Posted on 04/19/2014 9:42:53 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
That Mr Putin has difficulties with the truth is already apparent from the transparent lies he told us during the Crimean crisis. Who can forget that stage-managed press conference with a group of carefully-vetted Russian journalists back in March at which Mr Putin said in all seriousness that there were no Russian troops active in Crimea, when the province was in fact already overrun with Spetsnaz Russian forces orchestrating Moscow's annexation of the territory?
Now the Russian president is at it again, this time trying to persuade a sceptical President Obama that there are no Russian soldiers or spiesinvolved in stirring up trouble in eastern Ukraine, when all the evidence points to the contrary – including the arrest by the Ukrainian authorities of dozens of Russian military officers who have been caught red-handed trying to incite violence.As a former senior officer in the KGB, telling barefaced lies must now be ingrained in Mr Putin's DNA.
But for the West, which is desperately trying to avoid an open confrontation with Moscow over the crisis, this presents enormous difficulties.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Is that what you were getting at?
Add dingy harry to that list.
He is not trying to persuade Obama of anything. Instead, he is openly laughing to his face knowing that Obama will do nothing to stop him. If anything, Putin is thoroughly disappointed that this battle of diplomacy with the United States did not provide a satisfying challenge for him. Normally, he would have advanced with a few armored columns to secure Kiev and Donetsk like his Soviet predecessors did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But Putin now realizes he doesn't have to. Ukraine will be annexed just as Austria was annexed in 1938. And the only shots being fired will be those of Obama teeing off on the golf course.
They're laughing together. Obama has had more "flexibility" since his reelection.
We’re not in much better shape than the Soviet union was at the end of the cold war. All Russia had to do was sit back and watch us spend ourselves into oblivion for a couple of decades and now that we’re helpless they’re free to do pretty much as they please.
One would think that our pathological liar vs Russia’s would cause a black hole-like implosion. Or at least hope so.
Putin was sent to us to practice on.
Once we can handle him we can try our anti-liar skills out on Obama.
Putin lies for the same reason Obama lies: There are no consequences, there is no downside. Obama and Kerry are toothless.
Or send them a pathological liar like Obama.
Send in a pathological liar like Obama.
The premise is flawed.
Why do we need to negotiate with Putin? We have no dog in the Ukraine fight. Lithuania is different because it is NATO. Negotiation is not involved. There must be action. Obama is encumbered by ideology that will prevent action outside of lawyerly worded balderdash.
Action, Putin’s actions, trump the niceties of idealized diplomacy.
Thanks as usual for your clear summation versus the propaganda of both sides.
“The premise is flawed.
Why do we need to negotiate with Putin? We have no dog in the Ukraine fight. Lithuania is different because it is NATO. Negotiation is not involved. There must be action. Obama is encumbered by ideology that will prevent action outside of lawyerly worded balderdash.
Action, Putin’s actions, trump the niceties of idealized diplomacy.”
They're bound to come up with something fun for everyone.
I agree that we have no dog in the Ukraine fight, but not just because Ukraine is not a NATO member state. There is nothing that can happen in Ukraine that has any impact upon the national security of the United States.
What concerns me is that the original purpose of NATO has been inflated away by the additions of 12 new members in 1998 and 2004. Our original promise to go to war in defense of West Germany, Holland, Italy or Great Britain has expanded to include death pacts with Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Poland, among others. Are we really willing to die for those counties? NO WAY!
The brutal truth is that NATO has morphed from a defensive treaty against possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe into an offensive alliance that followed retreating Russian armies to the borders of Russia itself. Having planted NATO's flag and based its troops, planes and ships along Russia's western borders, we are now meddling with Russia's neighbors on its strategic Black Sea borders. Since the Monroe Doctrine was declared in 1823, we have opposed such outside meddling in our entire hemisphere; why are we now so intent on destabilizing Russia's borders?
Assuming that this is true - whether it is or not, I do not know - what are we Americans to do about it? I'm really not trying to pick a fight; I just want someone to outline exactly what they want the United States to do, and to what extent. In other words, is control of the Black Sea as important to us as it is to Moscow? Because if it is, that means it must be settled on the battlefield.
We should support our Georgian and Ukrainian allies who sent troops to Iraq. We should help them kill our Russian enemies like we did in Afghanistan and we should do to Russia what Ronald Reagan did to the EVIL EMPIRE. Smash it to pieces!
“The most notorious liar, bar none, is Barack Hussein Obama!”
Certainly the most destructive!!!
As crazy as I think your idea is, I do respect you for having the guts to voice it. Most people who are reflexively anti-Russian will not say they are willing to go to total war over distant ethnic basket cases like Ukraine and Georgia -- or recent NATO expansion teams like Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania or Croatia. Combined with even more "mutual defense" treaties around the world, the United States has written more checks than we could ever cover in a crisis -- and one day our enemies are going to figure this out at the same time.
I also disagree with you over whether today's Russia is our enemy like the old Soviet Union was. It is my opinion that Russia is not an offensive threat to either the United States or Western Europe right now. On the other hand, the European Union and its military wing, NATO, is an expansionist power that has come close to encircling Russia's western and southern borders and seeks to dominate of all Europe and Eurasia. The new threat to freedom is in Brussels, and we are being used as its military muscle. Our only reward will be our bankruptcy and eventual collapse.
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