Because the United States
agreed to negotiate and is doing so with Iran rather than use military force to
stop the Iranian production of nuclear weapon; and, because the United States
chose to negotiate the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons rather than
respond with air strikes against Syria; Putin, the 21st century Russian Czar,
has miscalculated and seen American willingness to talk rather than shoot as a
sign of weakness. Twice in the last
century the rulers of Germany and then once the ruler of Japan made the same
mistake. America may take a long time to
get roused in anger enough to unleash our military might but when we do
dictators have learned to pay a heavy price.
Obama is trying to use 21st
century multilateral methods to combat the new Stalin. Whether he succeeds will remain to be
seen. But Putin would be well advised to
ignore the Republican party propaganda in DC about Obama being weak and
recognize that on this issue -- the freedom of the people of Ukraine-- Obama
will remain strong. Shooting down a
plane is akin to sinking ships a hundred years ago (Lusitania) an public ire
will grow not diminish.
Unfortunately too many of my
liberal friends (I consider myself a liberal) are bemoaning the “lack of clear
evidence of Russian involvement” some have even taken to blaming the United
States for starting the Ukraine crisis (which began when Putin forced his
puppet President of Ukraine, Yanukoyvich, to drop plans to integrate with the
EU which led to a popular uprising in Ukraine).
Both Putin and our domestic liberal commentators say the answer is to
guarantee that Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO. Firstly, Ukraine has never applied nor
indicated interest in joining NATO--they want to be in the EU. Secondly, Ukraine in 1994 gave up their
nuclear weapons as part of the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing their
territorial integrity only to have that integrity violated by a nuclear power. Now, guarantee that Ukraine will never be
admitted to NATO, should they ever apply, and we invite Putin to take more
aggressive action later.
The history of the 20th
century is replete with occasions when democratic nations could have stopped
dictators when they first made aggressive moves. And when the democracies didn’t act the
resultant wars costs millions of lives.
It is time we accepted that
not everything in foreign affairs is complex - likewise not everything is
simple. Because the Bush-Cheney
administration lied our country into a war in Iraq does not mean that
Obama-Biden are lying us into peace through strength. Because the English translators of the
Russian language recordings released by Ukraine used complete sentences and
deleted curses doesn’t mean the recordings are fake -- those who understand and
speak Russian find the actual language credible.
Russian separatists aided or
directed by Russians used a Russian supplied weapon to shoot down what they
thought was a Ukrainian cargo or troop plane.
They made a mistake. They should have admitted it and pointed out that
mistakes are made in wars. Instead Putin
blames Ukraine. When a fox broke into my
grandfather's chicken coop and stole two hens instead of trying to remove the
danger and kill the fox, Putin would blame my grandfather for building the hen
house and filling it with chickens.
Obama is Right. This is a wake up call! And if Europe doesn’t want to wake up then
America must lead. In the 20th century
in WWI and WWII we followed. During the
Cold War we led. Now it is time for us
to lead again. This may be our last chance to bring Russia into the world community
as a peaceful partner as Gorbachev and Yeltsin tried to do. This may indeed be our last chance to put
together a world of old powers (Germany, France, United Kingdom and Russia) and
the emerging powers (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) We can lead that
combination -- we must not let it become a new division with Russia leading one
part. Putin has shown the world what he is
capable of doing - now America must show the world that we will not allow him
to bully the other nations on this globe.
19 July 2014
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