Biggest Big News

You may be amazed as you look at the newspaper and see all the big news, but there is one story to keep your eyes on closely because it holds the potential for great danger; and that is Mr. Vladimir Putin and the Russian nation.
by Charlie Leck

I’m not a scare-tactics kind of guy; and I do not frighten easily. That doesn’t mean I’m a tough guy, because I’m not. I often get wary about certain news items, but they don’t downright scare me. I’m just a chary kind of guy.

However, I’m a bit shaken these days as I read about the activities of the Russian military and the brazenfaced actions of the Russian president. I’m less afraid of Putin, who I believe can be handled properly and without violence; but I’m uncommonly afraid of certain segments of the American population and government which have become rather hawkish these days.

Their little nipping criticisms of President Obama have already begun over this Russian matter.

“Why hasn’t he stopped that son-of-a-bitch?”

“What we’ve got here is a president with no guts!”

“Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have allowed this Rooskie to get away with this!”

I’ve got some years on me folks; yet I’ve also got a danged-good memory. I remember times when hawks within politics badgered presidents into wars that they later regretted (even if they didn’t publically admit it). Let’s talk…

Lyndon Baines Johnson in Vietnam!

Richard Nixon in Cambodia!

Ronald Reagan in Granada!

George W. Bush in Iraq!

The wars listed above (take away the invasion of Granada) just about brought us down economically and spread enormous pain and injury throughout our military.

One is not being unpatriotic to talk about the foolishness of each of these wars. No, rather, one is being in-tune with history and fact.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to relive it!”

I don’t know that anything more important and accurate has ever been said. George Santayana said it and it is often quoted in one form or another. He was a discerning and practical guy. As I think of his brilliant comment above, I also remember that he said…

“Even the most inspired verse, which boasts not without a relative justification to be immortal, becomes in the course of ages a scarcely legible hieroglyphic; the language it was written in dies, a learned education and an imaginative effort are requisite to catch even a vestige of its original force. Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.”

My god, how easily we forget. History will one day record that President Obama was correct in not allowing troops to be placed in harm’s way in Egypt, Libya or Syria, in spite of the constant snarfing of the hawks in Congress. He’s correct now to rally the nations of Europe and NATO to take non-military stands against Putin and Russia. And already the bully bear is feeling the pressure and the heat!

One must note that the pressure on Russia is being felt by them and we need to continue on this course without a public, congressional show of opposition to the nation’s leader.

Putin and Russia have been ousted from the select Group of Eight (this is a select gathering of the world’s greatest industrial powers). The group may next impose a series of sanctions against Putin’s government that could both embarrass him and do harm to his nation’s economy.

Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, have been the most outspoken about Mr. Putin’s activities over the last two weeks. And, in spite of the hawks’ criticism of our President for not taking that role, it is wise for the President not to be a leader in these actions against Russia because of the historic rancor and rivalry between our nations. (Obama, you see, is a bright enough president that he thinks of these things!)

It is so refreshing to have a president who believes in the diplomatic route toward harmony and peace and doesn’t promptly begin to shake the iron fist. The Secretary of State and the President are working diligently and in harmony to bring about the best results they can from this brutish behavior of the Russian president.

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The Frightening Hatred of the Tea Party
A tea party organization put out a flier the other day with some comment about how sorry the world was about the disappearance of the Malaysian passenger jet. Below it was a photograph of Air Force One cruising in the sky. Below this photo was the statement: “Too bad it wasn’t this flight!”

I have a copy of it. I won’t post it here (or anywhere) because it is too sickening. I cannot tell you how shaken I was when I read that piece of trash. And these are people who boast of their extreme patriotism!

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War in the Ukraine?

It is no fun reading the newspaper this morning. We have quite a dangerous situation developing in Ukraine. Our nation and all of Europe is watching closely and beginning to think about what we could possibly do to tame the big Russian bear.
by Charlie Leck

We’re talking here about dangerous possibilities. We’ve never quite built a friendship with Russia and they don’t like taking orders from us. Under no circumstances does the Russian leadership view us as “the greatest nation on earth.” That’s an expression our politicians like to use when they’re running for office. They ought to stop and think about how offensive that is to the ears of people in our nations.

As for the Russians, they don’t want to be seen as taking orders from us. They never got over the way that President Reagan talked to them in 1987 – telling them to “take down that wall!” I remember thinking then that this was not very diplomatic language and that Russia had too big a national ego to allow such bravado to be spewed.

Now, President Obama tries to choose his words wisely. We are walking on dangerous ground here and we mustn’t take this perilous situation lightly nor approach the possibility of war.

Very, very frankly, we took invading Iraq too lightly and we also foolishly believed we could do a better job in Afghanistan than the Russians did.

Now, an editorial in the Washington Post (WP) makes it abundantly clear that…

“The United States now faces a naked act of armed aggression in the center of Europe by a Russian regime that is signaling its intent to steamroller this U.S. president and his allies. Mr. Obama must demonstrate that can’t be done.”

Unfortunately, the hawks in America, including the right wing of the Republican Party is going to think this means military action, which it certainly does not. The WP editorial goes on to say…

“Mr. Obama should make clear that he will no longer shrink from applying sanctions to Russian leaders and businesses complicit in aggression or human rights violations. An expanded list of Russian officials subject to visa denials and asset freezes that was drawn up by the State Department late last year should be immediately approved by the White House. Russian officials in the chain of command of the Ukraine invasion, as well as Russian companies and banks operating in Crimea, should be the next targets of financial sanctions.

“The most powerful non-military tool the United States possesses is exclusion from its banking system. Mr. Obama should make clear that if Russia does not retreat from Ukraine, it will expose itself to this sanction, which could sink its financial system. Russia’s economy, unlike that of the Soviet Union, is heavily dependent on Western trade and investment. It must be made clear to the Kremlin that the Ukraine invasion will put that at risk.”

Read the entire editorial from the WP here.

Believe me, the Russians know that America is too involved in other parts of the world to take on more military actions. They also know that we are aware of the immensity of Russia’s own military capabilities. Russia’s great interest is economic expansion. They want to control the vital resources that exist in the Crimea and the Ukraine. Their actions there in the last 48 hours are exceedingly bold and dangerous. A too powerful Russia is a threat to people everywhere. This is a huge nation that has not yet quite come to grips with the ideals and idea of democracy. It has a ways to go.

What hurts Russia most are attacks on its economy and it is possible to launch such assaults if Russia refuses to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal from the Ukraine. President Obama tried not to play that card two days ago when he sent his warning out to Russia. Now he must make it abundantly clear that Russia’s economy and banking system will suffer it if maintains its present course. And, President Obama must convince our European and NATO allies to follow this course with us.

It is now that he must do these things. T he Washington Post has outlined the wisest and surest course in this crisis and I urge you to read the statement cited above. On pins and needles, all of America will await what comes out of the White House.

Understanding Ukraine
The Ukraine is an eastern European Country and its western border meets up with Poland and its southwestern border touches Slovakia and Hungary. Kiev, the capitol city of the Ukraine, is about 530 miles from Moscow. In the south of the nation, Odesa is a port city on the Black Sea and that body of water runs all along the southwestern border of the Ukraine. The nation has a population of nearly 45 million people. The Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity is by far the dominant religious force in the country. Amazingly, Ukraine is the largest country entirely within Europe (233,062 sq. miles). That means it is larger than France or Germany or Spain. It is said that it was in the Ukraine that the horse was first domesticated. It was, for a time, a part of the Soviet Union and regained its independence in 1991. It is a fertile nation and a major grain producer and has some of the best agricultural land on earth. It also has a large manufacturing sector. Under a long term lease agreement, the Russian Black Sea Fleet has a large port in the seaside city of Sevastopol (which sits on a large peninsula that sticks a long way out from the Ukrainian mainland). As a leftover from its days as part of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine maintains one of the largest military forces in Europe (second only to Russia).

Ukraine’s declaration of independence (or sovereignty) was adopted in 1990. It declares the principle of self-determination and democracy. It established its total independence on August 24, 1991 and held its first presidential election on December 1, 1991.

Victor Yanukovych was elected to the presidency of Ukraine in 2004, but it was seen as a “dirty” election and primarily rigged. This election produced what has been called the primarily peaceful “Orange Revolution” which took Yanukovych from power and established Victor Yushchenko as president. However, Yanukovych returned to power as Prime Minister in 2006 under the Alliance of National Unity banner. He was removed by an election in the following year, but was elected President again in 2010 with 48 percent of the vote.

The recent revolution that removed Yanukovych from power, and saw him flee the country, began under a dispute about applying for membership in the European Union (EU). It appeared that a large majority of the citizenry was favoring a stronger relationship with the EU and broke into strong protests and street demonstrations when Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. On January 15, 2014, the government passed Anti-Protest Laws that caused an escalation in the protests. On the 22nd of February, members of parliament proclaimed that the president was unable to fulfill his duties and used its constitutional powers to set a new election for May 25.

Yesterday (March 1, 2014), the Russian parliament approved a request from President Vladimir Putin to deploy Russian troops into the Ukraine. Such a deployment is not difficult for the Russians since they have a huge naval force already established within Ukraine and huge border along the nation of Ukraine’s entire eastern edge.

It seems it is an advantage to both the EU and the USA to have Ukraine remain a totally independent nation. By our standards it would seem Russia has no right to intervene in this internal national dispute in an independent nation. (However, Russian says the same thing about our current presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan; although it is probably beneficial for Russia that we are there.)

  

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The Real Russia

We may get an opportunity in the next week or so to see the real “new face of Russia” as developments in the Crimea and, particularly, in Ukraine take place.
by Charlie Leck

President Obama has warned Russia against interfering in political developments in the Ukraine. Russia faces world condemnation, our President warned, if it involves itself there. Well, really! I’m sure that has the Great Bear trembling. Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin is feeling particularly good and powerful after the successful Olympic Games in his nation.

As usual the United States and the rest of the generally civilized, western world will have to sit back as observers and passively take whatever it is that Russia does in this situation. This is a big bad bully with whom no nation particularly wants to deal right now. We’ve got enough on our plates and we are still licking our wounds from our military activities in the Middle East.

The President has warned Russia that there will be “costs” if they do interfere. What costs? I can’t imagine it will go very far beyond restricting trade with Russia and some kind of attempts to influence Russia’s monetary values. What else can we do? Start another war!

There’s no question that Russia is a far different place from the old, communistic Soviet Union, but we’ll need to remember that this is a nation with shaky psychological balance and it is difficult to estimate or predict what it might do.

It seems to me that we are all going to get to know Mr. Putin a lot better in the coming weeks and he may not look quite so rosey as he did in Souchi!

Russia has not been a favored nation in America during my entire life-time; and I think America’s distrust of Russia goes all the way back to 1917 (the Russian Revolution that saw a communist regime take over with such violence).

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.