Interesting thought Heno. Is the motive of the western powers the preservation of freedom, or the preservation of good trade. That thought reminds me of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the true motives to go to war.
I think one key thing over the whole Ukraine issue, and Crimea is the way Russia is handling it. If there is true concern and belief that the majority of Crimea, and now Ukraine have a majority wishing to return to Russian rule, then there are more internationally acceptable ways of doing it, such as referendum. Not a hasty take over done in a short period of time before anyone knows what is going on.
For comparison, look at Scotland. The Scots have a massive decision to make, but the people will be making that decision after years of notice and planning and plenty of time to listen to both view points. That's the way to determine a countries liberty, not the Russian way.
An honest argument can be made that the majority inside Crimea wanted to return to Russia, with 58% of the population being Russian, but we'll never know because the referendum that was held was patently engineered from Moscow, with armed Russian soldiers at every polling station and the few people who showed up who openly expressed pro-ukrainian or Tatar sentiments beaten by thugs....
But pay attention carefully to what's hapening in the east right now and you'll see the same "self-defense" forces who showed up in Crimea, wearing the same uniforms and carrying the same very modern weaponry that is oh so coniscidentally the same as the spetznazt (Russian special forces) is kitted out with....
Also there are valid questions about what the West's interest is in Ukraine, is it energy, is it German banks etc. But the question I'm not seeing asked by most Western press and especially the lefty press, is "what is Russia's real interests here?"...It's very easy to point the finger at big oil, big banks etc. and they are evil, but be very aware that a good chunk of Russia's armed forces are supplied with technologies and products developed and manufactured in Ukraine....Ukraine is something like the 5th or 6th largest arms exporters in the world and their number 1 customer is Russia, by an overwhelming amount....... Without Ukraine Putin has trouble ktting out his armed forces. So for a lot of the self-loathing western set it seems to be "war for oil bad, war for weapons...wait look over there the west is doing something bad"
It should also be noted that last week before the "spontaneous" uprisings in the 4 Eastern Oblasts, the Kyiv central governemnt had already more or less agreed to Russian demands for a referendum on more autonomy for the eastern oblasts to occur on the same day as the May 25th presidential elections, to which the Russians demanded it be held before then.... Another important note, inside the 4" Russian" speaking obalsts the "peoples republic" guys, the reunion with Mother Russia guys and "self defense" forces were run out of town in all but one by the Russian speaking majority, waving Ukrainian flags and throwing rocks at them...
And in case you aren't following any of the news from Ukrainian (or even Polish sites) you should know the shooting started at the weekend in Donetsk Oblast...4 Ukrainian Intelligence Troops were shot, with 1 dying....And last night Ukrainian troops defending an air base shot and killed 3 armed protesters.... Some Ukrainian troops sent east to quell the uprising have apparently switched sides, but there is also noise that the limits placed on the Ukrainian commander were so unrealistic that his troops would have no choice but to surrender if confronted, a la the Dutch UN troops at Srebenica during the Bosnian war..... Hard to tell through the propaganda what the exact situation is here.
Today is huge though....All the muckety mucks are meeting in Luxembourg marking the first time the Russians have been willing to sit at the table with the new leadership in Kyiv, and there is a mass pro-Ukrainian rally planned for Donetsk at 18:00 tonight.....Something very big could happen today, going either way.....
