“Crimea was always Russian!” France’s Marine Le Pen schools CNN

The Shah (who while autocratic, was a pro-western secularist modernizing his country) had just been overthrown by a radical revolutionary Islamist movement which threatened to spread to the rest of the Shia region (Iraq, Bahrain, Gulf coast). This has actually transpired as Iranian-backed Shi’ite Islamists have taken over Iraq, control large part of Yemen, hold substantial power over Syria and virtually control Lebanon via Hezbollah.

I’m not going to defend every (or even most) foreign policy decisions made by the US during the Cold War. However I’m not talking about the US here. I’m talking about how Iran and Russia are becoming imperialist powers. For all the failings of the US and EU, they’re atleast liberal-democracies who live up to their higher ideals of human rights, international law and altruism at least sometimes (see NATO actions in Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, UN peacekeeping missions). The solution to the West’s failings certainly isn’t demagogic nationalism or far-right fascism.

Alex : The Shah was innstalled by the CIA in 1953 . He was a dictator , but he did one very good thing for Iran , he educated the whole country . It has a 70% literacy rate , higher than the USA. Unfortunately in 1977 the Iranian people found out that the Shah was CIA installed , and so the revolution of 79 . It was a bit messy , students took over the US embassy , and held Americans hostage for a year, until the Canadians smuggled them out. If you look at a map the Shia occupy Lebanon , Syria , Iraq and Iran . They are surrounded by Sunni’s , Turkey ,Jordan , Saudi , Qatar , Pakistan , Afghanistan etc , oh except Yemen , where the Saudi’s and Americans are slaughtering them. The Shia cresent is at present fighting for their lives against the American and Saudi backed Al Qaeda and ISIS jihadists . Your “radical revolutionary movement” was just some old Iranian clerics ranting on about their anger at the US for having the gaul to interfere in their government and oil . Russia and Syria have been ally’s for over 35 years , and nether Turkey , the US or the EU “coalition” have any legal or moral right to be in Syria. And if you look a little deeper , you will find that Gaddafi was loved by his people , free education , free medical etc . his problem was he was too good. He wanted to create a new gold currency , the big bank boys said NO. Hillary said OK , went in and took the gold 170 million tons ! Read a bit more , its interesting , just don;t get stuck following some ideology.

“they’re atleast liberal-democracies who live up to their higher ideals of human rights, international law and altruism”

lol fool

All talk, no action. Slapping a few sanctions on Iran is just to appease his base. In reality Trump’s giving Putin exactly what he wants in the Middle East, Syria. To the extent Iran benefits from that is purely at Putin’s discretion and whether Putin decides to expel Iran from Syria or let them stay as junior partner in his regional sphere of influence. He’s also openly allying with people like Nigel Farage and other far-right nationalists hoping to break up the EU and NATO. Actions taken by the US in the 1960s aren’t really relevant anymore. Gadafi quickly became anti-western as well as aligned with Russia & China (sponsoring terrorist attacks abroad). The intervention could have worked if troops had remained to stabilize the situation as the 2012 and 2014 Libyan elections both resulted in moderates and secular democrats winning the elections. Besides, the initial uprising and civil war was a result of an indigenous revolution not outside intervention. Maybe Gadafi wouldn’t have fallen but there’d certainly still been an insurgency, civil war, chaos etc.

Far-right nationalism (fascism) and Eurasianist revanchism is the stated ideology of Alexander Duglin, Putin’s ideological mentor. White-nationalism is also the ideology of Steve Bannon, Trump’s ideological mentor. I’m not making this up, conservatives and liberals alike have made this observation.

Yeah right, ‘conservatives’ – neocon bloodthirsty fascist psychopaths like J.McCain and ‘liberals’ like Soros, nothing but goebbelsian russophobic rubbish and insane conspiracy theories…

Ideological mentors? lololololololol. How old are you? 15?

I explained why I thought Putin was evil with actual examples ( his global strategy to break the liberal democratic world and expand his sphere of influence worldwide).

The ‘liberal democratic world’ is doing just fine, aggressively expanding it’s sphere of influence in last decades into – Croatia/Bulgaria/Romania/Iraq and more recently into Libya/Montenegro/Brazil/Honduras, not forgetting current failing attempt to capture Syria. Take a look at a map of Europe and the NATO expansion toward Russia in last two decades – the large number of bases clustered around Russia. Lay off the kool-aid a little.

no, you did not. your comment is (Copy and paste):

“Down with Russian-backed fascists. EmmanuelMacron2017! This site is a Russian-funded propaganda site (like RT, Sputnik etc).”

I agree with your assessment about the referendums. I favor a free and full referendum on all territories where there is at least a significant demand monitored by all observers including Russia, locals, UN, EU etc.

Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev (Ukrainian)gave Crimea to Ukraine like a gift in 1954 otherwise after Russian -Turkey war 1783 Crimea was Russian territory and never be Ukrainian territory.

Thank you for your correction .

It’s not questionable, there was absolutely NO genocide in Kosovo (against albanians), not even NATO tribunal in Hague ever claimed so… their narrative was ‘humanitarian catastrophe’/caused by Nato bombing btw/ but not genocide, Alex M is just full of shite. Racak ‘massacre’ was questionable (used as a casus belli for illegal NATO aggression), a few dead terrorists, nothing else.

Actually the real genocide was committed against Serbs, AFTER NATO occupation, when Albanians (including those from Albania) almost completely eradicated entire Serbian population (except in N.Kosovo): there were some 40.000 Serbs in Pristina (capital of Kosovo) before NATO intervention – there are less than 400 now. Basically 99% of Serbian population was expelled or killed, Albanians destroyed Serbian/christain churches, centuries old, even graveyards…. the very definition of genocide, fully supported by NATO.

Aware of that but being diplomatic to try and suggest to Alex M that the spoon fed NATO ‘narrative’ he has ingested for over a decade, may be just as wrong as all the others western governments have since claimed. Similar in nature to the repeated ‘narratives’ over Iraq – Libya – Ukraine – Syria, ie, claims of urgent military intervention required by unsubstantiated claims of either WMD’s, or government atrocities against civilians – that eventually always results in land grabs by NATO. It’s same repeated narrative, but because Kosovo was first and pre-Iraq, many in west fail to connect the pattern, and don’t apply the same skepticism to older ingrained Kosovo narrative as they apply post Iraq WMD disinformation narrative and those since.

Nobody was killed when Nazi Germany illegally annexed Austria. It’s still an illegal conquest that violated the sovereign, internationally-recognised borders of a European country.

The only shadow of a gun was the threat by pro-Russian separatists and anarchists in Donbass and Lugansk. And the Ukranian elections were attended by international and independent observes unlike the “referendum”. Deriding and deligitimization attempts of Ukranian governemnt won’t create a diversion from Crimea.

So they are “bilingual speaking” now. Many people have a second language. Especially in post-soviet countries, Russian is still spoken as a second language although not all might speak it. Does that mean Russia has right over every country that was a part of USSR or Russian Empire and can do whatever it like? Most of the people speak Ukrainian as predominant language and are ethnic Ukranians. Miss Le Pen here however thinks it is okay to annex Crimea because they’re “ethnic Russians”. You are talking about some World War II ethnic cleansing by nationalist militias to justify acts of Russia. Did you know that in 1897 Crimean Tatars formed the majority in Crimea? What made Crimea majority Russian and Russian outnumber Tatars 2 times in a matter of 3 decades and Tatars not even being in Crimea by the 1950s? Mass-migration and forced deportation respectively. No Tatar was recorded in further consensus after the deportations and more than 30,000 died because of Soviet policies or were killed. So to whom does Crimea rightfully belong to?

Lets say your numbers are true and not from EuroMaidanHeilBandera.com (I’m lazy to check tbh) so what? Kiev was Russian centuries before your poor, innocent NON-Crimean Tatars came from Mongolia, slaughtering, raping, enslaving Christian population, that’s basically the only thing they did for centuries, their entire economy was based on raids, terror and slavery… and that’s how they became the majority in Crimea in the first place. So to whom does Crimea rightfully belong to? Not to them for sure. Scythians do not exits anymore… maybe Greeks? Hey return them Istanbul/Constantinople first! And many other cities in Turkey. No?

And then the poor, little Tatars supported Hitler during his ‘crusade’ to exterminate all slavic people, but unfortunately for them – he lost. Oh poor little Tatars, and poor little Hitler! btw Ukrainians never gave a fk for Tatars but suddenly they love them sooooo much, they sing songs about them, and weep deeply over their sad fate… how touching. But the truth is: tatars don’t give a fk for Ukraine, a few of them were bought with saudi/qatar money and supported by Kiev, Washington and Istanbul, but most of them don’t really care – at least they have bigger pensions in Russia.

You are evidently a Muslim, who has a tedious axe to grind with Russia. Largely because Russian intervention in Syria finally stopped a Sunni Islamist armed insurgency – always Muslim Brotherhood based – from any remote chance of victory. Incidentally, your comments would strongly suggest you have Islamist leanings yourself, given your obsessive anti Russian fixation over the turn of events. The point is, you don’t know much about the complex ethnic histories of central and eastern Europe – old regions like Galicia. Very much doubt you particularly care about Ukrainians and the varied European ethnic demographics that constitute the current Ukrainian state – you merely singled out Tartars because they are, well, surprise, surprise, Muslims. You are aligning yourself with the current Kiev regime because it opposes Russia. It’s that simple. You are operating on the old short term maxim, that – my enemies, enemy, is my ally. But in all your anti Russian zeal you failed to note that Ukraine is fundamentally Christian, Catholic and Orthodox, in region and state. A religion you previously disparaged on these very forum pages. You are evidently a Muslim, with apparent Islamist leanings, who is dismayed that the GCC’s Islamist proxy militants have failed in Syria. You blame Russia for these events, as they indeed reversed all of the Islamist’s gains from pre-2015, and you have developed a virulent strain of Russo-phobia as consequence.

So I am a Muslim who has an axe to grind with Russia just because I oppose its illegal annexation. You know you are evidently an excuse-maker who brings up another accusation. This is the kind of behavior you Putino-crazies indulge in. I singled out Tatars because of two simple reasons – Crimean Tatars have been in Crimea for more than 7 centuries, ruling it longer than any Russian state. Tatars were the majority before becoming a minority and not at all existing in Crimea per the Soviet census. The Tatars have been living in Crimea even before they were Muslims, I guess you didn’t know that as well.

I have no fake “Russo-phobia” or any hate for “Christian/Catholic/Orthodox”. Of course I do respond equally when someone attacks me or my people. Even if we are to go back to ancient history, the first peoples who came in Crimea were Scythians, Cimmerians, both who were related to the Turkic people as well as the Greeks who colonised it. So what wrong am I talking about here? I even detailed the whole history about it. Instead of making up fake accusations, why don’t you accept the truth? A new referendum for Crimes should be held and there should be no shadow of any gun this time, no boycotts, voted by all peoples and monitored by international observes should be held. Not like the last time when a farce was held. If you are so sure that most people in Crimea support you, then why the lollygagging? A free and fair referendum, that’s what should happen. Until it does, Crimea belongs to Ukraine. I stand up for what is right. You are a very dishonest man.

Crimea is gone, it’s Russian. Tartars are minority, around ten percent of population today. As aside, when you repeatedly screech ‘Christc**cksucker’ at others in Disqus forums, as you do, it’s a basic given you hate Christians.

First thing first – Crime still exists and annexation doesn’t mean it doesn’t anymore, neither is simple majority a reason. As for “christcocksucker” I only say that to those who pass insults and attacks against Muslims as I already said earlier. Why don’t you notice that? Or are you too busy conjuring up excuses?

Excuses? All I see is you excusing your use of term ‘Christc**ksucker’ against Christians on Disqus – your use therein invalidates anything more you have to say, period – no excuses.

What I said wasn’t an excuse, it was the truth unlike you who let’s be honest only is saying it for political purposes. Whatever you want to say or make up about is irrelevant, when someone tosses insults at Muslims, I’ll reply back. Be sure of that.

‘So to whom does Crimea rightfully belong to?’ Certainly NOT to those muslim turko-mongolian invaders, who slaughtered, pillaged, enslaved local Christian population for centuries, their entire economy was based on raids, terror and slavery (that’s how they became ‘majority’ in the first place). They also supported Hitler in his ‘crusade’ to exterminate Slavic population, poor little innocent Tatars (and poor little innocent Hitler… and Bandera); now we have maidan-regime clowns crying for Tatars, singing songs and weeping deeply…. how touching. LOL! But the truth is: Ukrainians never liked them, and they never liked Ukraine, a few activists and fanatics bought with Saudi/Qatar money and supported by Istanbul, WashingtonDC and Kiev do not represent anyone but themselves…. most Tatars don’t care, at least they have bigger pensions in Russia.

So again: to whom does Crimea rightfully belong to? Russia of course. Even Greeks have more historical claims then Ukraine or tatars. Speaking of Greeks, how about Istanbul, Smyrna, Trabzon? Northern Cyprus?? No? How about Kiev? Or New York? Huh?

Yeah certainly except the Tatars you’re blaming were there in Crimea long before they converted to Islam. Not to mention even the Russians indulged in slavery and sold their own Christian kinsmen whether Russian, German etc. As for supporting Hitler, more Tatars served in the Soviet Red Army than in the Nazi Army. But I bet that wasn’t told to you. But of course, that isn’t of interest to you, you want to justify Russia’s actions. Despite this, their leaders were killed even before World War II. As for Saudi/Qatar dirty money,the Tatars never had much of Salafism and there are only very small Salafist communities just as there are Shia communities of Tatars.

So to whom does Crimea rightfully belong to? Those who have been living in Crimea for more than 7 centuries before Russians came and even before the Turkic-speakrrs converted to Islam. You want to talk about Russia, but did you know Russians themselves migrated to Russia? Besides as I already said, Crimea was ocvupied by many powers in history. As for Greeks, they “colonised” parts of Crimea and even Scythians and Cimmerians, a people related and livinh alongside the Turkic peoples at the same time. Now about Istanbu, Smyrna and Trabzon, did you know Greeks colonised Anatolia as well. But before that many ancient people like Hittites settled in Anatolia and Greeks only occupied Western Anatolia until the Roman Empire? Lying annexation supporter.