Picture a prized possession lying shattered at your feet and a three-year old, hands behind his back, puppy dog eyes attesting to his innocence saying “I didn’t do it.” No one but you was present but he and you had been in another room when you heard the awful crash; unless your home had suddenly been infested by ghosts only the child could have been responsible. Do you believe him? Or take any of the Lyin’ King’s recent denials of responsibility for his unheard of non-presidential conduct. Believable? Not really. Yet Vladimir Putin has taken a page from The Manchurian President’s book with respect to Russia’s mounting presence in the Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Fox NEWS reported that despite armed, uniformed forces, fully armed with Russian military equipment (e.g. guns and jeeps) and having been photographed, Putin categorically denied that they are his forces:
In a somewhat stunning press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that none of his troops had moved into Crimea…Putin…on Tuesday, denied that the troops guarding Ukrainian military installations across Crimea were regular Russian troops, claiming that they were “local self-defense forces.” Many of the uniforms on those troops lack identifying insignia, but their vehicles and uniforms appear to be Russian. Putin shrugged the accusation off, saying “The post-Soviet space is full of such uniforms.”
Considering that 16,000 of such troops are being denied “regular Russian troop” status, that’s a heckuva lot of “local self-defense forces.” The Lyin’ King could not have done better.
John Kerry, upon his arrival in the Ukraine, was said to have been “stunned” by Putin’s statement: “(Kerry) smiled and said, ‘He really denied there were troops in Crimea?’”
Kerry being stunned isn’t news; Kerry can be gob-smacked by the existence of such a thing as chili. Remember his folksy visit to Wendy’s when he ran for President? He and his lovely, Heinz underwriter had never even heard of the stuff.
The New York Post offered further insight into Putin’s duplicity: “(Putin said) that Russia has no intention of annexing the strategic Crimea peninsula…” Russian military action thus far tells quite a different story:
— Russian military has been sent to guard the Ukrainian border.
—Reuters reports: “…two Russian navy ships have blocked off both ends of a strait that separates Russia and the Crimea region.”
— “Turkey’s Air Force revealed Tuesday that it scrambled eight F-16 fighter jets a day earlier after a Russian surveillance plane flew parallel along its Black Sea coast…”.
— Russia has fired a test ICBM Tuesday, to flex its might. Reuters‘ account states “The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan…”
Yup; nothing going on here.
Our Imperial President promised to print up another billion dollars in aid for the Ukraine for the purposes, according to Fox NEWS of providing: “…energy aid, training for financial and election institutions, and anti-corruption efforts for Ukraine.” Just what they need. Much of Crimea already depends on the Ukraine for its electricity. The Ukraine is also Russia’s breadbasket.
The U.S., U.N. and EU continue to dither over imposing sanctions, like travel restrictions, a threat that isn’t phasing Putin one bit. He openly mocks America’s blather about his actions, threatening and retreating with the nimbleness of a mountain goat: “… as if (America) were sitting in a laboratory and running experiments on rats, without any understanding of the consequences.” Then he immediately adds there’s “no need yet” for Russia to use its authority further.” And perhaps the Ukraine will be permitted to keep it’s chosen leader if it wishes, too.
The Lyin’ King, stung by Putin’s expert upstaging of him on the world’s mendacity stage, was not to be outdone. Bloomberg quotes The Lyin’ King’s blinding burst of hypocritical pique: “President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a different set of interpretations, but I don’t think that’s fooling anybody.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Image: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1228345
