In a nutshell, why is Ukraine and Russia fighting and why is Russia winning?
Russia wanted to own Crimea — a part of Ukraine — for a long time. It tried to engineer takeovers and independence movements since 1993, but all that failed. So, Russia recognized Crimea as part of Ukraine, and Putin personally disclaimed any historical claims on Crimea. In the meantime, Russian intelligence built networks of sympathizers in Crimea and paid salaries to local people who could “defend Russian troops” stationed in Crimea in case something happens.An opportunity for Russia presented itself in 2014. Russia sent troops to take over Ukrainian institutions of power in Crimea and directed sympathizers to blockade Ukrainian mil bases. Russia also sent special ops who ran the show. At that point, there was no fighting because Ukraine had no one to give orders to fight — the president was taken from Ukraine by a Russian special-ops helicopter. Russia faked a referendum in Crimea (“consultants” sent from Moscow later explained what they did) that was denounced by the UN — Russia claims that the people of Crimea voted for independence. Of course, people of Crimea who viewed the referendum illegal (according to acting laws) boycotted it. In any case, Crimea was quickly annexed into Russia and downgraded from an autonomous republic (as it was in Ukraine) to a part of a larger region.Still no fighting. However, Russia had a problem — the world sided with Ukraine and did not recognize the annexation as legitimate. Russia knew that if Ukraine officially recognized Crimea as Russian, that would be the end of it. So, the fighting in Ukraine has been engineered as blackmail to convince Ukraine to recognize Crimea as Russian. This is not all, but explains the events “in a nutshell”. I don't see signs that Russia is winning, but Russia is losing big money every year from Western (+Japan) sanctions imposed on Russia for meddling in Ukraine.
Why doesn't the world get together and expel Russia from the land it occupies in Crimea like it did when Iraq occupied Kuwait?
Kuwait was an independent state that was angle drilling and sapping oil from Iraq’s reserves. Instead of dealing with it through the international courts, Iraq thought it had a strong army and simply invaded the country to capture it, gain access to the gulf and Kuwaitis own oil reserves. Unfortunately, their army was so antiquated it was wiped out pretty quickly by a International force supported by a UN resolution (exactly what the UN was initially designed for).the USSR originally captured Ukraine shortly after WW2 as part of its satellite state program. Unfortunately there were too many uprisings by the Ukrainians, so they simply starved half the country to death and then transplanted a bunch of Russians in to fill the void, and rat out the Ukrainians ending rebellious behavior. The USSR then built as beautiful naval base there in Crimea. Putin got sick of paying rent to a country they used to own and so he created a civil war and took back his naval base that no UN resolution will ever take it away from them. They hold too much sway in the now highly corrupt UN to get anything passed against them.Russia is too powerful in the UN, to big of an army, has lots of nuclear weapons, and Putin had a stronger will than then President Obama, so he took what he wanted and no repercussions. And if the civil war goes as planned, with tons of military support on the eastern border supply the transplanted Russian with arms and other supplies, Russia will either win over the Ukraine again, or cause it to split in two, taking the eastern half for Mother Russia, once again screwing the Ukrainians. All the while the impotent UN looking on, doing nothing as usual.
Why do people condemn the Russian invasion of Crimea but forgive the American invasion of Iraq?
That would depend on what you mean by “people”. If you mean American citizens, you would be wrong to make that comparison. The Iraq War was the most unpopular war in modern history and became the reason why the Democrats took control of the House and Senate in 2006, and why Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008.George W. Bush also earned himself the reputation of being the worst president in modern US history because of how he lied to justify the invasion and then completely screwed up the aftermath. What’s more, there are countless people in the US and international community who maintain that he committed crimes of war and should have been sentenced by the UN International Criminal Court.In fact, using Iraq as an example to deflect criticism away from Russia’s invasion of Crimea is a classic example of “whataboutism”. Putin himself has used this tactic to great effect. Whenever he is challenged for murdering his adversaries, repressing his people, invading neighboring countries or interfering in foreign elections, he says “whatabout the US?” It’s patently hypocritical and childish of Putin or any Russian apologists to try and justify his abuses of power and defiance of international law by saying “but they did it!”Of course, we should condemn all instances of aggression, interference, corruption and abuse. But if we do that, we have to acknowledge that Putin’s own record of these crimes is unparalleled and he must be stopped.