We always stir up crap by being so aggressive, but there is no serious threat from Russia or China and Isis is a pimple on the worlds ass.
Imagine so. Think they had a 3 drink limit? I had a case of vodca purchased in East Berlin. Made sure it was Russian. Shit evaporated from the bottles less than 2 years later. Guess comrad never intended for it to keep. I do have a set of porcelain dishes. The only thing to show for the dozen times I crossed through charlie. Good times
Drank one bottle, but it was worse than korean soju. Got the case as give aways to friends back home, but the shit never made it home.
What horseshit! He's doing exactly what needs to be done. He slapped the sanctions on and there are more that can be ramped up. Russia got tossed from the E-8 and has suffered international condemnation over Crimea. We put naval vessels into the Black Sea. Ukraine is not a NATO ally, we are not going to war over them. We are supporting them and reinforcing the nearby NATO allies. We are prepositioning a US armored brigade's armored vehicles in the Baltic States. Putin did not expect this reaction from NATO. Putin is fucking up and you never interfere with an enemy who is making a mistake. Russia's economy is shaky and Russians are poor and unhappy. So Putin ramps up nationalist rhetoric as a distraction. Bottom line . . . Russia cannot win a war with NATO. It has a fraction of the GDP, they would be bankrupt in months.
No way, maybe a 3 bottle limit if any limit at all. The good ole US of A is the only one to place such restrictions on their Soldiers. During Desert Storm the Brits, the Aussies hell everyone but us were partying like rock stars.
Oh boy, no more Russian vodka in the US. What brutal sanctions. Meanwhile the Russians pump natural gas and crude at record levels across Europe, which is their biggest source of income. They still sell arms in the middle east and support terrorist nations. Their trade with trade giant China is unaffected. Meanwhile Putin has occupied an ally country. Hey, but Obama is sending them medical supplies to treat their dying civilians. Obama's surrender first and negotiate later strategy is working wonders. I wonder how many more former Soviet states will fall before professor cut and run at least sends them arms to defend themselves?
You really should pay better attention. Since the cold war, the Russians have accomplished damn little politically, economically, or militarily. Meanwhile we have fought four major and four minor wars, numerous air raids, special forces operations, all over the planet. We basically do what we want to do. We took down two countries and occupied them for as long as we wanted to. We caused the turnover of a dozen governments. We have dozens of allies and the Russians have only a few dependencies. Wanting to fight the Russians on their turf ignores history and is really crazy. Even the hawkish Republicans know better. Ukraine has nothing we need and has no ready with us. They are a burden on Russia, which is fine with us. It is a permanent problem for Putin. A hostile population right on his border. Putin is just strutting with his shirt off like Mussolini for internal consumption. There have been two revolutions in Russian in the last century and he knows it. He is contained and we need not worry about him any more than necessary. Meanwhile we keep ruining his economy, influencing his neighbors, and generally having our way in the Middle East, The Mediterranean, the Pacific and Central Europe, while the entire Western Hemisphere remains our exclusive playground. When exactly has Obama "cut and run" or "surrendered". It's what we call made-up bullshit. Obama has not be reticent to use US military power when it makes sense. It makes no sense at all to fight Russia.
There is a difference between standing up to Putin and fighting him. We did that for nearly 50 years against the USSR without war and won. No one suggests we go to war, just stand by our treaty obligations and be firm against aggression by Putin. Hey W was no better and let Putin get away with Georgia. Is Ukraine critical to us? In more ways than you may imagine. You compare Putin to Mussolini which may have some reason to it. He is pushing his country beyond its capacity and may well be headed to a fall. Yet as with Italy, lack of action may result in a worse situation or war if not stopped. Europe and the Us lack of strong response when Italy invaded Eithiopia led Mussolini and Hitler into believing it was weak and would not be a serious obstacle in their plans. That work out well for all concerned didn't it? Why is the president making similar mistakes with Rissia? The president has a history of making bold statements and not following through. Remember the red line in Syria and Assad must go and so many others? He'll HIS State Department labels Iran a terrorist state yet he is falling all over himself to make a treaty. He has undermined US credibility in the ME so much that Israel and the Saudis are working together. His obsession to reach a treaty with Iran is driving that so much that the Saudis are considering buying their own a bomb. This sort of caving to the idee fixe of accommodation with Iran is as dangerous as Ws obsession with a democratic Iraq. Back to Russia and Putin, the past is prologue. The president's lack of action and strategy is creating a vacuum that Putin is attempting to exploit. Whether he succeeds or not is being made much more questionable by that lack of action. Red you try to say it's either what the president is doing or war. That's bullshit and you know it. You also say Putin knows he's constrained. That's bullshit too. He is playing the Cold War game and every time he is given a inch he'll take a few miles. It happened in Georgia, then the Crimea and now Ukraine. He has threatened Sweden, the Baltic states and is pushing everywhere he can. You and the president seem to be sure Putin and Russia will either stop because they're reasonable or just collapse without consequence. That is naive and dangerous.
And we are still doing it the same way. What do you suggest for "standing up to Putin" that we are not already doing? Be specific. First of all, we have no treaty obligations with Ukraine. None. Ukraine has always been closely allied with Russia. They are culturally almost identical, like the US and Canada. It's not our turf. How exactly are we supposed to stand any firmer than we are standing without taking military action? Give me a list of these critical issues. They are not allies, we have no significant trade with them, and we have practically no Ukrainian heritage compared to Russia. In fact, Ukraine is a critical buffer between NATO and Russia. One that Russia considers important enough to fight over. They damn sure ain't that important to us. Ukraine was talking about joining NATO and that was sure to provoke the Russians. We have concerns about the Baltic states which are part of NATO and that is where we are properly taking military steps to protect them. What mistakes? What "strong action" are you talking about? You have already backed off of military action. You ignore what Obama has actually done and suggest that more needs to be done, but you don't know what. What others? I don't remember them at all. His red line in Syria led to Syria giving up all of its WMD's. Giving an ultimatum to a Russian ally, speaking of standing up to Putin, who immediately caved and forced Syria to not only forego use of WMD's but to surrender them! Now the Syrian rebels won't be attacked with nerve gas and Israel doesn't have to worry about it either. You have been on record all along that we should have taken military action against Assad, which makes no sense at all. We need to stay out of foreign civil wars, especially the middle east. It ain't our fight. All sides hate the US and they are fighting each other. We need to let them do that. Did you forget about the international coalition that includes both Russia and China? Of course you did. It's always Obama, Obama, Obama with you. Do you realize that there are exactly two ways we can prevent Iran from getting a bomb within 2 years? We can go to war with them or we can make a treaty with them. The treaty would give us 10 years without Iranian nuclear weapons by which time much will have changed, including perhaps the ruling regime in Iran which is unpopular with its people. Yes, they are both working together with the US! Along with the most of the Arab League and our major NATO allies, Obama has assembled a coalition working to contain ISIS. Our credibility in the Middle East is as strong as it has ever been. Far stronger than the last administration. We are the 900 pound gorilla in the Middle East and nobody doubts that anymore. First of all nuclear weapons are not for sale anywhere and Saudi Arabia cannot buy any. Neither can they make them. Saudi Arabia can't even manufacture a car! All they have is oil money, a lot of sand, and rhetoric. They have neither the technology nor the industrial base to become a nuclear power. What action? You must answer these questions. You say that you are not talking about war but you keep calling for action. Well, we have sent our navy back into the Black Sea, we have sent reinforcements to eastern Europe, we have slapped on sanctions and are ready to add to them, Russia is pariah in the E-7 and in deep economic trouble. Russian banks can't get Western loans. Western investment has pulled Billion out of Russia. The Kremlin is doing a better job of causing hardships on the Russian people that we are. They responded to the sanctions by sanctioning food imports from the US, Canada and the EU. Who do you think that hurt? Prices are soaring. The ruble is dropping. And Russian living standards are falling. Then answer the questions I have presented. What do you expect him to do that he hasn't already done or is doing? We have allies in NATO, you know, and we must work in coordination with those allies and we do. Any war over there affects them far more than us. This is just more of your standard objection that everything Obama does must be wrong. Well, put up or shut up. What exactly do you want him to do? Watch and learn. Russia cannot afford a war with NATO. He can barely afford the half-war with Ukraine. Putin will lose a shooting war and he will lose an economic war. He knows it and you should, too. His rhetoric is for internal consumption because the Russians are embarrassed that they are no longer a Superpower. They are making noise like one, but they are a paper tiger. He's fucking up and we should let him do it. Going off half-cocked makes no fucking sense at all when we are not being threatened. No one has ever successfully attacked Sweden including the Nazis. And Sweden is NOT a member of NATO, they wish to be neutral. We are under no military obligation to them. You seem to imagine that we must go overseas and fight Russia for countries that are NOT OUR ALLIES and with whom we have no treaties. Georgia and Ukraine are former members of the Soviet Union who did NOT join NATO. Russia is not walking on our turf, understand. They are being bullies on their turf and creating headaches for themselves. Now the Ukrainians will join the Georgians, the Chechens, the Azerbaijanis, in being a thorn in Russia side. Dissidents and potential insurgents instead of allies and a permanent irritation. Of course, Putin is pushing the envelope, but so are we. We sent an army to invade an occupy a country on its borders, Afghanistan. Russia considered that a threat. We annexed former Soviet client states into NATO, Russia is badly threatened by that. We propose putting antiballistic missiles in Europe that violate ABM treaties with Russia and that threatens them big time. We have already deployed ABMs on naval vessels that patrol in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Sea that threaten Russia's nuclear deterrent. We took down a Russian client in Libya and broke up their ally, Yugoslavia. We have been fucking with Russia a lot since the Cold War and we can expect a little push back from time to time, but the situation is not out of control and we are holding all of the aces. Russia is getting weaker, not stronger. Let them get even weaker.
