RUSSIAN TROOPS INVADE UKRAINE! Obama ends vacation!

[sirs]

LOL...like I said, conservatives like me should just shut up.  Priceless.  And Plane says pretty much the same thing as I do, just with more patience than I

[Plane]

Putin has never run my country.

We only have to wait.

[Plane]

............................The first Gulf War could have been avoided had Olebush not practically invited Saddam to invade ( the Ambassador said, "the united states does not take a position on  border disputes between Middle Eastern nations)...................

   Right.

   This is indeed the position of the right, that weakness is invitation to mischief.

    Red lines should not be drawn unless there is means and will for making the consequence real.


     The American people are indeed loth to go to war and must be persuaded to fight , this has been a pattern since the Civil War .  This isn't a bad thing, as long as our enemies understand that our not being eager to fight doesn't mean that we can't or won't , or even that we are not really good at it.

      We are actually so good at it that we can horrify ourselves , some restraint is really a good thing.

[Plane]

Plane is interesting, .........................................

Oh thank you , I get a warm feeling from this decimation of my humility.

I like talking with you , I don't think I persuade you a lot , but I do enjoy .

[Xavier_Onassis]

Putin is never going to run this country, that is just stupid.

sirs is a bore because he never has anything but the same negative crap to spew, and he is not even very good at spewing it.

[sirs]

LOL......priceless.  Blinders firmly placed.  You now can see only what you want to see.  Good work

[Xavier_Onassis]

What is your complaint, sirs?
Do you actually think that the President should send troops to defend Ukraine from Putin?

It is pretty obvious that is the only thing that would discourage Putin.
But it would also be a stupid thing to do, and the American Public would oppose it.

So why are you bitching about this?

[sirs]

Do you actually want to have a civil discussion?  I'd welcome the change

[sirs]

Gonna take a gamble here, and hope the professor recipricates with some civil mature dialog

Do I think the people of America want to see "troops on the ground in Ukraine"?...of course not.  And contrary to popular leftist opinion, most conservatives don't like or want war, especially this RW conservative. 

That said, the issue isn't doing things that will please the most amount of people, or more so offend the least amount of people.  The issue is that leadership sometimes requires decisions made that are clearly not expected to be taken positively.....IF its the right thing to do.

The President represents America in so many ways.  Their actions speak loudly.  Credibility is everything to the Presidency.  It may not be the popular thing to do, or the politically correct thing to do, but sometimes, decisions to either secure American interests, defend American allies, or yes, possibly a need to deter Hitler-like aggression needs to be on the table.  That's what a leader is.  That's what other countries and "groups" (read ISIS & other Islamic terrorists) are looking at...how is the U.S. going to respond.  Are they going to be asertive, or are they just going to crawl into a corner and pretend the thread doesn't exist,...kinda like Chamberlain.

I don't know what the answer is, as far as military action.  If I were President though, I wouldn't make idle threats that produces nothing but laughter from those pushing their military efforts against us or our allies.  I wouldn't throw the credibility of the Presidency into the gutter, enabling precisely the expansion messers ISIS, Russia, and China are all now taking advantage of. 

One thing is for sure, NONE of those 3 would be acting in this way, if Bush were still President

[Xavier_Onassis]

Bush was not seen as any sort of genius, and I don't think Putin would have acted any differently.

The US has no business messing around in disputes between ex USSR Republics. No president has done this.

[Plane]

I think Putin had more respect for President Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/04/04/george-w-bushs-painting-of-vladimir-putin-is-great-heres-why/



http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/05/the_seduction_of_george_w_bush_by_vladimir_putin

.................. in the context of time, Obama's own dashed aspirations to build a new partnership with Moscow seem to echo his predecessor's experience. Bush thought he could forge more meaningful ties with Russia in his early years, particularly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and for a time seemed to make significant headway with a nuclear arms treaty and cooperation on Afghanistan, only to become frustrated as the two countries diverged, eventually coming into overt diplomatic conflict during the Georgia war of 2008. Obama likewise.................

But not by much...... 

[sirs]

You know, I had a light-bub go off that highlighted perhaps the starkest of differences between then President Bush, and the current President Obama, as it relates to foreign policy.  It's not that Obama doesn't care, so much as he doesn't recognize the threat.  Bush did.  Obama seems to think that broadcasting a "I'm above this kind of stuff (military action), and folks will just listen to me, because I've demonstrated my intentions of non-action".  and now he's scratching his head at all these mounting threats, that he probably still doesn't think them too much of a deal. 

Words are one thing, ACTIONS a far greater indicator of both intent and ability.  So, while Obama may talk a good game about the badness of Iran's nuclear threat, Russia's spreading invasion, or ISIS latest horrific acts of terror, outside of a few drone strikes, his inactions enable these folks to just keep pushing......and why Putin would have a little more respect for a President Bush, knowing he wouldn't make idle threats

[Plane]

Did you read that article ?

President Bush is supposed to have found Putin to be strong willed but uninformed.

I can see this, being a KGB officer he was certainly well educated , but the education might have been narrowly focused.

[sirs]

Sounds like a good summation

[Xavier_Onassis]

Juniorbush's portrait of Putin looked like Putin. I don't think it was all that great, but he did capture the essence of the man.
Putin would surely have done the same thing in Crimea had Bush been president, or McCain or Romney. He did it because Ukraine was weak. Putin knows that no US president is going to defend Ukraine with troops. The Ukrainians are largely responsible. They elected a pro Western corrupt government followed by a Pro Russian government. The key word here is corrupt and also incompetent.