Contributors

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Is The Ukraine Situation A Fight We Can't Win and Russian Can't Lose?

John A. Mazis posits this question in a recent column in the Strib and while I don't agree with everything he writes, he does have a voice that needs to be heard.

While President Vladimir Putin is not a democratic leader, he is elected (voting irregularities notwithstanding) and is still popular in Russia. His reasons for intervening in Crimea, and maybe elsewhere in Ukraine, are grounded in concrete security concerns as well as in history. His intervention aims at securing the safety of Ukraine’s sizable Russian minority and safeguarding his country’s dominance by keeping the West from encroaching on Russia’s traditional sphere of influence.

This is the heart of the matter, really. Ukraine wants to be part of Europe, not Russia. Pro-Russian forces within the country and in Russia. This is more of a European issue than a United States issue. Of course, President Obama is being measured for his manliness right now by some (not all, thankfully) in the Republican Party in how he responds to this crisis. I think that the barometer should be placed firmly on how the EU, particularly Germany, responds. They are the ones on the hot seat, not the president.

4 comments:

Nikto said...

The entire reason that there are "concrete security concerns" in Ukraine over the safety of ethnic Russians is that Russians have historically -- and very recently -- used their might to trample the rights of Ukrainians, Tatars and other non-Russians who live in Ukraine.

Now that Putin's puppet Yanukovich has been tossed out, he's afraid that the new guys will treat Russians the same way they've been treating Ukrainians and Tatars for all these centuries.

It's exactly why Tea Party folks are so afraid of blacks and Hispanics gaining power: they're afraid these oppressed minorities will want revenge for centuries of mistreatment.

It's why they want laws that allow them to shoot first if they feel the tiny bit afraid of black kids wearing hoodies or playing loud music.

It seems that Putin and the Tea Party are all members of the same clan of oil-loving, Muslim-hating, gay-bashing, fat-cat old white guys.

GuardDuck said...

No you are adding stupidity to your ignorance...

Anonymous said...

No kidding. Another mischaracterization of the tea party by the willfully ignorant lefty.

Juris Imprudent said...

You didn't read the link I gave you about both sides needing to leave the naive foreign policy out of the equation.

No, of course you didn't.