This is rapidly sliding out of control Russian parliament approves troop deployment in Ukraine - BBC News
Putin asks his upper house to rubber-stamp the use of Russian forces. The west can’t do anything to stop this now.
And Russia is following a path much less egregious and more restrained than the blitzkrieg path from Kuwait to Baghdad taken by the UK and US in March 2003.
Putin’s statement says Russia will avail itself of the right to send troops to ALL of Ukraine
You (NotfooledbyW) aren’t keeping up with current events. Putin is now openly asking his parliament to approve of war. War of conquest, might I add. The objective here is to absorb parts of Ukraine into Russia.
Make no mistake; Putin is a dangerous, dangerous man. Any doubt is now removed; he is manufacturing crises to justify war and territorial expansion. This is the worst threat to international peace in a long, long time.
Umm. Can’t argue with that I guess.
Stop what? Seriously stop what?
In what way is he threatening international peace?
How about we all accept that not everything revolves around the US and there are limits to American influence? The US can no more about a Russian invasion of Ukraine than Russia could do about a US invasion of Baja California. The notion of sending in US advisors as tripwires into the shooting gallery so that the situation would escalate in the event of their getting killed is preposterous. The only playable card we have is economic sanctions.
Wait for it…WAIT! for it…
The anti Russian Crimean tatar jihadists are the ones to watch now that the Western backed coup is underway
I am keeping up just fine. My point is that at this point Putin is not close to being dangerous to a peaceful outcome in Ukraine as Bush and Blair were a total disaster to a peaceful outcome in Iraq in March of 2003. If you think Putin is worse than that pair of international lawbreakers then argue the matter straight up. I am keeping up with current events just fine.
If he can do this in Ukraine, what’s to stop him from inflaming Russian minorities again in other ex soviet territories, like for instance, northern Kazakhstan?
Russia flexing the muscle in another sovereign territory. It is an actual violation of territory after all.
Are you suggesting this coup was staged by Putin/Russia? You think he masterminded this?
Nope, but he’s using it to his advantage. However, before he did engineer the South Ossesia and Abkhazia split in Georgia.
You are right …
Actually Putin is in a much worse fight than people give him credit for. There is no long term military option for a Putin to consider. He could militarily take back Crimea militarily without really needing to fire a shot. But there is no political or moral value in that.
The most playable card in that sanctions might have little effect is diplomatic ‘rope a dope’ as Putin flails away with lefts and rights and uppercut in anger after getting dumped on by anti-Russian rioters with Molotov Cocktails and losing a deal when a democratically elected government was ousted by violent means.
But allowing Obama to do the rope a dope politically here in the states would take a much wiser public awareness than is even remotely possible at this time.
We are doing rope a dope anyway because that is all there is. We ought to just call it that and wait until Putin’s bare chest and knuckles get tired.
Then let the negotiations begin.
Unfortunately, the political environment in the US is that everyone who hates Obama is going to use this as a club to beat him with, even though they will propose no alternative course of action. You know that John McCain is salivating at the prospect of going on the Sunday talk shows and crucifying Obama over this. If only we had had the sense to elect a vice president who can see Russia from her house.
Do you have a source for that ‘did’ since it is rather serious that Putin had Russian solders killed while serving as peacekeepers in South Ossetia when wanna-be-NATO-Georgian rockets rained down on them where they lived and slept.
I suppose Putin is so evil and power mad and full of lust for conquest that he would ‘engineer’ the deaths of his own troops to annex two pieces of real estate that are probably more trouble than they are worth. But I doubt it.
Exactly. But this thread is great.
You are right about Palin. Our right wing hate talk radio station aired her words prediction in 2008 that Obama was soft on Russia after they destroyed Georgia’s NATO aspirations in response to the unprovoked assault on South Ossetia.
Palin predicted Obama’s softness as a Senator would enable Putin to someday invade Ukraine.
Palin and WMAL’s hate talkers somehow forgot that GWBush was President at the time and did nothing about it as Russian tanks rolled down the GWBush Highway toward Tbilisi because there was nothing he could do about.
It shouldn’t be dismissed that there are millions of ethnic Russians in the former/breakaway republics that comprised the USSR. It’s not entirely unreasonable for Putin to seize opportunities to repatriate parts of those republics with a significat population that expresses a desire and concerted effort to rejoin with Russia. I’m not always certain it’s to their advantage in the long run, but ethnic divisions do run deep.
Well, there’s the “engaging in warfare against another nation” thing. That could be conceived in bleeding heart, panty-waist, politically correct circles as threatening peace between the two nations.