Posted on 04/18/2014 10:42:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Empire an "evil empire," the phrase reflected his conviction that while the East-West struggle was indeed a global geostrategic conflict, it had a deep moral dimension.
If Americans did not see the Cold War as he did, a battle between good and evil, Reagan knew that they would indefinitely sacrifice neither the wealth of the nation nor the blood of its sons to sustain it.
That is in the character of Americans.
Jimmy Carter had sought to remove that moral dimension by declaring, "We have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism."
But with his "evil empire" speech, Reagan re-moralized the Cold War in what Natan Sharansky called "a moment of moral clarity."
Here we come to the heart of the matter as to why Americans want to stay out of any Ukrainian conflict. Americans not only see no vital U.S. interest, but also no moral dimension to this quarrel.
If, after all, it was a triumph of self-determination for Ukraine to secede from the Russian Federation, do not Russians in Crimea and Donetsk have the same right -- to secede from Kiev and go home to Russia?
If Georgians had a right to break free of the Russian Federation, do not Abkhazians and South Ossetians have a right to break free of Georgia?
Turnabout is fair play is an old American saying.
Op-ed writers bewail Vladimir Putin's threat to the "rules-based" world we have created. But under what rule did we bomb Serbia for 78 days to tear away Kosovo, the cradle province of the Serb people?
Perhaps some history is in order.
Compare how Putin brought about the secession and annexation of Crimea, without bloodshed but with popular approval, with how Sam Houston and friends brought about the secession of Texas from Mexico, and its annexation by the United States in 1845.
When the Mexicans tried to retrieve a disputed piece of their lost Texas territory, James K. Polk accused them of shedding American blood on American soil, had Congress declare war, sent Gen. Winfield Scott and a U.S. army to Mexico City, and annexed the entire northern half of Mexico, which is now the American Southwest and California.
Compared to the Jacksonian, James Polk, Vladimir Putin is Pierre Trudeau.
Even in Eastern Ukraine, it is hard to see a moral issue. For the Kiev regime is loudly denouncing as "terrorists" the Russians who are taking over city centers by using the exact same tactics the Maidan Square demonstrators used to seize Kiev.
If it was heroic for the Svoboda Party and Pravy Sektor to fight police and torch buildings to oust Viktor Yanukovych, the elected president of Ukraine, upon what ground do the usurpers who inherited his power bewail the same thing being done to them?
Is there not glaring hypocrisy here?
And where do we Americans come off piously damning what the Russians are doing in Ukraine?
A decade ago, the National Endowment for Democracy and its progeny helped to foment the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Orange Revolution in Kiev, and countless other "color revolutions" to dethrone unresponsive regimes and bring those countries into America's orbit.
In the last decade, Putin has learned how to play the Americans' game. And before winding up in a conflict we managed to avoid over four decades of Cold War, perhaps we should call off this game of thrones, and consign NED to the boneyard.
Today, two courses of action are being hotly pressed upon the Obama White House by the War Party. Both appear likely to lead to disaster.
The first is to arm the Ukrainians. This would likely provoke a war with Russia that Kiev could not win, and lead Ukrainians to believe the Americans will be there beside them, which is not in the cards.
The second option is the sanctions road.
But Europe, dependent on Russian oil and gas, is not going to vote itself a recession. And should the West sanction Russia, Moscow would sanction Ukraine and sink what the Washington Post calls that "black hole of corruption and waste that is the Ukrainian economy."
As for more U.S. warships in the Black and Baltic seas and more F-16s and U.S. troops in Eastern Europe, what is their purpose, when we are not going to go to war with Russia?
In the title of the old song, Johnny Cash got it right, "Don't take your guns to town," unless you're prepared to use them.
Undeniably, President Obama and John Kerry have egg all over their faces today, as they did in the Syrian "red line" episode.
Yet they continue to meddle where we do not belong, issue warnings and threats they have no power to enforce, and bluster and bluff about what they are going to do, when the American people are telling them, "This is not our quarrel."
Anyone who thinks its sane for the US to engage in war with Russia on Russia’s own border, and in a province that has belonged to Russia since Catherine the Great of the late 1700’s, does not deserve to have cookies with his milk this evening.
American boys fight Russians to make Ukrainians free?
CLEARLY NOT OUR FIGHT.
“While Octavian was prancing around after Sextus Pompey, Antony went to war against Parthia. And for once, he didn’t start it. Fortunately, Antony had been spending some time in Alexandria, and with the help of a certain Egyptian queen, Antony was able to repel the invasion. To make sure they didn’t try it again, he led an attack against the Parthian homeland itself. Antony started his campaign late in the year and decided to leave his siege engines and baggage behind with the intention of returning for them later. The Parthians thought Christmas had come early, and circling behind him, systematically destroyed them all. Due to this case of stunningly bad planning, the campaign ended in disaster at the city of Phraaspa when Antony lost thousands of soldiers in a retreat due to the cold weather. (This will later be known as the “don’t invade Russia in the winter, you bleeding moron” rule.) Altogether Antony lost a quarter of his troops to the elements and disease. But after all, seventy-five percent is still a passing grade.”
National Endowment for Democracy is a neocon fiefdom inside of the Federal Government that spends a colossal amount of money to promote the cultural Marxist agenda overseas while serving as a feeding trough for neocons on taxpayers’ dime.
From Wikipedia:
“NED’s long-serving president (since April 30, 1984[8]) is Carl Gershman, former Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations and former Executive Director of Social Democrats USA.[9]”
The “Social Democrats USA” are what used to be called “the Socialist Party of America.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrats_USA
Got that? NED has ruled by the same pinko neocon since 1984.
NED today is mainly about promoting multiculturalism, the gay agenda, globalism, open borders etc. Basically the Soros agenda, aka cultural Marxism.
For those who are confused about what cultural Marxism is, it’s like like Marxism except it replaces “capitalists” with white, Christian, heterosexuals as the enemy and “the proletariat” with various victim groups as the good guys.
The problem here, that not even Obama is fully to blame for, is that after the dissolution of the old Soviet Union, the new independent country of Ukraine had the 3rd largest strategic nuclear weapons arsenal and a sizable tactical nuke ability as well. With the inability to guard and maintain such a deadly arsenal, Ukraine reached agreement with the 4 nuclear powers involved in Europe; Russia, US, UK and France, to disarm its nukes and depend upon treaty obligations (1994) guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders.
Now Putin wants Kiev back (original Russia) and sees the treaty as a dead letter when the other 3 parties have no desire to enforce it. Of course, if this treaty is worthless in less than 20 years, what about NATO’s equally strong obligations for mutual defense?
As soon as Ukraine was independent in 1991, Western governments and private sector partnered to spend and invest billions in bringing it and all the other spinoff nations into the Western bloc economically as well as politically.
All along this has been going on.
Which is fine, if it weren’t for the idea of getting Ukraine to give up its national sovereignty and join the EU.
American and European government officials openly and publicly said all along that they were working on bringing Ukraine into the EU.
IN FACT, Russia invests with these same EU countries, trades with them, has Russian companies operating in the EU and EU companies operating in Russia.
Russia co-invests in Ukraine WITH the EU countries, as a partner.
The only sticking point is that Russia can’t give up that naval port. With the military humiliation they’ve had the past 20 years... losing that port would seriously hurt their national morale.
Here’s a link on the dismal economic outlook for Ukraine:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3145965/posts
Especially with their Naval base in Syria in some jeopardy.
Why are we alarmed that Hitler wants to annex Austria? They’re traditionally teutonic, and their citizens would welcome the fuhrer with open arms.
And then he wants Poland. Well, what’s wrong with that? The Third Reich needs lebensraum, nothing wrong with Hitler doing the best for his country, right? Besides, who are the allied forces to think they could stop such a man?
And the lowland countries? Who needs them? Let Hitler annex them, it’s not our concern! And France? Well, who likes the frogs anyway? And then Great Britain? We couldn’t possibly save them, Germany is too powerful... /s.
What an idiot Buchanan is.
Ed
Actually, no, he isn't, but this silly attempt at historical analogy certainly is: Why are we alarmed that Hitler wants to annex Austria? They’re traditionally teutonic, and their citizens would welcome the fuhrer with open arms., etc., etc.
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