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Losing Sevastopol - Ukraine in NATO removes Russian Black Sea fleet's port
NRO's The Corner ^ | 8-14-08 | email to Rich Lowry

Posted on 08/14/2008 7:47:12 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo

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1 posted on 08/14/2008 7:47:13 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
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To: SeafoodGumbo

Amazing that we would have to explain this to Germany.

Europe had better wake up to the New Cold War. And, to be fair, so had OUR electorate.


2 posted on 08/14/2008 7:50:08 PM PDT by Wiseghy ("You want to break this army? Then break your word to it.")
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To: Bender2; wideawake; ETL; Petronski; txflake

Ping for your consideration.


3 posted on 08/14/2008 7:50:42 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: SeafoodGumbo

>I think fast induction into NATO should be the centerpiece >of our response

Sounds like a bad idea to me. Making threats you can’t back up is a dumb idea. Europe would never go to war over anything.


4 posted on 08/14/2008 7:51:59 PM PDT by Ron Jeremy (sonic)
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To: SeafoodGumbo

...good idea. Unfortunately we don’t even come to the aid of our current allies. So who cares if Ukraine joins NATO? It’s not like we’re going to do anything if Ukraine is attacked (other than let the UN handle it...)


5 posted on 08/14/2008 7:52:28 PM PDT by Tzimisce (How Would Mohammed Vote? Obama for President!)
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To: SeafoodGumbo

Booting them from the G8 is just step one.

Fast-tracking Georgia and Ukraine is a GREAT idea. I’m sure Putin understands chess: denying him Sevastapol is roughly like a direct threat to his queen.


6 posted on 08/14/2008 7:53:54 PM PDT by Petronski (The God of Life will condemn the Chinese government. Laogai means GULAG.)
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To: Petronski

The loss of the Black Sea would be a huge blow to Russia. The Black Sea has long been important to Russia because it has focused them on their greater goal of full and free access to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia does need to be punished: removal from the G8, denial or expulsion from the WTO, European and American boycott of their Olympics (announced now - maybe we hold a counter event), and of course, the advancement of NATO (think Armenia or Azerbaijan want in?).


7 posted on 08/14/2008 7:59:04 PM PDT by StAthanasiustheGreat (Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit)
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To: SeafoodGumbo
The Russian Black Sea fleet is based at Sevastopol (as it has been for eons) under a 20-year lease that expires on 2017. ......There may not be a suitable alternative deep-water port on the Black Sea large enough to base Russia's Black Sea fleet. Russia's ability to dominate the Black Sea and project force into the Eastern Mediterranean could be turned back to the 18th century.

If Russia insists on "detaching the two breakaway provinces from Georgia," bringing the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO with the denial of Sevastopol (and Crimea), sounds like a possible solution.
8 posted on 08/14/2008 8:05:50 PM PDT by Girlene
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To: Tzimisce

To help Ukraine in Sevastopol, we’d have to go through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey.

I’ve seen comments that the Turks won’t let our aid-bearing naval vessels through the Bosporus.

Not that it’d be a surprise. I assume that Incirlik is off-limits, too.


9 posted on 08/14/2008 8:13:13 PM PDT by oceanagirl
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To: Girlene; All
Related article by Krauthammer.
10 posted on 08/14/2008 8:13:32 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
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To: SeafoodGumbo
Were NATO membership to confer anything other than a commitment of U.S. forces to a hopeless battle while our EU "allies" snipe at us from their media I'd be all for it. It doesn't, and I'm not.

We can and should help the Ukrainians in other ways. Historically they were the people the Soviet Union victimized the most. The loss of their warm-water ports in Sevastopol is, quite frankly, a strategic defeat for the Russians I would categorize as far more provocative than any silliness in South Ossetia, and the Ukrainians have a world full of guts even to mention it. Putin absolutely cannot allow that to take place, but he has nine years to solidify his position and he obviously feels he can cow the Ukrainians into cooperation within that time.

He may be right. NATO is on the wane and his own power is waxing. His ultimatum to the United States to choose between him and the Georgians is based on a concession on our part that he will rule Europe, little more.

Hurrah for "soft power"! Europe will defy him to the very last diplomatic note, that much is certain. They may even chastise him in their editorials, at least until the editors can figure out a narrative that places all of the blame on the United States. They're working on it, and they'll have plenty of help from the NY Times.

I note with considerable amusement the recent consensus among European intelligentsia that a unipolar world is intolerable, and that the world would be better served by a sort of Great Powers multipolarity that existed prior to, say, 1914. Welcome to your world, folks - this is what it looks like.

11 posted on 08/14/2008 8:14:35 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: SeafoodGumbo

Time to reread Ezekiel Chapters 38 & 39.

Magog, Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal correspond to areas between the Black and Caspian Seas. .... also including part of Iran and Turkey, extending to the upper reaches of Siberia and the Urals. The Midrash calls Gomer Germania and that is also the way the Talmud refers to Gomer

A rabbinic view from the Artscroll Commentary on Ezekiel states:

The Gaonim had a tradition that these controls were indeed located in Russia... One tradition passed down from the Vilna Gaon states: Then the Russian navy passes through the Bospores (that is, on the way to Dardanelles), it will be time to put on the Sabbath clothes (in anticipation of the coming Messiah).

Other nations part of the Magog confederacy are to include Persia (Iran). Also Cush, a place possibly refering to the Mesopotamian countries of Syria and Iraq, while other portions of Scripture indicate Ethiopia is more directly referenced as Cush.

Put, is mentioned, not as Libya (which would have been named Lub), but Somalia which borders Ethiopia. Followed by Gomer.

The last name is Togarmah, which is present day Armenia.

Interestingly, not one single Arab nation is involved in the Magog invasion, which many believe is a pretribulational event.

(some notes from Footsteps of the Messiah pp106-110., by Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Ariel Ministries copyright 2003)


12 posted on 08/14/2008 8:16:58 PM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: Wiseghy
Europe had better wake up to the New Cold War. And, to be fair, so had OUR electorate.

Amen on that.


13 posted on 08/14/2008 8:17:26 PM PDT by knyteflyte3 (Freedom is not for FREE)
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To: Quix

for your notes..


14 posted on 08/14/2008 8:18:31 PM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: Cvengr

I would suggest that our US Naval fleet should engage in Military exercises in the Crimea Sea and camp out there.


15 posted on 08/14/2008 8:23:18 PM PDT by princess leah
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To: SeafoodGumbo

>>>...fast induction into NATO should be the centerpiece of our response.

agree.

angela merkel, the chancellor of germany helped create this mess by rejecting.


16 posted on 08/14/2008 8:23:44 PM PDT by ken21 (people die and you never hear from them again.)
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To: SeafoodGumbo

Russian media is claiming that Ukraine is preparing for war with them. Somehow I don’t think that we will get the chance to bring Ukraine into NATO. I hope I’m wrong but if we let Russia take the Crimea, it will be the official beginning of the end of the West.

Ukraine began military training against Russia in the Crimea

http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://evrazia.org/n.php%3Fid%3D3089&usg=ALkJrhgDNuGA5quy-QNcWaovNZT9qLmOLw


17 posted on 08/14/2008 8:31:37 PM PDT by Tramonto (Regime change in Russia)
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To: Girlene
If Russia insists on "detaching the two breakaway provinces from Georgia," bringing the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO with the denial of Sevastopol (and Crimea), sounds like a possible solution.

It started several weeks ago.

Link

Russia responded by invading Askhazia and Ossetia and then they raised the stakes by occupying and threatening not to leave Georgia.

So now Ukraine puts Sevastapol on the table and Poland agrees to the missile defense shield.

Russia should leave Georgia and consider the trade off of getting Muslim infested Abkhasia and puny South Ossetia while Georgia and Ukraine enter the NATO.

18 posted on 08/14/2008 8:32:56 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: StAthanasiustheGreat; All

They will not lose the black sea, thats the whole pupose for this ruse, they were gonna lose sevastopol when ukraine made nato status anyway, they need poti, thats what this is all about, they aint leaving.


19 posted on 08/14/2008 8:37:58 PM PDT by eastforker (Get-R-Done and then Bring-Em- Home)
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To: FreeReign

Read post 19, Russia has to maintain a warm water port and Poti is gonna replace sevestopol.


20 posted on 08/14/2008 8:41:20 PM PDT by eastforker (Get-R-Done and then Bring-Em- Home)
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