A brief history of Crimea's close ties to Russia explains a lot.

[dixiegrrrrl]

With nearly every other main street named after a Russian military hero or a gruesome battle, its lovely seafront promenade dominated by a “monument to sunken ships” and its central square named after the imperial admiral who commanded Russian forces against French, British and Turkish troops in the 19th century, Sevastopol constantly feeds thoughts of war and its agonies.
Bombarded with reminders of the Crimean War, which involved a near yearlong siege of the city in 1854-55, and World War II, when the city doggedly resisted Nazi forces until finally falling in July 1942, Sevastopol has never stopped thinking about wartime losses — and has never been able to cope with the amputation carried out in 1954 by the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev.
Khrushchev ordered Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the time, the operation caused little pain, as both Russia and Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union, which chloroformed ethnic, linguistic and cultural divisions with repression.

When Ukraine became a separate independent nation near the end of 1991, however, Sevastopol — the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the 18th century — began howling, culminating in the Crimean Parliament’s decision on Thursday to hold a referendum on March 16 on whether to break away from Ukraine and formally become part of Russia again. Jubilant residents gathered in Sevastopol.

“We’re returning home,” said one of them, Victoria Krupko. “We’ve waited a long time for this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/world/europe/crimea-russia.html?_r=1

[The Magistrate]

1. They Stole It Fair And Square About The Time We Had Our Revolution, Ma'am

If we are going by seniority, Turkey has a much better claim....

[Little Star]

2. Sounds like Crimea is willingly going back to Russia...

Guess we'll see come March 16th.

edit to add: And it doesn't look like Putin has much interest in the rest of Ukraine

[Igel]

3. I'm pretty sure I heard people object to the Iraq election.

After all, armed US soldiers were on the street. How could you have an unbiased election under those terms?

Somehow it doesn't seem to apply to other militaries. 30k Russian troops in the Crimea won't in any way bias the election.

Esp. when the electoral rolls are seized, Ukrainian media is blocked, and all the news that's fit to print in the Crimea is from Russia or local. Now *that's* an odd view of freedom of information and net neutrality.

Even the Tatars are the subject of attempted bribes. Offers have been made of ponying up money to help repatriate Tatars living elsewhere in Russia, in exchange for support. With the implicit counter-threat: If you want other Tatars to be allowed to emigrate ...

[amandabeech]

4. Don't forget that the current "leader" of Crimea took his position by force,

and that the Crimean parliament was locked in and incommunicado when they voted on joining Russia. And, of course, their were military types outside with guns and no insignia.

Bush II's invasion in Iraq was a horror and I don't recall anyone here supporting it.

I just do not understand why Putin doing the same thing here is so wonderful.

Why can't we any and all bad actions no matter who is doing them?