a presentation about similar work in China. They did a bit of background on China, and were still calling Taiwan part of China! I was a bit flabbergasted...
Different perspectives or propaganda I guess. Eye opener either way.
Did you know that Taiwan also calls itself China? There is the PRC (the mainland side) and ROC (Taiwan side). The first is the Peoples Republic of China, and the second is the Republic of China. They both consider the other to be part of their territory and are waiting for the other side to give in to their leadership.
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This might provoke countries to lie about their nuclear ambitions!
What's next, fabricating attacks so that you can have a rationale to go to war???? !!!
Or will Allan Greenspan discover that Wall Street has greedy people? The world is waiting with baited breath.
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Nuclear weapons require a lot of upkeep that's very expensive. Ukraine's military budget in 2013 was $1.9 billion. With any fraction (or even all of it) their weapons would be worthless today.
Moreover Soviet Ukraine's defense establishment was manned by the same Russian nationals who are voting to join Russia. Do you think Ukraine would be safer if the Russian separatists in Ukraine had nuclear weapons today?
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is rather like claiming the residents of South Tyrol are Austrian, and perhaps more apropos to the Crimean situation, stating Austria is German.
How precisely Russia threatening to swallow up any of its neighbors' territory because ethnic Russians live there differs from Anschluss escapes.me.
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The main difference is there was far less support in Austria for union with Germany. I suspect if you polled in Austria you'd have something like 30-45% support while Crimea it 70-90% support. So in Austria it wasn't self determination as much as a popular conquest. The analogy would be more apt if Russia took over all of Ukraine again.
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Are you sure it was only 90%? Last I heard it was 123%.
Which is fully understandable. Putin, much like Kim Jong-iI, is so filled with awesomeness that people can express more than 100% of their love towards him. Furthermore, IEEE has declared that this percentage can only go down when Putin does manly things with his shirt on, which is very rare.
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Whatever the level of support (and we will really never know with any certainty, considering the referendum was backed by the very state that has now annexed Crimea), the point is the same. The sovereign territory of nation states are supposed to be nearly-inviolable against annexation. Special cases exist where the population of a region has been heavily persecuted (ie. Kosovo, South Sudan, East Timor), or where the situation between the governing power and the political entity had been as a client state (
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I think we know with a very high degree of confidence that the support for being annexed with Russia is sky high. We have polling that conforms the strong support and the lack of any opposition on the ground also confirms the strong support. Absolutely, unquestionably Russia should have handled the referendum better so these sorts of doubts wouldn't exist. Russia didn't have to cheat and they shouldn't have. At some point in the future there will be fair election in Crimea and I suspect the pro-Russi
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So Russia should immediately let Chechnya go, right?
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Yes assuming the population still wants to leave. Russia's handling of their dispute with Chechnya over oil and minorities was immoral.
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International law does not support annexations no matter how you read it. Self-determination is not in and of itself sufficient to see the borders of a sovereign state undermined. Good grief, what the hell do you think the UN was formed for, to prevent precisely what has happened.
Re: (Score:3)
Was there actually any threat against ethnic Russians anywhere in Ukraine? There seems a long distance to be traveled from angry protesters to the kind of ethnic cleansing that one would expect would be necessary for an external power to walk in and force a separation referendum, even more dubious when the power doing that puts on the ballot "Do you want to join us..."
Re: (Score:2)
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What they shout is "One nation, one language, one fatherland. Hang the Russians".
Or here:
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtXGMmrVB0"
"Cut the Russian's throats".
Re: (Score:2)
We did, and according to Russia who counted the votes most people wanted to pay to Russia.