[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

That's like saying Japan was forced into attacking Pearl Harbor by US sanctions. Baloney. Contrary to whatever Putin may believe, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and can join any alliance it damn well pleases. Russia's reaction to that is their own fault. Putin bears full responsibility.

Oh you happy idealist, reality must be a harsh wakeup for you, eh?

Sovereign you are not by romantic claims about ideals for an ideal world were happy people dance around the campfire and do happy songs together while holding each other's hands.

Sovereign you are when you are strong enough to fill your claimed sovereignty with life, and can defend your sovereignty. When you depend on the good will of the other, stronger, to let you believe you are sovereign, then you are not sovereign. You are weak. Dependance and sovereignty are mutually exclusive.

Or like I said repeatedly before: you cannot be tolerant when being weak. You can only be tolerant from a position of strength, and deciding to not use yoiuzr strength to enforce your will on the other. Where you leave the other or follow his wishes while you could not change and stop him anyway - you are not tolerant, but weak, and thus: submissive.

Putin bears responsibility, you say. So what? Maybe we should ripple-talk it a hunbdred times per day: "Putin is repsonsible, Putin is responsible, Puztin is repsonsible". Feel better? So at least this is doing something positive at least for you. Claiming that Putin is responsible, makes you feel better. Fine, congrats. Enjoy the feeling as long as it lasts.

Snactions and Japan attack: well, there are quite some historians who see it right like yoiu said. And some of them say that Roosevelt indeed designed the sanctions so that they would leave no other way for Japan than to declare war - what he wanted, in oder to finally get his country into the war in Europe as well, an option the American people at the time before Pearl Harbour were totally opposing. Just one opinion in the debate amongst historians, yes - but it happens to be the one I share, because it makes more sense and explains more things, than the other theories. But Pearl Harbour is not the Ukraine, Putin is not the Japanese military leadership, and Russia is not the Third Reich. So lets end that argument there.

What you - and many other wellmeaning idelaistic people - need to learn, is sense for realism. Empires and big powers have interests, and geostrategic interests. Ignore them, no matter your motives, and you get yourself into conflict with these powers, inevitably. You may like it, or you may like it not - it doesn't matter. Russia has learnbed the lessons from the betrayal of American diplomacy twenty years ago, and they will not make those mistakes again. They have a geostrategic interest of not letting NATO any closer towards their borders, and it is naive to assume they would play the game to prevevent that move by rules that make sure they would lose it. This is not fair duel in the spirit of sportsmanship. The US has played as foul on other occasions, so don'T act as if you are now surprised by the Russians doing not any different. The US has sacriiceds whole people and coutnries and kicked them into desasters for its kind of "idelaisatic" visions which, translated into plain English, were not idealistic at all, but raw and unforgiving geostrategic powerpolitics - or the failure of these.

Ideals... Everybody talking about ideals when talking about politics, should get his mouth washed out with soap. And if it is a politicians talking about ideals, you know by defintion that he lies from all start on.

What it comes down to, is this: is the Ukraine - a state that in this form exists since just 20 years and has been a very unstable construction from all beginning on, a state totally corrupted by organised crime and so much in financial and economic misery that for decades it would not be able to contribute any positives to the EU or NATO but just will cost immense amounts of money of which most will go into rich oligarchs and criminals' pockets - is this Ukraine worth for the West to start a war with Russia? The answer is a loud and unmistaken NO.

We have much more dangerous and serious problems, really. Anmd we do not evcen digest Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegonvia, Romania, Bulgaria... The last thing we need is another impotent failed state demadnding to get paid by our taxpayers.

Let the Russians pay for it, or the Eastern parts of it. By that you give them far greater headaches, I promise you. The Ukraine, if it really needed to become an independent state, should have been founded as two states from all beginning on.