How do you explain Obama’s use of the Navy SEALs in aborting the seizure of a tanker full of oil from Libya? The Libyan government is in its infancy and the loss of that tanker would have been a big challange to the authority of that government. Instead, a surgical strike prevented this loss from happening and the US’ stature in Libya is greatly enhanced. I guess events in Libya only matter when The Four Most Important People In The History Of The Universe die at the hands of a mob. Funny how John McCain wasn’t all over this one, heaping praise on a major foreign policy success of Obama’s.
Unlike the previous occupant of his office, Obama doesn’t rush in with guns blazing. He didn’t start two unnecessary wars and isn’t about to start a third over Crimea. Sometimes diplomacy and sanctions make the correct path, sometimes decisive action. Obama has shown he can do both.
Those are extremely minor military activities, less even than a skirmish. That’s the expected behavior of the United States in situations like that since the 1940s. It’s not as significant as several special operations missions Carter signed off on (some of which were riskier.)
You can bet your sweet ass that if that mission went south, John McCain would have sprinted to a microphone and masturbated like a motherfucker.
Republicans have one less fairly safe seat, Mike Rogers of Michigan (actually, my rep) is giving up his seat after this term to pursue a job in right wing propaganda radio.
We signed a treaty guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders. While it does not require us to take military action, it does require us to make sure Russia pays some kind of price and to aid Ukraine. Which is what we’re doing, so all good there.
Or, more specifically, that there is no action he can take that would restore Ukraine’s sovereignty over it. And that may not even be what the Crimeans want, given the undoubtedly large (even if not 97%, get real) amount of pro-Russian-annexation sentiment there.
Additionally, if losing a large part of the Moscow-oriented population of Ukraine means a stronger majority for the Westernizers, that gives them a freer hand to join the EU and NATO and the rest of that package.
It may mean that Putin’s grab of Crimea will cost him his control over the entire rest of Ukraine. If he goes into the Donetsk region, though, he won’t be able to claim it was historically part of Russia and he’s simply reversing a recent order of a former Soviet leader. So, the new Ukraine government had better hurry up with the NATO application.
Ukraine won’t be joining NATO. NATO’s already in deep because we guarantee the Baltic Republics and Poland’s borders with the threat of military force.
There’s a Dem Senate candidate in Iowa who described Chuck Grassley as “just a farmer who never went to law school”. Which is apparently a HUGE faux pas. Or at least right-wing media is describing it that way.
Yeah, it’s kind of in the ballpark of the 47% comment. You really want to be careful using terms that describe a LOT of your constituency as pejoratives or make you sound elitist.
It amazes me that any reasonably seasoned politico could still that ANY comment is made in private and will never see the light of day.
It’s early enough that he could still recover, but some major damage control needs to be done.