I just can't let go of what I think is a major foreign policy fiasco in the making. I give you five opinions I think is worth your time. No matter what your opinion of the author on other subjects, judge the articles on their own merit. Chris Martenson Mike Shedlock Paul Craig Roberts Pat Buchanan David Stockmon
wow! some really good stuff there Musberger...thanks. it has shifted my thinking...which was already quite muddled on the issue.
Rebuilding America's Defenses: Project for the New American Century In the PDF, just scroll to the document's page 1 to 3. That summarizes it P. 2...
It is worth remembering that George Kennan, the author of the containment policy after WW II argued for political containment, not encircling the reds with a military alliance. That is exactly what the russians perceive as our policy now and they are correct. It is reckless and the russians are a paranoid nation to begin with. There is no point in giving them legitimate reason for their fears.
Let me see if I understand what your saying. You seem to be implying that America's response to Putin's attempts to put the Soviet Union back together by any means possible are too aggressive? Our response has been tepid at best. Nothing even approaching a real threat of any kind.
the sanctions put in place are going to work and will bring russia's economy to its knees in time. The russians are going to go into a slow boil and this will give them time to rid themselves of Putin. Political and economic war will work and military acts will not----it is too far away for us to project power credibly. Besides, what do we care about who runs the eastern ukraine? To paraphrase Bismarck on the Balkans, the whole of the Ukraine is not worth the bones of a single American soldier. If you guys disagree, I hear the Ukrainian army will accept foreign recruits.
it is also an exaggeration to say Putin is trying to restore the former empire by any means necessary. They used to control Poland and the Czechs and the Baltic States, etc,. and I don't see any evidence of any such attempt. They have also been fairly circumspect about the efforts in Georgia and Ukraine. They fear the political and economic blowback of pushing too hard. They want security and respect and we have not respected them---for example, sending a bunch of homosexuals as Oliympic representatives. The Olympics were a very big thing to them and they took a lot of pride in them. We made a civil rights case out of it-----for stuff we were doing ourselves for hundreds of years. In the last few decades we have become more tolerant of gays et al and so anybody who isn't is trash and we are free to insult them.
I'm still perplexed why those in the Maiden, the US and EU haven't called off armed destruction of the region and encouraged talks. If for no other reason, humanitarian. Or why Russia hasn't done as the US is doing in Northern Iraq and made a move to put a stop to it. Maybe the latter is not far off... link
It occurs to me that we have a tendency to think in binary terms i.e. one foreign policy choice is right and the other path is wrong. Or that one option is better than another. But it may very well be that neither of these are true and that every decision or lack thereof that Obama makes will be equally disastrous. History is messy.
