Ukraine's new leader stands up to Moscow over Crimea and Europe

reuters.com ^ | June 7, 2014 | Richard Balmforth

[Grzegorz 246]

And regarding Mongoloids... I am mocking Russian approach, they think Russia is some kind of mother of all Slavic nations and therefore Moscow's hegemony over other Slavic nations is somehow justified, the have been pushing forward that nonsense for centuries, Slavic unity and all of that, when in fact Muscovites have been invading other Slavs far more often than helping them in any way. That nonsense does deserve mocking especially when many of these Russian soldiers “liberating” Crimea look like great-great-...-grandsons of Gengis Khan and they send Chechen terrorists into eastern Ukraine. Russia is actually the least Slavic out of Slavic nations.

If you don't give a damn about it, you've got God given right to do so but don't tell people that Estonia is trying to provoke war with Russia because that's nonsense.

[Tailgunner Joe]

You are like those who thought the British would not fight over Belgium or Poland. Germany's threat to Europe never had anything to do with the USA but that did not keep us out of war. We won't sit out this time either. We will be right in the middle of it whether anybody likes it or not.

Fortunately Putin is not so foolhardy. He will not attack NATO because he knows a fight with NATO is a fight Russia would lose. That's why he pulled the Russian troops out of Kosovo. He could not risk starting a fight he would lose for sure. He attacked Ukraine precisely because they are not in NATO. So therefore NATO will continue to expand because other nations know that NATO membership is the only protection from Russia's unprovoked imperialist aggression.

As for your dreams of American decline and the end of the petrodollar, let's just say that rumors of America's demise are greatly exaggerated. Fracking is going to cripple Russia's energy export dependent economy. Not even Putin's good comrades Obama and the Democrats can stop the energy revolution that is coming!

History marches on, but KGB Putin and is retrograde backwards ideas are headed towards the ash heap of history where they belong.

[Always A Marine]

This is not the same America that outproduced Germany and Japan in WWII and whose industrial output wore down the Chicoms and Norks to a standstill in Korea. This is not the same America that outproduced Soviet Russia to the point of collapse and exposed communism as a failed religion. We are a shell of our former self, still fielding the world's greatest armed forces but no longer able to afford them without printing money at an ever increasing rate. And now, after two decades of half-hearted and fruitless warfare in the middle of nowhere, we have squandered a large part of our national treasure, wasted many thousands of young lives to death and permanent disability, worn out much of our military equipment and transport, and exhausted our national will to fight. None of these things, including the last, can be conjured up again in an instant. In the fat years, America made itself the arbiter of every dispute, the guarantor of every debt, and the savior of every nation. We wrote a lot of checks that we can no longer cash -- especially if our many enemies collude to run the bank at the same time.

America's decline is not a dream, but a nightmare that should have been and might still be avoided. I agree with you about fracking our enormous oil and natural gas reserves -- the only hope for producing our way out of our otherwise hopeless debt. A sane nation would exploit such an obvious gift of Providence, but we are no longer sane. In our present delusion, worshiping the earth is more important than using its resources, and a great part of our nation believes this suicidal lie.

But that's just one symptom of the real problem, which is our national character. Resources can be used for good or evil, or not used at all. Finances can be built for decades and invested wisely or foolishly, and may be squandered in an instant. Military strength can be built and kept ready, but can also be wasted in needless wars or expanded beyond the point of affordability. History shows that all of those advantages are very transient. What destroys civilizations is the decline of character.

The America that promoted democracy around the world now punishes free speech that it deems unacceptable. The America that promoted the family as its cornerstone now promotes sexual deviancy. The America that encouraged children now promotes abortion. The America built on hard work and sacrifice now rewards idleness. The America that once enshrined Freedom has become a police state. This is not the America that we inherited.

Russia is not what concerns me today. America is what I'm truly worried about.

[Always A Marine]

Slavic passions ignited WWI, and the Gallic zeal for revenge guaranteed WWII. So it has always been in Europe, stumbling from one war into another. Washington and Jefferson understood this, which is why they wisely advised against entangling alliances that might drag America into unintended wars.

As for Estonia, it is a beautiful little country that I was very familiar with in the 1990s. Nice people, too, although Soviet-era Russian colonization left them with a demographic ticking time bomb. Estonians have my best wishes, but there is no way in hell that the United States will go to war to defend a country the size of metropolitan Richmond. I don't care what the treaty says, this nation is not going to do it.