It's one thing if the people feel strongly enough about the question to sort it out themselves, which is arguably what happened in Latvia etc.
We were very lucky that we regained our independence peacefully. Egypt and Tunis also overthrew their dictators relatively peacefully - and NATO did not bomb them.
But instead of resigning (like Mubarak) Gaddafi decided to start a bloodbath.
So - yes - when some dictator is slaughtering its own people - it is OK to intervene, because human rights are universal and not an "internal thing".
Thank God we have the notoriously reliable Russian tabloid press to give air time to the two or three people on the planet who really know what's going on!
Soviet years have trained us to take anything Russia publishes with caution anyway.
Especially if it is anti-American.
and (more importantly) what to do with their oil.
Oil is much cheaper to simply buy and not to wage war for it.
Most oil exporting countries are not producing anything else anyway.
It is better to buy their (cheap) oil and to sell them (expensive) industrial production (cars, electronics, etc) - (like Germany and Russia for example).
Just like natural resources of USSR was not USSR people's property, but were exploited by communist elite building useless shit like nuclear weapons.
Again, you're probably too young to know, but people did live far more happier in USSR than they are now.
But you agree that average soviet citizen did not have any say in how to use USSR natural resources.
If party decided to build more nuclear bombs - which really are useless shit - because - what do you do with that many?
Then they built nuclear bombs - does not matter that shops were empty and you had to wait in looooooooooong queue to get something TO EAT.
And which are these "happier people"? Chekists? Communist elite?