Parenthetically, does anybody have the slightest doubt that it would be Barack Obama who would block an Article 5 action and push for a "diplomatic solution"? Chancellor Merkel would never get the chance, and none of the American participation in hostilities in the rest of this account would actually happen, hastening the Russian victory.
-Me, yesterday.
Life in 2015 is like living in a disaster movie before the disaster hits. But when it does hit, it ain't going to be any movie, because in real life the "good guys" rarely win, and our government no longer has any such leadership.
-Me, also yesterday
Today, the Russians are buzzing Gotland....:
Swedish military identified and followed four Russian fighter plane near Gotland and Bornholm, off the country’s east coast on Tuesday morning.
The planes were spotted in international airspace but heading towards Sweden at around 5.30am. None of the aircraft - two TU-22M [Backfire bombers] and two SU-27 [Flanker] fighter jets - were using transponders, the telecommunications devices that emit and gather signals from planes.
“It is the first time in years that we have seen precisely this type of aircraft over the Baltic Sea,” Anders Grenstad, Deputy Director of Operations for the Swedish Armed Forces told the TT news agency.
He said the planes were understood to have first flown over the Baltic coast, then turned south toward Bornholm and Gotland before heading back to the Finnish Gulf.
....and threatening the Danes....:
Recent statements by Russian ambassador Mikhail Vanin that Danish warships could become the target of Russian nukes, should the country participate in NATO’s missile defence, have drawn a sharp reaction from NATO.
“Denmark is a staunch NATO ally and NATO will defend all allies against any threat,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu told BT. “We have made it clear that NATO’s missile defence is not directed against Russia or other countries, but is intended as defence against missile threats.” [emphasis added]
....and Barack Obama's reaction? Do you have to ask?:
Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won’t see Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he is in Washington for three days. Stoltenberg’s office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me.
The leaders of almost all the other twenty-eight NATO member countries have made time for Stoltenberg since he took over the world’s largest military alliance in October.
“It is hard for me to believe that the president of the United States has not found the time to meet with the current secretary general of NATO given the magnitude of what this implies, and the responsibilities of his office,” said [Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO under both President George W. Bush and Obama].
It's not difficult for me to believe it. Not by a long shot. Remember, Barack Obama believes that the wrong side won the Cold War, that it is America that is the focus of evil in the modern world, that the Russians got screwed out of their empire, and that therefore Vladimir Putin is entitled to take it back. He has no interest in preventing what he would see as a "just" war, and accordingly will take no such steps toward that end. And that includes snubbing the newest NATO Secretary-General.
Jim Geraghty has it right, if a bit incomplete:
The world is upside down. We’re snubbing NATO, excusing Iran’s Supreme Leader’s declaring “Death to America,” and threatening to not support Israel at the United Nations. We’ve seen Libya, Yemen, and large chunks of Syria and Iraq collapse into anarchy or fall under control of the Islamic State or bloodthirsty Islamist groups....
The bad guys are calling the shots.
Including the one We, The People twice elected - and just might re-elect again.
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