Handling Ukraine crisis is vintage Obama

[Nancy Waterman]

He takes things step by step, cautiously, but with clarity and determination. Naysayers complain that he is not aggressive enough, but he slowly and effectively gets the job done.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Yes. He's walking a fine line between being too soft/permissive, and being too

overreactive/aggressive and either triggering economic trouble, or beginning WW3.

[CFLDem]

2. Oh yay

That really increases my confidence levels...

[Cirque du So-What]

3. WTF is THAT supposed to mean?

If you're gonna get in some gratuitous Obama-bashing on a Saturday morning, you're gonna have to be a bit more specific as to just WTF you mean by that crack.

[CFLDem]

5. It means I disapprove of his handling.

It means the sanctions are nice, but by taking kinetic action off the table, even if it's a bluff, tells Pootie-poo he can do what he wants as long as he doesn't infringe upon a NATO member.

It means we need FDR but got Carter instead.

That's what that means.

Any questions?

[Cirque du So-What]

6. So you reply by throwing Jimmy Carter under the bus as well?

Nice

[CFLDem]

7. So you disapprove of FDR?

That's interesting...

[Cirque du So-What]

8. I said nothing of the sort

What IS your problem? On the subject of FDR, who is a personal hero of mine, he kept us out of WWII until the attack on Pearl Harbor. He wasn't engaging in the sort of gratuitous dick-waving that you seem to admire so much.

[CFLDem]

10. No one said anything about waving any genitals

just keeping the possibility open.

And since you live FDR so much, you surely know that he wasn't some pacifist who had to be dragged into the war.

He knew our involvement was an eventuality and actively supported the war effort behind the scenes prior to Pearl Harbor.

[Cirque du So-What]

12. 'Waving gentians?' That's an idea I can really get behind!

And for your edification, Ukraine is NOT a member of NATO.

[CFLDem]

13. Lol

And I never indicated the Ukraine is a party of NATO. If they were Obama couldn't have taken kinetic action off of the table.

Anyways, I have some gentian waving to do...

[pampango]

9. FDR did not respond militarily to the German invasion of Poland, France or Russia.

He did respond to a military attack from Japan on the United States.

[CFLDem]

11. Yes but never did he take military option off the table.

A very important distinction.

[Igel]

4. Depends on "the job."

If the job was to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, then he rather failed. I'd like to think that's not his usual "effectiveness."

If it was to keep Russia from invading Ukraine, then the jury's still out. Unless you believe a mental model in which Russia would otherwise have invaded right up to Transdnistria by now and at this point the threat to Ukraine is zero. That's a convenient strawman. There's no good evidence Russia would have invaded by now; there's not clear proof Russia won't find a way of peeling off more of Ukraine. Heck, they may wind up with a good hunk of the Ukraine by the time this is over, leaving Lvivshchyna and adjacent areas. Or perhaps leave only trans-Dnieper and points west as Ukraine.


Putin's shown awareness of the Time of Troubles, and acted like being offended over them wrt Poland is a legitimate point of view for a modern, intelligent head of state.

Others writing for the Putin News Service have mentioned everything from the Varangians to the Swedes, from the Lithuanians to the Tatars, as reasons for establishing a firm sphere of influence (pitch in Napoleon's fairly modern invasion by those standards and you realize that sphere of influence would stop in the West only at Aquitaine and Brittany). If that's the case, perhaps Putin would like the see a repeat of The Ruin in right-bank Ukraine.

Keep in mind that the assimilation of Ukrainians has been going on since about that time. The isoglosses aren't always clear, but there was a fairly nice bundle separating the three E. Slavic languages. S. America has issues with the US based on US intervention dating back over a century, we understand the suspicion and reject US intervention; Ukraine has issues with Russia based on Russian intervention dating back over four centuries, yet we blindly refuse to understand the suspicion and seem to be okay with intervention.

Perhaps if I point out that the typical Russian stereotype of a Ukrainian is as "dark" or "swarthy", and therefore a bit wild, emotional, and backwards--in other words, try to spin it as a skin-color-based racism issue?