Down with Communist Fascism!
For your Freedom and Ours
Posted on 03/09/2014 12:24:55 PM PDT by annalex
I'd say that the author correctly identified one aspect of Putin's mentality: a thug's respect for another thug, the corollary of which is a thug's dismissal of civilized behavior as weakness. It is from that mental vantage point that Putin developed his recent moxie.
The reality is that the West is responding calmly but also firmly. I think that the men in the corridors of power sent Obama to the beach and worked up an effective response. Here Kerry softly suggests that diplomatic relations with Russian Federation may not last past the occupation of Crimea:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a telephone call on Saturday that any Russian steps to annex Ukraine's Crimea region would close the door to diplomacy, a U.S. State Department official said."He made clear that continued military escalation and provocation in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine, along with steps to annex Crimea to Russia would close any available space for diplomacy, and he urged utmost restraint," the official said.
Here Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey reminds the Sovs that NATO member countries also have ethnic minorities to protect in Ukraine:
we’re seeking aggressively to resolve this diplomatically, before we would reach the point where there could be a miscalculation.It’s probably worth mentioning why this is so unsettling to the Eastern Europeans. You know, we live here in America and sometimes don’t understand the realities of geography and demographics in Eastern Europe.
There are — if Russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it exposes Eastern Europe to some significant risk, because there are ethnic enclaves all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
I will give you one example. There are 400,000 ethnic Romanians living in Ukraine. So this is enormously unsettling.
Joint Chiefs chairman Dempsey on Ukraine, military sex abuse and budget cuts
Yet there is another force or forces that Putin would do well to fear. They are the people of Central and Eastern Europe. They won't let NATO slide into pacifism. The countries that joined NATO celebrate the wisdom of doing so today.
When I met the Polish PM I was struck by his belief that joining the EU and Nato would protect his country from being invaded by Russia.John Prescott: Ukraine crisis is best solved by 'jaw-jaw' and not 'war-war'
In Prague, there was a demonstration against the occupation of Ukraine:
In Moscow, the Russians support independent Ukraine. Not many, so far; definitely not enough. But the Russian nation will wake up one day to the fact that their greatest enemy is their Soviet legacy.
This is who will stop Putin.. This is a priest from Nikolaev on the street in Simferopol:
Ultimately, it is the people of Europe, -- not the diplomats from Europe, -- who will stop Putin, because faith and nationalism are stronger than Soviet (and post-Soviet) hordes.
Russia got stopped in Afghanistan. BTW We are not weak but realistic. We only war on countries that are ‘doable’.
The Won who stopped the oceans from rising, The Won who started the planet healing, Our Lord And Savior, The Obama, the Messiah, The Won!
“The Lord will stop Putin when Putin, et al make their move on Israel.....and he won’t be stopped before then....which leads me to believe that it isn’t too far off.”
Right sentiment, wrong actor...
Putin is a student of Machiavelli. Don’t think like an American, think like Machiavelli in “The Prince”.
As long as the Arabs and Jews are at loggerheads, they aren’t that interested in causing trouble in Russia, and there is a market for Russian arms. Actual destruction of Israel would mean no more market for Russian arms.
He’ll stop when he has what he wants. Seize and pause strategy.
The comparison is accurate to Hitler in 1938 when he engineered the Anschluss of Austria and Sudetenland. In both cases the Germans were quite welcome by the population overall. That is the comparisons the Czechs are making as it is most meaningful to them.
Besides, it is a commonplace truth in East-Central Europe that while differences between USSR and the Third Reich exists, the similarities outweigh the differences as far as the Czechs, Poles and the Hungarians are concerned.
We should also remember that even in countries not ethnically tied to Germany, Hitler was not all that unwelcome, as he drove the Communists out. The fierce anti-German resistance in Russia, for example, is for the most part an artifact of Communist propaganda.
You think? No other country that matter?
Nonsense!
The West IS WEEK, and Putin KNOWS it.
Now, having said all that, and also begin aware of Hitler's actions cicra 1938 ... it also does not seem like a good time for the US to take a meat-cleaver to our Defense budget. We may find that we really do have a need for those assets in a few years, whether we want to or not.
It is one of those Ukrainian interjections that has no analogy in Russian, and I only understand Ukrainian as I bridge my Russian and my Bulgarian and take guesses.
This dictionary explains:
геть! out, away, down with! геть! його! — out with him! ідіть геть — out with you!, get out!, clear out!; амер. go chase yourself! геть! з-перед очей! — get out of my sight!
No. This is why this Putin's adventure has the Russian people among its victims already. He is creating himself an economic wasteland.
Who will stop Obama’s aggression.....against America.
Yes, that is my overall impression: that the Western institutions are stronger than their figurehead leaders. Of course fighting a hot war in Ukraine is not in the national interests of the great Western Powers, but Cold War style trade and diplomacy effort will win the Second Cold War probably faster than they won the First.
Thanks annalex.
That is known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. No country once in the Soviet geopolitical orbit is to get out. It will probably end just like the USSR ended, and hopefully, kill Sovietism for good.
Calm down, I don’t argue by font size.
We’ll find out when it happens.
Yes. I think, at this point our reaction is about right, and, like I said in the article, it is ultimately the people of East-Central Europe that will stop him.
I see no agression, other than Putin protecting Russia’s interests in Crimea.
Indeed. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Week.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.