Neville Chamberlain Strategy: Obama Fighting WWII All Over Again By Giving Up Czechoslovakia (Georgia) And Then Poland (Ukraine)

Was Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s territory (Crimea) a big deal?

The NATO Secretary-General thinks it is:

(CNSNews.com) – Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of its Crimea region is “the most serious security crisis since the end of the Cold War,” NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday.

“We have seen Russia rip up the international rule book,” Rasmussen told an audience at Georgetown University in Washington DC. “Trying to redraw the map of Europe, and creating in just a few weeks the most serious security crisis since the end of the Cold War.”

The only real country left in Europe thinks that it is:

The Ukraine crisis is the worst in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall and diplomacy is now essential to avoid military escalation, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday.

Russia’s intervention means “the threat of a division of Europe is real again,” Steinmeier said as he arrived for an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers.

This ought to be a much worse crisis – and a much bigger deal – than it actually is: because the fact of the matter is that we signed a treaty to protect Ukraine and to keep this very thing from happening.  And we are more obviously weaker now than we have ever been now that we have dishonored ourselves by abandoning our commitment.

Every nation on earth will start to scramble to acquire nuclear weapons to protect their borders and there will be NOTHING we can do to persuade them to give up those weapons.  Because we have now proven that our word is no good and we will ultimately renege on whatever we promise we’re going to do.

This is a crisis that will continue to build and build long after Ukraine leaves the media’s ADD-style attention span.  You know, while the mainstream liberal media is micro-fixated on that Malaysian airliner that nobody has any idea whatsoever happened to.

But please don’t think Barack Obama did anything stupid while all this was going on: he still spent his usual countless hours formulating his NCAA brackets.

Of course the same Democrats who had demonized George Bush just for playing golf while there was a war going on only to hypocritically shrug their shoulders while Barack Obama has played more than seven times more golf than Bush did (164 rounds compared to Bush’s 24).

I noted in my obtaining of the above facts on presidential golf that the U.S. media that criticized Bush so heavily for golfing have been strangely silent about Obama’s “love for the game.”  It has been the FOREIGN media that has attacked Obama for his golfing as the classic evidence of an absentee president who fiddles around on the golf course while the world is burning.

When we compare Vladimir Putin to Barack Obama we get a bare-chested man riding a stallion compared to a weasel-thin, dumbo-eared metrosexual riding a bicycle while wearing mom jeans and a geeky helmet.

And don’t think the world – and particularly all of our enemies – haven’t noticed what the man who has gutted the American military is: weak.

I have on numerous occasions compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain.  Chamberlain was, like Obama, a ruthless tyrant when it came to domestic policy.  Because of the power of his office, he could simply dictate.  And dictate he did.

But when it came to dealing with aggressive and even hostile foreign governments, the world sat in stunned horror as Chamberlain proved himself to be an empty suit.  He couldn’t dictate to Hitler with an executive order.  So he did nothing while Hitler grew stronger and stronger and bolder and bolder and more and more aggressive.  Until it took a war to stop him.

That’s where we’re at now.

Democrats want to tell us that Putin invaded Georgia and seized their territory when Bush was president.  And that is true.  But please consider two things that make that meaningless: 1) George Bush TRIED to avert the Russian seizure of Georgia in April of 2008 when he proposed that Georgia AND UKRAINE be allowed into NATO.  That move would have stopped Putin dead in his tracks.  Don’t tell me that Bush didn’t wisely see what completely blindsided Obama coming.  But weak, cowardly, gutless liberalism is weak, cowardly, gutless liberalism both here and in Europe.  And liberals wouldn’t tolerate such a “provocative move.”  Oh, no.  The spirit of Obama is the spirit of weakness and appeasement.  If we bare our throats and demonstrate to our enemies by our nakedness that we are not a threat, their reasoning goes, we will avert war and live in a Utopia of peace and harmony.  You’re seeing more of the same as we speak with Obama’s giveaway of the internet to countries that are hostile to us.  And 2) Putin seized Georgia with less than three months left in Bush’s presidency – and you tell me if you have any honesty whatsoever what Democrats would have done had Bush moved aggressively to respond to Putin after Obama and Democrats had spent basically eight years demonizing him as a warmonger.

What was Obama’s response to Putin over Georgia once he got into office?  Did he stand up to Putin?  Did he push for the rest of Georgia not yet seized and Ukraine that had not yet had its territory seized to become part of NATO like Bush had done?  Nope.  He was pretty good at spending time with his NCAA brackets between rounds of golf then, too.

Bush TRIED to solve the problem in Georgia and Ukraine before either happened.  What did Obama do???

In fact what Obama did was issue his infamous “reset” button with Russia.  He and Hillary Clinton, being as incompetent as they are morally stupid, botched that horribly, of course.  But it sent a crystal-clear message to Putin: America under Obama is weak.  They will let me get away with murder.  And so murder I will.

More evidence (and more conservatives who saw Putin’s aggression coming): Sarah Palin:

Remember what a bimbo the mainstream media made Sarah Palin out to be (remember, it’s OKAY to trivialize a woman as long as it’s liberals doing it to a conservative).

But in 2008, Sarah Palin predicted something in which she turned out to be right and every liberal on earth turned out to be a morally idiotic jackass.

She predicted that if coward and fool Barack Obama were elected president, it would embolden Russia into invading Ukraine given the kind of idiocy and naïve weakness he displayed when Putin invaded Georgia:

“After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”

Of course, the mainstream media savaged her for that.  What else is their mission if not a fools’ mission???

And Mitt Romney:

In their third presidential debate, President Obama ridiculed Mitt Romney when he said that Russia remained a threat to the United States. Here’s what Obama said in the debate:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida’s a threat because a few months ago when you were asked, what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia — not al-Qaida, you said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.

“But, Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. You say that you’re not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq, but just a few weeks ago you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now.“And the — the challenge we have — I know you haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong.”

Here’s how Mitt Romney responded. Notice how Obama tries to cut Romney off before he can make his point:

MR. ROMNEY: I’ll respond to a couple of the things you mentioned. First of all, Russia, I indicated, is a geopolitical foe, not —

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Number one —

MR. ROMNEY: Excuse me. It’s a geopolitical foe. And I said in the same . . . paragraph, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face. Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia or Mr. Putin, and I’m certainly not going to say to him, I’ll give you more flexibility after the election. After the election he’ll get more backbone.

Mitt Romney didn’t have “rose-colored glasses” when it came to Russia and Putin.  History records that Barack Obama had the most asinine-looking rose-colored glasses ever devised when it came to them.  And Democrats have the naked dishonesty to stupidly try to argue that nobody could have seen Putin’s seizure of Ukraine coming.

And, oh, yeah, that “flexibility” thing.  Remember that?

How did I title my article on that one?  “Traitor-in-Chief Barack Obama Caught Red-Handed On Tape Playing Naked Politics With Critical National Security”

Obama’s open-mic moment with Russia:

Obama: This is my last election…After my election I have more flexibility.

Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir

And what do we have now?  The “worst crisis since the end of the Cold War” being played out after Obama has “more flexibility” to appease our enemy whom Obama went very much on the record to say was NOT our enemy at all.

How “flexible” are you feeling now, I wonder, Obama, you jackass?

So here’s the deal now that Obama has pulled America’s pants down and bent over for Russia and begged to have our national security and our prestige butt-raped: just like in World War II, we’re going to have to fight a world war to get our prestige that our weak, cowardly, gutless puke pissed away.

Obama’s “strategy” – if you could call his doing nothing a “strategy” – is this: where the world became outraged after Hitler’s second violation of a sovereign nation, what if instead of fighting the world had done NOTHING?  What if we’d just allowed Hitler to have what he wanted and not do anything about it?

You see, THAT’S “peace” to a liberal.  There is no war because we won’t fight.  No matter what.  And no matter what Hitler – or Putin – or any other thug does, we won’t fight.  So we have “peace.”

Here’s the really funny thing about this: I’ve been reading liberals’ op-eds on this Russia-Ukraine thing, and the consistent theme is that Republicans don’t really have a solution now, either.  So you can’t blame Obama for being weak because Republicans don’t want to go to war, either.

DAMN THESE PEOPLE ARE PATHOLOGICALLY DISHONEST.

Here’s the simple fact: as I already documented above, the “Republican response” would have begun going on six years ago back when we truly could have DONE something short of going to world war three.  The “Republican response” would have began with Sarah Palin’s wisdom – and then after that Mitt Romney’s wisdom – that Russia and Putin were true threats.  Which is something our failed Disgrace-in-Chief STILL doesn’t understand.

The “Republican response” would have been NOT to gut America’s military so that we are clearly too damn weak to do a damn thing about much of anything.  That probably would have stopped Putin right there.

The “Republican response” would have been to follow through on what Bush started and LEAD by insisting that Georgia and Ukraine become protected by NATO membership.  That DEFINITELY would have stopped Putin.

We never would have BEEN in this situation had there actually been a “Republican response.”

There comes a point when idiots have so destroyed something that it cannot be made right again.  And don’t try “spin” reality such that Republicans who CLEARLY saw this disaster coming and SAID it was coming wouldn’t have done anything different to avert it.

Now the same media that literally mocked Sarah Palin for seeing the Russian threat and mocked Mitt Romney for “stealing a [functioning] national security policy from the 1980s is dishonestly trying to say that Republicans should have to fix the world that Obama has damn-near singlehandedly broken beyond repair.

Remember Obama boasting of how he would restore America’s prestige?  Where is it now after Obama has repeatedly issued “red line” warnings and then done NOTHING and countries like Russia push us around like we’re the pussies that we have become under Obama?

It aint over.  Putin gave a speech justifying what he did in Crimea by talking about his duty to protect ethnic Russians wherever they may be.  And the thing is that following the collapse of the former Soviet Union – whose territory Putin wants to reclaim for Mother Russia – there are “ethnic Russians” all OVER the place.

Putin gave himself the carte blanche right to invade and seize virtually every single country in eastern Europe.

And now he’s massing Russian troops in a very possible move to invade Ukraine and seize the rest of it.

And Obama has already promised that there is no possible way that he will respond militarily.  Because he is a weak and stupid man who lays all his cards down on the table to make sure his enemies know his vulnerabilities in advance.

You wonder what Hitler would have done had Neville Chamberlain said, “Do whatever you want.  I won’t stop you.”  Probably nothing good.

Here’s one on that: Vladimir Putin has built his new hegemony primarily upon his exporting of Russian oil and natural gas and his ability to shut the tap on any European state that would oppose him.  What has Barack Obama done to counter this hegemony?  Has he promised to increase American oil and natural gas exports and essentially taken Putin’s power away without firing a shot?  That would counter his “oil is evil” philosophy, wouldn’t it?  And so while Putin is lording it over Europe and Europe is cowed into refusing to go along with any tough sanctions against Russia as a consequence, Obama STILL won’t allow the Keystone oil pipeline which he has kept shut down for YEARS.

This isn’t even about going to war – although Obama was nothing short of a FOOL to simply take war completely off the table and signal Putin his abject weakness in advance – it’s about simple reality and Obama’s inability to understand it.  OIL IS REALITY; Obama’s alternative energy is magical unicorn fairy dust.  Obama’s refusal to harness reality makes him a weak fool.

Meanwhile, China, which like Russia and very much unlike America has also been strengthening its military, ALSO has territorial ambitions.  Because weakness is the ultimate provocation.

And like Russia, they know we will do NOTHING.

World War II was the result of European and American weakness.  World War III will result from the same liberal weakness in Europe and America.

And you can lay the blame for that coming global war ENTIRELY on Obama’s and the Democrat Party’s feat.

A nation that allows tyrants to become emboldened has a death wish.  And America proved that it has a death wish when it stupidly elected and then even more stupidly re-elected Barack Obama.

I have long marveled at the precision of Bible prophecy in the last days.  The Bible rightly predicted that Israel would miraculously and against all odds be regathered as a nation.  It foresaw the rise of Russia as a world power which it had never been in history.  It described a last days confederation of countries led by Russia and Iran (Persia) that EXACTLY matches the Islamic states relative to their enmity to Israel today.  It anticipated the coming together of a European union which had never in history happened.  It knew that one day China and the kings of the east would be able to assemble an army of 200 million soldiers when at the time the prophecy was given there weren’t two-hundred million human beings on the entire planet.

The Bible prophecies all of these things and many, many others which have come to pass in these the last days of human history before the coming of the Beast.

But it never once mentions America.

That used to bother me greatly: how could it be that the mightiest nation in the history of the world isn’t even mentioned in Bible prophecy?

The answer is terrifying: the United States isn’t mentioned because it either won’t exist at all – having catastrophically imploded – or it will be so weak and so irrelevant that it won’t matter at all in the last days.

When you voted for “God damn America,” you voted to go extinct like the Dodo bird.

In the end, a leader will come in fulfillment of every Democrat’s and every liberal’s and every socialist’s fondest dreams.  His government will so take over the world that literally no one will be able to buy or sell anything without the government’s approval.  He will promise a Utopia but deliver the whole world into hell on earth.

And Barack Obama – along with the Democrat Party and everyone who supports them – is his useful idiot.

You won’t be able to stop him politically because Democrats and liberals all over the world will vote for him.  You won’t be able to fight him because liberals will take away all of your guns.

The coming of Antichrist and his mark of the beast didn’t have to happen, but the God who knows the end from the beginning knew 2,000 years ago – knew in fact before the foundation of the world – that the terminal generation of Americans would be a stupid and depraved one.

 

 

Obama’s Hometown of Chicago Is Totally Out Of Control (‘you should move out for the weekend … or risk being trapped inside by rioters’)

You know, I would have thought a tough-talking ballet dancer like Rahm Emanuel would have been exactly what Chicago needed to crack down on rioters.  Whodafigured he wouldn’t be up to the job?

This kind of reminds me about what I wrote about Obama before he got elected by fools, anyway: do you want a poodle or a Rottweiler?  And dumbasses said, “Give us poodles or give us death!”

And we saw how our poodle-in-chief let us down.

Residents of State Street Condo Told To Leave Chicago During NATO Summit
Updated: Monday, 23 Apr 2012, 7:07 AM CDT
Published : Friday, 20 Apr 2012, 8:37 PM CDT
By Darlene Hill, FOX Chicago News

Chicago – Residents of a Chicago condo whose building will be in the eye of the NATO storm are being warned that they should move out for the weekend … or risk being trapped inside by rioters.

FOX Chicago News was first to report Friday that the people living in the 17-floor Library Tower building at 520 South State Street were warned in a letter from condo management that “we are STRONGLY recommending that all residents find places to stay during the conference from May 18 through May 21.”

READ THE LETTER>>>

NATO summits often attract crowds of thousands of protesters. Currently, a march is planned on Sunday, May 20, from the Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park past Library Tower on State Street to McCormick Place.

The condo is hiring two off-duty police officers to provide security; those cops will be armed.

“In the event of a riot or the potential of one near the building, all access doors will be locked including the garage door,” the letter continues. “For everyone’s safety, we will be instructing anyone in the building to stay in his or her unit.”

“I can’t just leave my garage whenever I want. They’ll be holding us hostage in here,” said resident Sebrina Krielinger.

The condo is in a busy area on State between Harrison and Congress, and residents are used to a lot.

“It’s just pretty shocking to see and hear things are going to be scary in your own home,” said resident Jeff Lunz. “I think they’ve got everyone’s best interest in mind.”

The letter also warns:

• “We are strongly recommending that you do not have any guests over during this time including dog walkers and cleaning companies.”
• “There will be absolutely no deliveries or moves permitted between Friday, May 18 and Monday, May 21.”
• “The revolving door will be locked on Friday morning.”

“I’m inconvenienced by parades and a lot of other things. I can’t get out on the day of the Thanksgiving Day parade. So that’s just a part of city life,” said Lunz.

Coach is Right added his two cents to this story, saying:

When our Secret Service returns from their activities in Colombia, they are expected to release locations of concrete barriers and no go zones around McCormick Place on South Lake Shore Drive. Just how much more can Chicago citizens be asked to take? The black on black street crimes, shootings, murders already are approaching the ten year high for U.S. wars in the Middle East. This could get 1968 type ugly.

And of course we know what Obama’s Secret Service did in Colombia, don’t we? 

Chicago is so screwed.  Liberals let them down; so they elected more liberals.  And then those liberals went to prison for corruption.  So they elected still more liberals.  And now they’re facing their own self-created Hurricane Katrina that is on the verge of swamping the city: so flee the sinking ship, ye rats!!!

Chicago is just one of many American cities who have been utterly destroyed by Democrats and liberal policies for a good one hundred years straight – and they STILL elect more Democrats!!!

The warning letter to Chicago reminds me of the signs Obama has posted in Arizona to warn the American people that he is abandoning this nation to narco-terrorist criminals:

Putting Obama or his stooge Rahm Emanuel in control of security is the equivalent of trying to make toy poodles watchdogs.

Obama – Who Demonized Iraq And Afghanistan During Bush Administration – Now Warns Against Sending ‘Mixed Messages’ In His ‘Kinetic Action’ In Libya

Obama’s mouthpieces are warning Congress not to send “mixed messages” over Libya:

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the more than 30-page report and analysis will be sent to Congress Wednesday afternoon.

Carney also issued a warning, saying it is “important for Congress not to send mixed signals about a goal… we all share.”

Maybe he could stop doing that himself by finally calling the damn thing he’s doing what it clearly is: a WAR.

The problem is that Obama is a liar, a demagogue and a hypocrite without shame.

Even DEMOCRATS are now beyond pissed with Obama’s lies and deceit:

Representative Lynn Woolsey charged the President of showing “contempt” for the Constitution, and insulting the intelligence of the American people.  Woolsey made the following statement: “The Obama Administration’s argument is one that shows contempt for the Constitution and for the executive’s co-equal branch of government, the United States Congress.  To say that our aggressive bombing of Libya does not rise to the level of ‘hostilities’ flies in the face of common sense and is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.  This act must not stand, because we can’t afford another full-blown war—the ones we’re already fighting are bankrupting us morally and fiscally.  Let those who support the military campaign against Libya make their case, in an open debate culminating with a vote in the U.S. Congress.  The American people deserve nothing less.”

Of course, if Democrats actually believed the stuff they’re saying, they would impeach Obama and vote him right out on his butt.

But let’s spend a little time on the profound hypocrisy that characterizes Barry Hussein.

This was our Hypocrite-in-Chief when he didn’t give a rat’s ass about sending “mixed messages” when he condemned Bush for Iraq:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama responded.

I’m sure that Libyans parachuted into your neighborhood just like they did in mine.  We’ve got the whole “Red Dawn” thing playing out here, only its Libyan paratroopers invading us instead of Russians.  I’m actually typing this in the hills as I partiicpate in the heroic resistance being led by our brilliant president Barry Hussein.  Either that, or Obama is so full of fecal matter that he could fertilize Brazil all by himself.

It also didn’t matter if President Bush had Congressional approval for that war.  Obama doesn’t give a DAMN about the Constitution OR Congress.

Obama also didn’t have a problem undermining President Bush or sending plenty of “mixed messages” when he said about Afghanistan:

“We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.”

And of course he was doing everything he could to send mixed messages and undermine the Iraq War when he said things like:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Obviously he was 100% wrong about the surge strategy that turned the Iraq War around.  But why should a lying weasel like Obama worry about being right, or worry about being a hypocrite???

And Obama also said things like –

“Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world”

– to send mixed messages galore.  Again, he couldn’t have been more wrong.  Which is why this loathsome weasel later tried to take credit through his vice president for what he had spent all his time undermining and condemning:

“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.”

This little weasel is not only still in Iraq and Afghanistan after running as the fraud who would messianically end all our wars and bring our troops home; he is now in FIVE wars, having added Libya, Pakistan and Yemen to his total.

Because Obama is the kind of fool who thinks he can eat his cake and have it too – with the full cooperation of a mainstream media that might as well be under Goebbel’s Ministry of Propaganda to keep us distracted while he does it.

Obama is ignoring the War Powers Act which was PASSED BY DEMOCRATS IN 1973 to restrain Nixon’s adventurism.  He is a fascist who doesn’t give a damn about our Constitution or our laws as he “fundamentally transforms” America into something it never has been and never should become.

Obama’s dishonest argument is that he doesn’t have to give Congress a voice because he already surrendered American sovereingty to NATO.  Not only was that utterly depraved to begin with, but it is also cynical and dishonest: because NATO is merely the politically correct version of American military power.

In his speech, Defense Secretary Gates excoriated NATO as a hollow sham.  It’s not Europe leading while America supports in Libya, because Europe is too cowardly, weak and weaselly to take responsibility for anything under the sun.  Just like Obama himself.  Defense Secretary Gates pointed out that without MASSIVE US involvement, NATO not only wouldn’t exist, but can’t even provide the resources for a TINY military campaign.  Which is to say that Obama using NATO as a cop-out to dodge the law is about as lame as lame can get.

Pajama’s Media has a nice piece detailing the sheer moral fraud of the Democrat Party.  After playing videos of Democrats – including Obama – being treasonous little vermin while Bush was president – they point out:

No, heavens no, they’re whining about Libya, a war they won’t call a war which has nothing to do with our national interests. The Democrats were cool with sending all kinds of mixed signals when we were battling a fierce Islamic insurgency in the heart of the Middle East. But on the fringes, in the NATO kinetic whatever against Daffy the Dictator? You’d better watch what you say.

I’m past sick of this crap.

You want to hear my Middle East policy?

It consists of three parts: 1) We support the only democracy in the history of the entire region as well as the people with whom we share profound moral and spiritual heritage – Israel.  Any attack on them is an attack on our vital national security interests.  2) any country we deem a threat to our security will be bombed into the stone age.  No “hearts and minds” campaigns, no “nation building,” no aid and most definitely no costly rebuilding campaigns that will drain our treasury and cost our lives.  And if they threaten us again, we will come back and bomb the pieces into even smaller pieces.  And if they threaten us a third time, we will “fundamentally transform” their country into a lake.  And 3) that means YOU, Iran.

Remember How Liberals Said Every Aggressive Move Against Terrorists Was ‘A Provocation’? Why Is It A Good Thing Now?

I remember how Obama and the rest of the left decried every agressive move President George W. Bush made as being a provocation that would only result in more violence and make the new wave of terrorism being waged against America even worse.

The war on terror was a provocation.  The Iraq War was a provocation.  The terrorist prison facility at Guantanamo Bay was a provocation.  The surge strategy was a provocation.  And “provoking” the terrorists was the worst possible way to react, we were constantly told.

On the surge strategy that won the Iraq War, Obama had said:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Sending more troops to win the fight will increase the violence.  And that is a bad, bad thing. 

On the Iraq War as provocation (and therefore a bad thing), a critique of Obama’s apology in his Cairo Speech says it all:

On “violent extremism” Obama clung to the meme of “Afghanistan War good/Iraq War bad.” Obama said, “Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.”

This does not make sense. Iraq was not a “war of choice.” Saddam Hussein, for a variety of reasons (not just on WMDs, which everyone believed Hussein had and which he was certainly pursuing) had made himself intolerable. And Saddam was certainly not responding to diplomacy; that was the main reason the coalition forces marched.

Obama also made his first cringing apology. “The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals.” Well, no we did not. That is a flat out lie and a pander not only to liberal opponents of the war on terror but to the Muslim extremists Obama says he abhors.

It doesn’t matter that because of the very surge strategy that Obama personally demonized that Obama’s vice president was able to actually say the following about the Iraq War that Obama also demonized:

“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.”

I would point out that George Bush won his “war of choice” that “provoked strong differences.”  And Obama – even after eventually abandoning his own demqgoguery on the “surge” to implement a surge of his own in Afghanistan, and even after using Bush’s own general which the left demonized to implement that surge – is floundering badly in “the good war” of Afghanistan.  Which is why Afghanistan sure won’t be “one of the great achievements of the Obama administration.”

George Bush “stupidly’ chose to fight a war against a tyrant in a terrain that the United States could actually win.  The vastly more brilliant Obama chose to put all his marbles in an Afghanistan that has been the graveyard of empires for a thousand years.  Afghanistan also happens to feature a terrain that almost entirely nullifies our vast tactical and strategic advantages.  But that’s what you do when you think you’re too damn smart for your own good, I guess.

On Guantanamo Bay as a provocation, Obama said:

“Guantanamo is probably the No. 1 recruitment tool that is used by these jihadist organizations,” Obama said. “And we see it in the websites that they put up. We see it in the messages that they’re delivering.”

It didn’t matter that Guantanamo Bay was absolutely necessary, no matter how much it provoked people who were determined to be provoked.  That is just a fact, and facts don’t matter to demagogues.  It’s just an “inconvenient truth” that Gitmo is still open, and WILL REMAIN OPEN as long as Obama is president.

Then there was that nasty rhetorical phrase “war on terror” that was clearly too provocative, so Obama rebranded it as an “overseas contingency operation.”

The one thing that couldn’t be more clear: don’t you dare provoke these people.  It’s bad to provoke.  The mainstream media would crawl all over you if you dared to provoke.

So I’m left sitting here wondering how provocation suddenly went from a bad thing to a good thing just because the guy doing all the provoking was a Democrat.

Obama’s Middle East policies have resulted in dramatically escalated increases in violence throughout the Arab world.  Which would have been terrible if Bush had had anything to do with it, but which is okay because a liberal did it.  So the mainstream media has refused to harangue Obama on that unintended consequence of his budding Utopia.

In Libya, you’ve got a lot more of this “untended consequence” regarding Obama’s nearlty forgotten little third war he started in Libya:

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyans shouting for revenge buried Moammar Gadhafi’s second youngest son to the thundering sound of anti-aircraft fire Monday, as South Africa warned that the NATO bombing that killed him would only bring more violence.

Libya’s leader did not attend the tumultuous funeral of 29-year-old Seif al-Arab, but older brothers Seif al-Islam and Mohammed paid their respects, thronged by a crowd of several thousand. Jostling to get closer to the coffin, draped with a green Libyan flag, mourners flashed victory signs and chanted “Revenge, revenge for you, Libya.”

Three of Gadhafi’s grandchildren, an infant and two toddlers, also died in Saturday’s attack, which NATO says targeted one of the regime’s command and control centers. Gadhafi and his wife were in the compound at the time, but escaped unharmed, Libyan officials said, accusing the alliance of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader.

NATO officials have denied they are hunting Gadhafi to break the battlefield stalemate between Gadhafi’s troops and rebels trying for the past 10 weeks to depose him. Rebels largely control eastern Libya, while Gadhafi has clung to much of the west, including the capital, Tripoli.

But of course NATO is denying that we’re hunting Gadafi in violation of United Nations policies against targeting political leaders.  After all, we’ve even denied we’re at war at all, preferring the nicer-sounding euphamism of “kinetic military action.”  “War” sounds so mean, and hardly something a brilliant liberal would do, after all.  The far more erudite liberals launch wave after wave of “kinetic military actions” instead.  And no matter how many of Gaddafi’s compounds somehow accidentally get targeted and blown up, that’s clearly all it is.

Now we’ve got Obama (almost as though Obama were himself one of the machine-gun toting SEALs) killing Osama bin Laden.  That clearly won’t provoke anybody.

America’s relationship with Pakistan was already at an all-time low due to Obama incessantly flying Predators over their country and launching rocket attacks on them.  But so what?  Provocation is a good thing now, because Obama is doing it instead of George Bush.  And if you’re brilliant, you don’t have to kowtow to such trivialities as consistency.

And so what if Obama ordered American troops to launch a military attack on Pakistani soil without bothering to even inform the Pakistanis?  No harm, no foul.  So what if we violated their sovereignty?  Obama is the leader of the world, and the sooner the world recognized that he is an imperial president, the better.  If you don’t like Obama pursuing “cowboy” tactics, or engaging in “you’re either with us or you’re against us” policies, well, you’re just not very enlightened.  Because it’s not fascist unless Republicans do it.

And al Qaeda, whom the left was so worried about provoking when George Bush was the guy doing the provoking?  They’ll get over it.  So we can ignore the little threat they just made less than a week ago about unleashing a “nuclear hellstorm” upon America if we killed or captured Osama bin Laden.

You think of Gitmo, the surge strategy, rendition, domestic eavesdropping, the Patriot Act, indefinite detentions, military tribunals and a host of other things Obama demonized George Bush and Dick Cheney over, and not only are they doing the same things, but they’re doing even worse.  But the same mainstream media that tore into George Bush like pitbulls going after raw bloody meat don’t seem to have time to dwell on Obama’s blatant hypocrisies.

Nor does Bush get any credit for having been right when Obama and the Democrats were so completely wrong by their own massive reversals to the Bush policies now.

We are watching a level of propaganda and fundamental hypocrisy overtake the United States of America by both the media and the White House that ought to simply stun you.

Neville Chamberlain Deux: Obama Betrays Allies To Appease Enemies

For the official record, I have compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain sixteen times in separate articles (seventeen counting this one).  British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was ruthless in advancing his domestic policy agenda, but became one of history’s most infamous appeasing weaklings in bowing down to Hitler’s threats and demands.  In seeking to avoid war at any cost, he guaranteed the worst war in human history – at least until now.

Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Munich expressing his desire to discuss a peaceful settlement with Germany under terms that included reneging on the British pledge to defend Czechoslovakia.  Jan Masaryk, the Czech Minister in London, called on British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax on the eve of the Munich Conference and said, “If you are sacrificing my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, God help your souls!”

Britain had betrayed Czechoslovakia for an empty promise that Neville Chamberlain naively believed would bring “peace in our time.”  Edouard Daladier took a more realistic view: “The fools,” he said bitterly, acknowledging the cheers of the crowds who believed Chamberlain’s statement.  “If only they knew what they are cheering.”

In one of those twists of historic irony that seem so commonplace in accompanying the greatest tragedies in human history, Barack Obama announced his betrayal of the previous American administration’s commitment to Poland and Czechoslovakia on the 70th anniversary of the bitter fruit of the Munich Conference.  It was on September 17, 1939 that Stalin’s forces streamed into Poland as a direct result of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasing betrayal and demonstration of weakness.

A Reuters article underscores the highly ironic timing of the Obama betrayal:

For Poland, the timing of the announcement is particularly sensitive. Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland following a pact between Moscow and Nazi Germany, an event seen by Poles as “a stab in the back.”

Is Obama even aware of the historic irony?  Probably not.  As Jules Crittenden points out, “The Obama administration doesn’t study history. It reimagines it.”

As usual, Obama has altered the facts on the intent of the missile shield.  It was – contrary to Obama’s assertion – not merely intended to protect the United States from a ballistic missile attack, but to serve as a bulwark against Russian aggression of eastern European countries (remember the recent Russian invasion of Georgia?).

Mr. Bush had developed a special relationship with Eastern Europe as relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated. The proposal to deploy parts of the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic were justified on the grounds that they would protect Europe and the eastern coast of the United States against any possible missile attacks from Iran.

But the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as a protection against Russia.

Poland and Czechoslovakia took a big risk trusting the United States instead of coming to terms under the sphere of hostile Russia.  And now they are revealed to have been fools for trusting the Americans:

“We have been hearing such things for a while now via different papers, from some conferences and so on,” said Waszczykowski, deputy head of Poland’s National Security Bureau which advises President Lech Kaczynski.

“This would be very bad. Without the shield we would de facto be losing a strategic alliance with Washington,” he said.

Michael Wisniewski, the Poland director of the Europa 21 foundation, expressed how Obama hamstrung the pro-USA movement throughout the entire eastern European region:

After 9/11 Poles expressed solidarity with USA without any hesitation. Despite the fact that we were risking alienation from some of our European partners. And after we joined US-led coalition against terrorism, we were verbally attacked by Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Shroeder – leaders of two major European powers. But our position was clear and firm – we would stay with USA and fight against common enemies – enemies who attacked our ally and the whole free world. No other country had so special status in Poland – almost 80% Poles sympathized with US. Poland is not great military power – but have some influence on the eastern Europe and was a real stronghold of American interests in this region. Whatever Germans, French or other UE countries would do – Poland always stood arm to arm with US.

Now it belongs to the past. It’s not only about this incident, but it was something that created great outrage here. It’s impossible to remain so positive towards US now – people are reacting emotionally. Even most pro-US media and journalists comment, that our close relations with USA was mistake. That we were wrong and we should focus on our closer neighbours – like France or Germany.

The Obama administration announced its betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia – and the abandonment of the shared values that had framed their relationship with the United States – with a telephone call.  At least it wasn’t done via Twitter.

The Poles and the Czechs have the virtue of not being so stupid and naive as to fall for Obama’s beautiful lies.  They are not dancing in the streets over the announcement of their betrayal:

Poles, Czechs: US missile defense shift a betrayal

WARSAW, Poland — Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.

“Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,” the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama’s new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous “gray zone” between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.

Recent events have rattled nerves throughout central and eastern Europe, a region controlled by Moscow during the Cold War, including the war last summer between Russia and Georgia and ongoing efforts by Russia to regain influence in Ukraine. A Russian cutoff of gas to Ukraine last winter left many Europeans without heat.

The Bush administration’s missile defense plan would have been “a major step in preventing various disturbing trends in our region of the world,” Kaczynski said in a guest editorial in Fakt that also was carried on his presidential Web site.

Neighboring Lithuania, a small Baltic nation that broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a NATO member, also expressed regret over Obama’s decision.

Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene said that the shield would have increased security for Lithuania and she hoped missile defense would not be excluded from future talks on NATO security.

“This NATO region cannot be an exception and its defense is not less important compared with others,” she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he still sees a chance for Poles and Czechs to participate in the redesigned missile defense system. But that did not appear to calm nerves in Warsaw or Prague. […]

An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: “an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid.”

The move has raised fears in the two nations they are being marginalized by Washington even as a resurgent Russia leaves them longing for added American protection.

The Bush administration always said that the planned system — with a radar near Prague and interceptors in northern Poland — was meant as defense against Iran. But Poles and Czechs saw it as protection against Russia, and Moscow too considered a military installation in its backyard to be a threat.

“No Radar. Russia won,” the largest Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes, declared in a front-page headline.

Any nation that has made any kind of a deal with the United States should seriously rethink the trustworthiness of their partner.  Because the American promise doesn’t mean a whole lot under this administration.

It appears highly likely that Obama is abandoning a U.S. commitment and betraying Poland and Czechoslovakia in order to get some kind of commitment from Russia to use its leverage to stop Iran’s nuclear program.  The only problem is that Russia is even less trustworthy than the new United States has become under Obama.

We’re not going to get squat from Russia that is anything other than a superficial and meaningless exercise.

Jennifer Rubin concludes her piece on Obama’s betryal of Poland and Czechoslovakia with this:

The administration that promised to restore our standing in the world is on quite a roll. Open hostility toward Israel. Bullying Honduras [link]. Reneging on promises to Eastern Europe. A strange policy indeed that dumps on our friends in the vain effort to incur the goodwill of our enemies. And if one is a “realist,” not a fabulist, it should be apparent that this is a losing proposition. We will lose our friends and gain nothing. Weakness and the betrayal of our allies do not ameliorate tensions with our adversaries. We had a Cold War topped off by the Carter administration to prove that. But Obama’s never been very good at history.

In April of last year I wrote this about Democrats and Iran near the end of the piece:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

And here we are: Iran can now make a bomb.

And neither Russia nor Obama are going to do a damn thing to stop it.

White House Blames Bush For Obama’s Failures In Afghanistan

Asked about the problems Obama is facing in Afghanistan, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went to his tried and anything-but-true playbook of demagoguery, saying:

“You can’t under-resource the most important part of our War on Terror – you can’t under-resource that for five, or six, or seven years…..and hope to snap your fingers and have that turn around in a few months.”

It’s all Bush’s fault.  That’s pretty much all you have to know about the Obama administration’s political strategy, in a nutshell.

Gibb’s by now completely expected demagoguery doesn’t account for why Barack Obama has already lost more troops in Afghanistan so far this year than George Bush ever lost, as the following chart shows:

I would submit another couple of theories instead, such as:

1) The White House can’t possibly win the “war on terror” that Gibbs refers to when in point of fact they deny that such a war even exists in the first place.  If you pick up a copy of “The Complete Moron’s Guide To Winning A War,” you find out that the first step is to acknowledge that you are actually in a war.  Too bad, Obama didn’t read the book.

I don’t know, but maybe we would be better off with a president who called a war on terror something like, oh I don’t know, a “war on terror.”  Instead we have a president who was apparently appalled by such a barbaric term as ‘war’ or such a pejorative term as ‘terror’ and preferred the description, ‘Overseas Contingency Operation’ instead.

2) The president who boldly advanced and wildly succeeded in Iraq with his “Surge” deserves far more credibility than the president who campaigned demonizing the very strategy that brought us success in Iraq.  On January 10, 2007 Obama said, “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there; in fact, I think it’ll do the reverse.”  Obama demanded a timeline that would have had us crawling out of Iraq by March 2008 with our tails behind our legs rather than winning.

Maybe a big part of the problem is that Obama is every bit as incompetent in Afghanistan as he demonstrated himself to be in Iraq.

But you just keep demonizing the president who knew who to win even while you worked to undermine him, Mister Loser-in-Chief.

3) Maybe part of the problem is that you utterly failed to rally the world behind you as you claimed you could in your deluded “I’m your messiah!  Adore me!” tour. Obama claimed that he could “rally NATO members to contribute troops to collective security operations, urging them to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization operations, streamlining the decision-making processes, and giving NATO commanders in the field more flexibility.” Not only did Obama fail to deliver the eager European cooperation in Afghanistan now that that mean, nasty evilmonger Bush was gone, but he actually got even less of a commitment than Bush got.

Conservatives predicted that Europe would talk a good talk but refuse to fight a good fight.  Too bad we elected a president who lacked the wisdom and common sense to understand European cowardice and apathy.  Because we elected a fool, we will struggle mightily to live up to our fools’ grandiose promises.

4) Maybe part of the problem in Afghanistan is that you’re own troops don’t trust your commitment.

Barack Obama’s efforts to undermine President Bush’s war in Iraq are so lengthy that I can only direct you to the list of the times that he tried to screw our soldiers and cause them to lose in Iraq.  But it’s hard to read it and not come to the conclusion that Barack Obama has an awful lot of explaining to do about why he so unrelentingly worked against victory.  Tragically, the media – which shared Obama’s liberalism – failed to hold him accountable.  And now what is Obama to do when Obama’s liberal base does the same thing to Afghanistan that Obama himself did in Iraq?

And here we are, with the Pentagon doubting Obama’s commitment to Afghanistan.  Such a SHOCKER! Who would have ever figured?:

Pentagon worried about Obama’s commitment to Afghanistan

By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers   – Mon Aug 31, 7:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON — The prospect that U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal may ask for as many as 45,000 additional American troops in Afghanistan is fueling growing tension within President Barack Obama’s administration over the U.S. commitment to the war there.

On Monday, McChrystal sent his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan to the Pentagon , the U.S. Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO . Although the assessment didn’t include any request for more troops, senior military officials said they expect McChrystal later in September to seek between 21,000 and 45,000 more troops. There currently are 62,000 American troops in Afghanistan .

However, administration officials said that amid rising violence and casualties, polls that show a majority of Americans now think the war in Afghanistan isn’t worth fighting. With tough battles ahead on health care, the budget and other issues, Vice President Joe Biden and other officials are increasingly anxious about how the American public would respond to sending additional troops.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media, said Biden has argued that without sustained support from the American people, the U.S. can’t make the long-term commitment that would be needed to stabilize Afghanistan and dismantle al Qaida.  Biden’s office declined to comment.

“I think they (the Obama administration) thought this would be more popular and easier,” a senior Pentagon official said. “We are not getting a Bush-like commitment to this war.”

Conservatives have been claiming for YEARS AND YEARS that Democrats lacked the courage or will to sustain a war through difficult times.  That’s because again and again, with a perfect track record over the past 40 years, Democrats have been the ones undermining America’s military efforts on foreign soil.  And why on earth should anyone doubt for a second that they’re going to break their streak now?

So beat me with an electric cattle prod, but I simply couldn’t be more shocked that we’re already proving to be right — AGAIN!!!

What we’re ultimately going to see in Afghanistan from Democrats is the same fair-weather friends that Bush saw in Iraq.  We wont go back to “The vile spectacle of Democrats rooting for bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan” only because a Democrat is now in the White House.  But the same spirit of cowardice, abandonment, and betrayal that drove the Democrats’ partisan agenda under Bush will resurface.  It’s just who these people are.

Hillary Clinton – now Obama’s Secretary of State – is the epitome of the liberal weasel.  After the announcement of Saddam Hussein’s capture in Iraq, we had the following moment among many other self-serving moments:

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that December, she declared, “I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote” and was one that “I stand by.”

Of course her “stand” didn’t last one second longer than her partisan political self-interests.

Hillary Clinton is joined by Nany Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, John Edwards, John Kerry, and a whole host of Democrats who supported taking military action in Iraq before they were against it.

Some sites that list Democrats’ treachery:

Truth or Fiction
Freedom Agenda
Snopes

Nearly 60% of Democrat Senators actually voted for the Iraq War.  The 2003 Iraq War actually had better Congressional support than the 1990 Gulf War.  Democrats went from embracing every essential claim that President Bush made to justify the war – including supporting the war itself – only to deceitfully degenerate into “Bush lied, people died.”  But it wasn’t Bush who lied – it was Democrats.

Charles Krauthammer cites Democrat strategist and Kerry ’04 campaigner Bob Shrum’s describing Afghanistan as the “right war” as a tactic to attack Bush in Iraq while not being “anti-war.”  It was an incredibly cynical strategy from an incredibly cynical political party.  Frankly, anyone who thinks that the Democrat Party will do the right thing for the right reasons in Afghanistan is simply deluded.

No nation can get involved in a war because of public opinion, and then abandon that same war because of public opinion.  Such a policy would make any kind of sustained foreign policy completely unsustainable, and would make us utterly unworthy of any alliances whatsoever.  And that is precisely what makes what Democrats – and Barack Obama himself – so morally despicable for what they did in Iraq.  They were for the war when it served their interests to be for the war, and then they turned against the war the moment the opinion polls began to show fading support in order to politically demonize Republicans who continued to stay the course.  When the Senate Majority Leader of the United States of America – Democrat Harry Reid – literally declared defeat in Iraq even as our soldiers were in Iraq fighting to secure victory, it was a literal act of treason.

Frankly, given how Democrats demagogued changing American opinions about the war in Iraq, it is talionic justice that they now suffer due to the change in popular opinion over Afghanistan.  The true shame now, JUST AS IT WAS IN IRAQ, is that our warriors should not be exposed to the whims of the public.

5) Look back at the table above.  Barack Obama has already sustained 17.5% more American causalities in Afghanistan than George Bush did in 2008 – with a full third of the year remaining.  At this point, Obama is poised to sustain more U.S. casualties in Afghanistan than George Bush did in the first five years of the war combined.

There is clearly a resurgence in the ranks of our terrorist (yes, I actually said ‘terrorist’) enemy.

I would submit that it is more than possible that the forces of jihad have understood that – as a result of American weakness – we now have a weakling of a president who can be pushed around and who will cave in.  Given the fact that even Obama’s own LIBERAL BASE are increasingly worried that Obama lacks necessary courage and commitment, should the Taliban and al Qaeda not think the same thing?

They understand – even as our Pentagon fears – that America under Obama is losing its will to fight, and that America now has the kind of leadership that has already demonstrated a willingness to cut and run on a fight.  All they need to do is read Barack Obama’s own surrender-rhetoric regarding Iraq to understand their current enemy.  And that understanding is understandably energizing them to fight even harder.

6) I might also add that our current White House is literally “at war” with the CIA that contributes to the operational intelligence our military planners use.  The CIA is suffering from bad morale which is at at a thirty year low. While I do not have the background to assess whether the Obama White House’s undermining of the CIA is responsible for fewer intelligence breakthroughs in Afghanistan and subsequently fewer successful military operations, I believe I have a prima facia reason to believe that such is the case.

President Obama, how it George Bush’s fault that you decided to target the CIA as part of your political witch hunt?

Our Marines understand who their loyal friend and commander was, and what they have in his place now:

Youtube

At the present rate, Barack Obama is going to sustain more than 76% more American casualties in Afghanistan than did George Bush last year.  And he’s blaming what is clearly his failure on Bush?

The fact that Barack Obama has based so much of his “leadership” on demonizing and demagoguing his predecessor is actually evidence of the fact that he himself is no real leader at all.

And that failure in leadership may be the most significant reason of all for Obama’s failure in Afghanistan.  As he waffles around indecisively, his troops – who don’t trust him and can’t count on him –  are going to increasingly find themselves drifting helplessly along with the next approval poll.

Looming War In Eastern Europe: Deja Vu All Over Again

For the historically literate, the picture of Eastern Europe today is disturbingly reminiscent of the view circa 1939. That was the year that Nazi Germany – having provided pseudo-justifications based on staged provocations – invaded first Czechoslovakia and then Poland. Throughout the entire period leading up to these military invasions, the Western world weakly stood by and did nothing but “dialogue.”

As hundreds of Russian tanks poured into his country, CNN reporter Susan Malveaux asked Georgian President Saakashvili:

MALVEAUX: Have you reached out to them? Do you feel there’s any room for negotiation or at least to begin a dialogue or discussions?

The problem has been that Russia has done its “negotiating” with tanks.

The UK Telgraph runs a story by Josh Bolton the editors titled, “The US fiddled while Georgia burned.” And this is undoubtedly true (as Bolton himself acknowledges). But at least the US’ “fiddling” involved doing something (in the sense of trying to get Georgia admitted to NATO, which would have circumvented this entire sad affair). Europe stood by and did absolutely nothing while Georgia burned.  And the so-called “cease fire agreement” that France proffered essentially allows Russia to remain in Georgian territory for as long as they like.  Many believe that the presence of Russian forces only a few miles from the Georgian capital is a naked attempt to topple the democratic government.

Just as with Iraq, European intransigence to sound diplomatic policy led to war. By refusing to accept the United States’ demand to require meaningful weapons inspections on Iraq, the U.N. in general and France and Russia in particular took every option but open war off the table for America. And by refusing to allow the U.S.-backed Georgian bid to join NATO, our European “allies” left a democratic and pro-Western former Soviet State vulnerable to precisely the sort of attack that totalitarian Russia launched.

Josh Bolton describes the European diplomatic initiative in shades of the infamous Munich Agreement:

The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity, and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia. More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of aggression.

After Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the infamous agreement with Hitler, and appeasing an evil tyrant in the name of “peace in our time,” an embittered Winston Churchill observed:

“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”

Josh Bolton believes that “the extent of the wreckage [of Georgia] reaches far beyond that small country.” He goes on to write:

The West, collectively, failed in this crisis. Georgia wasted its dime making that famous 3am telephone call to the White House, the one Hillary Clinton referred to in a campaign ad questioning Barack Obama’s fitness for the Presidency. Moreover, the blood on the Bear’s claws did not go unobserved in other states that were once part of the Soviet Union. Russia demonstrated unambiguously that it could have marched directly to Tbilisi and installed a puppet government before any Western leader was able to turn away from the Olympic Games. It could, presumably, do the same to them.

Fear was one reaction Russia wanted to provoke, and fear it has achieved, not just in the “Near Abroad” but in the capitals of Western Europe as well. But its main objective was hegemony, a hegemony it demonstrated by pledging to reconstruct Tskhinvali, the capital of its once and no-longer-future possession, South Ossetia. The contrast is stark: a real demonstration of using sticks and carrots, the kind that American and European diplomats only talk about. Moreover, Russia is now within an eyelash of dominating the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the only route out of the Caspian Sea region not now controlled by either Russia or Iran. Losing this would be dramatically unhelpful if we hope for continued reductions in global petroleum prices, and energy independence from unfriendly, or potentially unfriendly, states.

It profits us little to blame Georgia for “provoking” the Russian attack. Nor is it becoming of the United States to have anonymous officials from its State Department telling reporters, as they did earlier this week, that they had warned Georgia not to provoke Russia. This confrontation is not about who violated the Marquess of Queensbury rules in South Ossetia, where ethnic violence has been a fact of life since the break-up of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991 – and, indeed, long before. Instead, we are facing the much larger issue of how Russia plans to behave in international affairs for decades to come. Whether Mikhail Saakashvili “provoked” the Russians on August 8, or September 8, or whenever, this rape was well-planned and clearly coming, given Georgia’s manifest unwillingness to be “Finlandized” – the Cold War term for effectively losing your foreign-policy independence.

And now we are already beginning to see not only “how Russia plans to behave in international affairs for decades to come”, but right in the here and now.

In a statement about Poland that ought to send shivers up the spine of any thinking human being, a top Russian general added to the rhetoric of President Dmitry Medveded:

Only 24 hours after the weapons agreement was signed Russia’s deputy chief of staff warned Poland “is exposing itself to a strike 100 per cent”.

General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that any new US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack with his forces targeting “the allies of countries having nuclear weapons”.

He told Russia’s Interfax news agency: “By hosting these, Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 per cent certain. It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority.”

Russia’s nuclear rhetoric marks an intense new phase in the war of words over Georgia. The Caucasus conflict has spiralled into a Cold War style confrontation between Moscow and Washington in less than a week.

The stand off between the two cold War powers was underlined by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who dismissed US claims that the silo is a deterrent against ‘rogue states’ like Iran as “a fairy tale”. He told reporters at the Black Sea resort of Sochi: “The deployment of new missile defence facilities in Europe is aimed against the Russian Federation.”

Poland and a few other former Soviet Republicans who do not want to become future Russian republics are moving toward official relationships with the United States and Western alliances such as NATO. We must stop attempting to appease rogue and tyrant states for the sake of going along to get along in the short term and clearly and strongly back Western-leaning democratic states.

Again, Bolton is right on target:

Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to other former Soviet territories – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain.

Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia, because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s oil and natural gas reserves. Moreover, not all of them meet fundamental Nato prerequisites. But we must now review our relationship with all of them. This, in effect, Nato failed to do after the Orange and Rose Revolutions, leaving us in our present untenable position.

By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. That, as Western leaders like to say, is “unacceptable”. Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members. By drawing the line clearly, we are not provoking Russia, but doing just the opposite: letting them know that aggressive behaviour will result in costs that they will not want to bear, thus stabilising a critical seam between Russia and the West. In effect, we have already done this successfully with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Diplomacy is always worth pursuing. But diplomacy that is not backed with power and the willingness to use it is meaningless, and will always be recognized as such by tyrants and terrorists.

As we look at Russian totalitarian imperialism in Eastern Europe, and contemplate the looming menace of a nuclear-weapons-armed Iran, we must realize that much of the world is in the same mindset that the world was in in 1938. Only by recognizing that we must stand strongly against such developments will we be able to avoid the next catastrophic global harvest of death.

This is as certain as the fact that World War III follows World War II.