I don't see how the new leaders of the Ukraine are legitimate. Can anyone argue why they are?

[reformist2]

[seattledo]

1. No one racist is legitimate.

Anyone that argues that they are is suspect.

[LiberalEsto]

2. I'm curious. What racism are you talking about? nt

[Skip Intro]

19. what? n/t

[L0oniX]

28. Well ...ok ...but we don't want the Irish.

Luv Mel Brooks

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. The elected parliament voted a "temporary interim care taker" apparently

Whatever the fuck that means.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. Their Parliament voted to impeach.

What is it in that simple statement of fact that you're missing?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

5. ^^^^^CORRECT^^^^^

[Igel]

12. You didn't follow the rationale, did you?

Yanukovich was to sign the legislation restoring the 2004 constitution. Otherwise he was to stay put and help establish a consensus government.

Instead he left. When the legislation was passed he called it illegitimate, even though it was appropriate and agreed to. There wasn't anybody there to help establish a consensus government.

Instead he had a couple of semis back up to his palatial estate and he loaded them and left town. That created a bit of a power vacuum. Numerous of his top-level appointees also bugged out. They didn't say where they were going. They gave no notice of leaving. They vanished, and for a couple of days his whereabouts was pretty much unknown. Not a desirable trait in a leader.

He initialed an agreement he didn't like. Then he left with no obvious intent to fulfill it, and has done nothing to fulfill it. He has only rights and no responsibilities, obligations owed to him but he owes nothing in return.

The VR's response was to pass the legislation a second time as a resolution requiring no signature. And because somebody needed to be the executive, they appointed somebody.

Yanukovich abandoned his post hours after negotiating a deal to end a crisis, and the vacuum he left could easily have led to the crisis worsening. He didn't follow through, but called actions taken to fulfill it "illegitimate." I don't see a reason to consider him the legitimate leader.

[William769]

11. +1.

[Keefer]

6. Why do you call it

"THE" Ukraine? That's like calling it "THE" Canada.

[billh58]

7. Old usage

"The name Ukraine means "borderland". The form "the Ukraine" was once usual in English. Since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, the English-speaking world has largely stopped using the article."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

[Igel]

14. Or "the" United States.

I have the distinction between the Ukraine and Ukraine. One is a government and UN member. The other is a territory. To some extent they overlap. But the Donbas (not just "Donbas&quot is not in the Ukraine. Nor is the Crimea in the Ukraine.

For the present, both the Donbas and the Crimea are in Ukraine.

For a while in the '30s not all of the Ukraine was in Ukraine.

We still, however, say "the United States", "the Comoros," and "the Maldives." In the first case, there's a common noun, just as in "the United Kingdom" or "the Islamic Republic of Pakistan." In the second case the polity is the same as the geographic unit, and "the Comoros" is short for "the Comoros Islands" and "the Maldives" is short for "the Maldive Islands."

Calling the Ukraine "the Ukraine" is rather like calling the Yukon "the Yukon." We don't just say "Yukon", any more than we say that Seattle is in Pacific Northwest or that Denver is in Rockies.

[arely staircase]

29. The Lebanon, The Gambia

is what the Brits call Gambia and Lebanon.

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2007/04/gambia-lebanon-etc.html

[Lizzie Poppet]

33. Pretty used to saying "the Gambia" here in Portland.

Or at least soccer fans are here. The Timbers have two players from the Gambia, Mamadou "Futty" Danso and Pa Modou Kah. That's how they refer to their homeland, iirc. Both are central defenders, so when they're both playing, the nickname is "the Great Wall of the Gambia."

[11 Bravo]

8. Tell us why you don't believe they are. The duly elected Ukranian Parliament ...

has proclaimed the government to be legitimate, but perhaps you know better?

[Bad Thoughts]

9. The elected president lost legitimacy.

It happens when you shoot your citizens.

[okaawhatever]

13. ^^^^^^^For the Win^^^^^^^^^^^

[L0oniX]

27. Have you seen the palace he lived in? Holy opulence Batman!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

17. Obama isn't Yanokovych (thank God!), the tea party isn't the Ukrainian opposition, and....

....the United States isn't Ukraine.

There are too many variables way askew for that even remotely to be considered as a valid analogy.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. Under your flawed analogy, no.

Because it's a ridiculously flawed analogy that fails from the very beginning.

There is nothing remotely similar between any of the corresponding parties that you mention.

[Kurska]

24. If protesters were being gunned down in the street on Obama's orders I wouldn't support him.

Luckily Obama would never do that, which is why your analogy is so very flawed.

[L0oniX]

30. Should I wonder if some would support him?

[okaawhatever]

16. He's welcome to come back and dispute the process undertaken. Then he can be arrested for the

massive theft of money and attempted murder. Then the Ukrainian voters can have a free and fair election that Putin will approve of.

But if we're going to get all constitutional about this. Shall we look at all the unconstitutional actions undertaken by him long before the protests?

[reformist2]

22. You can't justify his violent ouster by saying he deserved to be impeached anyway.

[Adrahil]

32. But he WAS impeached.

The bill proposing impeachment (authored by a member of his OWN ruling coalition) was introduced BEFORE he fled Kiev. AS his support base eroded, he saw the hand-writing on the wall and hoofed it. The information uncovered since then seems to indicate the protests were MORE than justified.

[pampango]

23. He would not have to come back if he had never fled. He had the protection of security forces

which had proven to be highly disciplined and effective over the previous months and yet he ran.

After months of massive, sustained public protests through a Ukrainian winter, he agreed to remain in office until early elections in December and to use security forces to protect public buildings.

What did he do? Rather than remain in office and do his job with the protection of the security forces but likely lose the election, he decided to pursue a different strategy.

Within hours of signing the agreement with the protesters (with the police, army and security forces firmly under his control), he hastily abandoned his residence and left Kiev. Before leaving he ordered security forces to not protect public buildings. Why issue an order contradicting the agreement he had just signed? He (and Putin?) hoped that images of mobs burning and looting public buildings would create an image of lawlessness and violence that could be used to justify military intervention. Of course the looting and burning did not happen (much to the surprise of Yanukovych and Putin), but that did not change the spin.

If he had simply lived up to the agreement he signed with the protesters 9 days ago, he would be sitting in Kiev running the government pending elections in December.

[okaawhatever]

25. Yes, and let's not forget Putin didn't sign the agreement. The protesters wanted an election date

that wasn't so far in the future, but it didn't matter in the long run because Putin wouldn't sign the agreement. Putin has his game plan and it has nothing to do with what's legal or fair. Why do you think the protests went on for so long? Putin had to put his invasion plan in place. You can find any number of foreign policy experts on the region stating that they expected several "false flag" operations in the country (long before the protests). That's what they tried, luckily many of the protesters and residents didn't play along.

[L0oniX]

26. You've convinced me. Time to go fight some more for freedom and democracy!

[sibelian]

31. As the entire concept of political "legitimacy"

is a moveable feast depending on the desired outcome for those proposing one set of boundaries around it as opposed to another, the question rapidly descends into a series of pseudo-rational arguments masking a whole bunch of "I don't define it that way" subtexts.

Says I.