Responding to Obama's sanctions, a Russian official asked if "a joker came up with these." Hopefully, our answer won't be under oath...Jay Carnie Tweet
- "Vladimir Putin has taken the measure of Barack Obama. He's found Jimmy Carter." That was the lead sentence in an early March editorial in the NY Post. It appears fitting, but I would go further. Putin has found Jimmy Carter in the UN and the EU too.
- And it's not been a difficult call for Putin as well as the other despots around the globe. For example, China is currently involved in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and many of the other nations in Southeast Asia. We've watched as Assad has run roughshod against his own people in Syria where it's now estimated over 150,000 people have died and millions of refugees have taken shelter in countries like Jordan. These geo-political thugs now realize that American prestige, influence, strength and perhaps even our security have all be diminished in the last five years (the UN and the EU have never had any prestige, influence or strength anyway). Perhaps just as disquieting, the faces of our foreign policy have included John Kerry, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. There's no Henry Kissinger, Dean Acheson or George C. Marshall in the bunch. No, we have a fake, phony and back-stabbing fraud in John F. Kerry who said several weeks ago: "It's a 19th Century act in the 21st Century," referring to Putin's actions. Sorry dufus, Putin and Assad are waging very 21st Century wars.
- All of what we are watching unfold in the geo-political war is the consequence of countries like ours portraying weakness. And for that, many people are now paying a horrific price. Our weakness invites this type of aggression. In fact, one can make a damn good argument---because history is replete with examples---that type of behavior actually makes the world a more dangerous place.
- Former Polish President Lech Walesa---speaking about Ronald Reagan---understood the meaning of projecting strength when he said of Reagan: "When he saw injustice, he wanted to do away with it. He saw Communism and he wanted to put an end to it." Leadership like that is lacking today.
- Even USA Today had to admit recently: "President Putin, a former KGB agent, has said that the collapse of the evil empire was 'the greatest geopolitical disaster' of the 20th century. That alone should have been a clue to this White House that misspelled reset buttons weren't going to cut it. But they were too stuck in the past to see it." In other words, Pres. Obama, the UN and the EU have been basing their failed foreign policy on how they think the world should operate rather than on how it really operates. Obama and the other spineless leaders are not directly responsible for the behavior of tyrants. But when despots perceive that you believe you're living in a paper doll word---the result is Crimea.
