Tuesday, March 04, 2014

So, what CAN be done to stop Putin?

Just about anyone with a passing familiarity with Obama's incredibly amazingly inept and incompetent foreign policy (Closely mirroring his incredibly amazingly inept and incompetent domestic policy) likely figured out the inability to provide a rapid military response to Putin's adventurism.

So, what can that simple-minded idiot actually do?  Well, in no particular order:

1.  Stop shrinking the US Military.  Put that on hold... indefinitely.  Announce it today, and blame Putin for it personally.

There are a wide variety of reasons that cutting the size of the military in the face of the obvious challenges confronting American security was, well, his most moronic idea since turning the A4rmed Forces into a gay playground.

Cut all spending to illegal aliens and enemy countries.  Shift those funds to the military.  Cut off bizarre and unneeded social programs (i.e., "Obama phones") and shift THAT money to the military.

2.  Call for an emergency joint session and lay out the plan.

Explain that his policies in the foreign arena have been a sad joke.  Admit that in the eyes of the world, any American policy that doesn't come wrapped around a clenched American fist is a sign of weakness and will be exploited... as Putin is exploiting it.... by every tin pot dictator on the planet.

Tell the people of the Ukraine and the rest of Europe that we have not, in fact, abandoned them.  Then, explain how you're actually going to act the part of the Leader of the Free World, instead of playing the role of the clueless idiot community organizer.

3.  Activate the entirety of the Air National Guard.  Send much of the Air Guard to Europe and Turkey.  Blame that directly on Putin.

Right now, that slimeball is doing whatever he wants, however he wants, because he knows we're so weak generally and weak in the region specifically, that he'll get no push back.  This gesture would do that.

4.  Get Congress to temporarily re-instate the draft.  Blame it directly on Putin.

Put a sunshine clause on it... 5 years or so.  But our combat capabilities must be expanded and we no longer have the time to ask kids politely, if they would like to join.  Implement shorter periods of time for the draftee term, but longer periods of time in the Reserves: for example, one year on active duty and a 10 year service commitment.  The Germans at least used to do something like that when I was over there.

Draft women equally with men.  It's about time they started paying for some of that equality that many of them selectively whine about.  We can find something for them to do.

Extensions on active duty would be required for any deployed soldier to complete that tour. 

Implement the badly needed expansion of VA programs... such as eliminating any charge for medical care (As was promised us... at least when I enlisted back in 72)

I have a son and a daughter who would be impacted by this plan.  So this is, in fact, about my kids as well as everyone else's.

5.  Fire that idiot running the VA.

Former Army GEN Eric Shinseki, has been as much a disaster running the VA as he was in running Afghanistan.  He should be fired immediately and the VA should immediately grant all requests for disability pay and then work backwards to determine if the claims are merited.  People are dying while these clowns fiddle-fart around deciding... when they're not destroying records.

We have been waiting years as a country for that moron to get it straightened out, and instead, it's only gotten much, much worse.  Fix it.  Do it now.  And fire that clown now as well.  (And no, I have no VA Claim in the works and don't plan on ever having one.)

6.  Activate the National Guard and Reserves.  Blame that directly on Putin.

We do have some muscle... Putin is just convinced, rightfully, that with a coward running the show, we won't use it.

Set up Reforger problems to get the Guard and Reserves to rotate into and out of Europe.  Reactivate Rhein Main AFB, temporarily.

7.  Return our carrier battle groups to sea.  Blame that directly on Putin.

With Chinese efforts to expand their territory through bloodless means and Russian efforts to dominate the Black Sea region, we need to get our carriers back out to sea instead of rotting at dockside to save a little money that we will have to pay back in blood later.

There are, as I understand it, 3 carrier battle groups tied up.

Fund them, untie them, and get them out there.

8.  Establish the missile shield in Poland.  Blame that directly on Putin.

Speaks for itself.  Obama caving on that might have shown some of that "flexibility" he was babbling about to the sock puppet running the show at the time, but it also sent a message of abandonment to our eastern European allies.  And we no longer have the luxury of abandoning those who count on us.

9.  Embark on a major military build up.  Blame that directly on Putin

To keep the peace is to prepare for war.

Can you even begin to imagine the Russians pulling stunts like this if Reagan were running the show?

10.  Freeze Russian assets and cripple them financially.  Blame that directly on Putin

The easiest and most obvious move, that moron running the show hasn't even done THAT, lending what amounts to tacit approval to this clown's efforts to steal a country.

11.  Invite every former Warsaw Pact country... including the Ukraine... into NATO.

This should have been done under Bush.


The gesture, by itself, would probably cause Putin's head to explode.  But a mutual defense pack would result in enough strength to deter future grand schemes like  the one Putin's engaged in now.  It would provide a level of push-back that he could not ignore... because right now, the only thing outside a bullet that can stop this guy is his own boredom.

12.  As a philosophy, it's time to shift the focus from expansion of the entitlement society the president wants, to the military focus we need.  Blame that directly on Putin

I've been reading the comments, the ignorant spouting "it's not out fight" to the right wing whackos claiming we should just pop a few nukes to get Putin's attention.  One of our local more fringe leftist haters spouted:
• In a single day "The markets are punishing Russia much more swiftly than the diplomats. A wide range of Russian assets—stocks, bonds, and the ruble—plunged in value today. To shore up the ruble, which is plumbing record depths, Russia’s central bank unexpectedly hiked interest rates today. It ratcheted up the benchmark one-week rate from 5.5% to 7%, and traders report that the central bank has also been spending billions of dollars in currency markets to stem the fall in the value of the ruble. And, The two main Moscow stock markets, have fallen by more than 10%."
Well, that's swell.  Except Putin doesn't care.

It was pointed out that I had apparently forgotten that Putin had a few thousand nukes lying around.  My response was to point out that he, Putin, didn't seem all that concerned about OUR nukes... so why should we be guided out of fear over his?

It's much, much easier to stop a train at the station than it is to slow it down once it's up to speed... save for derailing it.  I, personally, would just as soon stop it at the station.  The isolationists think that if they just bury their heads in the sand, everything will be fine.

Well, it won't be.  And like our National Debt, untold generations will pay for Obama's failure to act... and act decisively and RIGHT FRICKING NOW, for untold generations... much like we failed to act at the end of World War 2 to dissolve the Soviet Union.

We paid for that in blood and treasure for 50 years.  We're STILL paying for it today. These are tough, painful, expensive steps to take.  Many will hate the very idea.  But the alternative in the end will cost us ever so much more.

We can no longer engage in the luxury of the "reset" button, video game worldview that we've luxuriated in for so long.  Play time is, as they say, over.

I, for one, believe it's time that we, in fact, DO learn from history so we can avoid repeating it.  The steps I've outlined here are a start to doing that.  They can be done, and some variation MUST be done.

Or we are going to be very, very sorry.

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