I visited the Twitterverse today to check out the world and this pops up. This statement was posted by the @NSCPress.
What does this mean? Why would the National Security Council and the President state that a referendum in the Crimean Peninsula is illegal? Not all the information is out, but the best reasons I could find were two-fold. One being the Russian army entering the Crimean Peninsula in February. Second was the wording of the Referendum itself. The referendum asked the people if they wanted to “join Russia, or have greater autonomy within Ukraine,” according to the BBC. There was no option for independence or for leaving things the way they were before. The situation in this peninsula is long and complicated and not within my background of study.
There are multiple ways of looking at the Ukraine situation using many points of view. As educated people, that is what we have to do. We don’t have to be culturally relativist, but we have to realize that our media shows one point of view and others show another and that the truth is complicated. After Vietnam, most countries that were once colonies are now independent countries and most governments would like to keep the world, and the balance of power overseas, the same. But history doesn’t allow for that. Please do your own research, make your own opinions and remember that there are people over there and not just diplomats.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606097
