{"id":596,"date":"2014-03-02T16:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T16:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/03\/the-80s-called.html"},"modified":"2014-03-02T16:28:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T16:28:00","slug":"the-80s-called","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/03\/the-80s-called.html","title":{"rendered":"The 80s called. . ."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Found this classic quote from Salon<\/a>\u00a0by googling \u201cthe 80s called\u201d + cold war: <\/p>\n

In an exchange about al-Qaida during the debate, Obama attacked Romney for calling Russia\u00a0\u00a0\u201cwithout question, our No. 1\u00a0geopolitical foe\u201d earlier this year.<\/span>\u201c\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGov. Romney, I\u2019m glad you recognize al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what is the biggest geopolitical group facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida,\u201d Obama said. \u201cYou said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War has been over for 20 years. But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policy of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, and in the process, I discovered that every blogger out there is using this reference in talking about the current crisis in Ukraine. \u00a0(Current Drudge top headline, a Washington Post article, here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And, of course, it\u2019s entertaining to indulge in this schadenfreude of mocking Obama for being so foolish as to imagine that a \u201creset button\u201d was going to lead to World Peace, just as much as the Left liked to mock Bush\u2019s statement that he \u201clooked into Putin\u2019s eyes.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Funny thing is, in talking about this with my husband yesterday, I found myself referring to the \u201cSoviet Union\u201d rather than Russia.)<\/p>\n

And yet \u2014 now, of course, we\u2019ve got the situation in which Russia has already militarily intervened, and will probably succeed in taking Crimea and either annexing it or declaring it to be independent. \u00a0And the West will probably spout out words of outrage but do nothing more than when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 \u2014 because there aren\u2019t really any good alternatives. \u00a0As this article on pjmedia.com<\/a> points out, this is not a simple matter of replacing a dictator with a democrat and everything\u2019s good. \u00a0Ukraine has a very troubled economy and no tradition of true democratic governance, but plenty of corruption to go around. \u00a0They\u2019re shockingly poor for a European country, with kleptocrats helping themselves to any wealth the country does produce. \u00a0(Besides, knowing how willingly the Ukrainians collaborated with the Germans in the Holocaust makes them less sympathetic than your generic oppressed people, though the Holomodor counterbalances this.)<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s another fun piece, a set of maps<\/a> that\u2019s been floating around facebook. \u00a0Crimea isn\u2019t really \u201cnaturally\u201d a part of Ukraine. \u00a0Besides which, Crimea was historically the Tartar\u2019s homeland, until Stalin uprooted them all and relocated ethnic Russians there.<\/p>\n

So imagine that Russia hadn\u2019t invaded Crimea to create new facts on the ground, but that, instead, the Russian majority in the province had agitated for autonomy from an increasingly-Ukrainian Ukraine. \u00a0 What then? \u00a0What would the justification have been for denying their aspirations?<\/p>\n

Really, so far as I know, there are no established principles of when a secessionist movement is declared legitimate, and when not so. \u00a0Clearly, you\u2019ve got situations like the pending independence vote in Scotland, in which the U.K. has said it\u2019ll abide by the result, whatever it is. \u00a0But we\u2019ve got Kosovo, and South Sudan, and East Timor, which were hardly voluntary and peaceful. \u00a0The Wikipedia history of East Timor says in the introductory paragraph that Indonesia ceded control in 1999, and only afterwards tells us that this was after a long war for independence subsequent to Indonesia\u2019s occupying the country in 1975, following Portugese abandonment of its former colony. \u00a0(I couldn\u2019t really tell whether Indonesia had a historical claim or invaded purely out of conquest.)<\/p>\n

But even with respect to Scotland, the EU has already said that Scotland wouldn\u2019t be welcome, lest their secession encourage others. \u00a0And then there are situations like Somaliland in Somalia, a secessionist movement which isn\u2019t being recognized.<\/p>\n

For that matter, consider the American Civil War. \u00a0What justification, really, was there in forcing the Southern states to remain in the Union? \u00a0Why not let them go their own way? \u00a0It\u2019s almost inconceivable \u2014 and I\u2019ll bet your gut reaction, dear reader, is likely, \u201cbut if they had succeeded, then slavery never would have ended!\u201d \u2014 but the rationale at the time was not, \u201cthey must stay in the Union so that, when the time is right, we can end slavery.\u201d \u00a0And now, the revisionist claim is generally that the Civil War was not about slavery at all, but solely about preserving the Union \u2014 which I generally disagree with precisely because there had to have been a reason for the preservation of the Union to have been worth so many lives. <\/p>\n

So, anyway, is the reason why some secessionist movements are acceptable to the International Community and some not, is a determination that a given secessionist group consists of Good People, and another one doesn\u2019t, with bonus points if you\u2019ve been oppressed in the past?<\/p>\n

Does it matter whether the secessionist province is wholly united in its desire for independence, or somewhat less so? \u00a0What if Crimea were not 50% Russian (25% Ukrainian, the rest Tartar and \u201cother\u201d), but 75% or 90%? \u00a0Majority rules or supermajority? \u00a0And what of an ethnic minority split between multiple countries \u2014 the Kurds, for instance? \u00a0 Could we permit or should we demand redrawing the map to more clearly place ethnic groups in neat national boundaries? \u00a0In that sense, the comparisons to the Anschluss are mistaken \u2014 we\u2019re really speaking more of the Sudetenland, Hitler\u2019s demand that the German part of Czechoslovakia be united to Germany. \u00a0And let\u2019s not forget the ethnic cleansing post-war: \u00a0the mass numbers of ethnic Germans expelled from Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslovia in the name of ensuring they wouldn\u2019t make trouble; and Stalin expelling Poles from the portion of prewar Poland that the USSR held onto, which now became part of Ukraine \u2014 plus other instances in which ethnic groups were moved into an area to create \u201cfacts on the ground\u201d such as China moving Han Chinese into Tibet and other ethnic minority areas.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m not offering any pat answers. \u00a0There aren\u2019t any, and I\u2019m hugely skeptical of a politician that asserts there are. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Found this classic quote from Salon\u00a0by googling \u201cthe 80s called\u201d + cold war: In an exchange about al-Qaida during the debate, Obama attacked Romney for calling Russia\u00a0\u00a0\u201cwithout question, our No. 1\u00a0geopolitical foe\u201d earlier this year.\u201c\u00a0 \u201cGov. Romney, I\u2019m glad you recognize al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 80s called. . .<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Found this classic quote from Salon by googling "the 80s called" + cold war: In an exchange about al-Qaida during the debate, Obama attacked Romney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/03\/the-80s-called.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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