Huge pro-EU rally grips Ukraine

[kranz]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

He didn't loose the elections, there was no referendum, impeachment procedure was not followed. Hence he was not pressed out of power legaly.

it was.
has the decision ever been legally questioned or ruled out? no, it hasn't.
technically speaking he was removed legally as no one has ever questioned it on the terms of the legal basis.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by kranz

it was.
has the decision ever been legally questioned or ruled out? no, it hasn't.
technically speaking he was removed legally as no one has ever questioned it on the terms of the legal basis.

Considering that the constitutional court has been shuffled (another breach of constitution by the way) and all opponents violently silenced (by armed nationalists, for example various opposition parties and media outlets were purged) there was no legal opposition to this movement within the Ukraine.
Thus, as the procedure was not followed and anyone objecting was violently and undemocraticaly silenced I would say that getting Yanukovich out of the office was not a legal or democratic move.

The main problem that plagues Ukraine at the moment is not the war (after all it is localised in the south-east), or ramplant corruption due to rogue politicians getting into power (the actual corruption levels have increased, but then Ukraine has a long standing tradition of poor governance) or lack of reforms (which are demanded by the IMF) with resulting lack of money (either spent on war or stolen on not provided by external parties in the first place) - it is the lack of centralised and organised power.
Ie Ukraine is moving down to anarchy path of history (something that did happen during the dissolution of Russian empire), this is the biggest problem they face in my opinion, and this is the reason why they do so poorly in the war (lack of organisation and poor logistics is the killer).

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by August

The Berlin Airlift for instance? By your theory we should just have let the whole city fall to the Russians, after all Berlin is a lot closer to Russia than it is to the US right?

See, if this was the analogy, I would be 100% behind this - but I don't see how this applies. The Berlin Airlift wasn't about supplying weapons to a third party, last I checked. In fact other than supplying the small and militarily-irrelevant Western garrison in Berlin that was agreed on with the Russians, those planes took virtually no military supplies into Berlin. What they brought instead was civil supplies, propping up the infrastructure and economy, bolstering morale, and allowing Berlin to survive independently while keeping a fair standard of living - even in the worst of circumstances. For all the temptation that there would've been to react militarily to the Russians' illegal actions in blocking the land corridors, the West didn't cave to it and instead pursued a route that was previously agreed on with the Russians, and though it first it made them ticked, ultimately it ended up de-escalating the situation by proving that Berlin would survive - not as a fortress, but as a civil entity. If there were an actual armed war over Berlin, it would be over in a day. Lesson in de-escalation to be learned there perhaps.

That's the kremlin's narrative which you believe in. Fortunately it has nothing to do with the reality.
Technically speaking Maidan had nothing to do with removing Yanukovich which was a purely democratic decision.
btw, you forgot to mention how Yanukovich wanted to suppress the protesters with the help of russian thugs. Was that even legal?

So let me get this straight: low approval ratings + claims by political opponents = constitutional mandate to overthrow government?

Let's see, Obama and Hollande have low ratings. You're not going to have trouble finding people (especially on the internet) who claim that Obama plans to send all American gun owners to FEMA death camps, or that Hollande works for the MOSSAD. Impeachment time!

I don't have any problem with the Maidan as a political protest, nor do I have an issue with the Orange side reflecting a real political need in the Ukraine. That's not the problem here - the problem is a lack of respect for constitutional principles. It was a political tantrum, and if we consider that praiseworthy, I worry about where Western constitutional democracy is heading.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Because you support these policies until today. You can complain about me if I would defend Nazi views.

I see enough similarities with your advocacy that Burmese leaders should have their families threatened with assassination if they don't act the way you believe they should. As well as your all encompassing hatred of Muslims and other brown skinned Auslanders. Can't have it both ways my friend.

Pointless regarding the context in which I gave it as a reply.

No it's not, it's far more accurate than your badly thought out attempt at role reversal.

You call provoking somebody else, a "defence". You expect somebody else acting stupdily against his vital interests, so that your interests get boosted.

The Berlin Airlift was provoking the Russians. Maintaining a bastion of freedom in the middle of a puppet country was definitely against their interests. You can ignore it but I think it illustrates my point quite nicely.

[August]

Originally Posted by CCIP

See, if this was the analogy, I would be 100% behind this - but I don't see how this applies.

Well if the Berlin Airlift isn't a good enough example for you CCIP then how about the 50 years or so we spent barring the Russians from extending their control over the rest of Europe? We armed the Bundeswehr with our weapons, we stationed troops and equipment on the borders of West Germany. Maybe we were wrong to do that given our relative distance from the Fulda gap compared to Russias. Seems so if we ever went by what Skybirds ideas of right and wrong.

[kranz]

Originally Posted by CCIP

So let me get this straight: low approval ratings + claims by political opponents = constitutional mandate to overthrow government?

0.2/10
his removal was voted in the ukrainian parliment - that is by direct representatives of the ukrainian nation. 73% of the MPs did NOT want him as the president. sure there were some 'constitutional issues' but it wasn't the minority who out-voted him but the majority. vox populi, vox dei. don't like democracy - move to russia. oh wait...

Originally Posted by CCIP

I don't have any problem with the Maidan as a political protest, nor do I have an issue with the Orange side reflecting a real political need in the Ukraine. That's not the problem here - the problem is a lack of respect for constitutional principles. It was a political tantrum, and if we consider that praiseworthy, I worry about where Western constitutional democracy is heading.

so, following your logic...Yanukovich was removed by undemocratic forces so he decided to find a refuge in the 'democratic paradise' of russia. right? right.
only because i don't want more infractions this month I will say: it doesn't hold water.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

I see enough similarities with your advocacy that Burmese leaders should have their families threatened with assassination if they don't act the way you believe they should.

Ah, we are at the point of the show where you once again become personally insulting, which was to be expected sooner or later.

Would you please quote the complete context in which I said that - I remember it all to well, but why should I do YOUR job of putting a quote in the correct way when you are only about spitting out some misleading agitation anyway in order to give me a bad name. Im really sick and tired of again and again needing to correct the ways you misquote me intentionally, to distort what I actually said and meant. Context is so important you know, but for you it often is simply unwelcomed. In this case it would give my statement somewhat a slightly different meaning that would slightly spoil it for you, but that's life...

As well as your all encompassing hatred of Muslims and other brown skinned Auslanders. Can't have it both ways my friend.

And more defaming agitation by you, underhanded cheater that you are. Where have I ever attacked people for being brown-skinned? where have I ever attacked Ausländer in general? I have such a differentiated view on migrants and have differentiated between migrant groups often and expressed and explained that so often, that again your verbal poison here only qualifies as agitation and lie. I also have often enough criticised the ideology of Islam, wich again you simply turn into "racism", which only shows how bancrupt your intellect really is on that matter.

No it's not, it's far more accurate than your badly thought out attempt at role reversal.

You can parrot yourself as often as you want. It remains to be a failed parade.

The Berlin Airlift was provoking the Russians. Maintaining a bastion of freedom in the middle of a puppet country was definitely against their interests. You can ignore it but I think it illustrates my point quite nicely.

No, it does not because you comfortably, as so very very often, ignore some details that would spil your picture of a story. Mainly that Germany was not a point of strong interest for the USSR only, but for the US as well. Some decades later you broke off an already almost won war and let a murderous tyrant in place, and handed him his helicopters while you watched when he massacred thousands and thousands of Shia that your secret service before had motivated to rebel and prmsied them help - and then betrayed them. That was because then it was not your interest to have "an airlift" or something, but to have Saddam in power and to have him cracking down on the Shia so that his claim for power would be more unchallenged again. Twenty years before it was in your interest to stage a war that costed one million people, mostly non-combatants, their lives, when trying to "save" their country by trying to destroy it.

Also, the US was in a very different stance towards the USSR during the Berlin criiss, than it is in over the ukraine, against Russia today. Not only is there no claim to lay in the Ukraine, no strategic value that goes beoind simnply getting closer on Russia and provoking it to react robustly, but the Wetsenr psoition is much weaker, and any military preparation that could threaten Russia there could be answered by Russia much faster and in a way that completely neutrlaises any Wetsern miliutary ambitions. NATO is too weak. And if they want Russia could overroll all of Ukrtaine in one sdweeping offence in a no lopnge rdi8sguised war between Russia and the ukraine. I said it before: if one wants to shorten the suffering of the people there, one of the two sides must be deafeted, and it is absurd to assume that that could be Russians/rebels. The sooner Kiev realises that the East is lost, the soner the Ukraine could get split, and the sooner stability could re-enter. And then one can start to make a deal with the Russians: the Western part leaning to the EU, the East to Russia, and no NATO membership, but neutrality. That may not rerd maximum idelaism. But it is realistic.

You accused me of appeasement before. There are quite strong financial sanctions in place, they will not make Russia stop in the forseeable future, because it has too big financial reserves still and as many money printers as Washington has, but they are fading, and foreign capital is fleeing the country as well as the wealth of own residents, which leaves the economy in increasing troubles, and very serious troubles. The fiscal and economic costs for Moscow are enormous, and are hampering their economy, and it will mount even more. All that is causing feedbacks for Western economies as well, especially Germany pays heavily since its was economcially so severely engaged in Russia. Our financial losses due to supporting the sanctions are dwarfing all and evertyhign that the US economy is risking in this, so for you Americans it is easy to demand more sanctions and more sacrifce - you risk little there, you have little to lose - we are footing the bill! In the face of the numbers we are refering to here, calling that "appeasement" is a bit rich. It is not boom-boom and bang-bang, certainly not that spectacular, but it makes the Russians pay. It does not stop them but it makes them pay, and they will pay dearly. Your demand for extending the war by arming Kiev's troops, will make the Russian pay much less, and will not stop them either.

You think it is just me telling you this. Not really just me . It is the British minister of defence who is quoted in an interview with a German newspaper today and whose remarks on the sanctions and the possibility of weapon deliveries I just summarized in the above, I have read them in German just an hour ago.

---

P.S.
Since I know by long experience that August never cares to take back his insulting misquotings, I do his homework for him. In a long ago discussion I said about the situation in Burma back then that it makes no sense to have a conflict always fought at the cost of the public but saving the leaders responsible for the conflict from the costs of the conflict, allowing them to go back to their families as if nothing happened, and enjoy their company while the slaughtering outside goes on. No war is fought as easily and carelessly as the war in which one must not participate in the suffering, but can leave the paying of the bill in pains only to others. I said that there also uses to be the trend in such leaders' families that they educate their offsprings in the mental attitude and spirit they act themselves by, so that after their death the son or daughter take over and continue the wickedness of their fathers. Prominent modern examples would be the Kims, Gaddafi's sons, and Saddam's sons - I wish they all would have been found by a falling allied bomb when they still were small and unable to commit any crimes, that would have saved quite some later victims of theirs. I proposed that therefore one should consider to not declare families of such leaders being immune from persecution and even threatening/targetting them by military strikes, in order to bring any such conflict closer to the personal experience of the responsible leader, and to deliver an warning example to others coming after them.

That is slightly different a reasoning than August's poisonous claim that I proposed to kill Burmesian leader's children if said leaders "do not do what I want them to do".

You're a malicious cheater, August. It was a mistake to again opening comm channels to you, since this is not the first time since then that again you try to stab me from behind. And that's why you now go back onto the ignore list of mine. And this time its forever.

[Skybird]

What a lovely couple. Think the two deserve each other.

[mapuc]

(I have NONE on the ignore-list. We live in a democracy where we have free speech who goes both ways)

Heard something interesting on the news today

A journalist in USA said

Obama is monitoring the meeting in Minsk and if this meeting should fail Many republican wants to send weapon to Ukraine's military

Some said this could be a war between the US and Russia by proxy

Markus

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by kranz

73% of the MPs did NOT want him as the president. sure there were some 'constitutional issues' but it wasn't the minority who out-voted him but the majority. vox populi, vox dei. don't like democracy - move to russia. oh wait...

The constitutional requirement for impeachment, at least as per the constitution that was active at the time, was for 3/4 of the parliament AND a review by Ukraine's supreme judiciary. Neither occurred. I don't doubt Yanukovich eventually would've been impeached regardless, but there's a matter of jumping the gun.

My logic isn't anything related and I don't know where you're getting this idea that I'm somehow a pro-Putin, pro-Russian-policy advocate here. I guess that's because anyone who disagrees with you is automatically wrong and supports "evil Russia". You know, you've accused another person of trolling in this thread, but I keep looking back and I only see one person - and one only - who takes both an unreasonable, uncritically biased position AND uses rhetorical tactics that amount to trolling, as in, provoking other members into escalating defensive responses. You've been trying to provoke ikalugin for a long time and I admire the fact that he's kept his cool. Now I'm not even sure why you're trying to provoke me, but you've been both unreasonable and rude. I'm sorry if this is just an effort to have a genuine discussion that's somehow not coming through, but somehow I don't think so. And I really don't appreciate that.

[August]

Originally Posted by mapuc

(I have NONE on the ignore-list. We live in a democracy where we have free speech who goes both ways)

Heard something interesting on the news today

A journalist in USA said

Obama is monitoring the meeting in Minsk and if this meeting should fail Many republican wants to send weapon to Ukraine's military

Some said this could be a war between the US and Russia by proxy

Markus

I like how he posts another wall of text at me then runs away so he gets the last word. What a baby he is.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by mapuc

(I have NONE on the ignore-list. We live in a democracy where we have free speech who goes both ways)

Actually that's not the case. You have the right to speak but you don't have the right to be listened to or being taken serious. So it's not a two way right and everyone can decide to whom he wants to listen to and who he wants to ignore.

[Oberon]

Anyway, the real reason that the US and Russia are butting heads over the Ukraine is for control of 'The Zone'.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Anyway, the real reason that the US and Russia are butting heads over the Ukraine is for control of 'The Zone'.

Get out of here STALKER!

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Actually that's not the case. You have the right to speak but you don't have the right to be listened to or being taken serious. So it's not a two way right and everyone can decide to whom he wants to listen to and who he wants to ignore.

If you want to be taken serious then you should also let your opponent speak whatever you like the spoken words or not-That how I see it.

Lets go back on track again shouldn't we

Markus