Posted on 03/22/2014 10:04:00 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
WASHINGTON — The White House cast doubt Friday on the Kremlin’s claims that thousands of troops massing on the border of southeastern Ukraine are merely involved in training exercises, deepening fears that Russian aggression will not end in Crimea.
“It’s not clear what that signals,” the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, said to reporters in a briefing at the White House. But she added, “Obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.”
At the Pentagon, senior officers and analysts said they were monitoring the Russian infantry, airborne, air defense and other reinforcements with growing alarm, uncertain of President Vladimir V. Putin’s ambitions.
Pentagon officials do not believe that a new Russian move into Ukraine is imminent. But one of their big worries is that American and NATO officials would have virtually no time to react if it did happen. All told, officials said, there are more than 20,000 troops near the border.
“The Russian forces are reinforcing and bulking up along the eastern Ukrainian border,” a Pentagon official said. “Our view is they’re preserving all their options, including going in, absolutely. If they choose to do that, we just wouldn’t have much warning.”
President Obama cited the troop movements on Thursday in announcing new sanctions...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bunch of dummies...Better worry what the Ukrainian troops are doing, too.
Guess we should have thought about this before Kosovo, Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc.
Putin wants to put the Soviet Union back together. With what we have in the White House, what better time to start than right now?
Obama, meanwhile, is massing his security briefs in the waste paper basket and his golf balls on the first tee.
Definitely before declaring victory over war and dismantling our defenses. Obama won the Peace Prize y’know.
Let the Ruskies come in, then go after them all over the place. Vlad needs to pay a heavy price.
Russia will want a land route to Crimea and, of course, the industrial region of the eastern Ukraine where there are substantial numbers of Russians. The Ukrainian military is acting like a hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed group, which is just what they are.
The real question here is if Russia will go for Kiev and the whole Ukraine or will eat it up piecemeal. We are now irrelevant to the situation.
Yup. And their wives from shopping on Fifth Ave.
As Dimitri Rogozin noted, every grain of sand in Crimea is worth not being allowed to visit the West or to shop there.
Westerners think Russians care about belonging to the West. They brush it off and punishment fails with someone on whom it isn’t a deterrent.
And if things get really serious, Obama will unfriend Putin on Facebook.
Putin is using all the trappings of Communist/socialist strategy to wage a capitalist war. Protection and control over markets of energy supplies generated by Russian resources of oil and gas particularly to europe and asia. To do this he must be in a position to threaten other suppliers. Naval and air bases in foreign lands like Cuba, Venezuela,Syria,and where-ever he gets a toe hold serve that purpose. Puts Russia in a position to threaten US and other countries competition to their markets.
If you like your Ukraine, you can keep it... period.
I guess so, as the operational tactics and media tactics the US used in those operation were used by the Russians in their responses.
Who woulda thunk they would learn how, from our own Progressive Socialists?
If that's all they're doing, how about they move the exercises to central Siberia?
No problem, mac daddy just received 100 cartons of red pens so now we can all sleep better knowing that he will not shirk from drawing endless red lines that NOBODY cares about in the least.
Boy that was stressful, time for another tax payer vacation of $250,000,000.00 to relax and relieve the stress.
According to the reasoning behind those invasions, there was no act of war, because there were no U.S. boots on the ground. (Not true — but, as always, that’s beside the point.) If the Russians avoid putting boots on the ground, can they take over eastern Ukraine without violating international laws?
Here’s what I’ve learned about U.S. foreign policy in the past 20 years of observation:
- Republicans express complete disdain for international laws, and international organizations — yet, they follow every step of every required process, and comply with every rule, before invading another country.
- Democrats express complete support for international laws and organizations — yet, they ignore every required process, ignore every organization, and flout every rule, whenever they want to invade another country.
Faced with that choice I am not surprised that a lot of people chose Putin.
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