the obama administration did sanction russia, although believe u meant that outside of the "unlike" context in your post

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis#First_round_:_March/April_2014

Obama also allowed Crimea to be annexed.

i know? that doesnt have anything to do with what i said tho.

Uhh... what did you expect him to do? Start World War 3 over Crimea?

Well, if you ask some of the right that were criticizing him at the time. He needed to be more diplomatic while simultaneously pushing for more military action.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/14/us-foreign-policy-crimea-obama-response

This covers it pretty well. You had people from the right calling for pretty much everything for more diplomacy to more military action.
Some flip flopped as much as trump does and were advocating for both depending on when you spoke to them.

Was a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

10/10

Thanks for telling the truth sir!

republicans will point out that the democrats are ok with mexico influencing US elections in California for decades by flooding it with immigrants and many illegals and brazenly support it by calling for open borders. Then they turn around and pretend to get mad when they think russia is influencing us elections

Its happening on both sides. The difference is, the democrats are pretending they arent doing it.

Its a clear differential between the two

Keep feigning ignorance if you want

yes, I should have used a semicolon to make it more clear.



Yes, the truth is that no one could realistically have prevented Russia from annexing the Crimea.

The issue lies elsewhere: why did the Russians feel the need to annex it in the first place, why did they feel the need to create an armed conflict in adjacent parts of their neighboring country (Donbass/Eastern Ukraine)?

Because the west forced their hands! The Ukraine is an vital part of Russia's "Eurasian Union", it shares a fucking long border with Russia, it has a large russian minority. Anyone with two brain cells could have told that the prospect of the Ukraine joining the NATO would be completely and utterly unacceptable to Russia for economic, strategic, cultural and historical reasons - whether we like it or not.

This doesnt absolve Russia from the guilt of all those things it did; and I reject the idea of "moral equidistance" that was floating around after Trump's press conference with Putin - but it's still plain stupid to forcefully poke the bear and then be surprised that he's hitting back.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 19 2018 05:57pm