The Goat Pen

At least now we can draw down our military with little fear.

We let our guard down once...and Mr. Teasdale paid the ultimate price.

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Toemeesleather wrote:Things are getting damn serious according to the latest quotes on Fox News....Obama has reportedly told Putin, "You can keep your Crimean peninsula if you want it."

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Never saw this one before:

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Outside the Crimean parliament, ethnic Russians and sympathizers protested separately from 10,000 Tatars and supporters of the Kievan revolutionaries; the noise was incredible, the multiplicity of slogans among the protesters reminded some absurd play: "Uk-rai-na, Uk-rai-na..," countered with "Ro-ssi-ya, Ro-ssi-ya"..then "Pu-tin, Pu-tin," then answered with "Allah-hu-akhbar" from the Tatars."

Oh HELL YEAH...can we PLEASE get in the middle of all that.

You're seriously okay with that, 10ac?

I could see BRM hosting The View.

bluetick wrote:We let our guard down once...and Mr. Teasdale paid the ultimate price.

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Charlie Sheen.... became a Wolverine and out came the "tiger blood'

WINNING!!!

bluetick wrote:Outside the Crimean parliament, ethnic Russians and sympathizers protested separately from 10,000 Tatars and supporters of the Kievan revolutionaries; the noise was incredible, the multiplicity of slogans among the protesters reminded some absurd play: "Uk-rai-na, Uk-rai-na..," countered with "Ro-ssi-ya, Ro-ssi-ya"..then "Pu-tin, Pu-tin," then answered with "Allah-hu-akhbar" from the Tatars."

Oh HELL YEAH...can we PLEASE get in the middle of all that.

You're seriously okay with that, 10ac?

Uh no, I was just commenting what a great job our State Department was doing and thanking the Rooskies for finally quashing the Monroe Doctrine.

Why Putin Should Have Georgia on His Mind

Parallels between Russia's actions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine now suggest he may win the battle, but lose the war.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.577483

bluetick wrote:

sardis wrote:A promise was made in 1994 by both US and Russia in exchange for them handing over their nuclear weapons. If we sit back and do nothing our negotiation abilities in anything foreign policy is compromised.

What do you propose? Scramble jets, send in a carrier group? Go to DEFCON 2?

Announce, and mean it, that you will bring a missile defense system into Poland.

Freeze Russian assets in America and European banks.

Help Ukraine with $15 billion debt

Flood the European natural gas market.

Sell a LOT of Apache helicopters and TOW missiles to Ukraine. I don't think Putin will stop in the Crimea.

I heard that the total value lost on the Russian stock market today was greater than the amount spent on the Sochi Olympics (the biggest sinkhole in Olympic history).

Russia's business community will hopefully pressure Putin to rethink things

sardis wrote:

bluetick wrote:

sardis wrote:A promise was made in 1994 by both US and Russia in exchange for them handing over their nuclear weapons. If we sit back and do nothing our negotiation abilities in anything foreign policy is compromised.

What do you propose? Scramble jets, send in a carrier group? Go to DEFCON 2?

Let's look at these one by one:

Announce, and mean it, that you will bring a missile defense system into Poland.

How much does it cost and how long will it take? Israel's "Iron Dome" system - which is designed to stop mortar shells and shoulder launched rockets, not ballistic missiles - took decades to develop, costs hundreds of millions to deploy and is big net loser fiscally (it costs Hamas $800 to fire a rocket and costs Israel $40,000 to shoot it down). A ballistic missile defense system would cost tens of billions of dollars and currently operate at about 5% effectiveness.

Freeze Russian assets in America and European banks.

And when the Russians freeze American & European assets?

Help Ukraine with $15 billion debt

Doable.

Flood the European natural gas market.

How do you deliver it in a cost effective manner?

https://twitter.com/kasparov63

Garry Kasparov has some ideas.

Good read. Sounds like Chamberlain is alive and well.

Dr. Strangelove wrote:IRussia's business community will hopefully pressure Putin to rethink things

If any members of the Russian "business community" fail to show sufficient zeal for Putin's policies he will send them to the gulag like he did Khodorkovsky. Or they'll get a polonium sandwich like Litvinenko.

Pressuring Putin to "rethink things" is bad for one's health.

Some highlights...

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Kasparov is a counterrevolutionary bourgois hooligan!