Ukraine - somebody explain to me

[Omaha 680]

Just heard Obama say this in his press conference:

In 2014 we are well beyond the times when international borders can be redrawn above the heads of democratic leaders.

I think he really believes that which is why Putin will get whatever he wants.

[Omaha 680]

Listened to some of Kerry's press conference in Rome as well. He might as well be Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler's Day Off.

[byu71]

Did any of you hear Jay Carney's answer to a question something along the lines of if President Obama regrets how dismissive he was of Romney during the debates concerning Russia?

My gosh I was embarassed for him and I am in no way of fan of his. Basically his reply was what is going on really isn't a big deal.

[wally]

Just heard Obama say this in his press conference:



I think he really believes that which is why Putin will get whatever he wants.

Didn't the Ukranian revolutionaries redraw the Ukrainian government above the heads of democratically elected leaders?!

I am increasingly on Russias side (and presumptive majority of Crimea's side) on this one. The Ukrainian revolutionaries that have ceased control of high offices are not snow-white folks. Some allegedly have connections with the nazi party of Ukraine:

After all, in the eyes of many ethnic Russians, it is the Ukrainian nationalists -- not Putin -- who are the Nazis. The Russians have asserted, quite accurately, that the revolution that overthrew a pro-Russian, democratically elected leader has resulted in the elevation of Russophobe fascists into key government positions. For example, the new secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council is Andriy Parubiy -- co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU).

Another creator of the SNPU is Oleh Tyahnybok, a high-profile leader of the Kiev protests who has blamed Ukraine's problems on a Jewish conspiracy run out of Moscow. Ukraine's new deputy secretary of national security is Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector group, which regards Tyahnybok as a soft liberal and which flies the old flag of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators at its rallies.

In other words, in this situation, who exactly are the Nazis? Putin's ethnic Russian nationalists? Or the fringe of the ethnic Ukrainian nationalists? Neither is particularly pleasant.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/opinio...linton-hitler/

Like I said earlier, exchanging one corruption for another unknown. Grass is always greener I guess.

[USUC]

Didn't the Ukranian revolutionaries redraw the Ukrainian government above the heads of democratically elected leaders?!

I am increasingly on Russias side (and presumptive majority of Crimea's side) on this one. The Ukrainian revolutionaries that have ceased control of high offices are not snow-white folks. Some allegedly have connections with the nazi party of Ukraine:



Like I said earlier, exchanging one corruption for another unknown. Grass is always greener I guess.

Although the Ukrainian opposition is a conglomerate that includes some shady characters, siding with the Russians over it seems a little over-reactionary given Putin's and Russia's state sponsored corruption.

I actually like Henry Kissinger's Op-Ed from today's WaPost about the situation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...0b9_story.html

[Blueintheface]

Listened to some of Kerry's press conference in Rome as well. He might as well be Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler's Day Off.

Did it work? Anyone? Anyone?

No it did not work and Kerry's press conference threw the region into further disarray.

[Omaha 680]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/john-k...rticle/2545610

Secretary of State John Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance.

“There will be a response of some kind to the referendum itself,” Kerry said. “If there is no sign [from Russia] of any capacity to respond to this issue ... there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday.”

“Our hope is to have Russia join in respecting international law. ... There is no justification, no legality to this referendum that is taking place,” he said. “The hope is that reason will prevail but there is no guarantee of that.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a top critic of President Obama's foreign policy, asked what the administration would do if Russian forces advance farther into the eastern area of Ukraine, and the new government in Kiev asks the U.S. for weapons to fight the Russians.

Kerry responded carefully, saying “we have contingencies – we are talking through various options that may or may not be available.”

“Our hope is not to create hysteria or excessive concern about that at this point in time,” he said. “Our hope is to avoid that, but there's no telling that we can.”

"There will be a response of some kind" and "we are talking through various options that may or may not be available." I wish everyone in the Obama administration would zip it. The whole world knows we aren't going to do anything so saying nothing is better than this nonsense.

[USUC]

My guess is Crimea will vote to leave Ukraine (surprise surprise, there are only thousands of armed pro-Russian military in the area) but Putin, the thoughtful diplomat he is, says that Crimea will not join the Russian Federation but will be an independent state. However, due to the citizen's worry of Ukraine intervention it will continue to be occupied by Russian forces. It's a win-win for Putin.

[statman]

. Tom Clancy has written about 2 major world events that have happened.l.

Tom's dead. We can stop writing about him in the present perfect and should switch to simple past tense instead "Tom Clancy wrote about two major world events that happened.

[USUC]

So now that Crimea will be part of Russia (whether it is legal or illegal doesn't matter at this point), what happens to all of Ukraine's Military Equipment? Particularly, the Navy vessels? Is there a chance the Russians allow them to leave Crimea or are they now confiscated?

[venkman]

Uh oh. Russia "concerned" for Russians in Estonia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A2I1J620140319

[Katy Lied]

If I were Estonia, I'd start ethnic cleansing immediately. Dont kill them-- just force them back to Russia, citing concerns for state security.

[SCcoug]

If I were Estonia, I'd start ethnic cleansing immediately. Dont kill them-- just force them back to Russia, citing concerns for state security.

That is probably the last thing they should do.

[creekster]

Ukraine - somebody explain to me

If I were Estonia, I'd start ethnic cleansing immediately. Dont kill them-- just force them back to Russia, citing concerns for state security.

Sudentland II. Except it would be like if the Czechs tried it when hitler was still in power.

[Omaha 680]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...d74_story.html

“The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.”

Should. Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy.

The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game.

Obama thinks otherwise. He says that Vladimir Putin’s kind of neo-imperialist thinking is a relic of the past — and advises Putin to transcend the Cold War.

Good God. Putin hasn’t transcended the Russian revolution. Did no one give Obama a copy of Putin’s speech last week upon the annexation of Crimea? Putin railed not only at Russia’s loss of empire in the 1990s. He went back to the 1920s: “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks . . . may God judge them, added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine.” Putin was referring not to Crimea (which came two sentences later) but to his next potential target: Kharkiv and Donetsk and the rest of southeastern Ukraine.

America never sought the role that history gave it after World War II to bear unbidden burdens “to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” as movingly described by John Kennedy. We have an appropriate aversion to the stark fact that the alternative to U.S. leadership is either global chaos or dominance by the likes of China, Russia and Iran.

But Obama doesn’t even seem to recognize this truth. In his major Brussels address Wednesday, the very day Russia seized the last Ukrainian naval vessel in Crimea, Obama made vague references to further measures should Russia march deeper into Ukraine, while still emphasizing the centrality of international law, international norms and international institutions such as the United Nations.

Such fanciful thinking will leave our allies with two choices: bend a knee — or arm to the teeth. Either acquiesce to the regional bully or gird your loins, i.e., go nuclear. As surely will the Gulf states. As will, in time, Japan and South Korea.