Not much time right now, but this news just plain sucks.
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Russian armed forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, as the Russian Parliament granted President Vladimir V. Putin broad authority to use military force in response to the political upheaval in Ukraine that dislodged a Kremlin ally and installed a new, staunchly pro-Western government.
Our heroic president has bravely denounced the invasion.
Mr. Obama accused Russia on Saturday of a “breach of international law” and condemned the country’s military intervention, calling it a “clear violation” of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Right. Like he’s going do actually do anything except maybe sing “Give peace a chance.”
The rest of the world will be equally lame. Sooner or later, it will be some other country’s turn. History shows what happens when bullies are allowed to get their way.
And in the U.S., children are being systematically raised not only not to stand up to bullies, but if they do, they are considered equally culpable.
Damn. Things are getting too predictable for comfort.
MORE: This article is worth reading.
Comments
22 responses to “Cowardly new world”
I read history. I’m reminded of 1935. The Rhineland.
You guys can’t be serious. If the US wanted to intervene militarily, how could it do it? If it tried, the result would be a nuclear WW III, and your own homes (and mine) would burn in a nuclear fire.
Do you want to invade China, too?
I did not advocate invasion. (From a military standpoint, we’re stuck only being allowed to invade “safe” countries.) There are other ways of making Putin uncomfortable. He has obviously calculated that the world will do nothing, although he waited until after the Olympics were comfortably over. It is eerily analogous to Hitler’s aggression (ostensibly to “protect the Germans”), and ignoring the problem will not make it go away.
I’m sure the Russians will treat Ukraine’s citizen well, should they invade. Here’s a history of a small area of Ukraine:
During the period 1929–33, Chernobyl suffered greatly from mass killings during Stalin’s collectivization campaign, and in the Holodomor (famine) that followed. The Polish community of Chernobyl was deported to Kazakhstan in 1936 during the Frontier Clearances. When the Germans came, in the fall of 1941, 52 corpses of recently murdered people, slightly covered with earth, were found in the prison yard. These corpses had their hands tied at the back with wire; some had their backs flayed, others had gouged eyes or nails driven into their heels; still others had their noses, ears, tongues and even genitals cut away. Instruments of torture which the communists used were found in the dungeon of the prison. Many of the tortured people were identified because they were mostly farmers from the local collectives who had been arrested by the NKVD for some unknown reason. [6] The Jewish community was murdered during the German occupation of 1941–44.[3] Twenty years later, the area was chosen as the site of the first nuclear power station on Ukrainian soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_%28city%29
Weakness invites aggression.
It’s funny how so many of our supposed “elite” do not understand that.
Obama has spent 6 years groveling before Putin and what does he have to show for it? War in eastern Europe.
I’m wondering what the rest of eastern Europe and Germany are going to do.
They’ve seen this movie before and it wasn’t much fun, they spent 50 years under Russia’s bootheel and I doubt they want to be there again.
They know the US does not have their back.
Recall Obama throwing Poland under the bus and cancelling the missile defense treaty on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland, so they know they’re on their own.
Should be interesting. Recall also that Georgia has had a recent experience with Russia’s armored columns coming across the border.
At PJ Media Glenn Reynolds links and quotes an article from Spengler with approval. Basically Spengler has Obama’s back. Ukraine is corrupt, not really a country, and who cares? It’s not our fight.
There isn’t going to be a war over Ukraine. There isn’t even going to be a crisis over Ukraine. We will perform our ritual war-dance and excoriate the Evil Emperor, and the result would be the same if we had sung “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” on a road trip to Kalamazoo. Worry about something really scary, like Iran.
Ukraine isn’t a country: it’s a Frankenstein monster composed of pieces of dead empires, stitched together by Stalin. It has never had a government in the Western sense of the term after the collapse of the Soviet Union gave it independence, just the equivalent of the family offices for one predatory oligarch after another–including the “Gas Princess,” Yulia Tymoshenko. It has a per capital income of $3,300 per year, about the same as Egypt and Syria, and less than a tenth of the European average. The whole market capitalization of its stock exchange is worth less than the Disney Company. It’s a basket case that claims to need $35 billion to survive the next two years. Money talks and bullshit walks. Who wants to ask the American taxpayer for $35 billion for Ukraine, one of the most corrupt economies on earth? How about $5 billion? Secretary of State Kerry is talking about $1 billion in loan guarantees, and the Europeans are talking a similar amount. That’s not diplomacy. It’s a clown show.
Is Spengler a Neocon piece of shit, or what? Reynolds needs his head examined for quoting him, let alone backing his cowardly excrescence. For Reynold’s information, it’s not that anyone would expect or want a Western invasion or direct confrontation with Russia over this, rather that idly standing by without even monetary support will encourage further Russian expansion.
I can visualize Spengler’s next article:
There isn’t going to be a war over Alaska. It’s not really a state, but a stitched together wasteland that Seward stole from Russia in the 19th Century. It’s full of welfare queens and dying oil fields. Let them have it. It’s a clown show.
There is nothing stoping you from taking flight to ukraine for your rendevous with death at some disputed barricade! By the way eric and simon what branch of the service were you in when you had your chance to fight godless communism ? As for the ukraine russia has enough guerilla warfare going on now. Look at history of ukraine.
CapAss, Simon was on a nuclear sub in the Navy, and I was in the Air Force. Fuck off.
Frank,
it’s useless, cap roots for murderous dictators, it’s very happy with murder and mayhem so long as it can spew its hate on those who are against murderous thugs.
You see, it’s such a worthless piece of garbage that it can’t get anybody to respond to it in real life.
It’s actually happy when you respond to each despicable spewing it makes in defense of murderous thugs.
This is how Russia has dealt with Ukrainian politicians who don’t follow orders. Before and after pics of Victor Yushchenko:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1478787/I-tasted-poison-on-Yushchenkos-lips-says-his-wife.html
David Goldman, aka Spengler, fancies himself anti-Neocon. Bullshit. He’s a former Lyndon LaRouche leftie turned nominal Conservative. His biggest concern is Iran and its threat to Israel. He’s a Columbia grad, natch, raised as a secular Jew, but now has seen the light and is practicing. His entire world view, like another leftie turned Conservative, Michael Savage, is the protection of Israel at whatever cost. Screw America and Europe if that’s what it takes. Oh, and never mind that Russia is providing nuclear capability to Iran.
That he resides in Asia, not the U.S., and is the head of the Americas division of Hong Cong based Reorient Investment Bank, speaks volumes. His buddy from the Reagan administration, David Stockman, (who has zero foreign policy expertise) just published an article at zerohedge, Memo to Obama: This Was Their Red Line!, in which he compares Russia’s centuries of conquest and wars with the founding of…wait for it…The United States of America.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/memo-obama-was-their-red-lin
Instead of reminding the President that he is the leader of the Free World and that he has an obligation through NATO to defend Europe, Goldman and Stockman advise retreat. My guess is that they would rather see millions enslaved under despotic Russian rule than dare have Obama be seen as a competent and moral leader.
You showed where your alliance is and is not fellas, and in the process have destroyed your reputations, such as they were. And by the way “Spengler”, you’re a lousy music critic.
A tweet posted at Sullivan:
Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker
Follow
Long queues at #Ukraine army recruitment posts.Sergeant tells volunteers 3 million signed up in 24 hours, eager to fight #Russia in #Crimea
Spengler defends infant mutilation:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/108801/sacred-rite-of-circumcision
I’m willing to bet he also supported Arizona’s “religious liberty protection” law, AB1062. From my years of observing religious converts in The Church, Goldman has all the traits, intolerance being first and foremost. This is man who was an atheist and is now probably Orthodox Jew. He’s got to be more holy, more a defender of the faith, more in tune with Aliyah, and more the advocate of Israel First, than any other Jew in the whole world. In other words, he’s one step from being a fanatic. The flip side of the Warriors of Allah.
Discount anything the man has to say, from his biased music reviews seen through the lens of Judaism, to his lame theories on the death of nations. His exclusionary religious beliefs, if carried to finality, will end with a modern day Masada, little different than the Shiite belief in the return of The Mahdi. He’s a crackpot, plain and simple.
What has set me off about Spengler’s piece, Reynolds and now Bill Quick’s concurrence with it, is the dismissive flippant attitude after the dead bodies in Kiev, like they don’t count. One dying Muslim woman in Tehran during the so-called Green Revolution produced reams of denunciation and sympathy. But Kiev is “clown show.”
What are saying, that striving for freedom along with the desire to align with a “free” Western Europe is laughable? Cynicism on this scale is sickening. Or is that only Jews count?
What are you saying…
Spengler is entitled to his opinions, although I disagree with him that the Ukraine does not matter simply because it is poor and has nothing to offer us economically. That could have been said about Rwanda too, but was no justification for ignoring what happened. His argument is along these lines:
Kuwait mattered. Ukraine doesn’t.
As to circumcision, I share Spengler’s concern about the government getting involved. It is a personal (often religious) matter and ought to be treated like abortion or drugs.
If you don’t like such things, don’t do them.
BTW, Frank, I am detecting more than a little sympathy — if covert or unstated — for Vladimir Putin among conservatives.
(Don’t expect me to write a post about the possible underlying motivations, though. I don’t need the headaches.)
Eric, you and I can disagree about circumcision. My opinion is that genital mutilation of infants, which can result in horrible accidents, is uncalled for. However, it’s a toss up whether the government should get involved. Unfortunately it OKs Muslim female circumcision and all that entails.
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I’m detecting the same admiration for Putin you are. If I have time tonight, I’ll tune into Savage and report on his Ukraine sympathies, or lack thereof. He was a big supporter of Serbia & his parents were Russian, so the best guess is he will support Putin’s aggression.
Eric, there’s no need to listen to Savage as he has already broadcast his opinion at WND. As I suspected, he’s in lock step with Spengler. The article is full of lies. The jackass thinks he’s being clever with the homophobic title, Putin Crosses Obama’s Pink Line.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/obamas-ukrainian-pink-line/
I think what our State Department should be really concerned about is the effect of Russia’s Crimean action on global climate.
Actually, I would love to see a reporter ask Kerry a question about it at a press conference.
Here ya go Spengler, one of Simferopol’s 3 synagogues last night graffitied with ‘death to Jews’, swastikas. The new Russian controlled Crimea:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bhk6Z5PIAAAagKN.jpg
…leaders of Ukraine’s small Jewish community (experts estimate there are between 80,000 and 350,000 Jews in Ukraine) say they are more worried about anti-Semitic attacks from Russian operatives and Yanukovych loyalists than the nationalists who gathered in Kiev and other cities to oust him.
(reposted from Sullivan)
Charles Krauthammer says Crimea belongs to Russia:
Crimea belonged to Moscow for 200 years. Russia conquered it 20 years before the U.S. acquired Louisiana. Lost it in the humiliation of the 1990s. Putin got it back in about three days without firing a shot.
Yes Dr. Kraut, and Kosovo belonged to Serbia for a thousand years. What is your point, that Russia deserves to reclaim territory? On to Latvia and Estonia then, with Alaska and Ft. Ross in view. Why stop there, how about Mexico reclaiming Arizona and California?
(Actually in a few years that is a distinct probability.)