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Ric at the UN

I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Grenell on Tammy Radio about the crisis in Ukraine and what can, and should be, done. Ric is a Fox News contributor, foreign policy observer, and media critic. Read his columns at Fox News and follow him on Twitter at @RichardGrenell. Enjoy!

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  1. Maynard says:

    With respect to the Ukraine, Obama is his usual self, talking tough while manifesting impotence. Peggy Noonan nailed it:

    The world is watching. Part of the story in Ukraine is that the people are rebelling against their elites, which have cozied up to Russia for their own purposes. We won’t be seeing less of this kind of thing in the future but more. Don’t we want to be understood to be on the right side of that battle?

    I think our leaders are now so anxious about appearing to support entangling America in another conflict that they’ve become afraid to voice full-throated support for those who fight for principles completely in line with our own—the right of people to choose their own economic and governmental arrangements, and their right to resist any illegitimate limiting of their freedoms.

    We have always stood for those things. Isn’t this a good time to make it clear again?

    The Higher Reticence is, I suppose, intended to show how sophisticated and peaceable we are. But it doesn’t look peaceable, it looks weak. It is one thing to be militarily prudent, it is another to be, in expressing our sentiments, timorous and detached. Here is what Mr. Obama said Wednesday, as the moment approached crisis in Kiev: The U.S. holds the Ukrainian government “primarily responsible” for restoring peace. “We expect peaceful protesters to remain peaceful.” The U.S. is “monitoring very closely the situation.” The Ukrainian military should “not step into what should be a set of issues that can be resolved by civilians.” The U.S. will continue to “engage with all sides.”

    With all due respect, this was not so much calibrated as meaningless, crouching and process-driven. Which side are we on?

    The president then warned there will be “consequences” if people “step over the line.” This sounded like a man who is peripheral to the drama insisting he is very, very relevant. Is this like the “red line” in Syria that Mr. Obama warned Bashar Assad he’d best not cross, and he crossed it, and nothing happened?

    It is embarrassing when the president makes statements like this. He is like the father who poses on the bottom of the stairs and says in a deep voice, “Don’t make me come up there!” And for a moment there’s silence and then the kids erupt in giggles. Because there’s no price to pay if he comes up there, and because he doesn’t come up.

    I thought, as he spoke, that he is destroying the American brand in the world.

    To be clear, I can’t imagine any American president actually intervening in the Ukraine. It’s in Russia’s backyard, and the Crimea tilts toward Russia. A partition of that nation seems a likely outcome. Maybe that’s not entirely unreasonable.

    I’m remembering when Ronald Reagan said, “Tear down this wall!” (or when JFK earlier announced himself to be a jelly doughnut). Nobody interpreted Reagan’s words to mean he was going to attack. He was making a statement, exposing a contrast, shining a light. Rallying the spirit of free people. Reagan’s stance and his words were fruitful in the years to come.

    Obama destroys the American brand because he doesn’t believe in the American brand. Thus he forfeits the American spirit which is, at the end of the day, the only weapon anybody really has.

    Bottom line is nobody’s going to stop Russia here. But Obama’s making us look like a dork, and the whole world knows it. This sort of weakness invites further aggression, and a less stable world, and a greater likelihood of war.

  2. Alain41 says:

    This morning’s (March 5, 2014) lead banner at the BBC is; Top Diplomats Seek Ukraine Solution.

    Would those, Top Diplomats, be the same as at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Army General tells Indiana Jones that, Top Men, are working on the Ark as it is being stored away in a forgotten corner of an unknown warehouse? Or as the Foggy Bottom types are sometimes called, Dimwitplomats.

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