The Ukraine is Weak

[Koko78]

And is there anyone who honestly thinks that Obama's foreign policy team has any real understanding of the situation beyond where to find the Ukraine on a map?

 

Are you sure they can even accomplish that?

[meazza]

I think this video is appropriate.

 

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=11391#.UxQCV-NdVNo

[DC Tom]

Are you sure they can even accomplish that?

 

Yeah. We have an embassy there, that grants Ukrainians "diversity visas.". We even have some sort of "Strategic Council" sort-of thing with them that last met in 2011. And that's just about the sum total of everything I've seen from the US government on our foreign policy with respect to the Ukraine, before December of last year.

 

Well, except for the statements from about 14 months ago from the US ambassadors to the Ukraine and the State Department that the US should stop cooperating with the Ukraine because their government was becoming "authoritarian" and increasingly less democratic. How's that policy working out now?

[GG]

"Leased" is the proper term...legally, in the same sense that we "lease" Guantanamo. And I don't think he ever "duped" the Bush administration...we can question the effectiveness of Bush's foreign policy, but he did pursue closer relations with former Soviet-bloc countries to Russia's detriment, which was the whole point of Obama's opening foreign policy move of the friggin' idiotic "reset button" to begin with.

 

The bottom line, though, is that this whole thing is about basing rights and natural gas, and has its immediate roots going back to 2009 (though you can make a perfectly acceptable argument that it ultimately goes back to 1994, if you'd like). And is there anyone who honestly thinks that Obama's foreign policy team has any real understanding of the situation beyond where to find the Ukraine on a map?

 

Yes Guantanamo is a parallel, except that Cuba was never part of USA proper in the same sense that Crimea was part of Russia proper. Goes all the way back to Catherine. It's not just basing rights, it's Russia's need to control the Black Sea.

 

Bush was duped in the beginning with the soul in his eyes. Granted it didn't take him long to understand who he was dealing with, not six years into an administration (never mind that the 2008 election year had a little issue in Georgia - the idiots probably looked up the wrong Georgia on the map).

 

The parallels to Rheinland, Danzig & Sudetenland are striking.

[DC Tom]

Yes Guantanamo is a parallel, except that Cuba was never part of USA proper in the same sense that Crimea was part of Russia proper. Goes all the way back to Catherine. It's not just basing rights, it's Russia's need to control the Black Sea.

 

Bush was duped in the beginning with the soul in his eyes. Granted it didn't take him long to understand who he was dealing with, not six years into an administration (never mind that the 2008 election year had a little issue in Georgia - the idiots probably looked up the wrong Georgia on the map).

 

The parallels to Rheinland, Danzig & Sudetenland are striking.

 

I was only speaking to the international concept of "leasing," not making an exact comparison. And according to Ukrainians, the Ukraine was never part of Russia proper either (thus, nor was the Crimea.) That goes all the way back to Mstislav the Bold or Mstislav the Greasy-Haired or Mstislav the something-or-other (I don't think the Ukraine had a ruler not named Mstislav).

 

And it is all about basing rights, because those basing rights are all about not only Russia's need to control the Black Sea, but to control the Caucasus, access to the Eastern Med, and influence in the greater Levant and Middle East. (And natural gas, because Gazprom doesn't want to lose such a big market to the EU.)

[GG]

 

 

I was only speaking to the international concept of "leasing," not making an exact comparison. And according to Ukrainians, the Ukraine was never part of Russia proper either (thus, nor was the Crimea.) That goes all the way back to Mstislav the Bold or Mstislav the Greasy-Haired or Mstislav the something-or-other (I don't think the Ukraine had a ruler not named Mstislav).

 

And it is all about basing rights, because those basing rights are all about not only Russia's need to control the Black Sea, but to control the Caucasus, access to the Eastern Med, and influence in the greater Levant and Middle East. (And natural gas, because Gazprom doesn't want to lose such a big market to the EU.)

 

You're looking at it the wrong way. Crimea was never historically part of Ukraine until 60 years ago. It was Turkish Ottoman until Russia took it over. That's why the region is restive. Even after Ukraine got its independence, only a minority there identified themselves with Ukraine.

 

The importance to control the region for putin is to maintain gas distribution rights. There's no gas or oil in Ukraine. But the main pipelines to EU go through Ukraine. The invasion of Georgia was a warning shot for the country not to build a pipeline from Baku to Turkey underthe black Sea.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Let's not mince words. Putin is a fascist. The move to control Crimea is analogous to the German occupation of Sudetenland, and done under the same false pretenses. This isn't about protecting ethnic Russians. It's about annexing territory to Russia. And like Neville Chamberlain and the other weak-minded leaders of Europe of the time, our glorious leader is going to allow it to happen.

 

Lead from behind....FORWARD!

[Tiberius]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-putins-error-in-ukraine-is-the-kind-that-leads-to-catastrophe/2014/03/02/d376603e-a249-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps inevitably, given Washington’s political monomania, the big subject over the weekend wasn’t Putin’s criminal attack on Crimea but whether Obama had encouraged it by being insufficiently muscular. There are many valid criticisms to be made of Obama’s foreign policy, especially in Syria, but the notion that Putin’s attack is somehow the United States’ fault is perverse.

For two months the Obama administration has been prodding the European Union to take the Ukraine crisis more seriously. I’m told that U.S. reporting showed that Putin was impatient with Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and wanted him to crack down even harder on the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square. Putin’s distaste for Yanukovych has been obvious since he fled the capital a week ago.

 

 

Let's not mince words. Putin is a fascist. The move to control Crimea is analogous to the German occupation of Sudetenland, and done under the same false pretenses. This isn't about protecting ethnic Russians. It's about annexing territory to Russia. And like Neville Chamberlain and the other weak-minded leaders of Europe of the time, our glorious leader is going to allow it to happen.

 

Lead from behind....FORWARD!

Well, doesn't Russia have an interest in the Russian population that lives in the Crimea? I think your analogy to the 1930's fails in the fact that this was forced on Putin by Ukraine. Whereas Hitler just used Sudentenland as a stepping stone for further conquest. I think people are missing the point that there is a real from the ground up pressure here. The ethnic Russians don't want to live in a Ukranian country that might not protect their rights. The Crimea has been Russian since 1783 or something? But in any event, Obama, like Chambrerlain at Munich, has very few options, The British people were not going to fight for the Sudentenland and we are not going to fight for the Crimea.

[dpberr]

I'm afraid if the United States leaves the invasion of Ukraine unpunished, it will embolden China to try Taiwan, embolden Putin to continue annexing former Soviet territories and give the Iranians enough confidence not only to develop a nuclear weapon, but put it on top of a shiny missile.

 

You mix all that ugliness with a weaker United States and a global recession, that's a recipe for a World War.

 

This is one of those nip it in the bud events.

 

FWIW, I don't think Putin would go to war over Ukraine if push came to shove. Even a limited engagement with the US would kill the global economy and namely the golden goose of Gazprom. I think he's merely trading on his calculation that Obama goes weak in the knees when action is required. If say Reagan, Bush or Clinton were in office, this would have never happened. Reagan would blockade, Bush would invade something, and Clinton would have carpeted the area with cruise missiles for three weeks.

[Tiberius]

Here is a map of the gas pipe lines that run through Ukraine.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe.png

[Nanker]

Note that both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney got this right, and were called idiots by box-dwellers.

More fundamentally, Sununu got it right: Obama is lazy. He has no interest in foreign affairs - unless a nice vacation and tours and extravagant dinners are involved. He's clueless as to diplomacy, ignorant with respect for finance and business, and has a penchant for taking the easy way out. He's Putney Swope who's lines Morton Downey had to dub over because he couldn't remember them, he can't speak without stuttering and making an abject **** out of himself without his teleprompter.

 

He was the guy in grad school that got A's because he volunteered to do the presentation of the team's work instead of contributing to the research and writing.

 

This regime was disinterested in pursuing Ukraine's entry into NATO, and now they're paying the price for it. They're real busy right now at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - trying to find hiding spaces in the closets and utility rooms. I'll bet it'll be time for another two week vacation pretty soon. Damn, if there were only another disgusting Internet video they could blame. Maybe they could pin it on this guy:

 

http://youtu.be/BvPugOWeZiA

[TakeYouToTasker]

Here is a map of the gas pipe lines that run through Ukraine.

 

http://en.wikipedia....s_to_europe.png

Here is a picture of a mallard duck.

 

[B-Man]

Here is a picture of a mallard duck.

 

 

 

 

Thanks TYTT............................now i can't stop laughing and my staff is looking at me funny.

 

.

[Nanker]

Thanks TYTT............................now i can't stop laughing and my staff is looking at me funny.

 

.

That one got me too!

[Tiberius]

Here is a picture of a mallard duck.

 

Oh, what's a matter? Are you mad at me for showing how stupid you are in another thread?

 

What's your little Liber playbook say about big bad Putin? Don't you anti-government nuts want us to totally ignore world affairs?

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Well, doesn't Russia have an interest in the Russian population that lives in the Crimea? I think your analogy to the 1930's fails in the fact that this was forced on Putin by Ukraine. Whereas Hitler just used Sudentenland as a stepping stone for further conquest. I think people are missing the point that there is a real from the ground up pressure here. The ethnic Russians don't want to live in a Ukranian country that might not protect their rights. The Crimea has been Russian since 1783 or something? But in any event, Obama, like Chambrerlain at Munich, has very few options, The British people were not going to fight for the Sudentenland and we are not going to fight for the Crimea.

 

No, they don't. The Russian speakers in the Crimea are citizens of the UKRAINE, not Russia. And by your logic, since the Sudetenland was part of the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler had every right to annex it into greater Germany. Chamberlain was a failure when it comes to international diplomacy. And so is Obama.

[Tiberius]

No, they don't. The Russian speakers in the Crimea are citizens of the UKRAINE, not Russia. And by your logic, since the Sudetenland was part of the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler had every right to annex it into greater Germany. Chamberlain was a failure when it comes to international diplomacy. And so is Obama.

But they had special rights written into the Constitution, and those people on the streets of the Crimea had just as many human rights as the people that overthrew the Ukranian government. And...really, so did the Sudenten Germans Why were they suppose to be in a country they did not want to be in. Hitler may have been evil but Germans still wanted to live with Germans. Most people with the small Tom knowledge of history don't know stuff like that

 

There is no clear wrong committed here

[Maury Ballstein]

Ukrainian coast guard posts have been taken over by Russian forces "peacefully"

 

Any that didn't want to pledge pro Russia were allowed to drop their weapons and walk away.

[DC Tom]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Crimea was never historically part of Ukraine until 60 years ago. It was Turkish Ottoman until Russia took it over. That's why the region is restive. Even after Ukraine got its independence, only a minority there identified themselves with Ukraine.

 

The importance to control the region for putin is to maintain gas distribution rights. There's no gas or oil in Ukraine. But the main pipelines to EU go through Ukraine. The invasion of Georgia was a warning shot for the country not to build a pipeline from Baku to Turkey underthe black Sea.

 

It's changed hands many, many times. It was Mongolian at one time, Ukranian before that.

 

It's one of the reasons everyone fights over it. Everyone's "owned" it at one point or another.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

But they had special rights written into the Constitution, and those people on the streets of the Crimea had just as many human rights as the people that overthrew the Ukranian government. And...really, so did the Sudenten Germans Why were they suppose to be in a country they did not want to be in. Hitler may have been evil but Germans still wanted to live with Germans. Most people with the small Tom knowledge of history don't know stuff like that

 

There is no clear wrong committed here

 

I can't tell if you're being serious.