This morning the Russian Parliament voted 166-0 to give Putin the imprimatur to use Russian troops at will in the Ukraine. It’s one thing THEORETICALLY (if you are in the Obamacare WH) for the Russians to send some helo’s, Spetznaz and 2,000 troops into a Crimea containing the important Russian naval base of Sevastopol. It’s a whole ball game for Putin to take the step of the Russian parliament voting by 110% (Saddam vote, anyone?) to support his idea of grabbing the Ukraine to ‘protect’ if from extremist elements. Unfortunately there are enough neo nazis, and think alikes to give cover to this subterfuge. It also becomes a lot easier when the possible counter moves are from a Barack Obama who doesn’t even show up for National Security Council meetings SPECIFICALLY called for this issue today. [Image] CNN today proposed the idea that Putin was simply bullying Obama. Krauthammer called him “flaccid”. Now, we’ll never know how different the situation would be had McCain won in 2008, or if some other republican took the reins, so it is difficult to say if we would have had the MEANS to act effectively. I doubt that we would. Ukraine’s geographically unfortunate position mimics that of Poland in 1939 … impossible to aid. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some other levers to push in other places critical to Putin. Levers responsive to military moves and diplomatic moves and economic moves. If nothing else we could just ABROGATE the nuclear limitation treaty, and since the debt is going bonkers anyway, spend the Russians to death as we did the USSR. We HAVE become, again, the world’s largest energy producer. However in reality, today we have neither the means NOR the will to stop the Russians from doing whatever in the Ukraine. And they know, and the EU knows, and all of NATO knows it. This is the product strictly of Mr. Obama’s belief in the way of his ideology. His leadership is to lead from behind. This is it’s fruit. Today I read from some people who are now in the private security industry that this is a pivot point in world history. If the Russians grab Ukraine, it’s welcome back to 1956. But if this is so, there is just no way Mr Obama will choose the path of Dwight Eisenhower. During the last few years of his admin, J Carter was totally ignored by the world. In the last day we can see how much weight has been given to the presence of Barack Obama. You ain’t see nothing yet.