MR OBAMA OPENING YET ANOTHER WAR FRONT...NOW THE UKRAINE

Try to imagine if the tables were turned on us in the Ukraine. Imagine how the USA might respond if it were the Russians who spent billions of rubles over a decade attempting pull our neighbor, Mexico into their sphere of influence. Then, when Mexico's legally elected President refused to join a Russian-sponsored mutual defense pact --like NATO they became disenchanted with this leader. They turned to a policy of "regime change". The Russians helped engineer a coup in Mexico. They then conspired and bribed the leadership to elect a more malleable pro-Russian candidate. When military conflict broke out in the northern Mexican provinces, they supported and propped up the usurper-government with secret funds. If the tables were turned, just imagine what we would be doing now.

In today's (2-9-15) NY Times, Roger Cohen uncharacteristically rages on intemperately about Russia and the Ukraine. His objective appears to be to encourage Mr. Obama to supply the Ukraine with weaponry such as drones, tanks and rocketry which will certainly just widen the war and give Mr. Putin, who lives only next door, the opportunity to open HIS border to ready and waiting lines of heavy armaments. The result would surely be a devastating wider war with much to lose and nothing to gain for the west, but more devastation, death, destruction and more harm to the suffering people of Ukraine. Poor thinking Roger--- you were much better last week encouraging Mr. Netanyahu to stay home in Israel.

Sadly, Mr. Obama does not need encouragement on this score. He seems poised to do just that. Perhaps German PM, Angela Merkel, who has precluded arming the Ukrainians (stating "there is no military solution to this crisis") will prevail. She seems to have the only practical and sane understanding of this situation. However, I am less sanguine today, all to aware of Mr. Obama's recent history. Obama's policy all along has been to destabilize the Ukraine, arrogantly assuming he could easily nudge thus "border nation" into the western sphere of influence. He and his Neo-con advisors spent considerable effort and sums of money stirring up trouble for the last legally elected Ukrainian PM, Mr Yanukovych. Mr. Yanukovych had been not too effectively attempting to steer Ukraine along a middle course...between the East and West. He was trying to follow a natural and necessary policy for small, weak nations who find themselves sited in the dangerous middle ground between two imperial powers. But his "live and let live" policy was not congruent with Mr. Obama's global imperial strategy...or those of his more radical Neo conservative proxies..such as Assistant Secretary of State Ms Victoria Nuland (of the infamous leaked telephone conversations) to whom we can lay much of the blame for the early US stumbles and missteps in policy.

The present disaster in the Ukraine is largely the result of the long time arrogance, overreach and unwise policies of the west as it dealt with post Soviet Russia. Now Mr. Obama seems set to compound those mistakes horribly, adding another black mark to his record of foreign policy disasters across the globe from Ukraine, through, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria (where he is engaged in yet another war...this time with ISIL), Yemen, Palestine....and the still festering and embarrassing Guantanamo.