This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Maduro threatens protesters in Venezuela

    Maduro

    The protests in Caracas continue in spite of the US media’s best attempts to ignore them. Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, threatened to remove the protesters by force from a park which has been their rallying point according to Reuters;

    “I’m giving the Chuckys, the killers, just a few hours,” Maduro said, using the name of a murderous child-doll in a horror film to describe anti-government demonstrators who have made the normally genteel 1940s square a base of operations.

    “If they don’t retreat, I’m going to liberate those spaces with the security forces,” Maduro added. “They have a few hours to go home … Chuckys, get ready, we’re coming for you.”

    Students and other protesters have been using the square, in the pro-opposition Chacao district of Caracas, as a rallying point since a wave of protests started to gather steam in mid-February.

    […]

    On Friday night, for example, security forces used water cannon and teargas in a battle against protesters using stones and petrol bombs, Reuters witnesses said.

    At least a dozen people were arrested, and the noise of the fighting echoed across east Caracas for several hours.

    Of course, standing in the shadow of Hugo Chavez, Maduro sees the conspiratorial mechanization of the evil US government coming to get him.

    In a speech at a military rally, Maduro also alleged that right-wingers in the State Department and Pentagon were recommending extreme measures against the Venezuela government, including economic sanctions and even his assassination.

    “President (Barack) Obama, if this message reaches you, you should know that it would be the worst mistake of your life to sign the authorization of the assassination of President Nicolas Maduro,” he said in a high-octane speech recalling his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s spats with the United States.

    Yeah, fat chance that the Obama Administration would interfere with a communist regime in that region. Meanwhile the American Far-Left is trying to dissuade Americans that the opposition in Venezuela in anyway resembles their own failed “Occupy” movement of a few years ago.

  • sKerry: Russia has until Monday…or else

    So, John Kerry, our Secretary of State is talking tough with Russia, warning that they had better reverse course in the Ukraine, or else, according to the Washington Examiner;

    The U.S. and Europe on Monday would then unite to impose sanctions on Russia, Kerry told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday during a hearing on the State Department’s budget.

    “There will be a response of some kind to the referendum itself,” Kerry said. “If there is no sign [from Russia] of any capacity to respond to this issue … there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday.”

    “Our hope is to have Russia join in respecting international law. … There is no justification, no legality to this referendum that is taking place,” he said. “The hope is that reason will prevail but there is no guarantee of that.”

    “A response of some kind” sounds so tough, doesn’t it? Especially coming from the chest puffers in this Administration. They cut our defenses to the bone and then talk tough like there’s some kind of military action that we can afford. But then, this is John Kerry who unilaterally surrendered to the North Vietnamese in Paris.

    I’m sure that by Monday night, the strongly-worded protest letters will be flowing freely. The bodies of White House pages will be stacked like firewood on Pennsylvania Avenue. But Putin certainly won’t budge, not to these pretenders. They’ve made that clear to the world for the last five years. besides, we have things like immigration and minimum wages to yammer on about incessantly, until everyone forgets that we’re the punchline to every one of Putin’s jokes.

  • Acting Ukrainian President: We Won’t Stop Crimean Secession

    The Acting President of the Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, has stated that the Ukraine will not use military force to block Crimean secession.  The ostensible reason?  Doing so “would expose the eastern border and Ukraine would not be protected.”

    Well, duh.  Ya think?

    As one might expect, Turchynov also cast aspersions on the upcoming Crimean referendum, stating: “What they call the referendum will not happen in Crimea but in the offices of the Kremlin.”

    Dunno about that, Mr. Acting President.  Since the majority of the Crimea’s population (58+%) is ethnically Russian and less than 25% is ethnically Ukrainian, I kinda think a completely fair referendum in the Crimea on reuniting with Russia has a damn good chance of passing – and likely by a fairly large margin.

    Still, it’s nice to see that someone involved recognizes reality when they see it.  In this case, I’m not convinced the current US Administration yet does.

     

     

     

  • Explaining Russia’s Conduct

    In past articles, I’ve addressed part of what IMO motivates Russia today in the Crimea.  Short version:  Russia arguably – and IMO, actually does – have superior historical, demographic, and cultural claims to the Crimea vis-à-vis the Ukraine.  The Ukraine today has the Crimea solely due to historical accident; namely, because they received it as “gift” in 1954 from the USSR’s Supreme Soviet.  Russia wants it back.

    That said, there’s almost certainly another contributing factor to Russia’s more assertive behavior today.  Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Peter Brookes details that briefly but quite eloquently here.  It’s worth a read.

    Russia’s history is that they respect strength.  When faced with weakness, they assert themselves – sometimes quite aggressively.

    Ignoring that historical truth is not particularly wise.

  • Today’s Crimea Update

    It doesn’t exactly look like Russia is planning on backing down regarding returning the Crimea to Russian control.

    Friday evening, Russian forces disarmed Ukrainian troops at a missile base, then occupied it.  The Ukrainian forces were reportedly surrounded and told to give up their weapons.   The Ukrainian troops present apparently complied with the ultimatum.

    Russian forces also took over the main hospital in the Crimean capital of Simferopol.  They were reportedly joined in doing so by personnel from pro-Russian local militias.

    Prospects for a negotiated settlement don’t appear too hopeful.  The Russian government still recognizes the government of deposed Ukrainian President Yanukovych as the legitimate government for the Ukraine.  Western nations generally recognize the interim Ukrainian government which ousted Yanukovych as the legitimate Ukrainian government.

    Further:  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has indicated that current US proposals for resolving the crisis are not acceptable, telling Russian President Putin that those proposals “do not suit us very much”.  Putin has also now publicly backed the proposed referendum regarding Crimea’s separation from the Ukraine and return to Russian control scheduled for 16 March.

    Finally, NATO has taken the step of beginning AWACS surveillance flights over Poland and Romania to monitor the situation.  What good – if any – those flights will do remains to be seen.

    Looks like things could get rather interesting in about a week.

  • Plus ça change . . . .

    . . . plus c’est la même chose.

    It sure does rhyme: US reaction to Moscow aggression echoes Carter’s in 1980

    Title kinda says it all.

    On a related subject: the following two articles might be of help in understanding the background of the current Crimean situation.

    The Transfer of the Crimea to the Ukraine – this article was ostensibly written shortly after the transfer of the Crimea from the Russian SFR to the Ukranian SFR in 1954.

    This one map helps explain Ukraine’s protests – the article provides a fairly good overview of the political, linguistic, and ethnic situation in today’s Ukraine.

  • International Impotence

    As the much of world eagerly awaits the results of the face-off between a pinkly-pectoraled Putin and our metrosexual commander in chief in this mother of all Mexican standoffs, there is much to ponder. While Putin’s ongoing media campaign to present him to the world as a real man, physically strong and constantly engaged in activities that are associated with masculinity, virility, strength and courage may appear as laughable to American supporters of Barack Obama, the truth is, it’s working, in the rest of the world, in Spades.

    We here in America tend to forget that much of that world which lies outside our borders lacks our richly well-earned and deeply ingrained sense of skepticism and cynicism that comes with the blessing of living in an open, democratic society. There are countless countries around the globe where, through oppressive governmental media manipulation, opinions and political sentiments within the public sector are formed in such a way as to support those in control and those leaders of other countries whose views on governance reflect their own.

    What it all boils down to is that while effete, liberal America scoffs at Vladimir Putin’s Marlboro Man campaign to present himself around the globe as a virile, vigorous and above all else, strong, world leader, the rest of the world, minus the sneering liberals, is buying it wholesale. If such a survey were possible, it would be ever so interesting to see the results of a world-wide opinion analysis matching Putin against Obama. Mind you, this is just a suspicion from an old veteran of seven decades but I’m betting our metrosexual prezzie would not fare well around the globe against that shamelessly shirtless Soviet man of the world. I’d settle for just a survey of world national leaders. I suspect that Obama would lose that by astounding numbers as well. Go ahead, ask the world who’s flaccid in policy and performance.

    Osama bin Ladin nailed it with his strong horse, weak horse description of geopolitics. He may have been wrong about many things but that assessment is a universal truth. Those leaders who exude strength, both political and of deep belief and character, attract followers and political support. Unfortunately for America at the moment, Vladimir Putin, a man with a demonstrable record of accomplishment as a KGB colonel, has done that exceedingly well on the world stage so that Russia is perceived as strongly and decisively led.

    Contrast Putin’s record with that of our affirmative action president and you quickly see why the United States is operating from such a position of weakness in this current confrontation over the Ukraine, and particularly the Crimea. Too unfortunately for America, those photo-shopped pics of a broad-chested Putin riding a huge brown, Russian bear, juxtaposed with those of a sissy-imaged Obama on his bicycle are devastating to this country in the arena of world public opinion. The Russians elevated a former KGB colonel with some expectation of what he might turn out to be as a national leader.

    An informationally deficient American electorate elected, and then re-elected, a man with no provable record of accomplishment anywhere in his past. That is proving out to be on the world stage what was easily predictable: our metrosexual president, a man of wide and demonstrable lack of accomplishment, isn’t capable of playing on the same field as that bare-chested Russian Bear. One has to wonder if sometime in the future the world might be witness to a vision of peace:

    Two single tubs, side by side, overlooking a sun-setting eternity, with a pinkish, broad-shouldered silhouette in the one tub, holding hands with the jug-eared silhouette in the other.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Hate to Say “Told You So” . . . .

    . . . but yeah, according to Reuters it’s certainly beginning to look like I did.  It was actually pretty easy to predict.

    SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) – Crimea’s parliament voted to join Russia on Thursday and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum within 10 days on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis over the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula.

    I have to say I’m rather torn here.  On principle, I hate seeing aggression rewarded.  However,  IMO Russia frankly has a better historical claim to the Crimea than does the Ukraine.  That’s also the only region of what is today the Ukraine where the majority of the population is ethnically Russian. And if the population of the Crimea wants to leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, well, there is that pesky little thing called “the principle of self-determination . . . . ”

    From my perspective, whether we like the outcome or not – Putin’s played his cards well.  And I don’t see much we can do one way or another.

    I wonder what the folks in the State Department – and the rest of the current Administration – will do now?