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From CNN live updates:

US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "pure thug" while speaking at a St. Patrick's Day event Thursday.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-17-22/index.html

Highly undiplomatic... but perfectly true.[/quote]
He also called him a war criminal yesterday. Telling it like it is.[/quote]

[b]Agree that Putin is a blatant war criminal, but Biden is as well[/b]. Voted for Iraq and Afghanistan wars which whether you like it or not were essentially the same
thing Putin is doing — “the regime is [anti-democracy / nazis] and they have [weapons of mass destruction / biolabs]”. Also has been arming Ukrainian nationalists and sent CIA to train them in their battle against Donbas separatists. Armed the Free Syria Army against Assad and many of the weapons ended up in ISIS hands. Supported bloody Libya coup. Not to mention all the drone strikes under Biden and Obama. Prolific, prolific war criminal just like Putin. [b]Both men will burn in hell because there is nothing more shameful than sowing death and destruction during your time on earth[/b].[/quote]

To be fair, all US presidents have overseen foreign military adventures--covert or otherwise--resulting in death and destruction. As a nation, we were founded through violence and we promote our interests abroad with violence. We are also the world's largest arms dealer, not to mention the country with the most armed citizens (but that's a whole other subject). So Biden is just one more in a long line of presidents who have exerted American power through violent means. [/quote]

Yep.  I guess the founding fathers are war criminals, too, and are roasting in hell right now.[/quote]

And so is Abraham Lincoln.

One key difference between Lincoln and Putin is that Putin waited 30 years after Ukraine's separation from Russia to attempt to pull them back into the fold, while Lincoln to action immediately. But that doesn't change the fact that Lincoln has a lot of blood on his hands -- yet we consider him one of our greatest presidents .. perhaps the greatest of all.

It is interesting that some leaders who have attempted to expand their territory are considered evil, while others are heroes. What is the criteria for determining which expansionist leader is a hero and which is a monster?

[/quote]

You got this the wrong way around - the Confederates were trying to expand their new state, while Lincoln was trying to maintain the status quo land mass of the United States.

Putin is like the Confederates - trying to take what wasn't his to begin with.[/quote]

But Ukraine was once a member state in the USSR. Suppose the Soviets had immediately acted, in 1991, to try to pull Ukraine back into a rump-version of the USSR. Would that have been a "legal" war? If the answer is "yes" to that question, then isn't it the passage of time -- from 1991 to 2022 -- and the fact that Ukraine operated independently during this period, that distinguishes the actions taken by Lincoln from those taken by Putin?[/quote]

NO.  The answer to the question “would that have been a legal war is - NO!  Ukraine voted in a nationwide referendum to affirm the vote in their Rada/Parliament to dissolve their ties with the USSR.  The referendum had something like 84% turnout and 92% approved independence - even on the Crimean Peninsula, more than 50% approved separation.

Ukraine is not some situation in which political representatives voted to secede.  Almost the entire population voted to secede and it followed that secession by negotiations and legal agreements as to the nature of the successor organization (CIS) and status of the Baltic fleet, nukes, etc.

There are no factual circumstances that existed would have justified Russia or the USSR to forcibly take back Ukraine - neither then nor now.

[/quote]

Prior to the Civil War, the south voted unanimously to withdraw from the union. Does this mean that Lincoln waged an illegal war?[/quote]

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just posted. [/quote]

Why don't you just humor me and explain the issue to me. Explain it to me to me in general terms. If two regions, A and B, are operating under a unified government, and region "B" votes to leave the union, under what circumstances is the president of "A" allowed to wage war on "B" in an effort to re-form the union? [/quote]

If region B uses human slavery based on skin color.[/quote]

So the Civil War was waged to end slavery? [b]I think many historians would disagree. [/b]

In any case, I'm not looking for specific reasoning with respect to the Civil War -- rather, I'm looking for the general rule: when is a war legal, and when it is illegal, with respect to pulling regions "A" and "B" back together into a union that had previously existed. Thanks in advance for anybody who can give me a clear explanation without hurling insults at me or being impolite.[/quote]

Name two.

With regards to Ukraine, in 1994 Russia acknowledged Ukraine as a sovereign nation and promised to respect its borders. [/quote]

It isn't just that though.  Under the USSR Ukraine was considered separate as well.  In otherwords, Russia has never had a claim.  Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc were all formally separate Soviet Socialist Republics.  It'd be like the US claiming Mexico if NAFTA falls apart.  Or France claiming Spain if the EU does.

The trolls are trying to use our general ignorance of history and structures in that part of the world against us.  The USSR was dominated by Russia but it was not Russia.  Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Turkmenistan etc withdrew from the Union under the terms and rights of the Union itself.[/quote]

The USSR was not analogous to NAFTA or the EU. Yes, there were separate SSRs, but they were all controlled by a central governing body out of Moscow. [/quote]

Sounds like the EU to me.

By the way, Ukraine and Belarus had their own votes in the UN during the USSR days.  In other words, calling them a break away region is extremely disengenuous.  The USSR was nothing more than a communist version of the United Arab Republic.

[/quote]

The EU Parliament does not have the extent of authority over EU members that the Politburo had over the SSRs. [/quote]

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