Disaster for Ukraine. Rebels route Ukrainian forces at Donetsk

[thief of fire]

Some people seem to have an awfully hard time understanding what an invasion is.
An invasion is what NATO countries do. Iraq was an example.
First the NATO countries tell lies. In the case of Iraq they lied about Iraq having weapoins of mass destruction and then sent their troops to invade. Chris Kyle who perversely is some kind of hero in America , describes what went on.

Our ROEs [Rules of Engagement] when the [Iraq War] kicked off were pretty simple: If you see anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and they’re male, shoot ’em. Kill every male you see. That wasn’t the official language, but that was the idea.

Contrast this with Crimea. Russia had a long standing agreement to have up to 25,000 troops in Crimea. That's why there were already troops there.
A violent coup had been staged in Kiev largely by Neo Nazis. This coup was orchestrated by the USA and NATO, as intercepted phone calls and emails showed.
Russia had important naval bases there, under lease. Russia did the responsible thing in a very unstable situation and put it to the Crimeans before the situation in Kiev made things even worse.
Ukraine is a mess. Crimea comparatively is not. Well done Russia.
If you guys want to see what an invasion looks like, look to Iraq not Crimea.

The people who claim an invasion make sure that they avoid looking at the Neo Nazis who had taken power in a violent coup in Kiev. They like to pretend it didn't happen.
From the above link

Perhaps the biggest taboo of the U.S. mainstream coverage of the Ukraine crisis is to block out the role played by neo-Nazi militias in both the Feb. 22 coup and this summer’s bloody offensive in eastern Ukraine, but the ugly reality occasionally breaks through, as William Blum noted in Anti-Empire Report.
By William Blum

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis.

In the U.S. it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews.” But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit.

 

[angelo]

Another great example of an invasion is the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany, and the invasion of China by Japan. Pure and simple invasions. Ukraine is not even close to those examples.

 

[dystopian]

Some people seem to have an awfully hard time understanding what an invasion is.
An invasion is what NATO countries do. Iraq was an example.

"It's only an invasion if YOU do it!" /stomps feet on the ground and cries.

Contrast this with Crimea. Russia had a long standing agreement to have up to 25,000 troops in Crimea. That's why there were already troops there.

Once again; and I will keep repeating this until you actually address it; said agreement did NOT allow those Russian troops to occupy Ukrainian airfields, military bases, government buildings, blockade their ports, or lay mines around the country. That's why we call it an invasion... BECAUSE IT IS.

A violent coup had been staged in Kiev largely by Neo Nazis. This coup was orchestrated by the USA and NATO, as intercepted phone calls and emails showed.

Once again; this has not been showed to be the case. It requires some very selective listening and arbitrary interpretation of those calls to conclude that the coup was at all orchestrated by anyone. Secondly, as has also been repeatedly pointed out to the pro-russian contingent on this forum, the "coup" was not in fact 'largely' staged by neo-nazis. In fact, the right-wing elements of maidan were only ever a minority of the movement. Thirdly, as has also been repeatedly pointed out; there was not in fact a 'coup', as the removal from office of president yanukovych was in fact entirely legal under Ukrainian law (and no, you don't get to use the argument that an impeachment needed x amount of votes, because he was not in fact impeached but rather removed via a motion on account of the fact he was no longer able to pursue his duties, having fled the country; and they had more than enough votes to do this legally)

Russia had important naval bases there, under lease.

Which is irrelevant.

Russia did the responsible thing in a very unstable situation and put it to the Crimeans before the situation in Kiev made things even worse.

Here we go again. The 'responsible' thing is NOT to commit acts of war against a foreign government and violate its territorial integrity despite having made assurances to never do that. It is also not the responsible thing to engage in a lightning campaign of occupying strategic Crimean locations, and hold a referendum under gunpoint almost right away (one would normally allow at least a year to pass between announcing a referendum and actually holding it, to ensure fairness and unpressured voting). Just as it is not responsible to make people's votes entirely public. Similarly, it is not at all responsible to blatantly tamper with the results; remember, Sevastopol had a record voter turnout of a 123%! Which is fucking impossible.

Ukraine is a mess. Crimea comparatively is not. Well done Russia.
If you guys want to see what an invasion looks like, look to Iraq not Crimea.

Iraq, unlike Crimea, hasn't been annexed in violation of international law.

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis.

Except they haven't. Throughout the protest coverage, the BBC and other news agencies mentioned the far right elements in the movement. Unlike Russia Today, however, they did not falsely equate the entire movement with neo-nazis. Go and read the first hand accounts of the maidan protesters themselves, and see how the far right infiltrated the movement but was only ever a minority part of it.

In the U.S. it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews.” But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit.

Just like I'm sure in Russia, it's gone entirely unmentioned how rampant violent neo-nazism is in Russia itself. I rather doubt you're aware that Russia is home to between 50 and 70.000 neo-nazis (and that's not counting the ultranationalists who don't openly admire hitler), which is about HALF the world total. Russians complaining about neo-nazi's in Ukraine? Pot, meet kettle.

 

[thief of fire]

"It's only an invasion if YOU do it!" /stomps feet on the ground and cries.

No. It's an invasion when people invade. Which did not happen with Crimea. Words have meanings, you can't redefine them to suit yourself. Here is the definition of invasion. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/invasion . This word has a well defined military usage and whichever way you cut it you are wrong.

The rest of you ravings aren't worth dealing with, until you admit you are wrong and there was no invasion. Once you face reality about this we can deal with your unevidenced assertions. Once we deal with that your whole argument falls apart.

 

[thief of fire]

Another great example of an invasion is the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany, and the invasion of China by Japan. Pure and simple invasions. Ukraine is not even close to those examples.

True. But the real problem is that it doesn't fit the dictionary definition of the word. Once they look in a dictionary and see the meaning, their whole argument fails totally. We then see that the Crimeans agreed to Russian troops in Crimea long before this....and with a neo nazi coup, fosterd by the USA in Kiev, Russia's actions take on a very different light.
But no...no dictionary is needed. No independent thought is needed, just keep repeating the word invasion...invasion...invasion. This hits people in their emotions rather than their rational faculties.

 

[Togo]

Ok..well lets try this again. What evidence do you have of anyone invading Crimea?
There was no invasion. As has been pointed out in this thread, Russia had a long standing agreement to have troops in Crimea.

Because that permission to have troops in naval bases in Crimea was subject to conditions. There was no blanket agreement to have troops running around the region blockading Ukranian military bases, taking over media centres, or setting up road blocks and checkpoints. Those troops were invaders the second they breached the conditions of agreement.

Are you trying to claim that:
1) Because Russian troops were allowed to stay in naval bases in Crimea, they had some kind of license to take over the region?
2) That if Russian troops in the Russian Embassy in the US tried to take over the White House, that wouldn't be an invasion, because they were already under agreement to be in the US?

You do realise that most countries have troops in each other's countries most of the time?

 

[angelo]

They only have half the story as it is put out by an anti Russian media.

 

[Togo]

Some people seem to have an awfully hard time understanding what an invasion is.
An invasion is what NATO countries do. Iraq was an example.

Well apparently not. After all, there were already NATO troops inside Iraq acting as diplomatic guards for the various negotiators and diplomatic visitors. Unless that's different somehow?

 

[angelo]

Iraq was invaded for purely economic reasons, It was to control [to a certain extent] the flow of oil. The Weapons of mass destruction was the cover for a gullible public.

 

[Togo]

Iraq was invaded for purely economic reasons, It was to control [to a certain extent] the flow of oil. The Weapons of mass destruction was the cover for a gullible public.

Oh nonsense. That may have been the main reason, but there were plenty of other reasons, from the desire of Bush to finish what his daddy had started, to the problem of French firms getting too big a share of the auxiliary oil market. And WMD was the excuse used in the UK, but the US media took more of 'this guy/country/media organisation is evil so it doesn't matter if we have a reason' line, which is why it mattered less when it turned out to be false. It's kinda the same argument that you're using here, answering a point about what an invasion consists of with another rant about the evils of the US media. As long as they're perfidious, who cares about logic, right?

But it is totally irrelevant to the point being made. We had troops inside Iraq when war was declared, so according to your logic it wasn't an invasion. That sounds pretty silly to me.

 

[Sabine Grant]

The presence of US military installations with a specific quota of military troops stationed in those installations certainly never means an allowance to extend their activities into the host nation's control of roads by setting up check points or any occupation of the host nation's administrative buildings. When one compares Russian troops activities in Crimea to the above, it becomes clear that those activities cannot be confused for a status similar to the type of arrangements made between the US and its host nations in Europe. I believe that is why the term "invasion" is being used when referring to the actual activities of Russian troops in Crimea.

It is possible Russia does not have specific policies known as "terms of engagement" as other nations do with a presence of their troops stationed in a foreign country. The engagement of Russian troops in Crimea certainly crossed the line drawn between stationed troops and activities extending into the public area, activities involving a form of occupation affecting various areas.

What happened in Crimea is no different than if the AFI (American Forces in Italy) were to start exercising control over the local population with check points and occupation of various administrative Italian buildings. While US military personnel would carry weapons and use them as a form of intimidation over the local population to exercise such control.

 

[barbos]

If positions were reversed, US would have "annexed" Crimea long time ago without much fuss.
Americans are being criminally lied to about Crimea. Maybe these stupid talking heads don't know better, but there are assholes in the US government which do know better. Part of the problem is that there is a different mentality between americans and russians.
Americans can not imagine that russians would have stayed in Ukraine for 20 years if they had not wanted to stay there, therefore they wanted to stay in Ukraine and referendum was a sham. But in reality, russians are much more politically apathetic than americans, they basically don't give a shit most of the time (ukrainians even more so) and who can blame us after all history we have had? So yes, they had been wanting back to Russia but not enough to maidan about it. Illegal coup and actions of the illegal Ukrainian government was a last straw which was just enough to kick them into action.
Nobody in Russia doubts results of the referendum, not even worst Putin haters, but in US/West everybody assumes it was a sham.

Funny part about it is the fact that Russians who are even highly critical of Putin (In Russia that is) now look at the Ukraine and think, is it really worth it to revolt? I watched the Daily Show interview with iranian woman and she said the same thing about iranians who look at Syria/Egypt/Lybia/Iraq.
US attempts to topple down "regimes" they don't like did not make anything better. Fact is, Lybia and Syria would have been much better off without that shit. Yes, they have/had dictators but they were slowly moving in the right direction. Yes, they were corrupted to a different degrees but I believe Lybia and Syria at least were capable to overcome this with time.
Now back to Russia, Russia is much less corrupted than Egypt, so why US wants to make a coup in Russia and yet did not want it happening in Egypt? oh right, I forgot, it's because of Israel. OK

 

[barbos]

What happened in Crimea is no different than if the AFI (American Forces in Italy) were to start exercising control over the local population with check points and occupation of various administrative Italian buildings. While US military personnel would carry weapons and use them as a form of intimidation over the local population to exercise such control.

Bullshit!
There is no part of Italy which was american land but was lost to Italy 20 years ago because US president was a drunk and which is inhabited by english speaking former americans which were born there.

And what about Cuba? US still think that Cuba is guilty of something and should be punished for wanting to get rid of US control. So give me a fucking break!

 

[dystopian]

"It's only an invasion if YOU do it!" /stomps feet on the ground and cries.

No. It's an invasion when people invade. Which did not happen with Crimea. Words have meanings, you can't redefine them to suit yourself. Here is the definition of invasion. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/invasion . This word has a well defined military usage and whichever way you cut it you are wrong.

"The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer"

Well in that case...

...Russia invaded Crimea.

Because *again*: the agreement that allowed them to station troops there, DID NOT allow for those troops to go out and *occupy* *through force* airfields, government buildings, and military bases. By going out of their leased base to *conquer* Ukrainian installations in the rest of Crimea; the Russians DID in fact invade Crimea. Period.

This has been explained to you over and over again. I will not explain so again because it is painfully obvious by now that you are not actually interested in facts or logic, but are rather more interested solely in being able to keep pretending there was no invasion. Because you think doing so lets you avoid all the other arguments (as evidenced by your statement that the rest of my "ravings" aren't worth dealing with until I agree with you).

 

[Daioh]

But the real problem is that it doesn't fit the dictionary definition of the word. Once they look in a dictionary and see the meaning, their whole argument fails totally.

But it did fit invasion

The dictionary definition of "Invasion" (Ignoring those not relevant to this such as medical terms etc)
"1. The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer." -The whole takeover was done to conquer the Crimean region (And yes Conquer fits with the definition "2. conquer - take possession of by force, as after an invasion" , and annex gets you "2. annexation - the formal act of acquiring something (especially territory) by conquest or occupation" and Invasion and Annex are listed as Synonyms)
"1. (Military) the act of invading with armed forces" -Armed forces did indeed enter Ukranian territory, without permission from the Ukranian government
"1. an act or instance of invading, esp. by an army." -Unless this wasn't the Russian army this fits

Wikipedia also gives us for "Invasion"
"An invasion is a military offensive in which large parts of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory, forcing the partition of a country, altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government, or a combination thereof."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion
Again this fits what happened

Now "Invading/Invade" gives us
"1. To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage." -Again this was the case

"4. To enter and permeate, especially harmfully." -Yes they did enter/permeate the crimean region

So by your own dictionary this does fit the idea of an invasion
All related words to invade/invasion also fit
Interesting bits bolded by myself

Note:All definitions were from the dictionary site provided by thief of fire http://www.thefreedictionary.com unless otherwise stated

 

[thief of fire]

But the real problem is that it doesn't fit the dictionary definition of the word. Once they look in a dictionary and see the meaning, their whole argument fails totally.

But it did fit invasion

The dictionary definition of "Invasion" (Ignoring those not relevant to this such as medical terms etc)
"1. The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer." -The whole takeover was done to conquer the Crimean region (And yes Conquer fits with the definition "2. conquer - take possession of by force, as after an invasion" , and annex gets you "2. annexation - the formal act of acquiring something (especially territory) by conquest or occupation" and Invasion and Annex are listed as Synonyms)

The annexation was the result of a referendum, so it does not fit the definition.
No force was involved. Unless you have some evidence of force?

What is highly amusing is the number of people here is won't actually come out and say it, but seem to imagine that the Crimeans would have wanted to side with the Neo Nazi loonies in Kiev.
It's laughable. Russia didn't need to use force.

 

[barbos]

Yes, there was no invasion. Presence of Russian forces merely allowed conduction of referendum in peace.
Without russian forces there would still have been a referendum but after a lot of people got killed.
And I can't really see resident russian forces In Crimea watching ukrainian "army" killing protesters and do nothing.
Crimea was leaving Ukraine no matter what. And Putin deserves a praise for this orderly and peaceful separation.

 

[thief of fire]

Yes, there was no invasion. Presence of Russian forces merely allowed conduction of referendum in peace.
Without russian forces there would still have been a referendum but after a lot of people got killed.
And I can't really see resident russian forces In Crimea watching ukrainian "army" killing protesters and do nothing.
Crimea was leaving Ukraine no matter what. And Putin deserves a praise for this orderly and peaceful separation.

Yes, so true.
It's just inconceivable to some people that the Russians aren't evil. It's inconceivable to some that Russia could have gone in there and steadied a dangerous situation and given the Crimeans a way out. .
But that is what happened.

 

[dystopian]

The annexation was the result of a referendum, so it does not fit the definition.

A referendum hastily imposed upon the people by force; while guns were pointed at them and while their votes were public. This was not a true referendum, it was just a thinly veiled attempt to lend legitimacy to the conquest.

No force was involved. Unless you have some evidence of force?

Laying siege to military bases, storming and occupying airfields, blockading ports, laying minefields on and around border roads. All of these constitute military force. All of these were widely reported on and documented. You aren't seriously desperate enough to be basing your arguments on us having the memoryspan of a goldfish, are you?

What is highly amusing is the number of people here is won't actually come out and say it, but seem to imagine that the Crimeans would have wanted to side with the Neo Nazi loonies in Kiev.
It's laughable. Russia didn't need to use force.

All the evidence shows that they did not support joining Russia. Prior to the referendum, less than a quarter of Crimeans favored joining Russia. Even with the events that followed, it is inconceivable to think 93% would suddenly favor joining Russia, as opposed to what they were in favor of before: namely, staying an autonomous region within Ukraine. The Russians went in, installed puppet leaders who then called a hasty referendum... and *still* they felt the need to tamper with the results (remember, anyone with a *russian* passport was allowed to vote, sevastopol had an impossible voter turnout of 123%, and hundreds of thousands already filled in ballots were found being transported by pro-russians beforehand).

It's obvious they DID have to use force. And use it they did.

 

[Daioh]

The annexation was the result of a referendum, so it does not fit the definition.

Which definition?
Because the mere fact of the Russian troops entering another nations territory without permission from the government of said nation(ie Invasion), and the stationing of troops in said nation in order to control what goes on in it (Which is occupation "a. Invasion, conquest, and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces.
b. The military government exercising control over an occupied nation or territory." "7. the term of control of a territory by foreign military forces." http://www.thefreedictionary.com/occupation) kinda means that calling it an invasion and occupation by the Russian military is accurate according to the dictionary you provided
The fact that it was a referendum done later doesn't change that the Russian military invaded another Nation with the intent of occupation and having that region become part of their nation

No force was involved. Unless you have some evidence of force?

Is not Russian troops all over the Crimea without authorisation of the Nation it was governed by considered occupation? or force?

What is highly amusing is the number of people here is won't actually come out and say it, but seem to imagine that the Crimeans would have wanted to side with the Neo Nazi loonies in Kiev.
It's laughable. Russia didn't need to use force.

if Russia didn't need force
Then why did it's troops need to enter the territory of another nation?