Posted on 07/26/2014 2:15:43 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Why would the leader of a powerful country in reasonably good standing want to risk everything by putting himself in the same league with Muammar Gaddafi? ...Since the crisis began, he has been taking on ever greater risk—not to mention serious damage to the Russian economy—with negative return. ....
So it appears that Putin is not only a poor chess player, he is an exceeding bad poker player, constantly raising the stakes while facing a decreasing expected return. If he ever could return Ukraine to the fold—an exceedingly unlikely prospect—he would accomplish no more than a return to the status quo ante. ....
The pattern of events shows a dangerous pattern. At almost every stage, Putin miscalculates and then raises the ante. He clearly did not expect the protests that broke out against the scrapping of the EU Association agreement, nor did he foresee that the crackdown would bring even more people to the streets.
Miscalculation. Failure. Escalation. The pattern continued with the separatist movement. While it gained some traction in Donetsk and Luhansk, it went nowhere in most of the industrial East. Russian actions were quickly put down in Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa, where most of Ukraine’s high level industry—not to mention a good bit of Russia’s military industry—is located.
After the election of Petro Poroshenko to Ukraine’s Presidency came more setbacks. The rebel strongholds of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk were retaken by Ukrainian anti-terrorist troops and they began moving toward Donetsk and Luhansk. So Putin escalated again, sending heavy artillery and more sophisticated weapons, including the one that shot down MH-17.
Miscalculation. Failure. Escalation. The downing of MH-17 is a logical consequence of the pattern.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I read one theory that Bad Vlad was playing with Hillary’s “Reset” button when the missile accidentally launched.
Only one small problem, Putin has yet to be proved guilty.
Personally I think he was involved even if only as the knowing supplier but on the face of it the Ukraine gov’t has more to gain from such an act. As the lawyers say “Cui bono?”
Any kind of mental imbalance is exacerbated by vast, virtually unchecked power. Obama was actually less mentally screwed up when he was first elected than he is now. Six or so years of being treated like a king has mushroomed Obama’s problems out of all proportion. Notice of late the who-gives-a-hoot level of golfing, partying, vacationing & fund raising. He acts like whether the public approves or disapproves is irrelevant. The king does what he wants to do, period. Also notice the increasingly weird, inappropriate giggling. It’s gotten 100x worse since he first entered the WH.
Putin is also not one-hundred percent sound mentally. He has virtually unlimited power, and he spends an outsized amount of time promoted the Cult of Putin. So many ‘manly’ photos of him riding a bear—bare chested—hunting, posing in KGB shades, ostentatiously showing off his pecs in a wife-beater shirt, etc. He has, if possible, an even more serious crush on himself than Obama.
When one’s mental instability is given unfettered rein, the judgment suffers. I.e.: people held to normal standards must evaluate their decisions & their environment from a real-world perspective. People w virtually unlimited power & a paid cadre of yes-men make decisions in a vacuum. No matter what they decide their inner circle praises them as demi-gods; the consequences of not doing so make this a given.
So Putin made a disastrous decision & his yes-squad assured him of its brilliance. His ego couldn’t see it any other way. Now he’s getting a rare taste of the real world. He won’t handle it well at all.
...other than the little fact that he's been running rings around 0baMao.
Putin is winning. He'll take all of Eastern and Southern Ukraine for the same reason a dog licks its testicles - because he can. As soon as that's over, he'll take (my guess) the Georgian Black Sea province of Adjaria (ethnically different from other Georgians, although related) and maybe more of Georgia, and have his hand on the switch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Europe will not dare to say a peep after that.
Then he'll have a free hand to annex the Russian-speaking parts of the former Soviet Empire, starting (my guess) with Northern Kazakhstan, after that the Baltics.
The only country that could rise to stop him is the United States. But we won't do that for the reasons described above.
So, Putin wins his old Soviet Empire back at the ridiculously low cost of a few half-hearted sanctions.
10 percent of what’s published in “Forbes” is accurate.
was there any evidence that Putin personally made a deliberate decision to down this airplane?
if so, I missed it... and this article would then be pure BS
My theory:
Ukrainian Russian sympathizers
(possibly into the vodka)
fired at a target they believed to be Ukrainian military.
A tragic error.
I tend to agree it was a result of human error but you need more than that to start sanctioning a country and it never hurts to look at motive.
Breaking news: International investigators have pinpointed the exact location on the ground from which the missile was launched. They have provided photographs of the remains of a Book Depository, craftily concealed by the Separatists, not far from a Grassy Knoll, which could have served as the site of a back-up launcher, in case the first one failed.
As further proof, they cited the discovery at the site of numerous beer bottles.
NATO isn’t a single country.
A bigger question is why was Malaysia Airlines flying their airline in that airspace?
‘Only one small problem, Putin has yet to be proved guilty.’
If he was not involved in the shoot down itself, he certainly is the one that made it possible. When you give, or even loan, that kind & level of missile equipment to a bunch of drunken, undisciplined ‘rebels’ you are responsible for the uses they put it to.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Too many people here are exhibiting Putin Derangement Syndrome, where they can’t decide if he’s an evil genius or an addled moron. We’ve seen that movie before.
It was shot down from 33,000 feet, by weaponry that can do that, and it was done on purpose as they admitted in their on line bragging.
Hijacked?
“So many ‘manly’ photos of him riding a bear....”
You do realize that the “riding a bear” photos were fake — satire on the real “riding a horse in a manly fashion” photos. Putin never claimed to ride bears, just as Sarah Palin never claimed she could see Russia from her house.
If you don't know the answer to that question by now, it's fruitless to explain.
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