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.
Presence of legitimate interests on the territory of another nation does not create an excuse for insertion of troops in this manner. Purely peacemaking force insertion might be justified in case of a humanitarian crisis, but not such crisis exists. Typically, the UN or some other international body authorizes a peacekeeping operation.
Absence of national insignia, by the way, is also contrary to all norms of war; these "green men" cannot be afforded the protection of the Geneva convention. They are already war criminals simply for not identifying themselves.
LOL. The UFOs said so?
I welcomed Putin’s diplomacy on Syria. It is not possible to run a large country for twelve years and not do something good. The growing economy in the RF is, however, simply a function of growing oil prices.
I would have thought that a monarchy/paleo list would support the restoration of the four empires in Europe, whose dissolution by American-UK-French progressives in 1919 has brought 95 years of bloodshed.
I think Putin is only interested in keeping the commerce moving. The UN...hah. The Geneva Convention...ptooie. The whole thing is a joke.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/03/reichstag-fire-in-kiev.html#more
If we are to look for historical parallels, instead of the Sudetenland, one might consider the Nazi/Soviet non-aggression pact resulting in the partition of Poland. Clearly, the West has lost its claim to any moral leadership; the West acts in the interests of the global elite. Putin acts in his own interests and the Russian oligarchs. The people of Ukraine are just a morsel to be divided up by the EU and Russia.
The US is economically weak; we are a paper tiger. All that we can hope for is to get our domestic house in order by ridding ourselves of the commie Dems and feckless GOPe. For the US, Ukraine is a diversion with no upside for the American people.
Why would Putin even want to invade Israel? The Jews aren’t the ones bombing Russian transportation systems or killing Russian schoolchildren. And Israel doesn’t have any natural resources that Russia lacks and wants to plunder. So how would an invasion of Israel benefit Russia in any way?
I don’t think the goal is restoration of the empires that, one way or another, dissolved a long time ago. I would obviously prefer the world order where countries big and small gravitate in some reasonable patterns to imperial nations; but it cannot be the exact same world as in 1914. Russia, for example, suffered near 100 years of Soviet artificial selection, with the resulting loss of national identity, sense of national purpose, and, importantly to the topic on hand, loss of the ability to attract other nations to its imperial sphere. The Ukrainian nation, on the other hand, — a mere fantastical project 100 years ago, — has now been born and has shown an ability to seek its own spot in the community of nations. We see how both Poland and Ukraine, bitter enemies 50 years ago now have found mutual respect and are in the process of forming a political and economic block to the Germany’s East. That would not have been possible even a short while ago. Nations evolve.
The best for both peoples, the Russian people and the Ukrainian people is to live independently and in peace. The national project for Russia should be a complete repudiation of its Soviet past, and acceptance of its loss of the Cold War, so that it becomes a trade partner rather than a constant expansionist threat. The imperial ambition of the Russian Federation today is a dangerous anachronism, which, moreover, goes back not to the Russian Empire but to the worse instincts of the USSR. It might work for the RF in Asia, but then it would not be int he national interest of the Russian people who — what’s left of them, — culturally belong to Europe.
If so he has a funny way of showing it.
Although over the longer haul you are historically correct Putin’s
actions to this point are similar to those of Hitler in that both of
them claim their incursions were to protect ethnics of their
respective nations. And if that is what Hillary meant then although
I despise her I will grant her that minor point.
That Ukraine might be partitioned into a Western part and an Eastern part is true, but the analogy with Poland and Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is not there: EU is not occupying Western Poland in 2014, and Poland did not ask to join the Third Reich in 1939.
If you were a Ukrainian, would you have any doubt about who runs the Crimea.
Autonomous governing body(a regional parliament, I believe) has been running Crimea under the Ukrainian constitution, prior to Putin’s invasion. I don’t need to be Ukrainian to know that.
Now, if Putin were Stalin, I would share your concerns. I think the whole thing has been over-sensationalized by our “media” to make Obama look like a great statesman and protector of freedom and Kerry a great diplomat. I wish they would had held him for ransom when he went to Kiev.
The Ukraine will essentially lose sovereignty if it joins the EU. Its economy will be “managed” by the European CB. I am well acquainted with WW2 history, and I am only offering a parallel.
The real problem is that the world is on the march to global government and the major players are consolidating their gains. The Ukraine is just another chess piece to be taken.
Yep. And it's not our concern.
That wasn’t for you, Anna. It was for the lurkers who can’t quite grasp it.
Well okay. I can’t spell. But I’ve got good eye site...I mean I site...I mean eyesight?
Who will stop Obama’s aggression against the United States?
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