Posted on 02/28/2014 4:19:10 AM PST by Zhang Fei
Russian soldiers have occupied two key airports in Ukraine’s restive pro-Russia region of Crimea, Ukraine’s acting interior minister said Friday.
Soldiers wearing camouflage and bearing automatic weapons have taken up positions at Belbek Airport in Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and at the airport in Simferopol, the region’s capital, Arsen Avakov said.
He said the soldiers’ uniforms bore no identifying marks “but they do not hide their affiliation with the Russian armed forces.”
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
The "reset button" got stuck on Hillary and Obama.
Obama and the MSM employees will hype this dispute with Russia to the level of a "Cuban missile" crisis -- or maybe a Berlin blockade.
Then remarks questioning Obama, et al. abilities and motives could result in a 2014 version to the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.. the purpose of the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 was to destroy Roosevelt's pre-war critics as attention turned to post-war matters particularly about relations with communists. IMO.
The Great Sedition Trial of 1944
FDR started with small fry and planned to move up the chain of opposition.
FDR failed. Obama might succeed, the Establishment today is arguably aging 1960s New Left Marxist-Alinsky radical, campus psycho spoiled brats and their ideological issue. The Establishment in FDR's days were Americans who eventually stopped:
". . . one of the blackest marks on the record of American jurisprudence. In the legal world, none can recall a case where so many Americans were brought to trial for political persecution and were so arrogantly denied the rights [guaranteed] an American citizen under the Constitution.”
No - you're saying I'm wrong. And your argument is a reasonable one. Here's the difficulty - your analogy could be applied to the former Warsaw Pact nations or, indeed, to any nation in the world that has been been overrun. Should we de-recognize governments of the nations of the former Warsaw Pact and demand that they surrender their sovereignty to the Russian empire? After all, Russia did conquer them fair and square during WWII, at the cost of millions of Russian servicemen. Wouldn't Eastern Europe be much more stable under Russian tutelage? Doesn't the Right of Conquest mean anything, any more?
Notwithstanding the reductio ad absurdum I posited earlier, note that Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It is not a part of Russia. A more appropriate analogy would be whether anyone should object if we invaded and annexed Cuba.
I think you misread the situation. Ukraine is in NO shape to fight Belarus, let alone Russia. The country is completely bankrupt. Putin could shut down all the gas lines leading into the country in a heartbeat. Ukraine’s military is in disarray after the coup, with many groups being charged in court over the protest killings.
If these people are indeed Russian commandos rather than just separatist rebels (and I’m not convinced they are), then there is nothing Ukraine can do. Her hands are tied.
Besides which, do they really want these thugs on their border and taking over Russia's nukes in the Ukraine? What's to stop their violent style of protesting from spreading to the poor countries of the EU?
The Ukraine is not Afghanistan nor are the Ukrainians, Afghanis. The language and cultural issue is deep-rooted and will be a running sore and distraction.
What? Allende was a communist
Russia owns the pipelines. They cannot get it from anywhere. The infrastructure is not there.
Afghanistan was close to dead last in terms of GDP per capita when the Soviets invaded. (Some things never change). It hadn't fought a real war in over 50 years. Its finances were a shambles. Thanks to a coalition of anti-Communist states, they got a few billion dollars worth of imported arms and money to feed their guerrilla force, and proceeded to bog the Russians down in an increasingly demoralizing war.
In contrast, Ukraine is roughly in the middle of the pack, income-wise. If we hand a few billion dollars a year in food and weaponry to the Ukrainians to ward off the Russian invasion, I expect they will give at least as good an account of themselves as the Afghans did. After WWII, Stepan Bandera and his people fought the Red Army for over a decade with zero foreign aid, and were destroyed only after the Red Army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians with them - which is presumably why Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine - as a consolation prize for mass killings of Ukrainians. If today's Ukrainians have anything like Bandera's fighting spirit, a few billion dollars in equipment and food should see them pushing the Russians out of the country altogether.
The EU can get its oil from supertankers like everybody else.
The Ukraine turned over their nuclear weapons to Russia a long time ago. They have all kinds of agreements with Russia.
Big difference. In Afghanistan, the natives wanted the invaders gone. The Crimean citizens will fight just as hard as the Afghans did. If Ukrainian tanks roll in, it will only grow the widespread belief that the Ukrainian government is controlled by Svoboda who want to ethnically cleanse the Crimea. Vietnam shows what happens when the local population is not on your side.
Probably 10-20% of Afghans wanted the Soviets there. And they would have held out if Yeltsin hadn't cut off their oil. Even if you add all of Crimea's population together, you don't get to 10% of Ukraine's population.
On condition that the US and the UK guarantee their borders. They were a little too trusting.
Our military is beat up, used up, torn up, worn out. They simply do not need another war right now. These folks need a break.
Agree 100% with your statement. We need to rebuild and refit our military, not deploy them on further wars. And besides, when Obi gets done with his proposed cuts? We’ll be lucky to have enough troops left to fill sand bags along the Mississippi River...
“The EU can get its oil from supertankers like everybody else. “
If you’e buying on the spot market and taking delivery via tankers, you’re likely paying a premium price. The UK is discovering how expensive that strategy is, as energy prices skyrocket and people are forced to choose between heat and food. There’s a new term in England called “fuel poverty” to designate areas that lack adequate energy for heat and lights. It includes about 3 million individuals. Governments that interfere with heat for its citizens will inevitably fall.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics
What is fuel poverty?
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/fuel-poverty/
UK weather: 31,000 people DIED of the cold last winter
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-31000-people-died-2852677#ixzz2ucszzqkN
>>If today’s Ukrainians have anything like Bandera’s fighting spirit, a few billion dollars in equipment and food should see them pushing the Russians out of the country altogether.<<
It is so good that Russians aren’t that America-hating. A few billions in Russian aid to Iraq and Afghanistan could do wonders to US casualty figures in these respective nations.
It could have been surpassed Vietnam losses easily.
I’m still wondering why Russians are so restraint, considering a mood of many Americans who wants to see them bleeding.
The Parliament voted 328-0 to impeach Yanukovich.
They're nuts.
You're not right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.