As I recall, when Europe went to war in 1914 the socialists of every nation behaved as patriots.
The cosmopolitanism of the left is everywhere an assumed hypocritical pose allowing them to denounce what they disapprove, anyway.
Which does not mean they never wrap themselves in the flag and sing "God save the Queen!"
In this article, Tisdall wisely accedes to the impending reunification of Crimea with Russia.
But he calls for Western, and in particular American,
military support for Ukraine in the event that Putin makes attempts on that
state's eastern, ethnically Russian half.
And, no, that will not do, at all.
We let the Brits drag us into their wars of choice twice in the 20th Century and we damned well ought never to do it again.
This is Tisdall all but frothing at the mouth.
If an emboldened Putin now makes the mistake of thinking he
can extend his modern-day form of rolling Anschluss into these areas, he must
be knocked back very hard indeed.
That means going much further, and acting much tougher, than
the rather feeble travel and visa bans now being discussed will allow.
An
Iran-style sanctions regime blocking energy exports, investment, banking and
other mainstream business and commercial activities such as arms sales would be
more appropriate.
So, too, would be direct U.S. and European military
assistance to Kiev, as proposed by Senator John McCain.
Judging by his behaviour in Chechnya and elsewhere since he
first became Russia's prime minister in 1999, Putin is a bully with a massive
inferiority complex who responds to strength, not weakness.
When Obama stresses
that diplomatic solutions can still be found, as he did on Sunday, Putin reads
that as fear.
You can almost hear the snigger.
The only way to stop this strutting menace, if he continues
to over-reach, is to frighten him right back -- and if necessary, help create
the conditions inside Russia in which he and his ugly, reactionary regime are
brought down.
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