Hi, BOB KLAHN!   
   I read your message from 06.06.2014 01:29   
      
     BK> Without true freedom of speech and the press no one can have any   
     BK> idea what is going on in Russia. However, any govt that puts a   
     BK> woman's music group in prison for protest songs, and for a long   
     BK> time, is not a govt I believe is honest.   
      
   I believe you can hardly imagine a situation when some Arab girls in    
   frivolous, "ala gay parade" style clothes rush into the main Jerusalem    
   synagogue and start singing "Allah, kill infidels?" Jews, I believe, can    
   understand that such an act is criminal and completely unacceptable. But    
   Americans think that it was OK, just because they had lost the true    
   faith in God. It is now all the same for them -- a gay parade in a    
   street or a fucking mess in the main cathedral. It must be equally    
   allowed. Well, at least in Russia. ;)   
      
     BK>>> I wonder about that. I wonder if, maybe, he's got it backwards. I   
     BK>>> wonder if the result of doing nothing might not be what leads to   
     BK>>> the war nobody wants.   
     BK>>> We have long been told that Hitler might have been stopped,   
     BK>>> probably would have been stopped, if the other nations had   
     BK>>> stepped in with his first aggression against the Sudentenland,   
     BK>>> against Austria, against those who could not defend themselves.   
     BK>>> What makes anyone think Putin is any less than Hitler?   
     AK>> Your words are a twaddle unless you see the columns of Russian   
     AK>> tanks and troops marching along the Ukraine roads.   
      
     BK> Once that happens it's too late. What we do know is those troops   
     BK> and tanks were massed on the Ukraine border, but have recently been   
     BK> withdrawn.   
      
   But now it is too early to speak in this way, and your comparisons are    
   false. The only correct comparison is comparing the situation in Ukraine    
   with the situation in Yugoslavia after some areas of it declared a    
   separation. Until the civil war Yugoslavia's borders and integrity were    
   also recognized across the world.   
      
     BK> What Putin has accomplished is to give the former Soviet states   
     BK> reason to believe he is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union.   
     BK> That gives them reason to ask for more US military aid, including   
     BK> the anti-missile systems that had been canceled a few years ago.   
      
   Many territories of the former USSR have still been closely related with    
   each other as economically as in other areas. Actually, until last time,    
   eastern Ukraine was separated from Russia only formally. In reality, all    
   the eastern Ukraine plants continued working with Russian plants, there    
   was no real border, people could freely move from one country to    
   another. The same things are now with Byelorussia, Kazakhstan and some    
   other former USSR republics. Putin has invented nothing. It is a lie,    
   that all people of the republics of the USSR hated each other and had    
   nothing in common. So, it is a natural idea to legalize things that have    
   always been and have existed now.   
      
     AK>> Who told you that countries cannot split up? Why do you think that   
     AK>> Ukraine cannot split like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia?   
     BK> I have no problem with countries splitting up. What I do have is   
     BK> when one portion wants to secede, and the reports are of masked   
     BK> gunmen patrolling the cities. If they are legitimate, why are they   
     BK> masked?   
      
   Well, if you had seen the Maidan rebellion in Kiev you could have also    
   seen the rebels wearing masks. It is natural for this kind of events.    
   These people have relatives, they are not sure that the secret police    
   will not come to their homes during the night.   
      
   You can also note that the police across all the world now uses modern    
   technology - it photographs all the demonstrators, rebels so to create a    
   special database for future arrests and repressions.   
      
     BK> If the people who live there want to split off, I don't have a   
     BK> problem with that. I do have a problem with it being done by masked   
     BK> gunmen.   
      
   The modern Ukraine mentality cannot accept that some people might have a    
   desire to divorce and live separately. It is like (in some Asian    
   countries) women are not allowed to divorce on their own will.   
      
   Compare: Divorce in Saudi Arabia   
   http://saudiwoman.me/2009/04/07/divorce-in-saudi-arabia/   
      
     AK>> It is not pro-Russian forces are fighting in eastern Ukraine. It   
     AK>> is the Russian people who always lived there, in eastern and   
     AK>> southern Ukraine, and they were extremely insulted when pro-   
     AK>> western rebels removed their candidate (Yanukovich, who won   
     AK>> democratic elections) from power.   
      
     BK> Being insulted is not ground for shooting up the place, and killing   
     BK> people. It is not grounds for seizing power. Now, how many Russian   
     BK> people live there? And why are Russians living in Ukraine and   
     BK> claiming the right to decide who rules the country?   
      
   There are 8-9 million Russians in Ukraine. It is incorrect to call them    
   killers or terrorists, as the present authority does. More of that -- it    
   is a gruesome propaganda and a lie. Russian people started their    
   protests in the same lawless way the pro-western activists started their    
   activity in Kiev -- noisy defiant demonstrations, capturing municipal    
   buildings, dispersing the police etc. Yanukovich refused to shoot people    
   in Kiev (my respect to him for that!), but after the western rebels had    
   come to power in Kiev they shamelessly started to use a brutal force    
   against eastern protesters. After some victims the wheel of a civil war    
   had started its rotation. Blood is a perfect lubricant for it.   
      
     AK>> Rebels in Kiev were minority, but they captured power by force,   
     AK>> violating all democratic institutions and election results.   
      
     BK> By force? It seems most of the force was used against them.   
      
   The Kiev police just guarded government buildings from the rebels.    
   Actually, there was only one attempt to clear Maidan -- when Yanukovich    
   was on his foreign visit. The police had cleared Maidan during a    
   half-an-hour. But there was outcry about democracy violation and the    
   demonstrators were allowed to come back. After that the police looked    
   like lamp posts and were burned alive with Molotov cocktails.   
      
     BK> According to what I have seen, the constitution was rewritten after   
     BK> Yonukovych took power, not by a constitutional convention or such,   
     BK> but by the courts. The protestors started out demanding the   
     BK> previous constitution be reinstated.   
      
   After wining the 2010 elections Yanukovich was the legitimate state    
   leader and, besides, the leader of the biggest parliamentarian    
   coalition. They had all rights to do the changes they wanted. It is    
   democracy. If another party had won elections they could have do the    
   same. They could join to Devil or so -- it would also a legal choice.    
   The legal majority in Kiev was removed from parliament by force and threats.   
      
   That's why many in the east of the Ukraine (Yanukovich's electorate)    
   consider the Kiev's events as an illegal cope and don't want to obey the    
   new power.   
      
     BK> ----------------------------------------------------------------   
     BK> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25182830   
      
     BK> But it was the deaths of at least 88 people, many of them   
     BK> protesters shot dead by uniformed snipers in 48 hours of bloodshed,   
     BK> that ultimately brought him down.   
     BK> ----------------------------------------------------------------   
      
   Can you pay attention that "many of them were protesters"? Who were the    
   others? They were the police. They police returned fire only after they    
   got under a sniper fire and lost a dozen of people. If the police had    
   not shot with live ammunition for four or five months of the rebellion -    
   what an event could provoke them to fire? Especially when an agreement    
   with Yanukovich had been achieved? I strongly believe that some people    
   in Maidan square did not want a peaceful solution. And they derailed the    
   agreement in a most outrageous way.   
      
      
     BK> Putin has backed off. However, it certainly appeared he wanted to   
     BK> cut the Ukraine up.   
      
   Such events as a rule are made by small but active groups. Such a thing    
   happened in Kiev, such a thing happened in eastern Ukraine. Russia has    
   played a small role -- eastern rebels had quickly captured a lot of    
   modern weapon and even some military bases. So now they are a force and    
   if somebody don't want to spill blood or fight with them they must    
   negotiate with them and, first, to stop call them terrorists and    
   bandits. How easily some people can use such marks and tags!   
      
      
      
     BK> On March 6, after gunmen took over the parliament building in the   
     BK> Crimean regional capital, Simferopol, a pro-Russian leadership was   
     BK> installed. Then the regional parliament voted behind closed doors   
     BK> for Crimea to leave Ukraine and join Russia, setting a referendum   
     BK> for Sunday to validate their decision.   
      
   It doesn't matter who were that gunmen.  Even id they guarded that    
   meeting, surely the situation was not like in a Moscow theater which was    
   captured by terrorists in 2002.   
      
   And at last about the referendum. It was open and honest. Everybody    
   voted as he wanted. Those who chose not to vote (many of the 13% Tatar    
   population, for instance) were free in making their choice, and their    
   votes were taken into account and not hidden. Everybody in the Crimea    
   had an opportunity to express his choice.   
      
   A NATO's general whined bitterly that the Crimea referendum "was held    
   under Russian gun barrrels," but it is more fare to say that the last    
   Ukraine elections were held under the  gun barrels of Ukraine's army, at    
   least in the east. What kind of fare elections can be in a country with    
   a civil war? BTW, it is exactly the same reason why the latest elections    
   in Syria were declared illegal  by the West. Double standards?   
      
   Bye, BOB!   
   Alexander Koryagin   
   fido7.debate 2014   
   --- FIDOGATE 5.1.7ds   
    * Origin: Pushkin's BBS (2:5020/2140.2)