DA, I'll admit I see your point: we've got to bend over for Putin to keep the supply lines into Afghanistan going.  But the question still stands: when Bush was President, there was little to no controversy about supply lines.  Putin was largely quiet, with the exception of Ukraine--and he balled that up.  But now, with a lame-duck Bush and later Obama, we've got an invasion of Georgia, bases being closed to American use in the 'Stans, and Putin apparently holding the sword of Damocles over Obama's head: pull out of Poland, quit supporting Eastern Europe, and I'll allow the supplies to keep going into Afghanistan.  If Bush and Obama have essentially the same policy, then why is Russia getting nasty lately?

 

If our efforts in Afghanistan are entirely dependent on Putin's goodwill, then we need to figure out another strategy fast.  He's got us over a barrel, and he'll turn off the tap the minute we do something he doesn't like.  Are we going to allow the Baltic republics to die in exchange for maintaining our supply route to Afghanistan?  If we do, we might as well write off NATO, because no one is going to trust us again.

 

I will disagree that we should isolate Russia economically.  I think that would be counter-productive.  I think we should be engaging the Russian people economically, but make sure the Russian leadership knows we will not be intimidated.  In other words, basically the same attitude we had towards the USSR.  Sell the Russians all the grain they need, but make sure they know quite well that if they screw with Europe, they screw with us.  We should be following the route of Teddy Roosevelt, not Neville Chamberlain. 

 

What Russia needs is more democracy and capitalism, not less--and less is exactly what Putin and his cronies want.

Or do you really believe the sitting VP is just making random inflammatory comments

 

Well, actually...yeah, I do.  Biden's not known for engaging brain before engaging his mouth.  He had to be schooled on the Constitution for the very position he was running for last year.  When a noob like Sarah Palin's outmaneuevering an old Beltway hand like Biden, something's not right.

 

Here I agree with Biden, though.  He reminds me of Clinton: I don't trust him as far as I could throw the White House, but for some inexplicable reason, I kind of like him.

 

 

 

 You should. If you understand the logistics, technology, industrial capacity and the geography you will understand why Russia is terrified about this.

Russia is overly paranoid...no country is going to invade Russia as long as they have nukes...period...Putin knows this. Putin is playing on the russian national inferiority complex. As long as he fear mongers and sets himself up to be the next Joe Stalin and "saves" Russia from the West he is happy. 

Wrong. 9/11 along with wars against Israel have demonstrated over and over that no nation is secure from attack. Not even if they have nuclear weapons.

 

We should be inviting all the democratic countries near Russia to join NATO and /or the EU...Russia needs to be slapped down economically. 

We need an Administration with the cojones to tell the Russian that we don't give a crap about their "sphere of influence" ...their neighb

 

Except that is is the West who has been stirring the shit. Unfortunately with the media the way it is everybody thinks that what the West is doing great. For instance the whole granting independence to Kosovo is a major excersize in stupidity and is sure to cause long term problems.

 

I'm sure that our Western Eurpean politicians love to play empire in Eastern Europe and are very willing to lie so they can do that. I also suspect US politicians to be very capable of doing that and being quite bipartisan about it.

 

I'm not sure if this is what the average American is waiting for. It takes a different America to play empire. I'm not sure everyone would appreciate the change.

 

 

 

 

Except that is is the West who has been stirring the shit. Unfortunately with the media the way it is everybody thinks that what the West is doing great. For instance the whole granting independence to Kosovo is a major excersize in stupidity and is sure to cause long term problems.

 

Please explain to me how the West "granted" independence to Kosovo?...Seems to me Kosovo declared their independence from those Serbian genocidal racist thugs and the West recognized this.  If Serbia has a problem with this maybe they should look at their record of treating ethnic minorities....Serbia has always been Russias bitch so its no wonder the Russians are "outraged" at Kosovo independence....in reality they could probably care less except for the precedence that it gives their former slaves to make a clean break with Russia.

If Kosovo voted to return to Serbia I doubt anyone in the west would oppose it. It just needs to be a decision they need to make.

The Biden thing makes sense.  If Biden says something dumb, Obama can say, "Oh, well...you know Joe."  Hell, I'd believe that.  (To be fair, Obama wouldn't be the first or the last President to just shrug and say, "Well...my VP is kind of a dork sometimes...")

 

However, given that you brought up Clinton and smart diplomacy in the same sentence, how about the ridiculousness that came out of her mouth in Pakistan yesterday?  I expect her to yell "It's Bush's fault!" when she's at home in front of Democrat fundraisers, or the media, but it's not a good idea to be trashing the man abroad--for any politician, Democrat or Republican, because someone will rightfully point out that both sides have done it.  But accusing the Pakistani government of harboring AQ fugitives? 

Clinton allowed, ?maybe that?s the case; maybe they?re not gettable. I don?t know.?

Thats flat out wrong. You just weren't aware of it because at the time it didn't sell in the media the way Iraq did. Those of us involved knew it and discussed it including me.