The Ukraine Crisis, the Con Klowns, and the Cold War Warriors

It's hard to imagine a scarier situation than the threat of a superpower confrontation in the Crimean peninsula.

The Obama administration said Monday that any Russian threat to Ukraine's navy would be a "dangerous escalation" of an extremely tense situation. 

The State Department said that Washington would hold Moscow directly accountable for such an escalation but did not elaborate on potential consequences.

Or a scarier sight than the old Cold War warrior John McCain, banging his tin drum for war with Russia. 




Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blamed President Obama's "feckless" foreign policy for inviting the crisis in Ukraine on Monday, telling a pro-Israel group that the president has repeatedly failed to demonstrate American strength in the face of adversaries.

Along with the rest of the Republican gang that brought us the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN, "We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression." And Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on "Fox News Sunday" that Russia "is playing chess and I think we are playing marbles."

When in fact, as Michael Cohen points out, it's not Obama's war, military action is unthinkable. 

And who needs a superpower confrontation when Putin is already the big LOSER?



Putin has initiated a conflict that will, quite obviously, result in greater diplomatic and political isolation as well as the potential for economic sanction. He’s compounded his loss of a key ally in Kiev by further enflaming Ukrainian nationalism, and his provocations could have a cascading effect in Europe by pushing countries that rely on Russia’s natural gas exports to look elsewhere for their energy needs. 

Putin is the leader of a country with a weak military, an under-performing economy and a host of social, environmental and health-related challenges. Seizing the Crimea will only make the problems facing Russia that much greater.

Which only makes what John Baird had to say today sound even more ridiculous or irresponsible.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has compared Russia's troop presence in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula to Hitler's invasion of Sudetenland, a part of the former Czechoslovakia, in 1938. 

Baird, speaking to host Evan Solomon on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, accused Russia of invading and occupying Crimea, a part of Ukraine. "If it's not war, it's akin to war," he said.

For the last thing we need is to have the Cons inflame an already tense situation, or reduce it to a caricature.

Or try to make it look like they're leading the charge of the light brigade...



But then as Scott Taylor points out, Baird has been there before. 

When the rebellion started in Libya in 2011, Baird shouted “Gadhafi must go” and with the aid of a massive NATO air bombardment, he went. In Gadhafi’s wake came a failed state rife with violent anarchy, which then spilled over into Mali and Syria. 

When the revolution began in Syria, Baird shouted, “[President] Assad must go.” That was until it became all too evident that Assad was battling al-Qaida and then Baird thankfully went mute. 

Now Baird is walking the streets of Kiev in a yellow and blue scarf yelling Yanukovych must go. At least he is consistent.

He is a buffoon.

The Cons will do ANYTHING in their shabby pursuit of the Ukrainian-Canadian vote.

And all we can hope for now is that the opposition can restrain them and their deranged leader.

Before they lead us further into the Valley of Shame.

And take the world to the brink of destruction...



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