Russian army under equipped?

[cool breeze]

9 minutes ago, shift8 said:

This is illogical rubbish. 

Secession can only be done legitimately if either the formation of the nation was not originally self determined, or if the nation state as a whole agrees with the secession. Or if at time of formation the seceding portion had a clause granting it the right to separate if it so desired later.  The seceding portion cannot secede on its own. Otherwise you would have endless disintegration until you have defacto anarchy. Period. End of Story. Full stop. 

 

You're basically saying that the American Revolution was the beginning of a downward spiral to world wide anarchy.... vs. one of the best things that ever happened .

[cool breeze]

48 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

..."More importantly, the invasion was voted on and approved by the US congress."...

..."This is completely true. The West is not a perfect place. No where is. But as other have stated many times, just because the US did some bad thing in 18-whatever, or Britain did some awful thing in 17-whatever, is no excuse to do bad things yourself."...

Russian "congress" authorized it in much the same way, no? 

and add 1900's and 2000's.

 

Countries are supposed to protect their people from foreign aggression.  That is definitely a legitimate goal for a government.  Trying to save the whole world from itself at gunpoint to spread "peace and democracy* "  is a less well "historically justified" as legitimate thing for a government to be doing.  Russia is justified as a people to be paranoid of the west and to see our advances as a potentially mortal threat.  In a sense no project in the history of mankind has had so much treasure invested in it as the west's, chiefly America's, project to be able to kill all the ruskies as quickly as possible if "need be".  We are also famously accomplished at successful hard and soft power sneaky dealing that start wars and overthrow governments. Did anyone in America actually feel threatened by Iraq?

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, hattori said:

Cry me a river about having to put up with Vlad having a different opinion than you.  I had to put up with MURICA!!!! for like a decade after 2003 before the majority of you guys finally started coming around to your senses and realized, "oh crap, maybe we were in the wrong there".  

I also suppose you don't see the irony of

I knew my country did crappy things well before 2003.  Even my humble public school made me aware of things such as the Vietnam War and fun stuff like genocide against the native peoples of the US.  No need for self righteous foreigners to lend a hand for this guy.

30 minutes ago, hattori said:

followed by you trying to excuse and justify the actions of your country in an equally comical manner.  Perhaps even more ridiculous.

Er, no.  He didn't.

And thank you Hattori for once again demonstrating the power of Whataboutism. Do you see now what you started and why I pointed out the folly of your post right from the start?  This is the tactic of distraction even if you didn't intend it to be.  So how about stopping it?

13 minutes ago, shift8 said:

This is illogical rubbish. 

Secession can only be done legitimately if either the formation of the nation was not originally self determined, or if the nation state as a whole agrees with the secession. Or if at time of formation the seceding portion had a clause granting it the right to separate if it so desired later.  The seceding portion cannot secede on its own. Otherwise you would have endless disintegration until you have defacto anarchy. Period. End of Story. Full stop. 

Government is a social contract.  The contract requires government to behave in a way that is in the best interests of everybody within its borders.  Everybody.  If it fails to do so then the social contract is broken and there is grounds for divorce.  Government rarely, if ever, provides an explicit "out clause" for failure to do it's duty to a particular people in part because governments are inherently interested in retaining control.  Even the more benevolent ones.

As an American, if Texas wanted a divorce I'd be fine with that provided the process was free and fair (i.e. not what happened in Crimea) and that the US government would get some monetary compensation for the investments it's made in Texas over the last... oh I dunno... 50 years.  The compensation could be done over a long period of time, I'm fine with that.  If it were done like that, no problemo.

Someday the United States will break apart.  It's inevitable.  I just hope that when it comes to it that the breakup will not be like the 1860s US civil war or the 1990s Yugoslav civil war.  That's in nobody's best interests.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, cool breeze said:

Russian "congress" authorized it in much the same way, no? 

and add 1900's and 2000's.

 

Countries are supposed to protect their people from foreign aggression.  That is definitely a legitimate goal for a government.  Trying to save the whole world from itself at gunpoint to spread "peace and democracy* "  is a less well "historically justified" as legitimate thing for a government to be doing.  Russia is justified as a people to be paranoid of the west and to see our advances as a potentially mortal threat.  In a sense no project in the history of mankind has had so much treasure invested in it as the west's, chiefly America's, project to be able to kill all the ruskies as quickly as possible if "need be".  We are also famously accomplished at successful hard and soft power sneaky dealing that start wars and overthrow governments. Did anyone in America actually feel threatened by Iraq?

Again, this is the power of Whataboutism.  We could have equally long and equally passionate separate threads discussing America's role in the world, including the duplicity of most of the world to support it when it's in their interests and then complain about it when it's not relevant.  Like it or not, American projection of power has been as much a request of others as it has been an invention of America itself.   And none of this has anything to do with what Russia is doing to Ukraine except that without America's response to Russia the war would likely be even worse for Ukraine.

Steve

[VladimirTarasov]

51 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

We are ripping Vlad because, after 53 pages and over 1,000 responses, he is STILL spouting the same tired drivel attempting to excuse what Russia is doing. If he said, "Yeah what we're doing is wrong but I still support it because I'm Russian" well then fine. Thats his opinion, and I can have my opinion on that, but thats all it is. But he isn't doing that. He is trying to excuse and justify the actions of his country. That is what has led to such a long thread, and the 'ripping of Vlad.'

You stay going by international law, or what say you, and look at what I'm trying to say through a narrow view. If Russia were to go to even Estonia to secure Russian rights in the region it is not justified. However Ukraine is a total different ball game. The hype of a Russian threat to baltics was put to shame after a while, but anyways beside that fact. Our Estonian neighbors have a democratic president which was legally elected. Russia has no justification in the regions, on top of that, Estonia has not abused Russians any where near the scale the Ukrainian crisis did. Anyways, I brought Estonia in as an example of what I've been getting at.

36 minutes ago, hattori said:

Cry me a river about having to put up with Vlad having a different opinion than you.  I had to put up with MURICA!!!! for like a decade after 2003 before the majority of you guys finally started coming around to your senses and realized, "oh crap, maybe we were in the wrong there".  

I also suppose you don't see the irony of

I appreciate that you've been defending me it's nice not to have 5 plus people just aggressively type to you(Steve usually being the polite one), and ignore a bunch of what I've saying and refer to stuff like "Russia is now Nazi Germany" "steal a part of the shop" and have your whole points ignored. The largest point that I've been making is the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government after the violent ousting of Yanukovich. But of course people who like to curse at the Kremlin and shout off the wrongs that we have done, that I've acknowledged, ignore that Ukraine lost all control to random groups not just the people, to far right groups, who've demonized Russians in the country.

But you know, all those claims are illegitimate, Russia cannot in response to the ousting of Yanukovich without the say of Russian people in Eastern Ukraine, cannot come in and secure Crimea and let a voting process happen, while securing the rights of the Crimean population no matter what was behind Russia taking Crimea, it is still very much justified. Let's look at videos like this first to show you what threat Russia came in against to secure the voting process:

 http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/05/21/ukraine-shameful-attacks-on-wwii-veterans-were-organised-at-highest-level/

And many other very graphic links I can provide, however I will keep it clean. How can one think a government that bans anything Russian, and lets Neo-Nazi vermin attack elder world war 2 veterans, be considered legitimate by any circumstance? I would understand if this attack was purely on behalf of a bandit group, however the police do nothing against it. There are many other very violent cases, however I'm not sure if it would be breaking forum rules if I were to link it, it's very graphic and I'd rather not link my other examples. 

But again, thank you for calling out hypocrisy. 

1 hour ago, IICptMillerII said:

Well, Hitler caused the Holocaust and invaded like 6 countries man, so the US invasion of Iraq is ok because Hitler did it way worse. 500,000 dead Iraqis isn't even close to 11,000,000 killed in concentration camps, so it was totally justified because it wasn't as bad as what Hitler did. Also, there was an English speaker in Baghdad, so we had to invade in order to protect a fellow English speaker. (/s)

Am I justified enough for you now?

Neither the conflict in Ukraine nor conflict in Iraq, can be compared to what Hitler has done on any scale. But to sanction Russia and scream in horror at what we've done by your claims, is so funny. Because and I will whatabout now: who will sanction other countries who actively without denial support illegitimate terrorist bandits, with a huge record of beheading, "jihadying" killing innocents, and breaking humanitarian rights. Don't act as if you have the moral high ground here, obviously these sanctions are perfect for the US's goal of hurting Russia. The US doesn't care in the first place about Ukraine, John McCain shaking hands with far right groups with single digit support in the nation can hint at this. 

56 minutes ago, shift8 said:

Secession can only be done legitimately if either the formation of the nation was not originally self determined, or if the nation state as a whole agrees with the secession.

Ehem.... 

[cool breeze]

Right, I know this isn't supposed to be about listing random bad things other countries have done, but I entered into the discussion by saying that I think some of the whataboutism stuff is valid, because of the continuing cold war perspective of a life or death struggle between "East (Russia)"  and West.  I think its still a valid perspective because our nations spending priorities haven't changed much since the cold war.

 

And I think we should take responsibility for our role in keeping things that way.  If we don't want to be seen as continuing this (east vs west) struggle we shouldn't be spending so much on nukes or having cold war warriors like McCain going to meet "far right" groups, particularly right before all hell breaks loose.

Edited September 15, 2016 by cool breeze

[Sublime]

Vlad I find it funny youce brought up far right groups and their menace in Ukraine considering theres been a lot of evidence that Russia is funneling money into far right groups in almost all of Europe and America.

[VladimirTarasov]

1 minute ago, Sublime said:

Vlad I find it funny youce brought up far right groups and their menace in Ukraine considering theres been a lot of evidence that Russia is funneling money into far right groups in almost all of Europe and America.

Our government in no way or form has ever officially supported Neo-Nazis. BTW aren't you what abouting?  

[Sublime]

I dont know if I am. I dont think thats what abouting since the two events are happening at the same time? Second I wasnt offering some other example to justify anything. I just think its very ironic that your country is using the same reasoning the Nazis did for the Anschluss etc and that Russia is giving money to numerous foreign far right groups utterly ironic when I can think of two recent posts o yours decryong far roght groupsAnd im sure Steve who knows a lot more than me can provide relevant links to Russian money and far right groups in Europe.

They destabilize the country. Become nationalistic.. perhaps even a threat to Russia eh?

Edited September 15, 2016 by Sublime

[VladimirTarasov]

Just now, Sublime said:

I dont know if I am. I dont think thats what abouting since the two events are happening at the same time? And im sure Steve who knows a lot more than me can provide relevant links to Russian money and far right groups in Europe.

They destabilize the country. Become nationalistic.. perhaps even a threat to Russia eh?

There are Neo-Nazis in Russia, and they at some point were an issue before. However tough policies have since come into place. I dare a far right group to attack anyone around my town lol... 

[Sublime]

Noooo my friend I meant the foreign groups your country funds that may say... get austria or germany nationalistic with all the immigrants. This would allow putin to scream abt a 4th reich and spend more on the military and the threat of the west.

How are things over there with you anyways friend?

[Kinophile]

@shift8 That's not the point -  my angle is that every people/region has the moral right to discuss/ask to vote on seceding if they feel maltreated. It's up to the primary nation to convince them otherwise. Unfortunately violence is often the first resort, sometimes of both parties. 

You oversimplify the result - Endless Disintegration is not the automatic end point.

But it could be if the ruling nation state was of such brutality,  incompetence or physically  incapable of governing effectively.  By that point it could be argued that the seceding regions have a solid moral right to separate for the good and protection of their people. 

But it's not so terrifying for a state to secede - it all depends on the rationale and process of doing so. 

To rebut your point about

1 hour ago, shift8 said:

10 hours ago, kinophile said:

 

Secession can only be done legitimately if either the formation of the nation was not originally self determined, or if the nation state as a whole agrees with the secession

Look at the original 13 US states. They were an original part of the English Crown. Settled,  established and often in parts governed by English subjects. An inherent,  organic part of an existing society and culture. Yet seceed they did, after extensive protests,  legal challenges, economic black mail,  violence against protesters,  etc., from an empire that very clearly did not wish them to do so. 

By your rationale above they had no right to do so. But as a result of that struggle their constitution explicitly points out that the people have the right of protest against their government, and the right to remove it. 

An underlying pressure for the Civil War was that the southern states could not get the Government to adhere/accept to their viewpoint,  leaving them,  in their mind, no choice but to secede. This is but one angle,  one point, it was a very complex process,  but this was one reason. 

Hell,  Ireland had every right to secede,  after 800 years or having our people and culture raped,  murdered,  starve,  used as cannon fodder and our language literally banned,  Gaelic teachers hung in their schools, our oral tradition literally killed off. We were very much maltreated and wanted it to stop. 

Oppress a people like that,  such as has also been done to  the Ukrainians by various Russian governments, and by golly they have the right to declare independence from Russia.

And the following thing is, the Donbass was not oppressed. But Russia fanned the flames that they supposedly, somehow, might be and used that fear and tension to drive a campaign of agitation to erode Ukrainian political control,  then used the Ukrainian attempt to reassert that control as a pretext to invade. 

IF the Donbass had been treated as badly as Ireland, or the original US 13, or Ukraine pre 1941 then it would have a case for separation. 

Crimea actually has a legitimate case,  due to its ethnicity,  but the manner in which Russia invaded and held a "referendum"  negates the validity of the very premise.  

I find your rebuttal of the validity of Secession as not far from Vlads position of The Government Knows Best. Obey the laws as they are, even if deeply unfair to you. You have no right to leave. 

Ie basically the opposite of the fundamental reason why the US exists at all. 

Edited September 15, 2016 by kinophile

[VladimirTarasov]

6 minutes ago, Sublime said:

How are things over there with you anyways friend?

Fine thanks friend how about you? Looking for someone to shoot a CMBS match with on the weekend possibly if you're interested  

 

[Battlefront.com]

24 minutes ago, cool breeze said:

Right, I know this isn't supposed to be about listing random bad things other countries have done, but I entered into the discussion by saying that I think some of the whataboutism stuff is valid, because of the continuing cold war perspective of a life or death struggle between "East (Russia)"  and West.  I think its still a valid perspective because our nations spending priorities haven't changed much since the cold war.

It is valid only as background, not anything more than that.  Plus, you're wrong The US shifted it's spending strategy very much towards fighting terrorism and away from confronting Russia.  In fact, the US started what was called the "pivot" to Asia to meet the rising military threat of China.  Forces were withdrawn from Europe, the CIA/NSA practically disbanded their Russian operations, politicians refused to listen to anybody saying that Russia was on the rise, etc.  It is only since 2014 that this has been reversed.

24 minutes ago, cool breeze said:

And I think we should take responsibility for our role in keeping things that way.  If we don't want to be seen as continuing this (east vs west) struggle we shouldn't be spending so much on nukes or having cold war warriors like McCain going to meet "far right" groups, particularly right before all hell breaks loose.

The problem is that Russia wants there to be a confrontation, whether the US wants it or not is irrelevant.  What is relevant is how the US handles it.  So far it's been a mixed bag at best.

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Our government in no way or form has ever officially supported Neo-Nazis. BTW aren't you what abouting?  

Far Right ≠ Neo Nazi.  Neo Nazi is a specific form of Far Right.  And yes, Russia is funding Far Right groups all over Europe as well as Far Left groups.  The point is to fund whomever can cause the most chaos and misery within the country.  It is well documented and not even that hidden.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/12103602/America-to-investigate-Russian-meddling-in-EU.html

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/23/why-europe-is-right-to-fear-putins-useful-idiots/

And it make sense.  Russia can not challenge the West in normal conventional ways because Russia doesn't have the resources or allies to do so.  Therefore, it is resorting to old Soviet tricks in new form.  And I agree with the second article that Putin is simply taking advantage of real internal problems within Western countries, not causing them (though making them worse for sure).

Steve

[shift8]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I knew my country did crappy things well before 2003.  Even my humble public school made me aware of things such as the Vietnam War and fun stuff like genocide against the native peoples of the US.  No need for self righteous foreigners to lend a hand for this guy.

Er, no.  He didn't.

And thank you Hattori for once again demonstrating the power of Whataboutism. Do you see now what you started and why I pointed out the folly of your post right from the start?  This is the tactic of distraction even if you didn't intend it to be.  So how about stopping it?

Government is a social contract.  The contract requires government to behave in a way that is in the best interests of everybody within its borders.  Everybody.  If it fails to do so then the social contract is broken and there is grounds for divorce.  Government rarely, if ever, provides an explicit "out clause" for failure to do it's duty to a particular people in part because governments are inherently interested in retaining control.  Even the more benevolent ones.

As an American, if Texas wanted a divorce I'd be fine with that provided the process was free and fair (i.e. not what happened in Crimea) and that the US government would get some monetary compensation for the investments it's made in Texas over the last... oh I dunno... 50 years.  The compensation could be done over a long period of time, I'm fine with that.  If it were done like that, no problemo.

Someday the United States will break apart.  It's inevitable.  I just hope that when it comes to it that the breakup will not be like the 1860s US civil war or the 1990s Yugoslav civil war.  That's in nobody's best interests.

Steve

Yes, if the government fails to act in a ethical manner this is of course grounds for divorce. What I do no agree with though is the arbitrary separation of sections of a nation state for "jollies." The efficacy of the laws of said nation state would mean nothing if groups or even individuals could randomly decide to secede whenever they wanted to. It would also make it impossible to have nation states at all, since they could theoretically dissolve into individuals ie: anarchy. There are reasons for separation: but they should not be arbitrary whims. 

[Kinophile]

No one suggested there is anything light hearted or random about seceding. 

And the point stands  -  if a governing system cannot control,  literally or morally, then it does not deserve,  should not be given control. And no one should have to stay and suffer under that situation. 

Edited September 15, 2016 by kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

Fortunately there are few examples of "jollies" as an example of separation.  Brexit is about as close as I can think of.  Most countries either repress secession enough that it can't possibly be done for "jollies" (ask the Kurds in Turkey, for example), others simply make acceptably high bars for leaving (Canada, UK, and more extreme Spain).  Crimea was separated from Ukraine by an act of war, so in that case it doesn't count as secession.

Steve

[shift8]

4 minutes ago, kinophile said:

No one suggested there is anything light hearted or random about seceding. 

And the point stands  -  if a governing system cannot control,  literally or morally, then it does not deserve,  should not be given control. And no one should have to stay and suffer under that situation. 

I think maybe we misunderstood each other. I of course agree that a nation can rebel or separate over a major moral grievance if there is no other recourse. 

[cool breeze]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It is valid only as background, not anything more than that.  Plus, you're wrong The US shifted it's spending strategy very much towards fighting terrorism and away from confronting Russia.  In fact, the US started what was called the "pivot" to Asia to meet the rising military threat of China.  Forces were withdrawn from Europe, the CIA/NSA practically disbanded their Russian operations, politicians refused to listen to anybody saying that Russia was on the rise, etc.  It is only since 2014 that this has been reversed.

The problem is that Russia wants there to be a confrontation, whether the US wants it or not is irrelevant.  What is relevant is how the US handles it.  So far it's been a mixed bag at best.

 

Steve

Right, but Russia only wants to confront us because we are everywhere in the world because we consider it all to be our sphere of influence.  If we were minding our own business we'd be low on the priorities list.  I was aware of the post cold war change in out military posture, but that seems more like just turning our nations proverbial  cross-hair towards the Middle East and Asia while containing their currently preoccupied with its getting their **** together old enemy.  If we were to actually try to end the cold war we'd have to actually reduce our nuclear arsenal and scale back the CIA.    And maybe stop acting like we run the world.

Edited September 15, 2016 by cool breeze

[VladimirTarasov]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And it make sense.  Russia can not challenge the West in normal conventional ways because Russia doesn't have the resources or allies to do so.  Therefore, it is resorting to old Soviet tricks in new form.  And I agree with the second article that Putin is simply taking advantage of real internal problems within Western countries, not causing them (though making them worse for sure)

 I'd also agree with you however let's not forget that politicians can use this for PR on a variety of topics. In other cases, exaggerations and false claims. But of course Russia does try to influence whatever it can, same as other nations. 

[shift8]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Fortunately there are few examples of "jollies" as an example of separation.  Brexit is about as close as I can think of.  Most countries either repress secession enough that it can't possibly be done for "jollies" (ask the Kurds in Turkey, for example), others simply make acceptably high bars for leaving (Canada, UK, and more extreme Spain).  Crimea was separated from Ukraine by an act of war, so in that case it doesn't count as secession.

Steve

To be clear here, I am on your side of this argument as of the subject of the thread. My point here had nothing to do with Crimea or Ukraine in so much as their separation of Russia. My point is that Crimea itself cannot re-decide to leave the Ukraine because it now thinks its Russian ( and I am not even saying thats the case). Russian cannot point at Crimea and go "oh look they want to be Russian now" and then invade to please those people. 

[IICptMillerII]

52 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

You stay going by international law, or what say you, and look at what I'm trying to say through a narrow view.

Illegal is illegal. No matter what "view" or "lens" or whatever you look at it from, breaking law is still breaking law. 

 

55 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

The largest point that I've been making is the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government after the violent ousting of Yanukovich.

By this logic, the entire Western world has complete justification in invading and toppling the Putin government. Talk about calling the kettle black. The Putin government is probably the least legitimate government in Eastern Europe right now. Is that really the logic train you want to be riding?

 

58 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

But you know, all those claims are illegitimate, Russia cannot in response to the ousting of Yanukovich without the say of Russian people in Eastern Ukraine, cannot come in and secure Crimea and let a voting process happen, while securing the rights of the Crimean population no matter what was behind Russia taking Crimea, it is still very much justified.

 "The only way to save them is to kill them and take their land!" Good grief... 

You still never answered my point earlier. There are Russian speakers in the US. Hell, a Russian family (the husband was a construction contractor in Moscow) bought my old house. If a Russian, or a Russian speaker was mugged in the US does that give Russia the right to annex Alaska? If a group of Russians or Russian speakers are mugged/attacked/whatever crime does THAT give Russia the right to annex Alaska? 

Spoiler alert: It doesn't. 

1 hour ago, VladimirTarasov said:

But again, thank you for calling out hypocrisy.

Literally everything you are saying is hypocrisy, so its not that hard. Thanks for the gold star though. 

1 hour ago, VladimirTarasov said:

The US doesn't care in the first place about Ukraine

The US cares enough to impose disastrous sanctions on a nuclear armed country. Sanctions which are supported by Europe. Sanctions that are annihilating the Russian economy. To say that the US, or Europe does not care about Ukraine is obviously untrue. 

 

1 hour ago, VladimirTarasov said:

But to sanction Russia and scream in horror at what we've done by your claims, is so funny.

The only thing thats funny here is how utterly desolate Russia is at this point.

You can continue to try to 'justify' or 'excuse' Russia's actions in Ukraine, but no one in the world is buying it. No one believes you're in the right, and no one believes any of the junk spewed by the Kremlin. The proof of this? The continuing sanctions.

Really, Russia has already lost, spectacularly. So go ahead, continue to try and justify whats happening. It really makes no difference. The sanctions will continue, as will the universal condemnation. You harvest what you plant, and boy did you plant a turd.   

[VladimirTarasov]

7 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

Illegal is illegal. No matter what "view" or "lens" or whatever you look at it from, breaking law is still breaking law. 

I'm sick of repeating the same things over and over now. If you do not see any other illegal things other than the Crimean referendum then that's that arguing with you.

8 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

By this logic, the entire Western world has complete justification in invading and toppling the Putin government. Talk about calling the kettle black. The Putin government is probably the least legitimate government in Eastern Europe right now. Is that really the logic train you want to be riding?

Jesus Christ... Come save me! I voted for Putin but he's illegitimate because he won! 

9 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

You still never answered my point earlier. There are Russian speakers in the US. Hell, a Russian family (the husband was a construction contractor in Moscow) bought my old house. If a Russian, or a Russian speaker was mugged in the US does that give Russia the right to annex Alaska? If a group of Russians or Russian speakers are mugged/attacked/whatever crime does THAT give Russia the right to annex Alaska? 

Read my Estonia example where Russia intervening there is not justified by any thing, and if you'd remember there was a very intense hype up of Russia threating the Baltics. Again exaggerations, not more different than some things the Russian government says. Russia sold Alaska, there's no Russians there, the US is a completely legitimate government, nothing there for any threat to Russian people to take place. I don't get why you are bringing those totally irrelevent claims up, it has nothing to do with the way Russia reacted in Ukraine, and for what reasons. I'm sure in Crimea quite a few Russian people have been mugged so by your standards Russia should have annexed way before lol... Irony

16 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

Literally everything you are saying is hypocrisy, so its not that hard. Thanks for the gold star though.

Okay sure.

17 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

The US cares enough to impose disastrous sanctions on a nuclear armed country. Sanctions which are supported by Europe. Sanctions that are annihilating the Russian economy. To say that the US, or Europe does not care about Ukraine is obviously untrue. 

The US definitely cares but not in the way I was talking about. 

20 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

You can continue to try to 'justify' or 'excuse' Russia's actions in Ukraine, but no one in the world is buying it. No one believes you're in the right, and no one believes any of the junk spewed by the Kremlin. The proof of this? The continuing sanctions.

Harsh words, sanctions on behalf of the EU and US doesn't count as the world, but it is a considerably large population sure lol. 

22 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

Really, Russia has already lost, spectacularly. So go ahead, continue to try and justify whats happening. It really makes no difference. The sanctions will continue, as will the universal condemnation. You harvest what you plant, and boy did you plant a turd.   

So be it, if Russians must endure sanctions for another decade we'll take it.

[Kinophile]

I'm curious @Battlefront.com Steve why you think the break up of the US is inevitable?  It has very strong geographic, demographic, economic, political,  cultural and military reasons for staying together.

[cool breeze]

Time destroys all things