Posted on 03/13/2022 6:02:40 AM PDT by Moseley
We must mourn the death of leadership in America.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy cautiously but brilliantly managed the United States — nay, the world — through the Cuban Missile Crisis on the brink of a nuclear World War III. Watching Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, I felt compelled to watch again the movie Thirteen Days bringing these moments to life. I believe that every American and certainly every decision-maker should re-watch this excellent movie.
If your writer may offer my over-simplified distillation, it is this: JFK and his brain trust rejected the choice between Option A, surrender to a missile platform in Cuba that could strike most of the United States with nuclear warheads, and Option B, provoking a nuclear war. They relentlessly demanded and sought an Option C (or several other options). Pushing back against strident voices, they searched for a different path relentlessly.
If we watch videos rather than read books, documentaries about the Cuban Missile Crisis ought to remind us of the qualities of leadership — leadership sorely lacking in my beloved country's decaying society today. If we believe the self-serving accounts — and here I do — every move was stepping cautiously through mine fields. There was no false or stupid bluster, no reckless bull in a china shop roaring forward. Every moment was painstakingly debated, analyzed, thought through, and gamed out.
This author strongly leans toward the beliefs that this is not our war, we should not fight for Ukraine, Europe is pathetic, and it is time for Europe to stop expecting the USA to wipe its nose and clean up after it. I started in politics fighting Soviet imperialism, politically, expanding into Central America and at Gen. Graham's High Frontier and at the Center for Peace and Freedom of the Heritage Foundation.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Here is what the USA should do:
1) The USA should demand a vote within NATO that Ukraine will never join. Historically, Russia and Ukraine were the same country for 1,100 years. NATO membership was always a deliberate, insane provocation motivated by hatred for Russia.
2) Ukraine is a sovereign country despite being part of Russia since 917 A.D. International ships have a right to dock, refuel, visit, and enjoy shore leave in the port of Odessa if allowed by the government of Ukraine. The U.S. Navy should respond to an invitation to dock in the port of Odessa, refuel, resupply, and let sailors enjoy shore leave, of course armed for their own protection. Every ship internationally has that right to dock at a port if invited by the country owning that port. Putin cannot fire in the direction of U.S. naval vessels. And the ships have an international maritime right to dock there.
But, you will say, this is a risk. Yes. Like JFK, it needs to be handled extremely carefully. It must be done with transparent advance warning and open lines of communication. (Can Slow Joe handle that? No.)
This is why nothing can be done until new leadership arrives. So your suggestions are moot.
“Ukraine is a sovereign country despite being part of Russia since 917 A.D.”
Then, like every sovereign nation, that country has a right to plot its own course in the world. If that course includes them wanting to be a part of NATO, then so be it. Let them apply. That doesn’t mean another sovereign nation has to stay in NATO either. They also have a right to exist, and not be invaded.
These suggestions are not actionable because of the deficiencies in U.S. leadership.
But they are instructive in trying to understand why our leaders are so unacceptably pathetic and we must have better leaders, by looking at what could be done.
And the country of Latvia could declare war on Russia if they want.
The consequences of that decision would be the end of the country.
But they could do it.
The exercise of a country’s sovereignty in an act of self-destructive suicide is not a principle worth pursuing.
I think the account of the Cuban Missle Crisis as presented here is crap. We knew the Soviets only had a few hundred nukes and they knew we had thousands. They were bluffing and we knew they were bluffing. They were never going to push any buttons.
“Then, like every sovereign nation, that country has a right to plot its own course in the world. If that course includes them wanting to be a part of NATO, then so be it. Let them apply. That doesn’t mean another sovereign nation has to stay in NATO either. They also have a right to exist, and not be invaded.”
BRAVO! Someone gets it.
I notice that NATO, itself, is off the table. Perhaps the point of the entire exercise.
NATO should have been rethought. The former East Germany is in NATO “defending” other NATO countries with a leaking stockpile of GDR missiles that have dead Soviet batteries in them.
Perhaps Trump would have rectified this if not hit by the Swamp with the phony Steele Dossier. Trump seems to be a fan of reciprocal trade. Germany and other European nations probably should be trading with Russia instead of trying to enter an expanding NATO.
Now, the Swamp is safe, and the rest of us are not.
The Russians have revealed themselves as indiscriminately cruel and brutal. Rocketing and shelling apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and stores makes no strategic military sense.
Putin — and those tools who obey him — needs a bullet in the back of the head.
I hope ONE Russian, SOMEwhere takes him out.
Yes, yes, he might be replaced by someone even worse, AND vengeance belongs to God — I know that, but I’ll be willing to take that chance. SOMEbody, PLEASE take him OUT - NOW!!
If I EVER gave Russians credit for being a modern, civilized people, I never will again
I would say Stalin by starving to death 3.5 to 4 million Ukrainians due to his forced farm collectivization program severed any brotherly Slav feelings that the Ukrainians might have for the Russians.
After WWII it took the Russians 11 years to pacify Ukraine.
And that was with a massive post WWII army. Putins armed today is small in comparison. He doesn’t have the Warsaw pacts to join in and Belarus is certainly not going to further their involvement. They are already co-conspirators in allowing Russia to invade from their borders.
New leadership? You mean his VP replacement in waiting Harris? Otherwise it will be 3 years and some months before any change will happen. If Ukraine is still resisting, it will be a prairie.
“In 1962, President John F. Kennedy cautiously but brilliantly managed the United States — nay, the world — through the Cuban Missile Crisis…”
YGTBFKM.
Kennedy nearly blundered us into a nuclear war. He was utterly incompetent. One need read no further than this stupid statement. Everything that follows is suspect.
L
“I would say Stalin by starving to death 3.5 to 4 million Ukrainians due to his forced farm collectivization program severed any brotherly Slav feelings that the Ukrainians might have for the Russians.”
Stalin was not a Russian.
You just admitted the core problem here of the war-mongers, can’t-let-the-Cold-War-die and Ukrainian version of the Irish Republican Army.
The Russians did not starve anyone.
The Marxists did, led by a GEORGIAN.
When I worked in politically opposing the Soviet Union, any time anyone talked about “THE RUSSIANS” they were sternly rebuked by government officials and experts alike: “IT’S THE SOVIETS, NOT THE RUSSIANS.”
Any time anyone talked about “Russia” they were sternly warned by government officials and foreign policy experts: “ITS THE SOVIET UNION, NOT RUSSIA.”
The continual infantile hatred of Russia and Russians is why we now have a hot war.
The Ukrainians who ran the Soviet government along with the RUssians, Georgians, etc., etc., who ran the Soviet government are every bit as much to blame for the Ukrainian famine.
The Ukrainian version of the Northern Ireland terrorists are the #1 problem in our relationships with Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Marxism is a German / Austrian system.
The German Kaiser literally financed the Marxist revolution in order to knock the RUssian army out of World War I, by sending Lenin to St. Petersburg on a “sealed train” with crates of gold.
Anyone who confuses “THE SOVIETS” with “RUSSIANS” is a part of the problem, and the largest part of the problem.
“We knew the Soviets only had a few hundred nukes and they knew we had thousands. “
So what?
Gets what?
That a country like a person can blow themselves up and commit suicide?
You COULD drive drunk the wrong way down the highway at 120 MPH.
Sure you could.
And you’d have to take responsibility for doing that, not the oncoming care driving properly in its own lane.
But did the warmongers pushing Ukraine into NATO result in this destructive war?
You betcha.
The starving Ukrainian did not slap hinself on the forehead and say “ It’s not being done by the RussianS it’s being done by a Georgian following a Austro-German economic system!”
I was in Kiev soon after the fall of the USSR they blame Holodomor on the Russians! StaLin they reserve special hate for but they blame the Russians!
AND I DO NOT CONFUSE RUSSIA WITH THE USSR!
I've asked here before WHY NATO? Why is it NATO's job to defend their existence? Ukraine is not part of NATO except that it has petitioned to join NATO despite nothing about it being "North Atlantic." Secondly, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US put together a world UN coalition to solve the problem - why not then? Too far south? Not "North Atlantic" enough as Ukraine.
IMO, Biden and his handlers have used Russia's long-standing fears of an adjacent NATO country to its own and goaded and prodded him into acting - all just before Joe's SOTU address so America would forget Covid and his tyranny just in time for the November elections.
We're being played here like a fiddle, and Democrats, RINOs and the rest of the social justice world and media are falling for it and clamoring for war for war's (and the MIC's) sake.
“WHY NATO? Why is it NATO’s job to defend their existence?”
You raise a good point.
This is NOT about Ukraine “joining” NATO.
It is about obligating NATO countries to GO TO WAR for Ukraine or any other member country.
It’s not just about joining a club.
And since NATO is a worthless paper tiger — they have lethal military equipment but social justice warriors instead of soldiers — that means the United States has to fight the wars.
NATO will bring the hash tags and announce their pronouns to the Russian army, then apologize for their privilege and lay down their arms and surrender because they don’t deserve to win.
Ukraine joining NATO means the USA goes to war.
And it means the USA going to war 100% certain because the hotheads trying to inflame this war have no restraint and will guarantee a war, either the current one or a future one.
So Ukraine joining NATO is 100% certainty that the United States will go to war with a nuclear-armed enemy.
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