Another obvious piece of hypocrisy from the West - how come the E.U and U.S supported Kosovo attempts at breaking away from Serbia yet won't allow the same for Crimea breaking away from Ukraine?

I still can't wrap my head around the fact our government happily supports a new regime in Ukraine that violently ousted a democratically elected president - if anybody dared do the same in a Western democracy I'm pretty sure troops would be gunning down protesters and and many others would be rounded up and given life imprisonment!

Also regarding RT. Obviously it's biased towards the Russian states viewpoint but our media is so skewed the other way you have to watch both versions of the story to attempt to scramble some truth out of it all.

In my view a democratically elected, albeit corrupt government that leaned towards Russia was violently ousted by a surge of popular anger harnessed by corrupt Neo-Liberal Elites who lean towards the West and opportunist Neo-Nazi's. First we side with Al-Qaeda in Syria now we are helping Neo-Nazi's in Ukraine, you couldn't make this madness up.

Also, regarding the sniper killings in Kiev.

The new regime wants the deposed President charged with war crimes over the killings in Kiev. As far as I'm aware they have offered no evidence to support these allegations. Russia however produced a tape where Western political leaders discuss the probability of the attacks actually having been arranged by current members of the new regime. Russia has demanded the shootings be investigated but Ukraine's government has fallen silent about the incident since the leaked tape emerged.

I also notice that the tapes never really got much coverage on TV over here.

I was watching RT the other day and there was footage of one of their reporters showing a bullet hole in a window where he alleges he was sniped at whilst trying to film the confrontation in the city centre. He also had footage (shown) of one of the protesters running away from the confrontation with a sniper rifle in his hand.

Why did people riot when the poll tax was introduced rather than just wait to vote Labour in the next election?

Democracy is more than just an elected dictatorship where citizens vote for a government that is then able to act as it wishes for 4-5 years. The purpose of democratic government is to uphold individual liberty and represent its citizens. Governments must represent the electorate at all time, not merely at election time. When a government departs from the promises that it was elected on or aligns itself against public opinion or acts in a way that threatens individual liberty it loses it legitimacy and right to govern.

The government in Egypt was passing illiberal laws that were persecuting minorities, eroding women's rights, undermining the freedom of the press amongst other things. It was implementing the beginnings of a dictatorship. The Egyptians who had only recently given their lives to overthrow one dictatorship were not keen on seeing it replaced with a new one. Unlike many British commentators they actually grasp the concept of democracy i.e. as a guarantor of freedom and rule of the people, rather than fetishing putting a cross in a box.

Iraq was not a sovereign state. A nation is only sovereign in any meaningful sense of the word when it is governed by the people. Iraq was governed by a dictatorship that massacred hundreds of thousands of its own citizens, supported terrorism and had launched a series of brutal wars against its neighbours. One legal authority said the war was illegal, others said it was legal. The UN did not pass a resolution condemning the invasion and indeed after Saddam was removed from power it passed a resolution legitimising the invasion. There is no case to suggest it was an illegal war.

Ukraine on the otherhand is led by a government approved by an elected parliament. The previous president was ejected from power by the elected parliament, as its is prerogative under the Ukrainian constitute. Given that it is led by a democratic government which will be either approved or removed in the upcoming elections, it is a sovereign nation in the truest sense of the word. Ukraine does not threaten its neighbours nor does it sponsor terrorism.

Therefore the West is not being hypocritical at all. In both Iraq and Ukraine it is standing up for democracy.

Ah, Iraq. Yes, certainly nobody can dispute the title of the world's most democratic country with which that country has now been endowed.

Would have thought Iraq, with its high ranking supreme leader was more of a sovereign state in the "truest" sense than most / all democracies?

Nice to see Cameron using the same yard stick, threatening sanctions, in Israel rlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26555893rl even though Israel is continuing to invade and build on Palestinian land...

[iicon_mad.gifdttdgoy][/iicon_mad.gifdttdgoy] "Mr Cameron also rejected calls for boycotts of Israel and told the parliament[/i

The Western powers are on a sticky wicket here, Putin is has been careful to keep his intentions focused on the parts of Ukraine that are to all intents and purposes Russian already. The Russian Federation is just the current incarnation of the Russian Empire, which for a chunk of the 20th century went under the name of 'Soviet Union', in the context of the tumultuous history of the Russian Empire spats like Crimea rejoining Russia is not something the West should be trying to get involved in. It won't do any good, nobody seriously believes that the majority in the Russian parts of Ukraine actually want to stay in Ukraine, the Western powers are just miffed that it's not being done within the West's preferred liberal democratic political framework, but then none of what is going on in Ukraine really conforms to Western liberal democracy. If it wasn't so geopolitically close to Western Europe, and if Russia wasn't so resurgent they would turn a blind eye anyway. If it was China doing this they wouldn't bat an eye, in fact China has annexed non-Chinese territory and the West hasn't got too huffy puffy about it, so Russia annexing what are effectively already bits of Russia should not be escalated out of hand.

You're offspring is misguided about what a sovereign state is. Democracy or dictatorship is not really the issue either. What matters is power.

The people of the Crimea want to be in Russia, for me that is democracy in action. The Government should work for the people not the other way around. The people have spoken and they have what they want.
Similar to The Falklands and Gibraltar they want to stay British, so be it.

I agree totally, Russia are well within their rights to do what they have done as we did with the Falklands.

However, will Latvia be next?

Nevermind, the terrorists in the Gaza strip tossed a few rockets into Israel last week to make up for it.

Slight difference is that Russia have invaded Ukranian land - Argentina invaded British land, we went and got them back.

What Russia should have done is requested negotiation with Ukraine, stating their belief that the people of Crimea wanted to become Russian - Of course, politics always gets in the way and things aren't that simple.

It cannot just be about power, otherwise it would be perfectly acceptable for those nations with power, for instance the USA and Russia, to invade and conquer their weaker neighbours as and when they feel like it. This would render the entire Westphalian system redundant.

National sovereignty refers to the right of nations to exercise the principle of self-determination in dealing with internal matters. A nation is not an abstract principle, it is a body of people with common blood, history, culture of language living in a particular geographical territory. National self-determination can therefore only exist when power lies in the hands of the people, not in the hands of one man.

It can't be that simple surely??..... What if in 10 or 20 year's time Bradford's population becomes overwhelmingly swayed towards people of Pakistani origin - If those people decided they felt more Pakistani than British and felt their own ideals were not that of Britain's, could those people apply for Pakistan to 'claim' Bradford?