Posted on 03/20/2014 11:06:19 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Early in the Ukraine crisis, when the Europeans were working on bringing Ukraine into the EU system and Vladimir Putin was countering with threats and bribes, one British analyst lamented that “we went to a knife fight with a baguette.”
That was three months ago. Life overtakes parody. During the Ukrainian prime minister’s visit to Washington last week, his government urgently requested military assistance. The Pentagon refused. It offered instead military ration kits.
Putin mobilizes thousands of troops, artillery and attack helicopters on Ukraine’s borders and Washington counters with baguettes, American-style. One thing we can say for sure in these uncertain times: The invasion of Ukraine will be catered by the United States.
Why did we deny Ukraine weapons? Because in the Barack Obama-John Kerry worldview, arming the victim might be taken as a provocation. This kind of mind-bending illogic has marked the administration’s response to the whole Crimea affair.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It’s typical liberal logic that the victim gets no help and the aggressor gets a pass and often even an apologist will explain why the aggressor was really in the right.
Charles -
Its none of our business. If we don’t have a vital interest, we should not get involved at all, period.
And because of you and the neo-Cold Warrior crowd, America looks weak and the Russians are laughing at us.
Even you don’t want to die for Crimea. Why do you think Obama should have been tougher with the Russians? Just asking.
Obama has not been tougher with the Russians due to threats about dumping our debt. Not that he has been particularly tough with Russia at all.
So you’re basically in agreement with Obama.
“Obama has not been tougher with the Russians due to threats about dumping our debt.”
Somebody dumped a big pile of US Treasuries a couple of weeks ago, as a “message”. It seems Obama isn’t listening. Or maybe he thinks Putin is bluffing again?
“We hold a decent amount of Treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” Russian President Vladimir Putin adviser Serge Glazyev warned this month.
“We will encourage everybody to dump U.S. Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency, and leave the U.S. market,” he added.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/20/has-russia-been-dumping-over-a-billion-in-u-s-govt-bonds/
I guess that the opposing argument to yours considers Russians in the Crimea sort of “the camel’s nose under the tent.” If it goes no further than this (they voted for this at 95% for goodness sake), then Kerry and BO would have calculated correctly. However, if this turns out to have been the beginning of a slippery slope (or an indication to China that now might be a.good time to snatch Taiwan), then they will have been judged as Neville Chamberlain. It all depends on whether any more free people (Estonia??) are subjugated to dictatorship. We’re gambling with other people’s freedom (for now). Thoughts?
What strange logic is this? Is Obama a puppet of the neocons? Or is Putin looking past Obama at the neocons ? Or what ?
I can't see how Obama can be unburdened of his responsibility as ... what is it ? ... Oh yeah! President of the United States ... by such aspersions.
Putinsistas also miss the fact that both Obama and Putin seek to weaken to strengthen the government in all ways. Obama is the near threat. Putin is the far one.
It isn’t because of charity that Russia holds those bonds. If they sell them all at once, as they would have to in order to cause an impact, they would lose tens of billions of dollars. And we would have to spend tens of billions of dollars to buy our own bonds in response. Financial attrition, and they will lose.
Only China and Japan can dump enough bonds to collapse our currency, and it would be like MAD economically; doing it would also collapse their own economies.
So be it.
Russia’s debt is 8%.
Ours is 100%, and growing fast.
Russia is closer to China diplomatically than we are. If the Chinese agree to participate, even a bit, the panic alone from the markets would create chaos.
Russia set to become China’s primary energy supplier within the next 5 years. The Eastern pipelines are already open to Vladivostok, with the last segments to China under construction now. They have Europe over a barrel, as well, unless the Euros suddenly decide that coal-fired power plants, coal gasification is cool again, and the carbon nonsense goes away.
They have a strong hand, and they know it, especially dealing with Radical Dems who want to raise the price of evil energy, not lower it.
No, they can’t defeat us militarily. But thanks to our stupidity, they may not have to.
OMG that’s funny.
You mean "So vi et".
Other duties prevent that.
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.