I just finished reading a diary about the insanity in Ukraine and posted a comment, the comment was more than just an I agree/disagree so I though I would post it as a diary. It has been a while since I have Posted anything but here goes.
A number of weeks ago, a large mass of people decided they did not like the guy running their country so some of them gave their lives to get him removed from office. Was that legal? Was the removal of the pro Russian Pres by the legislature with in the bounds of their own constitution? Does the legality of it even matter?
According to the guy they threw out, it matters a lot and to his sponsor, Vlad "the Bully" Putin, it seems to matter even more. He decided to park 40,000 Troops on Ukraine's border and start taking territory from them. Well so far the Bully has done pretty well, he got Crimea back with out a shot, but now we are into the meat and potatoes of the eastern part of Ukraine.
The provisional Ukrainian Government is nearly helpless, the people who got the old guy thrown out do not know what to do about the eastern part of the country, they don't have guns and the guys in the east seem to have some pretty good guns. We all pretty much know they are not even Ukrainians, they are Russian soldiers sent in to take over just like in Crimea. But the Bully sits in Moscow and blatantly lies about it, who is going to do anything about it anyway? The Germans? How bout the French? No, I know, the Italians, they are going to put it all on the line and go to the aid of the Ukrainians against Russia.
Oh, but wait, all of those folks get a large amount of their natural gas and oil from Russia. The Germans just shut down all their Nuclear Power plants and went to, wait for it, natural gas for electricity production. Ya, the Germans are going to get real tough with Russia over Ukraine sovereignty. As for the rest of the EU, what are they going to do, wreck their own economies to save some restless ne'er do wells over in the east that have never really belonged in Europe anyway? Well, so far, the EU has done pretty much this, Nothing.
Putin is a bully, he always has been and always will be. He is nothing more than a KGB thug who was able to wrangle his way into power. Is Putin a hero or a villain? Based on everything I have seen or read I consider him a villain. But I do not know him personally, he might be just as nice a guy as George Bush. The Russian people on the other hand, a good many of them anyway, seem to think he is a Hero, a Savior, a Great Man saving the Motherland for the future of Mother Russia. All of that said how can you make a deal with a bully? I will give you my lunch money today if you promise you won't take my lunch money tomorrow? I think we can all agree, the bully is going to take your lunch money tomorrow as well.
Pres Obama, does not want to entangle the USA in another military confrontation, does not even want to give lethal aid, meaning guns and such, to Ukraine. I respect and even agree with the position he has taken. Why is it the job of the USA to intervene when our staunchest allies in Europe don't seem to be willing to do the most basic of things such as cut off Russia's money supply. What are we as a nation supposed to do for Ukraine?
The question, however comes back to, who is going to stand up to the bully and make him quit taking other peoples lunch money?
The way out of this is to just tell Ukraine its time for you to rejoin Russia. Oh and by the way, Belarus, just rejoin now as well cause you are next. Moldova, Kazakhstan, Georgia, etc, they all may as well just rejoin the Motherland and save us all a lot of problems. I suppose we may be able to hold the line on Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. But as for all the rest, what is going to prevent the Bully from just taking what he wants which appears to be a new Imperial Russia, the glory of the good ol' days, etc, etc, etc.
The problem is, the majority of the people of most of these countries do not want to be ruled from Moscow. Especially by a KGB thug who has set himself up as the new Emperor of Mother Russia. They have already been there, done that and lost the T-shirt in the last set of conflicts they went through to find their way to where they are today. Most of them are relatively peaceful decent hardworking nations.
So how on earth do we get Russia and the Bully to stop acting out? If we cut them off monetarily we will be pretty much alone in doing so, Europe has no stomach for the economic costs of cutting Russia off. If the Leaders of Europe put their countries back into recession to save Ukraine, they will not be the Leaders of Europe after the next set of elections. So we come back to just give in to Russia and the Bully and hope he doesn't live much longer to cause more trouble, or we have to intervene. We my friends are literally between the proverbial rock and hard place. We either send 250,000 troops to Ukraine right now and stop the aggression, or Russia will reabsorb all the countries that broke away after the collapse of the ill fated Soviet Union.
To end this, I am at heart an Isolationist, I think we should pretty much withdraw from nearly all our international endeavors with one or two exceptions, Japan being the main exception and South Korea being another. I think we spend way to much time and money protecting things we don't need to protect. Let the Corporations deal with their own security, they seem to have most of the money now a days, they can afford it better than we can. I think we have caused as much harm as we have done good over the last 50 years. So when commenting please bear in mind this is a thought diary, I do not think sending 250,000 boots to Ukraine is all that great an idea, but the other alternatives really are not that great either.