[caww]

The cold war horses on FR latch onto anything which will support their cold war mindset...something our military leaders have stated many times creates problems that aren't there, and cause issues in the Ukraine situation which wouldn't be so if they weren't in that mindset.

The water situation in Crimea is because the Kiev Gov. ha cut off their main water sources...though they deny it there is more than ample proof this is so with satellite photos showing so as well as on the ground showing the sandbags...and the former water levels clearly.

I really wish there was someway to get these old cold war guys from causing such problems, not only here on FR but as well in the leadership making decisions and creating tensions with those who need to do so.

As the military leaders have mentioned...difficult to communicate with them because they can't see Russia as it is today, nor it's people, nor Putin in the light he needs to be seen....let alone the situation in Ukraine and how the Eu/Nato/US is operating in the field. They are blinded by their mindset of the old cold war days...and prior.

Currently Nato and the Think tanks are attempting to arrive at a way diplomatically that will save face for Putin and the US and NATO...as they are keenly aware, and have from the start, that Russia is a sovereign power and needs to continue to be incorporated with International decisions in the future.

*** Interesting from "Sec of Defense Gates" who stated in his Memoir.....

..."Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching....... The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially "monumental provocation"......... Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia? Hardly...........NATO expansion was a 'political act', not a carefully considered 'military commitment',........ thus..... undermining the purpose of the alliance and recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”

[Mariner]

..."Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching....... The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially "monumental provocation"......... Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia? Hardly...........NATO expansion was a 'political act', not a carefully considered 'military commitment',........ thus..... undermining the purpose of the alliance and recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”

A short flash of brilliance on the part of Robert Gates.

It's been my position from the onset of this conflict...and before. All the way back to bringing Romania and Bulgaria into the "Alliance" circa 2003.

Poland and the Baltics had some basis in culture and proximity. But the surge in NATO membership we experienced under the GW Bush administration made no sense at all. Our sons are likely to have cause to curse them for it.