i stopped reading there
And this is a part of the problem. Saying "la la la I can't hear you" doesn't change the facts. Kindly read completely, then respond.
russia meddled in an *internal* georgian dispute that occurred within the internationally recognized borders of georgia. then it divided the country into a "new" bullshit country abkhazia
Abkhazia is not a new bullshit country, it is, in fact, a very old one, but it is a different history lesson. Russia meddled in an internal Georgian dispute because, among the civilians in Tskhinvali, their peace keeping forces stationed there were also shelled. That is the official reason.
is it ok if the usa invades the mexican district of sonora and announces that it is a new country? why can the usa do this? uhhh... drug smuggling. yeah, that's our reason. perfectly good reason, totally understandable, right moron?
Was it okay that USA has bombed Serbia - a sovereign country - into submission and divided the country during the civil war, recognising a new independent country there? Even though Kosovo has been a part of Serbia for almost a thousand years? This has set a dangerous precedent. Meddling on other civil wars (Lybia and Syria quickly come to mind) hasn't helped the argument about internal affairs of a sovereign country either.
can the american fbi go into canada and arrest people? no? why not. can the us army occupy ontario? why not? because canada is a sovereign country, you dumb fuck
In fact they can. CIA routinely abducted people, torturing them in secret prisons (some of them were on Poland's soil, and these bastards call themselves Europeans). Guantanamo bay is full of them.
no country, anywhere in the world, does what russia did to georgia and ukraine without consequences.
Well, apparently this is not the case. See my example above with Serbia. Invading sovereign countries and topple governments, meddling in civil wars, bringing suffering to civilians is a favourite past time of NATO countries. USA, UK, Germany, France, Turkey, Poland, Australia and many more.
By the way, Georgia and Ukraine also took part in the Iraq invasion. For them it was just normal and fine, because their big brother USA has asked.
if you do, continue speaking on this topic. but if you continue to assert russia invading and dividing georgia and ukraine is "reasonable" then you do not understand what the fuck sovereignty means and are therefore announcing yourself as a complete moron or a propagandized idiot on this topic and you should shut up
Sovereignty doesn't mean much really if a strong enough country decides a military action is in order. That is what we in Germany call "die Realpolitik". I am personally not happy about this at all, but, unfortunately, when it comes to international relations, might makes right.
And speaking of internal problems, since Russia is the legal successor of USSR and the breakup of it was processed... well, let us say, not exactly constitutional way, one could, being a devil's advocate, argue, that it is an internal problem of Russia and all these countries are just illegal separatists. Somewhat far fetched, but the breakup was really handled bad, leading to several wars (The aforementioned civil war in Georgia, then Transnistria, the Armenia-Azerbayjan war, Tajik civil war, wars in Chechenia and Ingushetia, the current situation in Ukraine, which was bound to happen sooner or later and so on). This is why I can only sadly laugh when I see people here on Slashdot say that the breakup was peaceful.
I speak Russian fluently, although, obviously, with a German accent, and have visited several former Soviet republics (going to Ukraine in two weeks BTW) and east European countries, this - and being born on the other side of the Iron Curtain - gives me a somewhat different perspective on all that.
P.S. there was really no need for insults there. We both are grown-ups and can hold a polite discussion.
What Russia did to Georgia in 2008 is a continuation of what Georgia did to itself in the early nineties. It was the same story as in the Balkans. Besides, as funny as it may sound, Russians were sort of the good ones in 2008. The then-president of Georgia saw his popularity dwindling and wanted to boost it - especially within the nationalist circles - with a little war on the break-off population which was de-facto independent for 15 years.
what's actually important is the fucking borders of a fucking sovereign nation, and that modern states respect that
You are very funny. Even Germany here has been bombing several foreign countries in the past 20 years, forgetting the "never again war" concept as soon as USA called. Any respect for borders of a sovereign nation only exists when it is politically convenient.
I can't help but think the recent attention to the gender wage gap is a convenient political distraction. It's a real problem, but the timing is very suspect. To explain, I'll repurpose a joke I once heard about unions...
A CEO, a politician and a male and female worker sit at a table. There are 302 cookies on the table. The CEO rakes 300 over for himself. He gives one of the remaining cookies to the male worker. Then he breaks the second remaining cookie into 6 fragments, gives 5 to the female worker and keeps the last fragment for himself.
Then the politician says to the female worker, "Hey, isn't it unfair that the male worker got more than you!? We gotta do something about that!"
Not just nuclear. They have sold almost all of their conventional weapons as well, back in the 1990ies, to every tin pot dictator with spare cash.
Even so Russia invades Ukraine just now, and it took a coup to do that. I think you are vastly oversimplifying things.
THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE
