Thoughts and Opinions

Crimea: The Ugly Truth

By: Barry Small 07/Mar/2014

Here is the ugly truth about Crimea: the way it is, is the way it will be…and there is nothing we can do about it. Even if our esteemed leader had a set of balls, there is nothing we or anyone else can do about it.

I know it is heresy to say that our President has no balls but facts are facts. His “foreign policy” record speaks for itself. He threw down his cards and folded on the missile defense shield and got nothing for it. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have patiently waited for his announced withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

His Benghazi policy got four American heroes killed and to date, no one has paid for that even though our allies had one of the perpetrators in custody and we know who was behind the “protests”. He wasn’t alone in that one; Hillary and her staff of incredibly incompetent liars watched her ambassador dragged out in the street while they debated how they were going to cover it up. The list of foreign policy failures will be the material that volumes of studies will be written about. It is epic.

Not to mention the skyrocketing number of American heroes in our military which are dying at a staggering rate under Obama. And I remind you that while Bush was in office all the mainstream media made it a point to post the number of casualties EVERY SINGLE NIGHT on the news.

Under former President George W. Bush, 575 American soldiers died and fewer than 3,000 were wounded in Afghanistan. This means under Obama, at least 1,405 soldiers have died and nearly 15,000 additional soldiers have been wounded, which means 70% of the deaths and nearly 80% of the injuries in Afghanistan have occurred under Obama’s watch. (As of: Sept 2012) Reference: Mainstream Media Ignoring Increase In Deaths & Wounded In Afghanistan Under Obama

More applicable to the present situation is Obama’s response to Russia’s overthrow of the Georgian government. To be more accurate; there was no meaningful response from Obama and his campaign staff. Just a whimper then back in his corner with tail tucked. I use the term campaign staff intentionally, because that is the mode he and his staff are perpetually in. By definition a campaign is just a lot of empty promises that no politician ever intends on keeping.

That is the extent of his foreign policy and it was made even more impotent by the people he has put in charge of it. Hillary was about as effective as tits on a boar and ended up getting Americans killed. Notice how she quietly slid back into private life after that epic disaster. The damage control following that is ongoing to this day. They have basically made all witnesses persona non grata and have completely sequestered any one that was associated with it. The exception to that is Susan Rice who was bought off with a promotion. Evidently if you prove you can lie with the big dogs, you get better digs in the kennel.

Reference: Hillary Sinking Ship, The Great Benghazi Lie, Unasked Questions: The Top Brass Knew The Administration and Hillary were Lying, Benghazi Hall of Shame

But in the case of Georgia, Obama didn’t even blow a lot of hot air; in fact it was barely tepid. That is part of the reason that Crimea is already a done deal for Putin. He also holds all the aces in the deck. He has a big set of balls, and a very sharp, tactical mind. He knows that his counterpart is a community organizer that has no understanding of how the world operates outside of Chicago. He also knows that Obama is not by any stretch an experienced military man to be feared or respected.

In contrast, Putin is a highly trained military tactician and a product of the KGB. He is an intelligence junky and he has done his homework. He knows that Obama is at best a common Chicago street punk. Crimea is the result of a carefully crafted plan that takes advantage of Obama and his lack of foreign policy. Putin must have fell out of his chair laughing when Hillary was replaced by Kerry.

Not only does Putin hold all the aces, he is also counting cards. He knows that Obama doesn’t have any trump cards and with the Kerry play he revealed that he has no high cards either. Kerry garners no more respect than Obama and deserves none. This is a case where two is certainly no better than one.

Here are the reasons that Putin will get anything he wants and probably more. He holds Europe’s energy balls in his hand. Forty percent of Europe’s energy supply comes from Russia. What kind of idiots let that happen? Putin is a shrewd operator and skillfully convinced them that the cold war is over and that they could be friends. Not only that we live in a time were we fix things with dialogue. We talk endlessly and accomplish nothing. Putin knows all this and is glad to talk because he knows that talk is cheap and gas isn’t.

Putin holds the Assad card. He and he alone gets to decide what ultimately happens in Syria. Assad is his Middle Eastern proxy and Syria is similar in a tactical sense to Crimea. Syria is an ongoing thorn in Obama’s side and in the Middle East because Putin it is in Russia’s best interest. He doesn’t care one bit about Syria or Assad; he cares about having the best hand at the card table.

The ace in Putin’s hand is what Crimea really represents. The Ukraine wants to join NATO but there is a sticking point; as long as there is a Russian Naval base on Crimean soil that can’t happen. Putin knows this and it is a huge part of his tactical advantage. He has Obama and Europe stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the naval base and the hard place is Crimean cessation. If Crimea separates at the referendum its borders become the territory that the Russians operationally occupy at that point. The real reason for the occupation is the “operational control” of the territory. They don’t want to forcibly take over Crimea and they know they don’t have too. While “protecting” Russian civilians they “operationally” control Crimea.

The problem is that Crimea becomes what is politically known as a “frozen state”. It isn’t part of Ukraine, but it isn’t acknowledged as a legitimate independent nation either. Politically the U.S. and NATO don’t recognize frozen states. The hard place is that if they allow Ukraine minus Crimea into NATO they give frozen states implied legitimacy and that changes policy concerning rogue states such as South Sudan and Russian the controlled Republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia formerly known as Georgia.

The Russian Navy base at Sevastopol would no longer be a problem but by allowing the Ukraine into NATO we would also anger Ukraine by acknowledging Crimea’s independent status. If the west stands firm it provides a legal barrier to another NATO member on the Russian border. Putin knows all this and has carefully crafted this trap. He knows that at this point it is a no win situation and without knowing it we have already sprung the trap on ourselves.

The dirty truth about Crimea isn’t really about Crimea at all. It is about the incredible ineptitude of our intelligence community, the gross negligence of the State Department and the perception/truth that Obama has no balls. The west calls Putin names like despot, megalomaniac, or a relic from the cold war. In truth he is a very cold calculating military and political professional and he will get what he wants. Calling him names is merely an attempt to cover up what is obvious to the rest of the world…we were sucked in by a pro who outplayed an amateur.

Putin knew all along that Obama wouldn’t stand in his way. He knew Europe would whimper a little but would crawl back in their corner and behave. Most importantly he knows that America’s sphere of influence is declining because of Obama’s weakness and by the total incompetence at the State Department. He knows that as a nation we are in decline and Russia and China are ascending.

We “won” the cold war by standing up to the bully and by bankrupting Russia. Now our president makes empty threats that nobody even listens too. They know he is a campaigner, not a doer. Russia backed down when faced by a doer; they tore down a wall when we had a president that had the balls to stand up to them. Now they are more than happy to sit at the table and talk endlessly while they do whatever they want. Putin has learned from our complete inability to deal with North Korea and Iran that he can talk us to sleep and when we eventually wake up the most we will do is sputter a little.

If our intelligence community spent more time spying on our enemies and less time illegally focused on U.S. citizens maybe they would have seen this coming. If our State Department didn’t have its collective head up the Presidents ass, maybe they
would have seen it coming. All the signs were there but there isn’t anybody in control that can put intelligence over ideology. I really don’t think there is any intelligence in control anywhere in this administration.

The President wants to create an illusion that the world is a safer place because he is having “dialogue” with the bullies of the world. Kerry is just a clown who follows a policy set by a rabble rouser that is in way over his rapidly graying head.

Putin knows he has won and the whole world knows who really calls the shots in today’s world. He is far from done, and he is igniting a new sense of Russian pride and power. He can ride the wave as far as he wants right into any of the former soviet states without fear of retribution. He has taken over two countries and has done it essentially without firing a shot. Meanwhile our sackless leaders are having a beer summits at the golf course at Martha’s Vineyard and having a dialogue about the next round of lies they are going to create to cover up their incompetence. At least Hillary woke up from her socialist utopia long enough to spout a warning about Putin’s Hitleresque facade about protecting Russian citizens…then it was back to her blanket like a good little doggie.

Additional Reference: US Troop Deaths in Afghan War Under Obama Now Twice That Under Bush