Funny Obama.
Originally posted by ultima_thule73 at Funny Obama.
"Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies, as we were reinforcing our presence with frontline states, Mr. Putin’s aggression it was suggested was a masterful display of strategy and strength. That's what I heard from some folks. Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That’s how America leads -- not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve. (Applause.)" From the 20. 01. 2015 speech of Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States.
The West's leaders continually repeat the same mistake - bravado over the enemy who received a blow but is very far from being defeated. Again and again after inflicting some serious damage The West stops and tarries on, waiting that the enemy, feeling the strength of the opponent, will come to reason and start looking for a decent compromise. And Putin does it - only to gain time, recover and resume his typical activity. Then The West reacts again, tightening the grip, but only after some time in the course of which Putin slightly expands his acquisitions. And he has never backed away - so far.
Many reasonable people think that as the leader of country, gross national product of which is about 8 times smaller, than that of the USA and 20 times smaller than the economic power of the USA and the EU taken together, Putin must realize that the competition he started, by no means can be won, so he will stop sooner or later. He won't.
There is a theory, not among the popular, that the dinosaur died out because being huge and cold-blooded, they often were too late to react to the attack of a predator, though the latter could be much smaller and weaker than its pray. The predator bit the tail of a 25-metre long giant and while the nerve impulse mediator was travelling all 20 metres to the brain, the attacker inflicted heavy wounds and retreated into the thicket only to wait the victim to haemorrhage and bleed to death.
This theory may not be the best to explain the extinction, happened 60 million years ago, but it well fits the our-day conflict between Putin and the West. Democratic decisions take time, while a dictator may react on the spot. But that is true only if the dictator acts differently and each new move of his is difficult to predict. Putin is highly predictable, all his new moves result in using force in Ukraine. Hence it is easy to prepare response in advance and react quickly.
The only reason why it has not been done so far seems to me rooted in the same expectation that after a next blow received Putin will stop, start to reason, and him and the West achieve a compromise satisfactory for both. A real compromise, which both parts will respect, preserve and not consider as just one more chance to deceive the stupid opponent.
This conception is wrong and misleading. Putin is not a man to be content with a compromise. Nor is he a person that can ever forgive and forget a humiliation or offense, even if they exist only in his head. As long as he is in the driving seat of nuclear power, he will use the levers in his hands for vengeance. There is only one way to stop him - to deprive him of this opportunity for good.
Here is a short dialog from a good Hollywood film "Tombstone".
Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Bein' born.
If this characteristic doesn't ring the bell for the reader, I can't help. To me it does. With the exception that Johnny Ringo was neither a coward nor a liar.
Putin has not changed drastically over the last couple of years. He started to move in the direction of his modern self at least in 2003, when he obviously falsified the results of Parliamentary elections. He ruined NTV, imprisoned Hodorkovsky, poisoned Litvinenko, killed hundreds of children in Beslan, invaded Georgia and did quite a number of similar things. And still he was considered in the West as "sonofabitch, but our son of a bitch." A year ago he turned out to be just a son of a bitch without that amiable possessive adjective "our". It came as such a surprise. Yet it had been easy not to be taken aback by this revelation - it was quite enough to remain unbiased while following the course of events in Putin's Russia. When there is a big trough with no outlet for drainage which is constantly being filled with some unpleasant and stinking stuff, it is not very wise to expect that only the creatures, who use it, will suffer. Sooner or later the stuff will overflow and contaminate not only the adjoining terrain, but also pollute enormous arias over the horizon. If the container is small like that on the Korean peninsular, results of the ecologic catastrophe remain in the limited space and can be disregarded as the neighbours' only concern. But when it is deep and huge, there is hardly any nook on the planet to stay away from the consequences.
"Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies, as we were reinforcing our presence with frontline states, Mr. Putin’s aggression it was suggested was a masterful display of strategy and strength. That's what I heard from some folks. Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That’s how America leads -- not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve. (Applause.)" From the 20. 01. 2015 speech of Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States.
The West's leaders continually repeat the same mistake - bravado over the enemy who received a blow but is very far from being defeated. Again and again after inflicting some serious damage The West stops and tarries on, waiting that the enemy, feeling the strength of the opponent, will come to reason and start looking for a decent compromise. And Putin does it - only to gain time, recover and resume his typical activity. Then The West reacts again, tightening the grip, but only after some time in the course of which Putin slightly expands his acquisitions. And he has never backed away - so far.
Many reasonable people think that as the leader of country, gross national product of which is about 8 times smaller, than that of the USA and 20 times smaller than the economic power of the USA and the EU taken together, Putin must realize that the competition he started, by no means can be won, so he will stop sooner or later. He won't.
There is a theory, not among the popular, that the dinosaur died out because being huge and cold-blooded, they often were too late to react to the attack of a predator, though the latter could be much smaller and weaker than its pray. The predator bit the tail of a 25-metre long giant and while the nerve impulse mediator was travelling all 20 metres to the brain, the attacker inflicted heavy wounds and retreated into the thicket only to wait the victim to haemorrhage and bleed to death.
This theory may not be the best to explain the extinction, happened 60 million years ago, but it well fits the our-day conflict between Putin and the West. Democratic decisions take time, while a dictator may react on the spot. But that is true only if the dictator acts differently and each new move of his is difficult to predict. Putin is highly predictable, all his new moves result in using force in Ukraine. Hence it is easy to prepare response in advance and react quickly.
The only reason why it has not been done so far seems to me rooted in the same expectation that after a next blow received Putin will stop, start to reason, and him and the West achieve a compromise satisfactory for both. A real compromise, which both parts will respect, preserve and not consider as just one more chance to deceive the stupid opponent.
This conception is wrong and misleading. Putin is not a man to be content with a compromise. Nor is he a person that can ever forgive and forget a humiliation or offense, even if they exist only in his head. As long as he is in the driving seat of nuclear power, he will use the levers in his hands for vengeance. There is only one way to stop him - to deprive him of this opportunity for good.
Here is a short dialog from a good Hollywood film "Tombstone".
Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Bein' born.
If this characteristic doesn't ring the bell for the reader, I can't help. To me it does. With the exception that Johnny Ringo was neither a coward nor a liar.
Putin has not changed drastically over the last couple of years. He started to move in the direction of his modern self at least in 2003, when he obviously falsified the results of Parliamentary elections. He ruined NTV, imprisoned Hodorkovsky, poisoned Litvinenko, killed hundreds of children in Beslan, invaded Georgia and did quite a number of similar things. And still he was considered in the West as "sonofabitch, but our son of a bitch." A year ago he turned out to be just a son of a bitch without that amiable possessive adjective "our". It came as such a surprise. Yet it had been easy not to be taken aback by this revelation - it was quite enough to remain unbiased while following the course of events in Putin's Russia. When there is a big trough with no outlet for drainage which is constantly being filled with some unpleasant and stinking stuff, it is not very wise to expect that only the creatures, who use it, will suffer. Sooner or later the stuff will overflow and contaminate not only the adjoining terrain, but also pollute enormous arias over the horizon. If the container is small like that on the Korean peninsular, results of the ecologic catastrophe remain in the limited space and can be disregarded as the neighbours' only concern. But when it is deep and huge, there is hardly any nook on the planet to stay away from the consequences.