War!

N1AK

michaels wrote: »

Yep - has anyone explained why the people of Scotland should get self determination but not those in Crimea?

No. Maybe you should ask some Russians? I doubt the Scots would be happy with claims that they'd been given the choice of self-determination if they were occupied by a foreign army, threatened, unable to campaign for independence and the results were so blatantly false.

The fact that Crimea might vote for independence or to join Russia if it was given a legitimate referendum doesn't justify pretending that this was in fact what they were given.

N1AK

vivatifosi wrote: »

b) how widely Nazi and Communist memorabilia is available on market stalls. I'm sure that there's an argument that it is there to sell to tourists, but it was still unsettling.

Half the Tatar population of Crimea died as a result of being forcibly deported by Russia after world war 2. In the west we look very mildly on the atrocities of the Soviets, in no small part because we silenced or dismissed them because of political need at the time. For the Ukrainians, and especially the Tatars, the Nazis (as bad as they were) seemed better because they opposed Russia.

It's like how protestants in Northern Ireland look on some British figures as heroes for strengthening their cause while Catholics look on them as war criminals who killed and tortured thousands. To a catholic it was inconceivable that one could like those 'monsters' but to a Protestant they were their saviours from the risk of destruction at the hands of the Catholics.