Crimean Crisis and National Interests

For the last month their has been a lot of news about Russia and Crimea.  Crimea is a peninsula on the coast of Russia that is part of Ukraine.  Ever since Crimea joined Ukraine in 1991, it has had a strong Russian population and alliance.  With the Ukrainian Revolution unfolding, the president has been impeached after he fled from the capitol.  Russia then slowly took over the Crimean Peninsula and took control of the region.  Then after they invaded politicians were replaced, they declared themselves independent, and also stated the possibility of joining Russia by voting on it.  They held the election and it was claimed that there was nearly 90% turnout with around the same percent voting to join Russia.  Many former Crimean politicians claimed this was false and that the election was not legal, and the Russians cheated it.  Regardless of how it happened it still brings up a very important question.  Can larger countries like the United States, Russia, Britain, etc. invade other countries for their own benefit economically or for other motives?

I think that this is a very good question.  Many Americans seem to be very critical of this situation and jump all over the Russian government while we have been doing the same in Iraq for the last 25 years.  I don't think that this justifies either being right, because they are clearly not, but that Americans possibly need to open their eyes to also what we are doing.  America help Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran by giving him weapons and other military supplies necessary for him to conquer Middle-Eastern countries.  Then Saddam said he would invade Kuwait, and United States politicians and White House officials said they had no stance on the matter.  When he invaded we released statements saying how awful it was, and eventually it led to United States invasion.  With a falsely based platform and reasoning, we invaded Iraq.  Was it really because of the Kuwait incident, supposed involvement with Al-Qaeda or was it because we wanted an economic foothold in Middle-Eastern oil, one of the most oil rich countries in the world?  I think that the people of today need to sit back and think about what our actions are causing.  Do we really live in a world where millions may die just so we have economic benefit?