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.
the whole thing has been over-sensationalized
This is quite without precedent. It concerns us little, but from the international geopolitical perspective this is as bad as any Cold War crises and it is not over yet. For example, Putin's aggression destroyed the collective security guarantees that, we thought, marked the end of the Cold War.
to make Obama look like a great statesman
Obama looks terrible in this; I don't know where you are getting this.
Ukraine is a sovereign country that can opt to join whatever organizations it wishes. Here's the stark contrast between the EU and the USSR: EU has no army to occupy its neighbors' territory. RF has, and just did.
You can call me Alex. Ann, my wife, doesn’t post here.
I agree that we are at our, possibly, weakest point militarily, but since neither side wants a shooting war, it is beside the point. I think Putin miscalculated the strength of the Western institutions that go by precedents, laws, treaties, and won’t let him get away with military aggression. He will get a Second Cold War out of this. That, I think did not enter his plans.
That, indeed, is a valid concern, but this thread has very little to do with Obama. I wish our president a good tan.
Iceland?
I think the West is weak militarily, economically, and in almost every way because it is decadent. Western Civilization has lost confidence in itself, and millions think it has nothing to offer. This results from all the wars, the racism, the problems that Western Civilization has not, so far, been able to solve. Western European nations, for example, cannot even muster the energy or the will to survive.
I don't know whether Putin understands this or not, but he doesn't care.
He knows the West is weak.
He calculates that he can bully Western leaders.
And he's right.
Putin's not concerned about "Global Warming" or endangered species. Neither are the Chi-coms.
You mean like when the US invaded Iraq?
Weak or not, — all that is relative, — the post-Soviet world remains a parasite on the Western Civilization’s body. The moment the West closes the pipe with the visas, high tech products and, simply, food, whatever it is that Putin think he has collapses. His own buddies will shoot him and that will be the end of his Crimea conquest.
Well, in retrospect at least, yes. However Iraq in 2003 was seen as a military threat; Ukraine isn’t a military threat to Russia by any stretch.
However, if the West remains weak and continues to sink into decadence, another tyrant will come to take his place.
Here´s Vladimir Putin´s Facebook Movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR1PA0SDNzA
Hitler Phones Putin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji6DFOwjqeE
Hitler interviews Vladimir Putin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBO79-_SBrQ
Hitler finds out about Russian Elections
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWMYVZosvRY
Yes.
These are hilarious, thanks.
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