Under threat of sanctions from the US and Europe, the Russians have finalized their annexation of Crimea. One of the targets of the US’ “sanctions,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, expressed his feelings about them in a tweet:
Comrade Obama, what should those who have neither accounts nor property abroad do? Have you not thought about it? I think the decree of the President of the United States was written by some joker.
The “sanctions?” They
freeze any assets the targeted individuals have under US jurisdiction, make it illegal for Americans to do business with them and discourage international banks and financial institutions from having relationships with them, administration officials said. The officials, however, would or could not say if those targeted actually have assets in US jurisdictions.
Hence the joke. Does anybody believe, given the length of time this administration has been nattering on about freezing personal assets that there are any left that we can “freeze?” Other than the amateurs in the White House, I mean.
Meanwhile, Europe has done even less.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday that leaders of the Group of Eight world powers have suspended Russia’s participation in the club amid tensions over Ukraine and Russia’s incursion into Crimea.
Travel bans and the freezing of a few personal bank accounts—yeah. That’ll show ’em.
And echoing John Kerry’s pleas to Putin not to take US actions personally; we really don’t mean to hurt your feelings, ” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier bleats that sanctions must leave “ways and possibilities open to prevent a further escalation that could lead to the division of Europe.”
Also meanwhile, Ukrainian government officials met with US lawmakers pleading for military aid—not troops, but arms and ammunition.
“They wanted arms,” [one of the US] lawmaker[s] said, “even recognizing that it could be cited by Putin as an excuse, a provocation for further military action by him. They said Putin’s goal has never been Crimea; his goal is Kiev.”
But this administration already has said, “No.”
For all of this abject surrender in the face of Russia’s naked aggression, though, President Barack Obama is happy to meet with terrorists, directly and personally. He even insists that any “peace” agreement be based on Israel’s pre-1967, and so wholly indefensible, borders.
In the final meanwhile, watch Iran and their nuclear weapons program and the People’s Republic of China and their territorial grabs in the East and South China Seas.
