Now the Long Knives are poised right in the back of Ukraine:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26400035

Fucking brilliant approach, this. First the attempt to play divide and conquer in Ukraine pretty transparently crashed and burned with the retun of Ukraine's Benazir Bhutto to political influence. Then, the Russians decide evidently that they really did move in Russian Army soldiers into the Crimea. Because the proper instinct when a risky gamble fails is to raise the stakes. This is not going to end well by any means. Now I'm wondering how long Lucashenko will have a country to rule as dictator, and what might happen with Round II with Georgia. If Tsar Vladimir I of the House of Putin succeeds in this kind of thing, that will only encourage him to expand his wars of aggression further because Ukraine is rather larger than Georgia, and this would permit Russia to begin aspiring to regain aspects of the old Tsarist boundaries. I sincerely expected Russia would use Central Asia for this kind of thing, not Ukraine.

The EU wouldn't give a damn about invading Muslims in Kazakhstan, but invading an EU state? That's not going to lead Russia to do anything but decide to engage in still-larger wars of aggression in the long term.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/europe/ukraine-politics/

And one of the chambers of the Russian legislature just approved this request. Hoo, boy.

Shit got real-er:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26403996

The Ukrainian Army is now on full combat alert. The prospect that the centennial year of the First World War will see the first large-scale conventional European war in decades has risen exponentially.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

First you say,

"the whole argument is/will be academic soon because the "tolerability" of a situation is utterly irrelevant without the ability to effect it. We can bitch and moan about political or humanitarian crises till the cows come home, it wont matter because we will have given up the ability to act"

Which translates as, "why have a principled position if it wouldn't matter anyway", which is a typical ad hoc approach to principle.

...But now you're arguing in favor of a policy based on consistent principle-based position.

So which is it?

It shouldn't matter if you're setting the policy - you either support having a principled position, or you support having an ad hoc approach. You can't have it both ways.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Apologies for the delayed reply, events in meat-space have been keeping me busy.

It's not so much being "ad hoc" as it is recognizing the validity of the reasoning behind both positions.

The problem comes from people trying to eat their cake and have it to. IE. when a so called "Nihilist" complains about fairness or lack there of, or advocates of pure democracy complain about the majority oppressing a minority. Someone who would drop their principals the moment they become inconvenient was clearly never principled to begin with.

Much as how "a right un-exercised is already lost" a principal that goes undefended isn't really held.

So now we have the situation in Ukraine where the US and EU are saying they support Ukrainian sovereignty. But this is clearly a lie because thus far no one is willing to stand up to Putin and defend it.

I don't want to have it both ways, my position is more "either drop the pretenses, or put your money where your mouth is". .