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Obama, Ukraine and the Price of Weakness
Commentary Magazine ^ | March 2, 2014 | Jonathan S. Tobin

Posted on 03/02/2014 2:42:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

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To: goldstategop

America will do nothing. Ukraine is the Russians’ backyard - if they want to slap it silly, who is going to stop them?


Russia also has a border dispute with Canada. Doing nothing now when a neo Brezhnev KGB thug rampages against his neighbor will have big costs later.


21 posted on 03/02/2014 5:24:47 AM PST by lodi90
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

The Russians do not think the way Westerners do. They look at their huge country and know much of it is kept together only by force.

They look at what Gorbachev did and for them that was a time of national humiliation they want to live down. They remember how weak they were when their Serb allies were pummeled by the Americans and NATO and they could do absolutely nothing.

The lesson they learned is letting the West taking advantage of them brought NATO right on their doorstep. And they will not allow the West to take away their freedom to run their “near abroad” as they see fit. They may have lost their empire but they are not about to let any one else take away the influence they wield in their part of the world.

If asserting Russia’s interests means they won’t be invited again to a future G-7 summit, so be it. For the Kremlin, making sure Russia is the leading country of the post-Soviet space overrides all other considerations. And its on this basis that Russia is claiming the right to act as it pleases in Ukraine today.


22 posted on 03/02/2014 5:27:32 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
if Russia were to win, it would face years of costly and bloody insurrection

Like they did in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia?

Don't make me laugh.

23 posted on 03/02/2014 5:30:54 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: lodi90

This shows the false promise of international “law,” U.N. “peacekeeping” and/or treaties.


24 posted on 03/02/2014 5:37:17 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Jim Noble

The Ukrainians are Europeans. The only reason the Russians lost Eastern Europe was the empire was draining them dry.

If the Ukrainians are smart, they will let the Russians occupy them and pick up the tab for their bankrupt country.

In the end Russia will disgorge them because the financial costs of keeping them happy are not worth it.

If the only reason Putin is deterred from invading Ukraine, is not due to moral scruples, respect for international law, or even a regard for human life but simply because acquired real estate is very expensive to administer in the modern world.

And rebuilding the Russian Empire involves more than grabbing huge chunks of land in the bargain.


25 posted on 03/02/2014 5:39:16 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

“to save Ukraine” ???

The e-mails of Klitschko, the boxer dubbed pseudo-president of Ukraine, have been hacked.

They reveal that Klitschko wanted from the start that the situation escalate in Maidan Square and protestors die, because he needed dead bodies to blame for and expell the sitting, legitimate president.


26 posted on 03/02/2014 5:43:52 AM PST by Marguerite ( When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm even better)
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To: goldstategop

Putin doesn’ want all of Ukraine.
He’ll probably take the East, russophone et russophile, the rich and industrialised part and leave the poor east with its batch of nazis to the EU.


27 posted on 03/02/2014 5:46:54 AM PST by Marguerite ( When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm even better)
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To: Marguerite

Why are you licking Putin’s boots in all these threads? Are you an isolationist?


28 posted on 03/02/2014 5:49:10 AM PST by lodi90
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To: goldstategop
The Ukrainians are Europeans

Some are. Some are Russians.

And the truth is, the Europeans who live in Ukraine have had all the press these last two weeks. We have no reliable, testable method of determining what TASS used to refer to as the "correlation of forces".

I presume that the Russians who live in Ukraine want reunification. I also presume that, in the West, there is a so far silent faction of unknown size who were proud to be Soviet citizens, who don't like being small and weak, and/or who don't want to be homosexualized or to be overrun with the Turks and Africans who will arrive with the IMF and the E.U.

I absolutely recognize that Lwow (and Brest, and Grodno for that matter) will never be Russian. But I bet you anything that the silent majority East of Galicia won't fight and die to reverse Putin's coup.

Of course, I could be wrong. That's why they play the games.

29 posted on 03/02/2014 5:59:16 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: lodi90

Why are you backing a Neo Nazi who has already tried to remove the citizenship of every Russian speaking citizen.

It boggles my mind that there are several people here who think a Neo Nazi Chief Prosecutor in a corrupt 3rd world country known for brutality and ruthlessness (see the fear worldwide of Ukrainian Mobsters) poses no problem.

This is a powder keg and Jews that can get out should get out until this settles down.


30 posted on 03/02/2014 6:02:46 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick; Marguerite; bert; All

“........There is a train of thought among some libertarian types that the Ukraine is “not our fight” an eerie parallel to the thinking among isolationists and appeasers of the 1930s regarding Hitler’s territorial demands. But the imperative of preventing the rebirth of the Soviet Empire and the second coming of the balance of nuclear terror makes the Ukraine everyone’s fight. Because it will not be Putin’s final territorial demand.”

http://voices.yahoo.com/why-ukraine-crisis-matters-12555481.html?cat=9


31 posted on 03/02/2014 6:09:17 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Jews are front and center as to be the ones to lose again..

Some here think there are no Neo Nazis in power in Ukraine.

The idea is LUDICROUS. Mccain has actually backed them..but then he is a senile ole’ coot.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/28/352614/us-mustnt-back-neonazis-in-ukraine/


32 posted on 03/02/2014 6:11:21 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

Does anyone here think of Obambi and his Black Panthers when reading this story

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/tiahnybok-says-security-service-intervened-in-work-of-cec-server-latter-denies-it-315289.html

People had better WAKE UP....before the Neo Nazis have suddenly risen to the top


33 posted on 03/02/2014 6:15:23 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/roberts-its-ww1-that-has-the-lessons-for-our-time/5290470

It’s WWI that has the lessons for our time


34 posted on 03/02/2014 6:20:29 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

NEWSNIGHT: Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY&feature=youtu.be

but But but..Jews have nothing to fear according to some here...

Despite the Chief Prosecutor being a Neo Nazi


35 posted on 03/02/2014 6:25:34 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

Why are you backing a Neo Nazi who has already tried to remove the citizenship of every Russian speaking citizen.


That is a false choice. But if it was a real choice I would still pick some “neo nazi” bureaucrat over a murdering KGB thug with an army of 700,000. Putin is running the Brezhnev doctrine playbook, killing those that disagree with him politically and living in the 1970’s. I don’t care to go back there.

This is really about isolationism isn’t it? It’s none of our business yada yada yada. If that’s your position just state it. Willfully ignoring the the murdering KGB thug in the room while you chase strawmen is unbecoming a conservative. Would Reagan do that?


36 posted on 03/02/2014 6:26:28 AM PST by lodi90
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To: RummyChick
On door: "Death [to] Yids" #ukraine RT @ianbirrell: Deeply unpleasant: front door of the synagogue in #Simferopol pic.twitter.com/v9bgXLA267

37 posted on 03/02/2014 6:27:27 AM PST by RummyChick
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To: lodi90

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/26/us-china-philippines-idUSBREA1P0I320140226

Feb 26, 2014: “............On January 27, a Chinese coastguard vessel tried to drive away Filipino fishermen from Scarborough Shoal by using a water cannon, General Emmanuel Bautista, the head of Philippine military said on Monday.

China claims about 90 percent of the 3.5-million-sq-km (1.35-million-sq-mile) waters of the South China Sea. It provides 10 percent of the global fish catch, carries $5 trillion a year in ship-borne trade and has a seabed believed to be rich in energy reserves.

Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam also claim parts of the sea.

The Philippines has urged regional grouping the Association of South East Asian Nations to conclude a binding code of conduct with China to avoid accidents and miscalculations in the disputed waters.

The Philippines has taken its dispute with China to arbitration under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea but China is refusing to participate.

China has rejected challenges to its sovereignty claims and accused the Philippines of illegally occupying Chinese islands in the seas and of provoking tension.”


38 posted on 03/02/2014 6:28:50 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: RummyChick

Simferopol, a well known hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.


39 posted on 03/02/2014 6:33:31 AM PST by lodi90
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To: lodi90

The Neo Nazis backed by Mccain helped lead to the destabilization of the Ukraine.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100260665/ukraine-the-opposition-arent-all-angels-some-are-neo-nazis/

That’s right.

This is about destabilization.

So, basically what you are saying is that it is okay to let the Neo Nazis who hate Jews take power.

How many said that as Hitler gained power.


40 posted on 03/02/2014 6:33:52 AM PST by RummyChick
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