Listen to Steven Cohen. He is one of maybe two policy experts remaining who is sane on the subject of the Ukraine. Cohen says he has never seen such hawkish uniformity in his life. Even the Iraq War was not nearly this bad. In the run-up to that war, there were many experts arguing that it was a bad thing to do. Now there is unanimity across the entire media spectrum, from right to left, the left being represented by MSNBC (not really the Left, more like the voice of the Democratic Party, which is not a liberal or progressive political party). Further, all foreign policy experts are very hawkish on the Ukraine.
Obama has isolated himself, exactly as Bush did and is only listening to his yes-men, who do not know what they are doing. Most of Obama’s advisors are out of academia and few of them have actual diplomatic street smarts from years in service to the state. Although I despise the man, Obama also refuses to listen to Henry Kissinger, who is actually saner on the Ukraine than the Obama Administration. Even the horrifying Brezhinski makes more sense than Obama’s aides. Sure there are brains in the Administration such as the CIA (but considering how much they lie, how can they be trusted?) but the smart folks and the intelligence guys are locked out by a huge firewall at the State Department.
Obama appears to have outsourced most of this crisis to Joe Biden and John Kerry, both of whom have behaved horribly. In the past few days, I have seen photos of John Kerry where he looks pure evil. This is his alter coming out, the one that set fire to villages in the Mekong Delta and shot civilians as they ran out of their burning grass huts.
The Republican nutcase Congress has just introduced a bill that would force Obama’s hand on the Ukraine. It would make Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova “NATO-associated US allies” thus triggers arms aid to them in addition to an alliance. The alliance is dangerous because an attack on one is an attack on any other. A Russian attack on the Ukraine (which would be a great idea) would be an attack on the US. The US would be obligated to help Georgia and Moldova “get back their stolen lands” in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester. The bill would give Putin a short period of time to vacate the Crimea before massive sanctions would kick in all but severing trade between the US and Russia.
It is hard to say how many DINO’s there are in the Senate whose votes would be needed in order for this bill to pass. If it passed, Obama might be forced to sign it by the principle of expediency and political necessity.
I hate to agree with Republicans for once but I think they are right when they say that the Obama Administration simply does not know what it is doing a lot of the time. Not knowing what you are doing is not necessarily the worst thing. Bush knew what he was doing but what he was doing was pure evil. Incompetence is better than malign intent.
