Who Moved the Cheese?

Yesterday, the people of the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to unite themselves with Russia, to which I say, “Who moved the cheese?”

If the good people of Crimea would rather go back to their historical ties with Mother Russia, then that is certainly their business, and I wish them luck. But Doug, you might be thinking…there were Russian troops at every polling station and no international observers were allowed in to monitor the vote! Yeah, I know and that really stinks. Every time we have an election, I feel the same way about Chicago. If we just had a few international observers in there in 1960, Tricky Dick would have won. But Doug, but Doug, this is a horrible setback for America and NATO’s prestige and could signal a new and dangerous revival of Russian hegemony over Europe. In that case, sounds like Europe has a problem. Perhaps the European Union should mass a few of their crack divisions on the banks of the Bug River as a deterrent to Russian aggression. No, wait…the European Union doesn’t have any divisions. Well, looks like that turned out to be a bad decision. What about NATO, you might ask? Yeah, well as it turns out NATO is really just the United States army, a handful of beret-wearing French units, and a few serviceable, sharply dressed British commandos, and none of them are in the mood to fight. But Doug, this is terrible! It’s Hitler’s Austrian Anschluss all over again!

Ok, what would you have the United States do? Would you like President Obama to draw another red line?  Maybe he can fly over to Kiev and make a speech, “Mr. Putin, tear down the metaphysical wall of your ambitions!” Perhaps you would have us send John Kerry to Moscow to once again remind Vladimir just how 20^th century his behavior is. Doesn’t he know that we have moved on from brutally pursuing our own narrow national self interests? The fact that Putin prefers the old ways of brute force should be embarrassing for him and his country. If a heart to heart with Sec. Kerry doesn’t do the trick, what then? Would you have us go to war?

Our job in Crimea is to stay out of what is clearly none of our business. If Russia wants to begin a quest for European domination and destroy itself in the process, who are we to muck up the works? Besides, we’re kinda busy right now destroying our healthcare system, spying on private citizens, and dealing with a 17 Trillion dollar debt, not to mention Detroit. Maybe another time.