Disgusted

[rain_gryphon]

So, just as in Syria, Putin shows himself to be thoroughly in command of the situation, while Obama flaps his arms, issues vague, hollow threats, and generally acts the fool. There's a "red line". There will be "costs". Yadda-yadda-yadda.

Comments

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

He is acting like an Imperialist tyrant.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Putin? He's protecting Russia's interests.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

A little of both. But I agree with you that Obama is behaving like an idiot. Short of launching a full-scale war against Russia over the Ukraine, there is little we can actually do to affect the situation (and we would lose that war) -- so Obama would be wise to just shut up. Putin is not intimidated by Obama's hand-waving, particularly since Obama has backed down repeatedly to Putin in situations where Obama held all the cards. Putin is not impressed.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The people of the Crimea, and of the eastern Ukraine in general, I think, want to be in Russia's orbit rather than the EU's. Like I said to Whitetail, I"m rather more comfortable ATM bolstering Russia as a counterweight against the EU and China than I am seeing the EU expand eastward.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I agree with you regarding the likely sentiments of the Crimeans and Eastern Ukrainians.

The logical thing to do would be to pursue an alliance with Russia against the Muslim Fundamentalists. Obama cannot do this because (1) he is a Muslim sympathizer, and (2) he grasps nothing about real diplomacy. He lost any chance of being taken seriously by Putin when he showed up babbling about "reset buttons" and "tensions" rather than making firm offers to help Russia solve some of their problems in return for their support with ours. Putin considers Obama's a weak-willed imbecile, and he's right.

[parallelshik.livejournal.com]

Sorry to interfere.
Wait for the results of the referendum in the Crimea. Crimeans "" leaning towards Russia. The Russian government has accumulated some budget for the Crimea. This reduced the salaries of civil servants. But it is not so important. Crimeans have to choose between short-term interest and long-term perspective. If Crimeans choose momentary nteres, they will get some money. Fee - integration of Russia. This means that soon Crimeans feel the yoke on his neck. History teaches us that the immediate benefit results in a fiasco.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome to post. It's interesting to hear from someone in the region. I think the Crimean people are probably better off with Russia over the long term, or at least no worse off than they would be as part of the EU. Over the short term, of course, the US and EU will do everything in their power to make their lives miserable, and then claim that it's somehow their own fault.

[parallelshik.livejournal.com]

I follow the situation a little and I do not take sides. Just some facts that I can explain. Many Russians are grateful to Putin. Because he prevented a riot, like Ukrainian. Obviously, Putin's popularity is growing. Russian media aggressive attitude towards the new Ukrainian regime.
Media form analogy Ukrainian regime Russian opposition. This is done very aggressively.
Putin is doing in recent years? He has been showing off. It takes populist decisions. Putin makes all the people to be happy. In reality, many of his projects - do not work.
Thus, the bulk of Russians believe that the Crimea - is Russian property. It has a base. History of Crimea War knows where shed Russian blood. In Crimea, many Russian people. Of course, they will be better fed in Russia. Ukrainian ruble stable currency. Especially now. But anyway, the Crimea will be another Russian depressive region. The euphoria will soon pass, yes.
But we should not forget about the famous strategic role of the Crimea, the Black Sea as a base. And the Crimea - a traditional resting place of many Russians. This is important. We can say that this peninsula lives off the resort business. Being at the mercy of Ukraine, Crimea lost a significant portion of these revenues.
In fact, Putin played well. Skeptics note that the lives of ordinary people, little will change.
And in my opinion, few Russians accuse the U.S. of destabilization in Ukraine. As a whole, the ratio of U.S. to Russian neutral.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

No one in the West wants to see Ukraine fall back under Kremlin control, but the sad fact is, Ukraine is firmly within Russia's sphere of influence, and completely outside of ours, so there's really nothing we can effectively do to stop Putin if he decides to invade. Obama's huffing and puffing over this accomplishes nothing except to make him look even more naive and impotent than usual – and someone who Putin is clearly completely unafraid of.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I don't blame Putin a bit. That's Russia's warm water naval ports at stake, the keeping of which has been a focus of Russian policy for at least the past 150 years or so. I'm not too sure that over the long run, Russia having access to the Black Sea and from there potentially to the Aegean might not be to our advantage sometime. It wasn't that long ago that it was us, Russia and the British Empire fighting for our survival against Fortress Europe.

Plus, the Ukranians who live in the Crimea and the east want to be closely allied to, if not actually part of Russia anyway. Kiev doesn't speak for the whole country.

[arcturax.livejournal.com]

Crimea has a long and kind of crazy history. It was actually part of Russia since the 1800's or so when Khrushchev assigned it to be part of the Ukraine SSR during the Soviet days. Back then all the shots were called form Moscow, so it is likely this was done just because it was more efficient to have the crimea governed from the Kiev rather than directly from Moscow. No one back then thought that the soviet union would ever fall.

When the Soviet Union broke up, the Russians started to sweat about this, but a deal was struck where Ukraine would return all the soviet era nukes and they would keep the Crimea with the stipulation that the Russians could keep their fleet at Svestapol, which is their gateway to the Mediterranean. While Russia has other black sea land, they didn't have the money to invest into building a replacement for the facilities there. Rather than engage in this showdown with the rest of the world over a small piece of territory, Russia would be better served just building a new HQ on their own land along the Black Sea.

Or would have been. Now that they have invaded, they can't back down or they look weak and they are already painted into a bit of a corner with the European Union slowly cutting into their influence in the west and China overshadowing them in East. I don't think Russia will go as far as to go into the rest of the Ukraine. They may end up taking over the Crimea, but this will cost what influence they had in the rest of the Ukraine who will almost certainly beg for NATO membership after this. It could even spark another mini cold war with the west into the next decade.

So in short, Putin is playing tough guy, but in the end I think this will cost him more than it was worth to just start building another black sea HQ on their own land and using the threat of loss of revenue from using Sevastapol to get a few concessions out of the Ukraine. As for Obama? Yeah he isn't doing himself any favors by threatening to skip a meeting and send a letter telling Putin he is a naughty boy. After 6 years of president, it is fairly shocking to see him seem to out of his depth in how to respond properly.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

After 6 years of president, it is fairly shocking to see him seem to out of his depth in how to respond properly.

When was the man ever *in* his depth? He stumbles from one foreign policy debacle to another, making unforced error after unforced error, and has done so for the last six years without showing any sign that he's capable of learning from his mistakes, or even aware that he's made any mistakes. The one single time that he showed even remote competence was when we helped overthrow the Libyan government, and there it was because he let Britain and France make the decisions while we furnished the muscle.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Obama seems to imagine that he is brilliant and knowledgeable beyond compare, and consequently closes his mind to any rational criticism or advice. Thus he makes the same mistakes, over and over and over again, without learning from them.

[vadertime.livejournal.com]

Hate to break it to you but that sounds like just another day for Obama.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The man is a complete incompetent, yes.

[vadertime.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately yes. And the worst part is his focus is now on helping the plight of young black and hispanic males in America. Hello, everyone needs help Mr. President. It's like he forgot that when he took the Presidential oath he took it to represent ALL Americans. So if you're not a young black or hispanic male then the shit's on you. Of course there's also the drones, the NDAA, the blind eye to the NSA wiretapping, and the eventual manhunt and execution of Edward Snowden (They'll try and kill him and make it looks like he died of something totally unrelated).