Russia claims that ethnic Russian Ukrainians were persecuted by the Kiev government. If - if - this is true, one could make a good argument for the Russian invasion of at least the eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine itself has never been a geopolitical threat to Russia, but NATO is, and Ukraine and NATO (with the EU) have been moving towards alliance in defiance of understandings reached after the end of the Cold War. You could argue that it should be up to sovereign Ukraine to decide on its military alliances, but not all Ukrainians support an alignment with the 'West', and the history of the situation is anyway complicated. Many respectable Ukrainians and Russians alike do not regard the Ukraine as a separate country to Russia. Personally I take no sides and remain neutral, I merely note that there is more to it than just cheaply monsterising Vladimir Putin will allow.
I don't believe Russia's objective is to occupy the whole of the Ukraine. That would serve no purpose. The aim is to neutralise the Ukraine and bring the parties to the table for an agreement that will contain NATO.
In view of all this, I don't accept that Ukraine are the nice country everybody pretends, nor do I accept that Vladimir Putin is unusually cynical for a world leader.
You mention Saddam Hussein, by comparison. I don't accept that Saddam Hussein was beyond the pale. He has been turned into a comical villain by Western propaganda, but the facts tell me that:
- when Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq, he set about Westernising the country, in contrast to revolutionary Islamic Iran, and sought friendly relations with the West;
- Saddam turned Iraq from a Middle Eastern backwater into a modern society;
- Saddam enjoyed amicable and constructive relations, even ally status, with the United States until the first Gulf War. I believe the USA sided with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and gave billions of dollars in aid;
- Iraq started the Iran-Iraq War, but Iran was the cause of it. This is reflected in the support of the U.S. government for Iraq, not Iran. Iran was attempting to spread its revolutionary Islamic system to Iraq. The suspicion has to be that Washington told Saddam Hussein to invade Iran - and I believe that is what occurred;
- I accept that the invasion of Kuwait was wrong, but Saddam claimed the U.S. had no objection to the invasion and only turned on him after the event. This may or may not be true, but consider that relations between the two countries were amicable up until this point, and initially the U.S. reaction to the invasion was a stance of neutrality;
- when Saddam Hussein was on trial in Iraq, his reaction was often to laugh at his accusers. Given the 'true' history of what occurred, some of which I have outlined above, I am not surprised that he laughed. He must have been astonished at the nerve and hypocrisy of his accusers, especially when you consider that the invasion of Iraq itself (which you disgracefully seem to want to justify) removed the very regime that was a determined bulwark against aggressive Islamic fundamentalism. The invasion of Iraq was not only an illegal act and a massive war crime, it was one of the stupidest acts in history, and Madeleine Albright is a war criminal, along with the rest.
I don't pretend that Saddam Hussein was a nice man. I am sure aspects of his regime were horrible, but he was not how he was portrayed. You could possibly make a case that he was a war criminal for his prosecution of the Iran-Iraq War, but as I have explained, he didn't cause it and one thing people like you never mention is that it was Iraq that sued for peace in that war and Iran then evolved into the obdurate aggressor. Unlike George W. Bush, who undoubtedly was a war criminal and all that's left is the formality of a trial, in Saddam's case the matter is very much open to debate. It is even possible to regard Saddam Hussein as a hero for his actions over the Iran-Iraq War. I appreciate that he started that war partly for reasons of national self-esteem and self-interest, including greed, but Iraq was also setting out to prevent the spread of revolutionary Islam, which is why the U.S. government back them (and ironically, also was a borrowed justification for the later invasion of Iraq).
If you go through life believing what the mainstream media say, you will end up with a very misconceived view of world events.
They are lying to you.
