Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Viking]

I absolutely hate the trite argument that just because in some case it might make sense to change borders based on something or other, therefore in ALL cases it must make sense.
. . .This is obviously true, yet dumbshits trot out the argument that since one ridiculously general example happened once, therefore some other completely specific example with totally different circumstances must be countenanced as well.

The lazy accusation of hypocrisy ("look what Lincoln did in the Civil War") is always easier than making out one's own valid justification for violence on its own merits.

The moral equivalency argument is also a losing one by it's nature. The argument that it's ok to do a bad or immoral thing because somebody else did a bad or immoral thing, even if that somebody else is calling you on it, still rests on the assumption that the act in question is bad or immoral.

The fact that I might be a thief, liar or murderer doesn't absolve you of theft, mendacity or murder if I'm accusing you of it. Yes, I might be a hypocrite, but you're still a thief, liar or murderer unless you address the accusation itself.

[Admiral Yi]

Actually Puff, I think the moral equivalency argument rests on the assumption that judgement is subjective, and if your counterparties have engaged in a similar act in the past, they have in effect passed positive judgement on it.

The failing of the moral equivalency argument in this particular case is that nothing bad was being done to the residents of Crimea, or Russian speakers anywhere in Ukraine.  Or anyone at all for that matter.

[alfred russel]

Yes, no doubt they would like to, and in fact they wish to join the EU, which is what sparked the whole thing in the first place.

I'm not sure this is true, or it is not so simple. Their dear departed president was elected, and while he may not have met expectations, he was the Russian oriented candidate. Also, until recently opinion polls showed that Ukrainians were divided on the protests (I'm not aware of any recent polling, and obviously the violence and Russian actions probably affected public opinion).

[Sheilbh]

Bosnian Serbs won't get a shot at secession because the areas of ethnic supermajority they currently inhabit were engineered by ethnic cleansing - though it will be interesting to see what the first post-1991 census says (which I think took place last year or will take place this year). And, unlike Kosovo, there has never been the political unit of a Serbian Bosnia other than the 1992-95 war.

And Srpska since Dayton.

Census comes out in July and will be interesting. But Bosnia's about the only state in the Balkans that is, at best, stalled.

[Queequeg]

I don't know about that.  What % of Kosovo's economy depends on illegal activities?  It's like Transnistria without ham.  Or, less ham. 

[Solmyr]

RT anchor quits during live broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55izx6rbCqg

[derspiess]

RT anchor quits during live broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55izx6rbCqg

Pretty cool. Hope she can avoid a mysterious polonium poisoning.

[Liep]

RT anchor quits during live broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55izx6rbCqg

Never heard Putin pronounced that way before. That other one was feistier and prettier.

[Razgovory]

RT anchor quits during live broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55izx6rbCqg

[Jacob]

It doesn't look like this thing is playing out well in Russia either:

At home, this intervention looks to be one of the most unpopular decisions Putin has ever made. The Kremlin's own pollster released a survey on Monday that showed 73% of Russians reject it. In phrasing its question posed in early February to 1,600 respondents across the country, the state-funded sociologists at WCIOM were clearly trying to get as much support for the intervention as possible: "Should Russia react to the overthrow of the legally elected authorities in Ukraine?" they asked. Only 15% said yes — hardly a national consensus.

http://world.time.com/2014/03/03/putin-ukraine-crimea-russia/

[Solmyr]

President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev was on TV expressing concerns about the invasion. I guess he's getting worried about his own country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkJskTttBg

[Jacob]

Apparently even Lukashenko's Belarus has recognized the new government in Kiev 

[Malthus]

Estonian Minister caught spreading bald-faced lie to support Russians - by Russian bugging of diplomatic phones.

Here's the story - in a leaked telephone call (leaked by - well, guess who?), Estonia's foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet tells EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton that a specific doctor told him that the snipers were hired by the protestors:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2573923/Was-massacre-started-Ukraine-revolution-ordered-new-leaders-Leaked-tape-says-Maidan-snipers-NOT-control-ousted-president-opposition-drove-power.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

The snipers that started the Ukrainian revolution by firing on anti-government protesters in Kiev were given orders by the same group, it was claimed yesterday.

Rather than being hired by President Viktor Yanukovych, the snipers were in fact controlled by opposition figures, according to a leaked phone conversation apparently between a senior EU official and an Estonian politician.

The 11-minute call is said to be between the EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonia's foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet, and was reportedly made on February 25 when Paet visited Kiev in the aftermath of the massacre.

During the call Paet apparently claims a doctor told him both protesters and police were shot by the same snipers during clashes between the two groups that escalated violently on February 20.

'There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition,' Urmas Paet appears to say during the conversation.

Ashton apparently responds: 'I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh'*.

The doctor, though, said this was complete bullshit - she never told him any such thing (and in fact, could not know any such thing):

Olga Bogomolets said she had not told Mr Paet that policemen and protesters had been killed in the same manner.

"Myself I saw only protesters. I do not know the type of wounds suffered by military people," she told The Telegraph. "I have no access to those people."

But she said she had asked for a full forensic criminal investigation into the deaths that occurred in the Maidan. "No one who just sees the wounds when treating the victims can make a determination about the type of weapons. I hope international experts and Ukrainian investigators will make a determination of what type of weapons, who was involved in the killings and how it was done. I have no data to prove anything.

"I was a doctor helping to save people on the square. There were 15 people killed on the first day by snipers. They were shot directly to the heart, brain and arteries. There were more than 40 the next day, 12 of them died in my arms.

"Our nation has to ask the question who were the killers, who asked them to come to Ukraine. We need good answers on the basis of expertise."

Mr Paet's assertion that an opposition figure was behind the Maidan massacre was not one she could share.

"I think you can only say something like this on the basis of fact," she said. "Its not correct and its not good to do this. It should be based on fact."

She said the new government in Kiev had assured her a criminal investigation had begun but that she had not direct contact with it so far.

"They told me they have begun a criminal process and if they say that I believe them. The police have not given me any information on it."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10677370/Ukraine-Russia-crisis-live.html

[Admiral Yi]

It doesn't look like this thing is playing out well in Russia either:

At home, this intervention looks to be one of the most unpopular decisions Putin has ever made. The Kremlin's own pollster released a survey on Monday that showed 73% of Russians reject it. In phrasing its question posed in early February to 1,600 respondents across the country, the state-funded sociologists at WCIOM were clearly trying to get as much support for the intervention as possible: "Should Russia react to the overthrow of the legally elected authorities in Ukraine?" they asked. Only 15% said yes — hardly a national consensus.

http://world.time.com/2014/03/03/putin-ukraine-crimea-russia/

That's totally awesome.

[Razgovory]

Interesting... Perhaps Putin's hand is not as strong as we thought.