generalspeaking

Political Expediency

"You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you'll never lose it again."
"They are Russian combat forces with Russian weapons in Russian tanks."
"We reject the lie that people cannot live and thrive together just because they have different backgrounds or speak a different language."
U.S. President Barack Obama (Tallinn, Estonia)

"The warring parties should immediately co-ordinate and do the following things together. The first thing is for the armed forces and insurgents of the south-east of Ukraine to stop actively advancing in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions."
"Second is for the Ukrainian military to withdraw their troops at a safe distance that will make artillery and other strikes on populated areas impossible."
Russian President Vladimir Putin

Unmarked Military vehicles burning in country roads in the village of Berezove, eastern Ukraine, on Thursday, September 4, 2014, after a clash between pro-government troops and Russian-backed separatist militia. (photo credit: AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Even without President Obama expressing his frustration, disappointment and anger with the Kremlin's decision to give President Putin's ambitions free play to move Russia backwards in time to a reflection of the glorious days of the USSR, Mr. Putin's Ukraine aggression does represent as a threat to peace in Europe. Leading the American president to vow his country would come to the defence of NATO allies in fear of Russian adventurism.

President Obama has allowed himself to be taken by President Putin more than once, up to his apartment to see his sketches. Mr. Putin sketched out for a gullible Mr. Obama how well diplomacy works in contrast, say to armed intervention when Syria used chemical gas on its own civilian population. That was an artistic sketch that Mr. Obama was pleased to buy into, and in that process allow the carnage in Syria to go on to other means, such as barrel bombs and chlorine gas attacks.

But it's a piece of art that President Obama was quick to hang on the wall, proud that he had eluded the necessity of honouring his own 'red line' pledge, even though his authority waned in the process as his former Middle East allies looked on in incredulous horror. But they became accustomed to it. Ukraine, of course, is not a member of NATO, though it anxiously desires to become a member, now.

While reassuring Estonians and other Baltic nations nervous in their possession of sizeable Russian-speaking populations rendering them vulnerable to Mr. Putin's charges of ill-treatment by them of those demographics and the tendency of Russia to move right in to protect its ethnic compatriots, Mr. Obama bluntly declared that Russian forces that moved into Ukraine in recent weeks are looking for trouble, not as Mr. Putin declared, on a humanitarian mission. Most perspicacious.

As for rejecting the 'lie' that people of various ethnic origins cannot live together in peace and harmony, Mr. Obama is speaking of the experience of living in the United States where, for the most part, that remains true, but with notable exceptions. He does not live next door to Russia, has no need to cower in trepidation over the prospect of forcibly joining the Russian Federation, a replay of history the Baltic states would do anything to avoid.

And, unfortunately, the stark reality is that neither the European Union with the United States backing them, and NATO, which has blustered and feinted, has had any impact on Russian moves; unable to persuade the big black bear to give back its latest toy and return to its lair, grumbling but chastened.
Mr. Putin is on a roll; it succeeded admirably in Georgia, and no one slapped his greedy hands when he annexed the Crimea, so he has no reason to fear he has embarked on a venture he cannot complete.

And so, he advises the ethnic-Russian Ukrainians that they've done well so far, and should restrain themselves at this point to the capture of Donetsk and Luhansk as a job well done, while informing the government of Ukraine that it is expected to accept that it will no longer enjoy sovereignty over eastern Ukraine, so get used to it.

Labels: Aggression, Conflict, NATO, Russia, Secession, Ukraine, United States

posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 05, 2014