Former NATO Commander Wesley Clark on Putin's policy in Ukraine: "It's the height of arrogance"

[elleng]

Retired four-star U.S. General Wesley Clark told PolitickerNJ in a one-on-one interview on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies regarding Ukraine are part of Putin's plan to "carve out a second-generation Soviet Union."

"It's the height of arrogance. It's totally illegal. His seizure of Crimea was illegal," said Clark, the former North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1997 to 2000. "One of America's great contributions to the world has been the support of human rights and international law. We settled the fighting in the Balkans, which I was a part of, and stopped Serb ethnic cleansing. All that was about democracy, legal governance and human rights. What Putin is doing threatens all of that."

Clark's comments came amidst news reports of 20,000 Russian troops and 1,300-plus armored vehicles amassed on the southeastern border of Ukraine, close to the front lines of an ongoing war between the Ukrainian government armed forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine that has turned in favor of the government.

http://www.politickernj.com/78776/former-nato-commander-wesley-clark-putins-policy-ukraine-its-height-arrogance

[emsimon33]

1. I have always liked Wes Clark

[Igel]

2. Some of it is humorous.

So today the news for the rebels is that Kozytsin's "Don Cossacks" ("Vsevelikoe voisko Donskoe", the all-great Don army) raised its flag over a border checkpoint. It's the group that the Ukrainian intercept of various folk after MH17 was downed implicated in that shoot-down.

It's an officially registered Russian paramilitary organization.

At the same time, the word out of Moscow is that the matter is unfortunately becoming incorrectly perceived. It is entirely an intra-Ukrainian affair.

The rebels have set up artillery and dug in at the MH17 crashsite, allegedly, and been caught fighting there, retreating there. But Moscow is upset that Kiev's said that the "ceasefire" in the crash zone might not last until phase 2 of the investigation begins next week. That's a UN violation.

The rebels have more tanks now than they have ever had. But nobody must be allowed to supply the Ukrainian government with help.

The rebels have just made the leader of an unofficial Ukrainian irregular militia the head of the DPR, the militia that took over municipal buildings and then was one of the earliest combatants against Kievan forces. However, Russia condemns that the Kiev government has allowed such organizations to exist on Ukainian soil, and says they must be eradicated. (Just not the rebel ones.)

And so it goes. I honestly think that if Putin's daughter came up pregnant, about to have her 3rd kid out of wedlock and it was a serious politico-religious scandal, he'd go on tv. "My daughter is innocent, I tell you. God so loves the Russian people and the greatness I have and have shared with it! He only honored the Virgin Mary with *one* virgin birth, my daughter's already had *two* virgin births and a third is on the way!" It gets a bit humorous. The mayor of Gorlovka, when the fighting just started after the "referendum," had ordered Russian flags put up everywhere, with signs that read, "Mat' -- Rossiya, otets -- Putin." "Our mother is Russia, our father is Putin."

Or, as Tchaikovsky's Boris Godunov starts off,
Šujskij
Da zdravstvuet car’ Boris Feodorovi
The Crowd
Zivi I zdravstvuj, Car’ naš batjuška!
Šujskij
Slav’te!
The Crowd
Uz kak na nebe solncu krasnomu slava,
Slava!
Už i kak na Rusi Carju Borisu slava,
Slava!
Živi i zdravstvuj!
Car’ naš batjuška!
Radujsja, ljud!
...

Shuisky
Long live tsar Boris Fedorovich!
Crowd
Live and live long, tsar our father!
Shuisky
Praise him!
Crowd
As glory is given to the sun in the sky,
Glory!
So is glory given to tsar Boris in Rus',
Glory!
Live and live long, tsar our father!
Shuisky
Rejoice, o people!...