COUP IN KYIV?

@glitterbag,

Quote:

Why did this country ever think Russia would be happy relinquishing their status as a world power??

"WE WON,WE WON, WE WON...**** YOU!" 1991 till now.

OOPS!

@hawkeye10,

Overseas, President Obama projects a whole lot of nothing

Dana Milbank

Quote:

Obama will have the requisite news conferences with foreign leaders, although questions are likely to be about Ukraine. Rice described the purpose of the tour in vague and airy terms: “This is a positive trip with a positive agenda that underscores that the United States’ commitment to this region is growing, and is a cornerstone of our global engagement and is going to be there for the long term.”

Nothing is wrong with an American president spreading goodwill and eating good sushi, but the photo-op nature of the trip risks contributing to a perception that Obama’s Asian policy, and his foreign policy in general, is similarly itinerant. He’s seeing the sights, getting some good pics and moving along — more tourist than architect of world affairs.

Second terms are typically when presidents look overseas to cement legacies, and Obama appears to be following that course. But events out of his control keep distracting him. Vladimir Putin’s conquests, China’s paranoia, the fizzling Israeli-Palestinian talks, the Syrian civil war: They’ve crowded out any Obama agenda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-overseas-president-obama-projects-a-whole-lot-of-nothing/2014/04/23/6e0d829a-cb2a-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html?hpid=z2

More of that Obama "leading from behind", I guess Crying or Very sad

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Is that this guy?

Quote:

President Obama’s call for increased government spending has failed miserably. With a vote of 413-2, the president’s 2015 budget that called for increased government spending fueled by tax increases was soundly rejected by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Story here.

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@hawkeye10,

So what action from Obama would you approve in regards to Ukraine, to make not leading from behind? You want him to approve sending lots of armed jets facing Russian fighting jets? (however to word it) Did you want him to say Russia has the right to Ukraine and anyone objecting should just shut up and go home to their little houses and knuckle under? What action should he take other than anything he is doing now? Bet you or the author of the article you posted can't come up with any action from Obama which would have prevented Putin from taking over Crimea and then now the rest of Ukraine. Putin invaded Georgia and this after Iraq, so our invading full fledge into Syria would have made no difference either in Ukraine.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

Bet you or the author of the article you posted can't come up with any action from Obama which would have prevented Putin from taking over Crimea and then now the rest of Ukraine.

I can.

Present Putin with a credible threat that, if he annexes eastern and southern Ukraine, northern and western Ukraine will very quickly become a member of NATO. And that will include a major US airbase in the part of Ukraine that is within spitting distance of Moscow.

That won't help with Crimea, but it would keep the rest of Ukraine intact.

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@revelette2,

Quote:

So what action from Obama would you approve in regards to Ukraine,

he should not be focusing on the outcome he wants, nor Putin nor the other major personalities, he should be focusing on process. He should reaffirm that we believe in democracy, and law, thus the people have rights to choose their fate and government but that the legal processes in place to facilitate that must be followed. As such the next thing that needs to happen is fair elections in Ukraine so that they will have a legit government to represent them and so that the people can voice their opinion on what they want. The world community to include Russia should do nothing till that happens. Obama and the West should also be clear that the provisional government has only two responsibilities, to get elections done and to hold the country together till they do. They have no right to make any other decision for Ukraine then what is required to get these two things done.

Putin would stand down if Obama did this, it is Obama and the West challenging Russian influence in Ukraine that is the entire prime mover of Russian aggression. But Obama should not do this because it would calm Putin, he should do it because it is the right thing to do. We should always try to behave as if we actually believe what we profess to be our values.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

... Ukraine will very quickly become a member of NATO.

Don't you think that Ukraine should want that, too?
I mean, not only until now but especially now ... they don't want it.
And never wanted - that the reason why NATO established their "advertising agency" (aka NATO Information and Documentation Centre) in Kiev.

Besides that, "quickly" seems to indicate that you know how such a membership can be done avoiding the normal procedure according to the NATO-statute? The principle of order and obedience to you isn't noted in there.

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@hawkeye10,

Prior to the sudden news of the "coup in KYIV" I wasn't keeping up with Ukraine, I would be lying if I said otherwise. All I really know there was a change in government after the President fled KYIV and went to Russia for help. At which point Russia started sending Russian troops dressed like Crimea militia over to Crimea and it was at that point we started reading about the west response (not just the US) to Russia's actions.

It is at this point, I ask what should Obama had done of which you would have approved of. If I understand you correctly, you think Obama and the rest of the EU should have just shut up and let Russia take Crimea without any fussing about it so that Russia would not take the rest of Ukraine. So you think Russia had no intention of making threating moves against the rest of Ukraine until he got a lot of flak from Obama and the rest of the EU so all the aggressive moves from Russia are now Obama's fault because he objected to Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty?

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Whackeye is an idiot. You shouldn't waste your time on him. After Yanukovych fled the Ukraine, an interim president was appointed by the parliament. At that time elections were set for May 25, 2014. Two months to prepare for a presidential election is perfectly reasonable, and far less likely to result in a rigged vote such as the secession vote in the Crimean.

Whackeye always pretends to be well-informed and wise. It's bullshit. I guarantee you that he was paying absolutely no attention to the situation in the Ukraine until it became front page news. Unlike you, he's not honest enough to admit it, and he mostly just wants to bitch about Obama.

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@Walter Hinteler,

It feels good to agree with you again regarding oralloy's post. What he describes really would be an example of the US arrogance and aggression of which we are accused of so often.

In my opinion, which would come as no surprise to anyone I am sure, I think Obama is doing about all the can do and should do at this point, working with other EU nations by holding talks with them to get their stand point since they are the ones most affected Russia. Since they are the ones most affected by Russia, and some of them in a tough spot either way, it leaves the US in a position where we can perhaps go a little further in our sanctions and actions but not too far where we would end up taking over and thus creating more fictions with our allies.

If Russia, Putin, really is after more of a mission to regain more of it's former power by reclaiming some former soviet states, then more than Ukraine is at stake and why this whole situation is very serious.

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Mr. Obama exercises no power in this situation, short of launching a massive, expensive and very likely futile military operation, which no one in Europe wants to see. Revelette may not have known anything about the situation in the Ukraine before reading this thread, but he (?) shows that he has learned, and he applies what i consider to be excellent judgment in the assessment of the situation.

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@Setanta,

One might think a modicum of judgment might be applied to guessing the gender of a user styling herself "Revelette".

A trifle more judgment is required to guess correctly whether someone with such a pretty name, redolent of what dear old Dutchy (RIP) often called "naughty games" on the Acronym thread for words ending in NG, a large number, has the slightest idea concerning the situation in the eastern stations.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

oralloy wrote:
... Ukraine will very quickly become a member of NATO.

Don't you think that Ukraine should want that, too?
I mean, not only until now but especially now ... they don't want it.
And never wanted

Note the difference between "northern and western Ukraine" and "all of Ukraine".

Remove all the pro-Russian Ukrainians from the equation and there will be a much different popular opinion.

And that's even without the bitterness that they would be feeling over Russia stealing half their country.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

It feels good to agree with you again regarding oralloy's post. What he describes really would be an example of the US arrogance and aggression of which we are accused of so often.

The notion that it is "arrogance and aggression" when we try to defend our supposed allies from Russian attack, is why I often favor leaving certain European countries defenseless and only protecting the ones who don't heap abuse on us.

Maybe a new NATO, where we protect only the UK and the former communist states, and ignore everything in between....

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@spendius,

Its nothing more mysterious than my name before I was married, maybe an unnecessary precaution in using my married name.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Maybe a new NATO, where we protect only the UK and the former communist states, and ignore everything in between....

You really seem to have
a) no idea about NATO,
b) history,
c) international poltics
d) Europe

All what you do here is producing cheap, but dangerous bubbles.

1 Reply

Quote:

Romeo asked: The key question is what do the MAJORITY of Ukrainian people want, namely to break with Russia or not?
Hawkeye replied:It is not that simple, some people are legally both Ukrainian and Russian, and some are legally Ukrainian but consider themselves to be Russian.

So until we can get good reliable figures as to what the MAJORITY of Ukrainians want, we're in the dark and can't discuss the situation properly.
Maybe the West or Putin are deliberately keeping the figures secret to suit themselves.
I know the majority of Crimeans (60%) were in favour of joining Russia, that's why the West couldn't do a thing about it.

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@revelette2,

Quote:

If I understand you correctly, you think Obama and the rest of the EU should have just shut up and let Russia take Crimea without any fussing about it so that Russia would not take the rest of Ukraine

Unlike the rest of Ukraine Crimea is historically Russian, it was only part of Ukraine temporarily because of Khrushchev, so if the people of Crimea want to be part of Russia again and Russia wants it back our response should be "whatever". The rest of Ukraine is different, and while I dont expect Russia to take anymore of Ukraine if they did it should have a different response.

Quote:

so all the aggressive moves from Russia are now Obama's fault because he objected to Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty?

of the US and the West post 1991, disrespecting Russia and pushing to move NATO into their neighbors. It was unnecessarily provocative. In spite of anything that has happened in recent history Russia like China believes that they are a great empire, they will always aspire to regroup, and disrespecting them will push them to being more aggressive at regrouping.

If you pay attention to the news you will have seen that there is a school of thought that the Obama policy of attempting to contain China is stupid because it can not be done, what we should be doing is looking for ways to work with them. The same is the flaw in our Russian policy.

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At the same time when Russia today reported

Quote:

Moscow is angered by the increase in the number of incidents with Russian journalists in Ukraine and reiterates its request for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to pay attention to the massive repression against the media, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

... armed separatists in the eastern city of Slovyansk, have kidnapped seven observers of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors (three German and observers from Poland, Czechia, Denmark and Sweden as well as a German translator ).

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

armed separatists in the eastern city of Slovyansk,

According to Western propaganda these are clandestine Russian agents. No proof is offered natch.

1 Reply

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