From the outset of the crisis in Ukraine, I’ve been exhorting European leaders to demonstrate that they’ve learned from the catastrophic consequences that followed their predecessors’ continual appeasement of Adolf Hitler.
These European quislings insist that sanctions would amount to cutting off the nose to spite the face — not only because they conduct so much trade with Russia, but also because they are dependent on Russia for so much of their oil and gas. Never mind that Russia would really be cutting off its nose to spite its face if it retaliated against these targeted sanctions by launching a full-scale trade war, or by turning off the oil and gas it supplies to Europe — much of which transits through pipelines in Ukraine.
After all, as a March 4, 2014 report in oilprice.com duly notes, ‘Russia needs to sell gas more than the EU needs to buy it.’
(“Checkmated on Crimea, Obama Plays for Rest of Ukraine,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 6, 2014)
But the appeasement in this case is made all the more perverse by the useful idiots among European leaders – who seem to believe Putin’s claims about facilitating a transparent investigation into the downing of MH17 and brokering peace between the Ukrainian government and the rebel forces he’s inciting … and arming. Hell, given the blood he has on his “invisible” hands, Putin’s feigned self-righteousness is even more diabolical than that of a Catholic priest who sermonizes about the deadly sin of lust on Sunday morning, after having pedophile sex with the altar boy on Saturday night.
Well, I’m heartened that, at long last, at least one European leader, British Prime Minister David Cameron, is calling Putin out:
For too long there has been a reluctance on the part of too many European countries to face up to the implications of what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
It is time to make our power, influence and resources count. Our economies are strong and growing in strength. And yet we sometimes behave as if we need Russia more than Russia needs us.
(Reuters, July 20, 2014)
Hear, hear!
UPDATE
Below is a more full-throated quote, taken from Cameron’s statement during House of Commons debates on July 21:
Those of us in Europe should not need to be reminded of the consequences of turning a blind eye when big countries bully smaller countries. We should not shrink from standing up for the principles that govern conduct between independent nations in Europe, and that ultimately keep the peace on our continent…
Over the weekend I agreed with Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande that we should push our partners in the European Union to consider a new range of hard-hitting economic sanctions against Russia.
(parliament.uk, July 21, 2014)
Still I fear that, for the shortsighted commercial reasons I delineated in related commentaries, his fellow European leaders will not rise to the challenge. Which is why it will probably take a Russian army officer doing to Putin, what German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to do to Hitler, to stop Putin from menacing other satellite states of the former Soviet Union the way he’s menacing Ukraine. Any European should be able to figure out what failing to stop him would mean….
Related commentaries:
Checkmated on Crimea…
Malaysian Airline MH17…