Putin says Russia was ready to activate nuclear arsenal over Crimea

[Man from Pickens]

23. If your concern is imperial aggression

Then unless you invert the timeline completely, the aggressor is the Kiev regime and the foreign powers that back it. As the people of Crimea overwhelmingly voted to rejoin Russia, the Russian takeover cannot be accurately characterized as "aggression", and there can be no valid objection to the voluntary annexation. The US taking over Hawaii was aggression and annexation. China taking over Tibet was aggression and annexation. Russia taking over Crimea is not - unless you reject the democratic will of Crimeans, and think foreign powers should make that choice for them.

As far as the Tartars go, they may not be happy with the situation but they were outvoted massively and that's how democracy works. It's not like the Crimeans did to them what the Kiev did to ethnic Russians in Ukraine (outlaw their language, make war upon them).

They didn't have to make war on their own population, you know. Except that it was necessary to meet the terms the IMF insisted on, so that the billions would flow to the coup government and from there to its cronies.

Ukraine becoming a battlefield for foreign powers does not benefit any Ukrainian except those who are making money from the conflict.

I'm really quite stunned how any American can be accusing the Russians of aggression here, in the wake of wars we have conducted and continue to conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. None of those places have any historical significance for us, none play any role in our national security, none are even economically significant other than oil production.

What do you think it looks like to the rest of the world when the US, which invades another country on average every two years, accuses another country of aggression? It looks like world-class, breathtaking hypocrisy, which is what it is.

If imperium and aggression are your concerns, then your focus should be the same as mine, in opposing those forces right here at home, where they are more significant than the rest of the world combined.