Russia Invades Ukraine; Obama Goes Jogging with Joe

Russia sent 'several hundred' troops into Ukraine: US official

Russia has sent "several hundred" troops into Ukraine's Crimea region, US defense officials said Friday, after Kiev called on Moscow to withdraw its forces from the peninsula.

"It looks like they’ve moved several hundred troops there (into Crimea)," a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The comments marked the first confirmation from President Barack Obama's administration that Russia had launched an incursion into Crimea.

The Russians had not given the US government advance notice of the action or explained its intentions since the operation was launched, officials said.

But Pentagon officials stressed Washington was focused on diplomacy, and there was no serious consideration being given to any US military action.

"It is now in the realm of diplomacy," said a second defense official, who asked not to be named.

Preznit Obama responded by promising to think bad thoughts about Russia and Putin:

"Any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing," Obama declared. Such action by Russia would represent a "profound interference" in matters that must be decided by the Ukrainian people, he said.

and threatening unspecified "costs." That'll show him. Of course, he's not causing an invasion instead and "uncontested arrival of troops", because that would call for a response by the US and Britain, as specified in a 1994 treaty:

The US and Britain Have a Treaty with Ukraine Pledging to Come to Their Aid if Their Territorial Integrity is Violated

It was signed by Clinton and John Major in 1994. The reason we signed this treaty was to give the Ukraine a guarantee that we wouldn't let Russia invade them -- and we had to do that because we were asking them to give up their nuclear weapons.

They did give up their nukes. The one thing that could have guaranteed their freedom from Russia. And we in turn promised to help protect them.

And here we are.

I call it a "treaty" so you understand what I'm talking about, but I don't know if it's actually a treaty. It is called the "Budapest Memorandum," and I don't know if it was ever submitted to Congress.

This recalls the conversation between Mitt Romney and Preznit Obama over the danger Russia posed to US interests and international peace during the 2012 campaign:

Oops! Oh look, the 1980s are replaying themselves As someone once pointed out, that while history may not repeat, it often rhymes.

But even in 2008 Sara Palin warned that if Obama was elected, it would be likely that Putin go into the Ukraine:

After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next.

And she didn't need an Ivory League eddification to predict that!

But it's not like Preznit Obama didn't have important things on his plate today:



No doubt Putin is quaking in his jack boots.