Obama: Crimea referendum would be illegal
Source: CNN
President Barack Obama said Thursday he was "confident" that the international community was "moving forward together" in responding to what he called the Russian intervention in Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Obama said that if Russia continues "this violation of international law" in Ukraine, "the resolve of the United States and our allies and the international community will remain firm."
He also said that a proposed referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region -- one that, as proposed by proposed by pro-Russian Crimean lawmakers, would ask residents whether Crimea should be part of Ukraine or Russia -- would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law."
Any discussion about a referendum must include Ukraine's legitimate government, Obama said. Washington considers Ukraine's legitimate government to be the one installed by Parliament after last month's ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych following months of protests.
Read more: http://cnnworldlive.cnn.com/Event/Crisis_in_Ukraine_2
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)the Russians out of their leased bases in Sevastopol and elsewhere in Crimea.
If you have a cite, I'd love to read it.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)admittance to Nato. It also states that nations with territorial disputes have difficulty being admitted to Nato, which may be one reason that the current situation in Crimea exists.
The passage does NOT say, however, that Ukraine was then or is now seeking to break the leases that Russia has on those bases.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Markov: The Kremlin believes that the current Ukrainian leadership will manipulate the elections planned for May 25 to install a single leader or coalition government functioning much as former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili did in Tbilisi.3
After that, Kiev may evict Russias Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol4 and purge Crimea of any Russian influence. Ukraine could easily become a radicalized, anti-Russian state, at which point Kiev will fabricate a pretext to justify taking subversive action against Moscow5.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/war-yes-war-no-the-ukraine-standoff-as-diplomatic-mashup
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)In Alcoholics Anonymous, they encourage their members to try to think like non-alcoholics. Thinking like alcoholics is called "stinking thinking."
I'm not saying that Putin is an alcoholic, but he is engaging in old ways of thinking--"stinking thinking."
Furthermore, by his actions in the Ukrainian area of Crimea, he is not only abrogating Russia's responsibility under the 1994 Budapest memorandum, but he is just making Ukraine thoroughly angry. For heaven's sake--the Russian navy just blockaded the entrance to the Ukrainian navy's base. That is a classic act of war.
If Putin had decided that his best actions were peaceful, civil ones, he should have requested meeting with the new acting Foreign Minister and Minister of Defense concerning Russia's lease of the Crimean bases, as a normal country would. Instead, he began to believe the paranoid propaganda put out by his own regime.
If he wants Russia to have normal relations with other countries, behaving like a lying bully is not going to do it.
He is simply nekulturny.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)It's a risky move, he certainly risks a lot with it.
If his intel was correct, he certainly knows through intercepts about people like Nuland or the Estonian foreign minister.
Or the intel was planted, to force him into the move just like the Soviets were dragged into Afghanistan
The Central Intelligence Agency says it was following events closely enough to have outlined scenarios in which upheaval in Ukraine would become so intense that Russia would take military action.
Two national security sources said the CIA had specifically warned policymakers, shortly before the Russian military moved into the Crimean peninsula, that such a move could be imminent.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4613133
Well, according to Voice of Russia, hacked emails pointed to a group of Tatar troublemakers, neo-Nazis and others who were allegedly getting assistance from Turkish Intelligence. There were also two incidents where masked men carried out paramilitary-type operations on government buildings in Simferopol in Crimea on February 27 and February 28 which suggested that something big was afoot. (Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin confirmed that the Crimean interior ministry was attacked on Saturday by armed men sent by Kiev in a statement he made before the UN Security Council.) The incidents were captured on tape and can be seen here:
Heres an excerpt from one of the hacked emails, also from the same post, allegedly between the coup plotters in Kiev and a Tatar leader:
Everything is going according to the plan. We are ready to proceed with the second part of the play. As agreed earlier last week, my guys together with people from the Karpatskaya Sech and UNA-UNSO will arrive wherever is needed and with the necessary weapons. You only need to let us know the addresses of the warehouses in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Feodosia and Yalta, and the time of the meeting (The Crimean Anti-Coup Move Moon of Alabama)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/04/crimea-river/
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)I used to read Counterpunch and Engdahl, but I have not for some time because I don't view them as reliable.
Consequently, I won't respond to your posts citing these sources.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)that is printed in Voice of Russia, nobody says it has to be true to react to it.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)jakeXT
(10,575 posts)the secreteray of Defense Council, Svoboda member and founder Social National Party of Ukraine.
Parubiy was the founder of the Social National Party of Ukraine, a fascist party styled on Hitler's Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.
http://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)If neither Putin nor one of his ministers is able to do that, then they are in the wrong position.
Frankly, I'm beginning to believe that Putin should be in the care of a therapist specializing in narcissistic personality disorder. Not that he would of course--most people with that diagnosis think that they are perfectly fine as they go through life wrecking the lives of other people, and in this case, nations.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)"Strictly speaking, today there is no one to talk to there. The legitimacy of a whole host of government bodies is raising huge doubts," Medvedev said in Sochi, responding to a question posed by Interfax.
"If people crossing Kyiv in black masks and Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government," the Russian prime minister said.
"If a normal modern power emerges (in Ukraine) based on Ukrainian law and on the constitution, we shall be ready to resume this sort of a relationship," the Russian head of government said.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/medvedev-ukrainian-authorities-legitimacy-in-doubt-337500.html
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg.
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Were the US and Europe around. Yes. Were there irregularities. Yes.
But the Ukrainian Parliament is largely intact, and voted to impeach Yanukovych, a crook of the first water, by a large margin. That same parliament has set national elections for late May.
An election with neutral observers and no armed troops walking around in the streets is the best way of washing away any and all political sins.
Obviously, you do not see things the same way, and there is no point in continuing this discussion.
former9thward
(31,803 posts)How is it the U.S. has bases in Germany? The U.S. needs to pull out of there. Wouldn't want them violating NATO agreements.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)...
The SOFA agreement is supplemented by another agreement specific to the six NATO nations (including the UK and the USA) that have a permanent military presence in Germany, the Supplementary Agreement (or SA). The SOFA was signed in 1951, and the SA was signed in 1959 and last updated in 1998 at the end of the Cold War. With its 83 articles the SA to SOFA is much more detailed than SOFA itself (with 20 articles in Roman numerals e.g. XX), and more often than not it is mistaken for the SOFA itself.
http://bfgnet.de/policy/sofa.html
former9thward
(31,803 posts)I get it.
totodeinhere
(13,036 posts)the US out of Guantanamo?
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Russians behave in accordance with that lease.
I doubt that the recent days' actions conform to the lease terms, and the Ukraine could conceivably begin eviction procedings. I suspect that the lease has a provision regarding termination, and probably states what tribunal should hear any disputes pertaining to the lease.
No one has suggested that the U.S. is in violation of the terms of the lease that it has on the Guantanamo base lease.
Sometimes law really does come in hand: U.S., Ukrainian and International Law are there to try to keep disputes from turning into wars.
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)I don't think this deserves it's own post - but my 'post title' was the subject of the treas.gov emails sent out to US businesses today that engage in import/export and that have BIS and OFAC functions. I think it's a good complement to what you've posted -
2014 Recent OFAC Actions landing page: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/OFAC-Recent-Actions.aspx
This is a direct link to the PDF - 3 Pages President Obama issued this a.m.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine_eo.pdf
It's not naming names or anything (I think we are anticipating that later today) but it's making pretty clear we will take a trade and sanctions approach.
Any American citizen can sign up for those emails - but once you have experience navigating the Sec of Treasury and Sec of State instructions and updates from a commerce perspective you can read these and read in between the lines pretty clearly.
I'm liking an approach of 'play nice' we can't throw bombs in this - but we can prevent our telecoms and banks from doing business with you.
msongs
(67,193 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Which has little to nothing to do with the validity of statement in and of itself.
However, I'm quite certain of your sincerity in simply offering, by definition, irrelevant information (but it does make for such wonderful ad copy).
brooklynite
(93,870 posts)Of course you're talking about Iraq/Afghanistan, where we have troops by virtue of decisions made by a different Administration, and where we're pulling them out.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Noting that Mr. Karzai had demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the agreement, Mr. Obama told him, in effect, that the United States would deal with the next Afghan leader. He warned Mr. Karzai that the longer it took for Afghanistan to sign the pact, known as a bilateral security agreement, or B.S.A., the smaller the residual force was likely to be.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/asia/obama-keeps-options-open-in-afghanistan.html?_r=0
Laelth
(32,017 posts)The truth is that we're not going to do squat about Russia's occupation of the Crimea. We can't because our European allies won't let us. They depend on Russian natural gas. If we tick off Putin, and he decides to spike the price, every sitting government in Western Europe will be thrown out of power. And they know it.
So, given that we can't realistically do anything about this situation, it's silly to call a referendum "illegal." Who cares if it's legal? It will still express the will of Crimea's citizens, and, given that the vast majority of them are ethnic Russians, I suspect they will express a strong preference for independence from the Ukraine (which is now dominated by a right-wing government that we helped install in an unconstitutional coup). In fact, now that I think about it, it's awfully hypocritical to suggest that a referendum is "illegal" when we've been caught red-handed supporting an unconstitutional coup.
The President needs better advisers.
-Laelth
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)don't generally command a lot of respect.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Do you honestly believe that the ethnic Russians in the Crimean peninsula (and they're the vast majority) don't want to be independent from the right-wing government in the Ukraine that is almost completely run by Ukranians?
Personally, when the Russians in the Crimea vote for independence, I'm going to trust those results. It just makes sense to me.
-Laelth
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)express themselves via secret ballot, in an internationally monitored election with no armed men wandering around on their streets.
The people out and about talking to reporters are the ones who want to return to Mother Russia.
If I wanted to stay with Ukraine, which is probably most of the ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Tatars and perhaps some of the ethnic Russians, I'd stay home and keep my mouth shut.
And if there were some sort of "election" with the Russian military, and it is the Russian military, running around in which Crimea declared itself part of Russia, I'd get the hell out of there if I could.
I'd also be trying to get some info from non-Russian media.
pampango
(24,692 posts)vote No, it would only take a few ethnic Russians to lead to a surprising result in the referendum.
Some ethnic Russians are undoubtedly liberals who may not see a future with Putin's right wing domestic policies and prefer the "humanist", socially liberal policies that exist in Europe. Others may believe that they get along just fine with ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars and are not hung up on the necessity of their ethnic group running everything.
A No vote is unlikely. The date for the referendum was originally scheduled for May 25. It as changed to March 30 and then to March 16. It seems that the legitimacy of the vote is not as important as getting it done ASAP.
In the long run, if Ukraine associates more closely with Europe, people are more likely to benefit from a liberal government than if they join with Russia.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)an unconstitutional coup.
What happened in the Ukraine is that the constitutional provisions limiting presidential power were thrown out by Yanukovych's flunkies in the court system as unconstitutional, allowing him to act like a dictator, and on February 21, 2014 he agreed that those provisions should be valid again. Then he fled the country.
He was a victim of a coup as much as Ceaucesceau and Mussolini were. Except he was less of a victim because he escaped justice.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I won't dig for them. You have seen them, I am sure.
-Laelth
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Yanukovych signed an agreement restoring constitutional limits on his authority that his crony judges removed at his behest. He then fled the country with the billions of dollars he stole from the public coffers.
that is not a coup.
there is a long history of corruption and abuse of power by Yanukovych and his allies--including stealing elections.
totodeinhere
(13,036 posts)Ukraine. This is over and above any other aid pledges and is a direct result of the Russian intervention. Plus they will probably agree to sanctions albeit milder sanctions than what the US wants. And remember that yes Europe depends on natural gas from Russia but Russia also depends on the foreign exchange that it earns from selling gas to Europe.
China would probably be a willing buyer of Russian natural gas in place of the Europeans but there isn't sufficient infrastructure in place to pipe it to China and shipping it overland or by sea would be prohibitively expensive. So the EU and the Russians need each other.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)They simply regard all facts regarding the illegal coup in Ukraine against a democratically elected government as propaganda. It is sad to see dittoheads on DU.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I wrote more about that subject here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110827379#post8
Cheers!
-Laelth
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)you mean the one installed by a coup ?
I don't think the Russians should have their troops deployed outside their barracks but come on...
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)to flee the country rather than face trial for his crimes as a 'coup'
Mag238
(26 posts)There was a fascist coup led by anti-semitic right wing terrorists to overthrow a democratically elected government. If you don't like the word, "coup," how about "putsch"?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)And too many people on the left swallow it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024618343
Sorry, I choose the truth over Vladimir Putin.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)seveneyes
(4,631 posts)The US admin really needs to butt out of this. Placating the repubs is never a good idea.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)another toothless threat does not change anything.