Kerry: All options on the table
The Washington Times reports that Secretary of State John Kerry (that still sounds weird) told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the Obama Administration “is currently considering all options, they’re all on the table”.
President Obama had a phone call Saturday with Russian president Vladimir Putin calling on him to roll back the invasion of Crimea and urging Russia to talk with the Ukranian government.
Mr. Kerry said it is too soon to tell if the phone call will push Russia to end the conflict with diplomacy.
“There’s no question but that Russia needs to understand this is serious and we and the other friends and allies engaged in this are all deadly serious about this. You can not behave like this in the 21st century,” Mr. Kerry said.
Scolding will work. I’m sure. The US has become the Ned Flanders of the community of nations. Other folks can take our stuff, break our stuff, call us names, kill our citizens, and we’ll still call them “good neighborinos”. It didn’t start in 2009, either, but it sure hasn’t improved in the last few years.
Remember in 2007 when the US started talks with Poland and the Czech Republic to station anti-ballistic missiles there, and then Vlad Putin started rattling his saber. He warned Poland that a US missile shield there would cause World War III. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn the deputy chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces said “Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike – 100 percent”.
So, even after we had signed the “Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Poland Concerning the Deployment of Ground-Based Ballistic Missile Defense Interceptors in the Territory of the Republic of Poland” in August of 2008, the Obama Administration abandoned the agreement a little more than a year later.
So our stationing of defensive missiles in an ally’s country could provoke a war, but not Putin’s invasion of one of our allies doesn’t worry isn’t an act of war?
Like I’ve said, I don’t think that a war with Russia should be “on the table”, but our greatest weapon on the world stage was the perception that we would have the balls to protect our interests in the world. That perception no longer exists. So Kerry’s words ring hollow. Even Marco Rubio’s 8 Steps to Punish Russia in Politico sound pretty hollow and weak.
I’m sure it’s no coincidence that this happened while the Pentagon is doing it’s level best to jerk the teeth out of our fighting force. It happened to George HW Bush in 1990, and history/reality comes around again to bite our ass.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Foreign Policy
When we vote in inept amateurs as “leaders” this is what we get. the U.S. is seen as a paper tiger, all growl and no bite. I’m sure Putin sleeps well at night, at least as long as we have the fraudulent closet commie in chief in office.
“the Obama Administration “is currently considering all options, they’re all on the table.” Scary
AND
“There’s no question but that Russia needs to understand this is serious and we and the other friends and allies engaged in this are all deadly serious about this. You can not behave like this in the 21st century,” Mr. Kerry said.”
Absolutely very scary. I mean like finding a handgun in the hands of a four year old kid. Because our nation’s military in the hands of the current Washington, no-nothing, cowardly, lunatics, is about the same to me.
All options on the table? Really? And my favorite…”You can not behave like this in the 21st century,”
Well…yea…you can. Obama and Kerry and all their idiot minions do worse crap in the “21st century”, every day. Not just out there in the world but to their own country and citizens. Man this pisses me off.
Please Lord, please don’t let these idiots get into a conflict in or with Russia or anywhere near there. We may be a stronger nation militarily but Putin is by far a stronger and more determined national leader. And our military in the hands of our current lack of leadership is crippled already. If truth be known, Putin makes Obama pee his pants in fear.
You have to ask if sKerry waved his finger at Vlad when he said those things.
Kerry refused to go on Fox News Sunday today according to Chris Wallace this morning. What a piece of work.
0bama and Kerry are playing marbles; Putin plays chess.
LMAO. Well said. Perfect picture thought analogy for the three of them. Thanks Ohio
Here’s the 3 AM phone call. Ah, what does it matter. It could be noon on Monday and the president would still be on the golf course, blaming Bush, or otherwise fucking things up worse than a soup sandwich.
Just curious, as a practical matter – other than building an anti-ballistic missile site in Poland 20 years in the future as an act of retribution, what can we do, short of war, to get our point across. Economic boycotts, but those take months to implement.
Actually, I think we have about as much clout in Ukraine as the USSR had in Grenada in 1983- not much. So I seriously ask you, what can we do to show Putin we mean business?
Obama and Putin conversation:
“Vlad? Hey, Barack here. You’re screwing with my golf game. So, what’s up?”
Putin: “I have seen your golf game. The greens are bored from inactivity. As for Ukraine, we will do what we must to preserve the peace and get some stability there. You can understand that. Can’t you?”
Obama: “Sure, Vlad, but do you have to make me look so bad in doing it? Look, I’m having that idiot release a statement regarding…”
Putin: “Which idiot, Biden? Rice?”
Obama: “No, Kerry. Anyway, he’s gonna say that all options are on the table. It’s bullshit. He doesn’t even know where we hid the table.”
Putin: “Okay. Thanks for the heads up. But watch yourself.”
Obama is much worse than idiotic- he’s evil. Making him out to be bumbling or clueless only cuts him slack.
Well, Joe, it cannot be done BECAUSE it’s obama. Putin won’t take him seriously, after 5+ years of watching him on the world stage. Another president would cause some second guessing and ‘what if’ in Moscow and, consequently, spark some internal debate and discussion. Then, after a few tense days, there would be talks bewteen players. But none of that–at least involving the US–will occur becuase Putin can act with total impunity. He has onlt to worry about the other former republics od the old USSR. We can all just think of this as the Ukrianian Spring. It didn;t work anywhere else and it won’t work here.
Joe: in reality, we can do diddly-squat. If Russia wants to repossess the Crimea, there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop it. Unfortunately, those running the show in this Administration could well be just naive enough – or just foolish enough – to believe otherwise.
And yes, I said repossess. Roughly 60% of the Crimea’s population is ethnically Russian; less than 25% is Ukranian. It was a part of Russia (NOT the Ukraine) from its incorporation into the Russian Empire until 1954. Then, it was forcibly transferred to the Ukrainian SSR by the Supreme Soviet. The Ukraine has historically had little to do with the Crimea other than live next door.
The Crimea is part of the Ukraine today because of a post-Stalin historical accident. From Russia’s perspective, in retaking the Crimea they’re merely repossessing something that was always theirs but which was taken from them during Communist rule.
I just read Blackfive’s comments on Ukraine and Obama and Kerry’s comments look even more foolish when you realize that our main route for Afghanistan withdrawal is right through Russia, courtesy of Putin. Lots of logistics issues in going up against Russia as well. Putin holds all the cards and we have “leadership” that has never played poker. We’re screwed.
As for Kerry, my eldest son was watching Vietnam in HD on the History Channel yesterday while I was working out upstairs. When they got to the part where Kerry was testifying, I was yelling that they left out the he-was-lying-is-a-traitor-should-be-hanged part. Utterly despicable and disgusting that he is SoS.
Common Sense…how coincidental. My 34 year old son was watching that last night as well. I heard the same part and my BP went up. Grabbed my walker and limped quickly to his room yelling “hit pause!, hit pause!” as I approached. (So we could rewind and have me do a blow by blow with him about it. I said…the exact same stuff you did! Good minds think alike. Plus I don’t want my son marred by that propaganda without proper rebuttal. MINE!!!
I saw the same thing yesterday. I’d never heard Kerry’s young voice (long before my time). I didn’t realize how much he sounded like a whining, effeminate pansy. Seriously, how could anybody listen to the sound of his voice, never mind the content, and not want to stomp the shit out of that little numbnut?
Add this to the fact that, as you pointed out, he was then and is now a lying, cheating sack of shit who pisses on the memory of far better men than him…
Taking military action with this crowd in charge would be a huge disaster.
ANYTHING with this crowd in charge is a huge disaster.
“Kerry Warns Russia of Possible Eviction From G-8”. It’s a start.
Good. Keep Russia out of the security council. This is not how a nation of that importance should act.
In the UN security council? – Let them have it, and lets finally pull out of that wealth distribution organization that has existed well beyond its use by date.. IMO, the UN is a complete waste of our resources, revenue and time.
Thank you and well said…Here-Here!
“The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist.”—John Kerry, 1984
Well, that certainly took a while to came back and bite him in the ass.
If it did bite sKerry in the ass, I doubt the info would be transmitted to his brain.
Hmm…his brain IS in unnaturally close proximity to his ass, though.
If russia wants another afganistan that is their problem not ours! And for all you war mongers out there, their are daily flights to ukraine get going if you have a rendevous with death at some disputed barricade! Good news for you my old computer couldn’t get on the new format so I won’t be able to correct your errors much anymore ;but truth avenger will still be around!
STFU asshole.
I guess we’ll miss you making comments before you read the posts and prior comments and making idiot points about nothing anyone wrote. I don’t see anyone calling for war with Russia.
“Truth Avenger”? Funny, I didn’t think…
A) Truth could be killed
B) Truth needed to be avenged
C) Truth can be avenged
D) All of the Above
We’re all against war with the Russians, VWPutz. We also don’t like the way that your Glorious Leader the Eunuch-In-Chief is mishandling it. At best, he makes us look impotent. At worst, he and his merry band of dipshits get us into a war for which we are woefully unprepared.
This didn’t have to be our problem. Obama made it so. We could have left it alone, but he had to make it a major US foreign policy issue.
Hell, had he not spent the last five years pissing away every last scrap of credibility we had left, it’s quite possible that Vladdy Putin would’ve decided that his Crimean adventures weren’t worth the risk in the first place. But no, instead, Southern and Eastern Ukraine are now being flooded with heavily armed Russians with itchy trigger fingers.
Here’s a little history for ya, VWPieceofshit. Russians have been shitting on Ukrainians since time immemorial. They don’t like eachother. You see a problem with this picture, dickhead? And the Eunuch-In-Chief and his court jester sKerry are just inept enough to get us stuck in the middle of it.
You know, I had a hunch you would show up. Don’t go away mad, just go away.
You know, why does he call himself a “Vietnam War Protestor”? By my knowledge, that particular fight ended in ’74. Shouldn’t he be called “Anti-Conservative Protestor” or “Ukraine War Protestor”?
Furthermore, what ship was the Liberty? Is VWP ex-Navy?
Who let that shithole in? I thought the moron was buried in debris of his own making.
vwpussypants, we aren’t after war with Russia, and you don’t understand the history of Crimea and Ukraine AND the Soviet Union’s land grab in Eastern Europe at the end of WWII, so shut the fuck up. Your ignorance is appalling. Your stupidity is worse.
Dude seriously a brand new computer that connects to the new fangled internet costs a whopping $298 at Walmart…if you don’t have a spare $300 laying around maybe it’s time you reconsidered your career choices and got some actual paying gigs…
The truth is still here, that you don’t agree with our truths doesn’t make them falsehoods however. As my handle indicates the truth conquers all things, that’s the disquieting reality about the truth. All of the liars who come here soon find that simple adage rings louder than the bells at Notre Dame on Sundays…there is no escaping the truth.
Here’s a simple truth John Kerry is a liar when he says “all options are on the table” but John Kerry has been a liar for most of his adult life so that’s no surprise. Attempting to defend Kerry’s comments simply means you are attempting to sell us some lies, we’ve seen too many liars here to be fooled by that stream of logic, so best of luck to you and your dreams of avenging the truth, whatever the hell that means…
All options are on the table, except,you know, the one where we actually “do” something. Vlad Putin should prey to his gods that a real man never wins the Presidency. If one does Vlads ships, planes, and subs will start disappearing. He will know we did it but he will never prove it. We can claim that they died from poor maintenance or crew incompetence. The Russians need to be taught the lesson that we are not to be trifled with in the broader world.
One of the talking heads this Am said that the key to Putin was high oil prices. High prices are good for him. If the price falls below 100 dollars per barrel he would not be able to make payroll. Driving the price of oil down would sound the end of his power, period. Frack him to death. Undercut his high priced oil and wait for him to fail..
Why is this a US problem again? Because holier than thou Europeans decided welfare spending was more important than military spending.
lol, fuck Europe.
Let them deal with Russia. We aren’t their errand boy.
The Eurofags shitbag us for “imperialist aggression” whenever we do anything. If we stay out of it, they shitbag is for not doing anything. Fuckers.
The GOP has now stuck its oar into the water.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/gop-members-congress-slam-obama-response-ukraine-crisis-n42506?gt1=43001
In my very humble opinion, if this whole thing is going to make bodaprez look like the damned, incompetent, pants-wetting fool that he is, these GOPers should keep their big, fat mouths shut and let him fail, fail, fail.
I think it’s very strange that this invasion of the Ukraine follow hard on the heels of the US military’s cuts and proposed further drawdowns of personnel. Well, maybe not strange… but the timing is so – well, peculiar.
Coincidence? I think NOT!
The only option the idiot in chief and his herd of worshippers has is to actually throw nukes. The idiot in chief has no other option that will make him look like a strong leader. And that is the insanity that out foreign policy has become.
This is like the average 2nd grader trying to calculus with no calculator and no math or arithmetic skills at all.
God help the USA………Semper Fi
If anybody could turn 2014 into 1914 it’s the current group of jackasses.
Get a copy of “Paris 1919” and read it thoroughly.
I see the same things going on now before WWI started.
Thanks Ex. Just read a brief review of “Paris 1919” and I am going to get it.
Jon Cary takes being feckless to a whole other level.
I’ve read a lot of criticism of Obama, very few ideas on how we should respond. Hint: Nuclear war is not an option.
Basically, this day was (at least) five years in coming. The fact that Putin (and pretty much everyone else) has seen Obama administration for the empty suits and hot air they are, the options left are few and getting shittier.
You’re right, Joe, there are very few ideas on how to respond to this. The problem lies in how we got to this point to begin with. Putin wouldn’t have done this under GWB’s watch, because whether you like him or hate him, Bush projected strength, whereas Obama spent the first year of his Presidency apologizing to the muslim world and giving Putin whatever he wanted, which included selling out the Brits by giving Putin the serial numbers of all the British nukes. Then, he has spent the rest of the time selling out one ally after the other (Czech Republic and Poland with missile defense, Iran’s nuclear ambitions) to Putin. We have not stood up to Putin over anything he has demanded, under Obama. Obama has projected weakness to our allies and enemies alike and they have taken notice. As someone said on another thread; we wouldn’t have gotten to this point if not for Obama’s “smart diplomacy”, which lost us all our respect, not rebuilt it as the leftist want to claim was going to happen when he was elected. When Kerry says “Putin is coming at this from a position of weakness”, you know we’re screwed.
Let’s look at all these “options”. There’s the give a stern speech (and then go drinking with your fellow demagogues) option, there’s the hold your breath until you turn blue option, there’s the temper tantrum option, oh and the most useless of all option and the one these clowns will probably follow, the “take it to the UN option”. Meantime, Putin will do as he pleases.
And Joe, with the all hat, no cowboy crew now in office, there really isn’t much we can suggest. How about you, what’s your answer?
Oh, well, we’re in another Mexican standoff. Shades of the Missiles of October! If I’m not mistaken, Vlad long ago figured out that bodaprez is a wannabe, a dilettante, and a slacker.
http://news.msn.com/world/putin-takes-on-west-over-ukraine-who-blinks-first
I hate to say this, but if Vlad were president here, this would all be a moot point. I’m almost a fan. I may send him one of my books. Yeah, that’s it.
Maybe we should send him a Cuban cigar, too. You know, like we did for Castro (did that really happen?)?
I wonder how many phony SEALs are packing their “go ” bags for Kiev tonight.
Kind of makes me wonder if ol Guidick might not be doing the same, lol.
All options are on the table: the line this time may be green, purple or even an off-teal. We are considering colors other than red.
I think someone in WDC may have finally found out that he’s actually one of the castrati.
Let’s see: we don’t have a manned space program any more; we barely have a military, and it’s dissolving away as I write this; the world is an unfair place, mean and filled with people with nasty attitudes who don’t think we’re the Big Cheese. Yes, the leader board says that somehow, someone else moved to the front.
Oh, well.
Many of you are indignant and sputtering at our loss of credibility, Obama is a castrati, empty suit, hot air, blah, blah, blah….. In Russia’s backyard, no matter how many men we have in space or how big our army is or whatever, we can’t do any more than the USSR could do in Granada. They didn’t send their navy steaming into the Caribbean with good reason – they’d have been obliterated. Now the shoe is on the other foot. IMHO, our action will have to be political and economic. Any other ideas? I’m all ears. Not to excuse unconscionable behavior but what many Americans don’t understand is Russia’s genuine sense of paranoia in regards to its borders and above all else, what it perceives as its security. That country is like an adult who was horribly abused as a kid and is irreversibly fearful, insecure and mistrustful. The last century has been incomprehensibly traumatic to them – compared to what they’ve been thru our civil war was a mere inconvenience, a hangnail. 11 million dead in the revolution (numbers approximate), 20-50 million under Stalin, 20-28 million in WWII, the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of the economy, ten years in the wilderness with old pensioners freezing to death in their apartments while the West went on a global victory lap crowing about the triumph of capitalism. Imagine Mexico is an Islamic country with thousands of jihadis, and a bunch of them on this side of the fence. Imagine opera houses in Washington being attacked and hundreds of American elites held hostage. Imagine apartment buildings in NYC being blown up. Imagine suicide bombers detonating in busses and trolley around the country. And most recently, imagine a MP in a neighboring country vowing nuclear retaliation. If you can imagine that, you have some idea of the security challenges they face. You think they’re paranoid, cynical and hard-bitten? I think they have good reason to be. We missed our opportunity to exert a positive influence on them in the early 90’s when they were down and instead we kicked sand in… Read more »
Joe: with two clarifications, not much argument from me regarding what you say here. Russia’s behavior today is quite understandable on historical grounds. Even setting aside their historical paranoia, the Crimea and extreme eastern present-day Ukraine is more Russian than Ukrainian. It stands to reason Russia would eventually try to get those areas back. The first clarification: you are correct in that short of general war (which I think even this clueless administration is smart enough to see would be a bad idea), there’s not much we can do re: the situation in the Ukraine. As you observe, that’s Russia’s back yard. Much like the US and the Caribbean, they have proximity and more direct interest. They value the area more than we do, and will do more to exert influence there than we can. My argument with this feckless group in DC is that they keep harping on “doing something” when we obviously can/should not. When we back down (as we almost certainly will), we’ll look like idiots. And the country will be a laughingstock. When you can’t or won’t do anything, the best course of action is often not to draw attention to that fact vice bluster, then fold. The latter is what this administration is doing today – much like what we did in Syria. The second clarification is that if you’re going to blame anyone for not engaging the FSU in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, make sure you point the finger at those who were actually responsible. As I recall, the Bush (41) administration did engage the collapsing USSR/FSU pretty damn effectively in 1990-1992. We managed to avoid being drawn into a potentially bloody breakup; gave diplomatic/other support to those looking for an amicable separation; and convinced the USSR to stay out of Gulf War I entirely. We supported (diplomatically) Yeltsin when hardliners tried to reimpose hardline rule. Beyond all that, there’s not much we could have realistically done. The situation was simply too fluid at the time. But starting in about 1993, IMO the US began ignoring that part of the… Read more »
Joe! Are you seriously suggesting that we who are indignant about the purposeful destruction of US credibility are somehow off the beam?
With or without Russia and the Crimea in the news today, in case you have not been paying attention, it been slipping away for a long time. Some of us have never been happy about that.
It would be bad enough had all this occurred accidently – you know, evolved due to whatever innocuous reasons. Instead, it has been done deliberately by our own citizens.
Indignant does not even begin to describe it for some of us. The headlines today simply confirm what we already knew. I had hoped that instead of being proven right that somehow I would be proven wrong in my initial conclusions that the complete incompetence (at best) or utter disdain (at worst) of ideologues intent upon the destruction of the country had taken control.
In 1994 there was an agreement signed by al lthe concerned parties that the borders of the Ukraine would remain intact (to include the Crimea). Russia signed onto tis agreement, and even prior to that the borders of the Ukraine were said to inclued the Crimea in agreements made within the old Soviet Union.
WE signed an agreement along with the European nations and Russia guaranteeing the integrity of those borders in Ukraine, Russia has no more claim to the Crimea than Mexico does to Texas and California.
Obama made this fiasco happen with his piss poor leadership at home and abroad… especially abroad. I am not one to quote Palin, but she was shredded in the press and by the Left for declaring in 2008 that the Russians would move to retake the Ukraine. Do not think for one second they are settling on just the Crimea. They won’t, just as Hitler did not settle for taking Austria.
Obama is doing his damndest to make Jimmy Carter and Neville Chamberlaine look good.
Joe. How many times must people respond to you before you say thanks? You challenge others to provide you with answers to your question and then continue to spout off from your soapbox. You apologize for the Russians and make clear that, in your view, they are not in control of themselves but have been forced to act out like some sort of psychologically damaged victim. You even have the audacity to offer that “The last century has been incomprehensibly traumatic to them [Russians]– compared to what they’ve been thru our civil war was a mere inconvenience, a hangnail.” Really? A hangnail? I have a two-word response to that and the second one is a personal pronoun. Perhaps you should retire to a cave somewhere with a few good books on the US Civil War, as well as Russian (communist) expansionism in the 20th century. Oh, and do try to be grateful to those who, like Hondo, tried to answer you.
ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE…..that’s probably the stupidest thing ever said about Russian border concern and shows exactly what the current administration is capable of, which is to say not very much in the way of reality.
It never makes any sense to draw theoretical lines in the sand that you will later have to wipe away with your own feet as you retreat to a new line you draw…the current impotent administration was hailed as having a world class intellectual who would be well respected in the world when in fact what we actually have is a world class ineffectual who has done nothing to improve the image of the United States abroad and has actually managed to surrender whatever imaginary moral high ground he thought we held.
As of this morning, the G8 conference in Sochi is going to be boycotted by several of the 8 attendee nations, including US, the UK, and France. I think there’s a list somewhere.
I’m not sure it will have much of an impact on Vlad. He’s busy.
But if this is not a land grab, then what is it? Russia has no warm water ports, as Hondo (I think) pointed out elsewhere, and the object is to keep control of those ports by Russia/Vlad Putin. Going eastward to the Pacific is impractical. Sevastopol is frozen most of the time, and while Yakutia has plenty of shoreline, it is only open for a few months each year.
I doubt this is much more than a grab for Russian Navy harbor space, but it is a rather heavy-handed approach to it. I would be more concerned if that dumbuttski in the White House held a press conference showing those missile bunkers in Cuba being rehabbed and filled in, except he’d probably be using those archival photos from the JFK press conference.
Thanks to Slik Willie and his pecker and bodaprez the dumb, and a few politicians who should be fired for their sheer stupidity, the Russian state is on a roll to be the dominant one this time around.
And Joe, if you don’t understand that the reason the Cold War worked was because the Soviets were more afraid of us than we were of them, then you know NOTHING.
Krushchev’s attempt to yank Uncle Sam’s chain nearly started a real war.
But these jackasses who want to hand out your hard-earned dollars to wetbacks have proven, indelibly, that they don’t have a clue how to keep this country from becoming a 3rd class, stagnant backwater nation, or how to keep a real war from starting.
2/17 Air Cav,
OK, here goes. Hondo, thanks for the thoughtful post, really. I think that is the first time we’ve agreed on anything. I am still waiting for this to play out. There have been errors by both parties.