Europe suffers another terrorist attack, as the free world continues to search for a champion.

On Tuesday, terrorists conducted suicide attacks in Belgium, killing upwards of 31 people and at least  160 injured.  The terrorist operators chose to detonate their suicide gear in the crowded Maelbeek Metro Station in Brussels, and also at Zaventem International Airport.  This horrific event was no doubt some sort of retaliation for Belgium's aggressive efforts to assist the French authorities in identifying, locating and apprehending terror suspects who are using Belgium as a safe haven.  Only three days ago, Belgian police apprehended one of the individuals suspected of direct involvement in last year's Paris attacks.  I have nothing but admiration and support for the law enforcement authorities in Belgium and France.  Over the previous four months, a great deal of attention has been generated regarding the issue of national security, as everyday French (and Belgian) citizens have to consider just how safe rheir families really are.  Sadly, we aren't discussing Europeans on vacation who inadvertently got caught up in local violence.  The people of Europe are obliged to have public discourse regarding the safety of their own communities. This is a very sobering time for resiidents of Avila, Spain, or Cork Ireland, or maybe Schlitters, Austria, who have basically always been able to assume the relative security of their neighborhoods and villages, at least as far as foreign threats go.  The world has become a much smaller place, and liberal immigration laws and the lack of enforcement has provided those persons who harbor latent resentment towards anything from the west, to move in next door.  That reality is no longer worth the argument.  These people had to come from somewhere, which makes the continued debate regarding refugees from Syria even more important.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the terror attacks in Belgium, is the predictable, toothless response of the United States.  President Barsck Obama, who just happens to be visiting Cuba (enjoying Cuba Libres and good seafood while political prisoners and no doubt a number of U.S. citizens, starve in the Havana jail), tossed out the tired "our thoughts and prayers" comment to the press, and then continued his original speech, which was so ideologically leftist that Che Guevara saluted from the grave.  It is so difficult to accept (but we must, at least for the next nine months) the direction we are taking with regards to Socialist Cuba, when at the same time the Obama Administration has gone out of its way to embarrass Israeli President Netanyahu and create difficulties between our nations.  In truth, it wouldn't have mattered if Obama had been in DC or Durban when the news from Brussels first broke.  President Obama has laid down the law, policy-wise.  ISIS does not pose a threat to the United States, and any effort by the United States to take a leadership role in the fight against ISIS would be innappropriate.  This hardline "laissez faire" approach to international terror is living our European allies in a bit of a fix.  In 2008, when Barack Obama took office, the leaders of Europe were tripping over each other to be the first to be best friends with the first African-American President of the United States.  This sickening lovesick attitude (which pervades amongst the people of Europe as well), was on display in foreign relations, as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands were perfectly willing to grt in line behind whatever policy Obama thought best.  Examples include the terrible New Start Nuclear Disarmament Treaty, which was supported by Europe, the lack of spine in dealing with Russian threats against Nato expansion, and the never-ending sanctions regime put in place to force Russia to end its support of murdering thugs and guerillas in Ukraine.  Where has that policy gotten us?  Nowhere, except we have to change our maps to correctly show Crimea as again a province of Russia.

Now that the leaders of Europe have lined up their equities alongside Obama, they impatiently wait for the United States to step up and show some aggressive leadership in the fight against this evil plague that continues to expand and continues to kill.  Sadly Monsieur Hollande, Frau Merkel, and Mr. Cameron will have to wait at least until late January 2017.  Unless ISIS conducts a major terrorist operation within the United States, the European nations, as they are doing with the refugee crisis, will have to formulate policy sans the U.S.A.  The Obama Administration's wilingness to wait until the bad guys strike us domestically before we recognize them (and all Islamic Extremists) as the enemy is a terrible mistake, and very well may prove costly.  For a month or so, it appeared that possibly Russia and Vladimir Putin might be willing to take the lead in the campaign to destroy this group, but we found out, not surprisingly, that all Putin wanted was to strengthen the bargaining position of Russia's Syrian puppet, Bashar al-Assad.  So the free world continues to look for a champion, someone who will rain destruction on these thugs.  As things stand, ISIS has no opposition to its expansion into Africa (through Boko Haram and al-Shabaab), Latin America and Southest Asia.  Militarily, ISIS appears to have no problem fighting the Iraqi Armed Forces to a stand-still (even with air support and ad hoc special forces ops for Iraq).  Now that the Russians have stepped things down in Syria, ISIS feels no real threat or pressure.  I fear that this summer may bring tragedy to many people; I pray everyday to be wrong.

Conservative factions in Ukraine increasing pressure on Poroshenko.

Link: Violence between right-wing protesters and police outside Kiev Parliament.

The announcement by Ukrainian officials of a ceasefire with separatists has resulted in angry demonstrations from conservative and right-wing protesters outside of Parliament in the capital city of Kiev.  The conservative political groups in Ukraine have traditionally been strong, and the crisis in the east of the country has only added to their influence.  Ukrainians living in the west of the country are particularly incensed with the lack of progress in combatting the separatists, and the shaky coalition that President Petro Poroshenko requires to stay in power is under great pressure.  Conservative Ukrainians were not satisfied with the provisions of the "Minsk II" agreement, which really never got off the ground, because the separatists began violating the agreement almost as soon as it was announced.  Some of the more controversial provisions of "Minsk II" never saw the light if day, until now, when they were repeated as part of the new ceasefire agreement, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, September 1.  The Ukrainian right-wing objects to the agreement for declaring a "special status" for the disputed areas, and also for introducing the idea of autonomy to the negotiations.  On the other hand, the government claims that the ceasefire agreement only calls for the decentralization of authority, designed to give more power to local government.  In reality, the demonstrations in Kiev were coming, sooner or later, as Conservative Ukrainians grow more dissatisfied everyday with the current situation in the east.  The number of Ukrainian troops in the east is almost matched by the number of volunteers, who have picked up weapons and transported themselves to the front line, "to fight for the freedom and integrity of Ukraine", as one protester explained.  Poroshenko and his EU puppet masters must understand that this outpouring of rejection is not only in response to this latest ceasefire agreement, but also a message that the people of Ukraine do not believe in any more treaties with the separatists.

Since the genesis of this crisis, every agreement with the Russian-backed separatists has been violated by the rebels.  Actually, the modus operandi of this movement mirrors typical fascist behavior.  Violate every agreement, but continue to sign them, as long as the enemy is stupid enough to continue negotiating under the pretense of "good faith".  While the separatists continually violate agreements, the Russians keep lying about the involvement of the Russian military and use of Russian equipment.  The obscene fact that even after the overwhelming amount of evidence, the Russian government and the separatists still refuse to admit that a Russian "Buk" missile destroyed Malaysian Airlines flight 17 (MH17), killing all 298 on board.  in July 2015, a draft resolution to set up an international tribunal into the MH17 air disaster was put before the United Nations Security Council.  Malaysia had requested a tribunal to take place, but the proposal was blocked by a Russian veto.  It was the only nation on the 15-member UN Security Council to oppose the request.  There can be only one reason why the Russian government would oppose an investigation by the world's leading experts on the subject: to hide its complicity.  We don't believe the Russians themselves fired at the airliner.  We are convinced that the basically untrained separatist volunteers who were manning the Buk missile launcher, mistook the airliner for a large Ukrainian Air Force cargo plane, a hypothesis which is supported by evidence, including recorded cell phone conversations from one separatist unit to another.

The citizens of Ukraine who are opposed to the current agreement stood by Poroshenko for some time.  He was a sympathetic figure, attempting to do his best to appease the European and U.S. governments, and also continuing to look strong in the face of Russian aggression first in Crimea, and then in Donbas.  Poroshenko was forced to walk a tricky tight rope.  From his perspective, Ukraine would be lost without the steadfast support of Europe and the United States; therefore, if France, Germany and the Obama Administration advised compromise, then Poroshenko would compromise.  Hollande, Merkel and Obama told Poroshenko that the Russians would eventually be obliged to back down, because the sanctions regime was going to cripple the Russian economy.  As we predicted last year on this blog, Putin never had any intention of backing down because of the sanctions.  He understood as we did; that the Russian people take particular offense at that type of punishment.  The Russians are made of tougher stuff than that.  They won't be made to compromise because a few items disappear off the shelves and everyone has to tighten their belt a bit.  So the sanctions have failed, and Poroshenko has authorized negotiators in Minsk to compromise with the separatists and Russians, as directed by the Europeans and Americans.  What was the result?  Two agreements that were violated by the separatists before the paint was dry.  In the last year, the separatists have expanded the territory under their control, to include the strategic town of Debaltseve.  There has been no offensive activity on the part of the Ukrainian Army, not really.

So its clear why most Ukrainians have lost faith in Poroshenko and why demonstrators were protesting in Kiev.  Its not just for this terrible agreement, but for the previous two which were violated, and for the failed sanctions regime, which was supposed to force Russia to compromise.  Putin is winning this chess game hands down, because Europe and the United States are too frightened to allow Ukraine to take any Russian pieces.  Earlier this year, we called for the United States to begin providing weapons to the Ukrainian Army, including F16s and Abrams tanks if necessary.  The Ukrainian people have no love-lost for the Russians, and they have already watched Putin steal the Crimea right from under their nose.  They are anxious to settle this issue on the battlefield, but the Obama Administration has hamstrung the Ukrainian Armed Forces by refusing to sell them weapons and equipment.  Why don't the Ukrainians just go to someone else to get weapons?  Because everyone else who is not in Russia's orbit, is following the lead of the United States.  Its a tremendously depressing situation.  Poroshenko would probably like to be more militarily aggressive, but to be so would probably cost him the support of France, Germany and the United States.  We expect the Ukrainian people to bring about another change in government, which may result in full deployment of the Ukrainian military to eastern Ukraine for the purpose of ending the illegal separatist movement.  But if the Russian military becomes directly involved, the Ukrainians will be hard-pressed to keep up, without an influx of new equipment and supplies.  The end of this drama will probably result in a new Ukraine, minus the industrial southwest.  And Putin will be man of the year in Sevastopol and Donetsk.

Ukraine and Russian- backed Donbas separatists are negotiating a complete ceasefire to begin on September 1.

Link: Cease fire in Ukraine planned for 1 September.

Here we go again.  For the third time in the past two years, France and Germany have assisted in the crafting of a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russian-backed Donbas separatists.  According to negotiators, the ceasefire is a blanket agreement in which both sides unilaterally agree to end the discharge of weapons in eastern Ukraine on September 1, 2015.  Up until the very minute of the announcement of the intended ceasefire, separatist forces had escalated attacks against Ukrainian troops, killing two soldiers less than ten miles outside of the strategic port city of Mariupol.  This attack comes one week after a separatist artillery barrage killed three civilians in a suburb of Mariupol.  On August 10, a separatist combined arms assault east of the Donetsk-Mariupol highway, in conjunction with an increase in separatist shelling of Ukrainian-held areas outside Mariupol, indicate that the Russian-backed separatists have set the table nicely for this most recent negotiated ceasefire.  You see, each time the negotiators reach the more difficult issues at hand, the separatists increase offensive activity, as a means of influencing the diplomatic proceedings.  By raising the level of military activity, the separatists are sending the clear message that they are nowhere near backing down, and it would be in Kiev's best interest to compromise.  You would think that after two ceasefires that were violated by the separatists almost immediately, that the Ukrainians and their European allies would be reticent to enter into another agreement.  But Poroshenko has absolutely no wiggle room.  Basically, he has to do what is told.  Without the support of France, Germany, and the United States, Poroshenko knows that Ukraine would be invaded by Russia in the blink of an eye.  The real question, which has been asked so many time over the past few decades and has never received an adequate explanation, is why the leaders of Europe are so intent on placating aggressive dictators who are fully intent on expansionist enterprises?

On September 1, the latest ceasefire (Minsk III?) will be implemented.  Because the provisions contained within are so favorable to the separatists, it is likely that we won't see a violation for some time.  You see, the new agreement calls for elections, and also mandates the establishment of a special self-management status for separatist-minded regions.  What is so fascinating is that until Russia started expressing real annoyance at Ukraine's insistence on being an independent nation, there was no "eastern Ukraine separatist movement".  For the past decade, Ukraine has tweaked Moscow's nose on a number of occasions, and the cozying up to NATO and the United States was probably the last straw (or was it the popular removal of a president who was acting as a Russian puppet?).  Putin didn't try and create a nationalist, pro-Russian movement in Crimea; he just gauged the complete lack of spine amongst the European leaders and the United States.  The annexation of Crimea was a marvelously orchestrated "fait d'accompli" on the part of Putin; but it did get the attention of the international community, so  justification had to be created for the biting off of eastern Ukraine.

I'm sure the OSCE will deploy observers whenever elections take place in the disputed regions, and no doubt the separatists will hound and harass them so that it is impossible to validate the electoral process.  Why will the separatists do this?  Because they can.  Even if the election observers were able to verify extensive electoral fraud, what would be the end result?  Nothing.  Probably within six months after the elections occur, the separatists will kick the military campaign back into gear, to swallow up the next piece of free Ukraine, which more than likely will include the city of Mariupol.  We will repeat the same process, with Merkel and Hollande pressuring Poroshenko to agree to more demands.  The only hope for a free and democratic Ukraine will be if the Ukrainian people rise up and remove Poroshenko, and replace him with someone who is willing to tell the west to go suck an egg.  Unfortunately, this will create the military environment that Putin is waiting for: an under-equipped Ukrainian military facing off against the Russian Armed Forces.  And the EU and the United States will stand back and say, "we tried to get the Ukrainians to negotiate, but they were determined to follow another course".   My prognostication is probably way off base, but it doesn't take Henry Kissinger to see that Putin has manipulated this crisis in a manner that guarantees some level of success.  God forbid that the European nations are ever faced with the decision to fight for their freedom, or become the slaves of a group like ISIS.  I fear for the decision that will be made.       

Update On Troubles In Ukraine

Link: Russian Army Tank Column Crosses Border Into Ukraine

Its been a while since we visited Ukraine.  Syria, Iraq and West Africa have been a bit distracting as of late.  In all honesty, I was beginning to hope that cooler heads had prevailed in Moscow.  Putin had the opportunity to "magnanimously" withdraw all Russian units from eastern Ukraine, and invite the Ukrainians (alone) to join him at the negotiating table.  You know and I know that Russia will not be returning Crimea to Ukraine, and Putin's influence and reputation have suffered because of this unilateral annexation.  So a peace offensive on the part of Putin would provide a way out for those Europeans who have been looking for a way to forgive Russia, and to do so without losing face. While theoretically this could begin with a sign of good faith in form of the departure of Russian military units from eastern Ukraine, it isn't going to happen.  We now have clear and dangerous indications that Russian armor is on the move in eastern Ukraine.  Friday's actions remind me of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and I fully expect to see a mobilization of sorts from the Russian Army (In the long run, Russia's less-than prepared Army and Airborne units invading Georgia resembled Mussolini's forces invading Greece in 1940).   Putin knows he doesn't need to play "peacemaker," and negotiate to keep Crimea.  He recognizes that Russia can tear off just as much of Ukraine as she pleases.  Merkel, Cameron and Hollande (is this little pipsqueak still around?) will go to lunch and toss a few more sanctions at Russia.  Putin is well aware that this is the only recourse for the European

Union.  Since I don't see much anti-Putin agitation in Moscow these days, we can assume that the sanctions haven't been much of a deterrent.

Last month, I hypothesized that Putin was really only interested in Crimea, because of its strategic location on the Black Sea.  I believe he stirred up the shit pot among the substantial Russian minority  in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk (why do I like saying "Dnipropetrovsk" so much?) in order to create a problem that only he could solve.  I assumed that Putin was planning to offer peace and the departure of Russian forces from eastern Ukraine, in exchange for an acknowledgement of Russia's Crimean annexation.  It's really simple, when you think about it.  If you want something that belongs to someone else, you take it, along with something else of value.  In order to return the second item of value, they must accept that you are keeping the first item.  If not, they risk losing both.  I believe that Putin's original intention was to maneuver his way into receiving European and Ukrainian acceptance of Russian Crimea.  For the life of me I couldn't find a reason why Putin would want eastern Ukraine.  Forgive the rudeness, but have you been to Donetsk? Its not Vienna or Paris, that's for sure.  Hell, its not even Des Moines.  But Putin did not need to find justification for invading eastern Ukraine.  All Putin needed to do was CONVINCE THE WEST that he had reason for invading eastern Ukraine (all those poor, abused ethnic Russians).  Then when the mercenary slugs hired by Putin in the Donetsk region accidentally shot down a civilian jet full of totally innocent folks, I imagine that Putin was obliged to review his escape strategy.  But, as it is with most things, if you wait awhile, people will forget.  I can't remember the last time I heard mention of the Malaysian Airlines jet that was shot down.

The truth is, Putin realizes that he doesn't have to order the departure of Russian forces from eastern Ukraine.  The typically weak line of diplomacy offered up by Obama, Merkel, Hollande and Kirk Cameron has allowed Putin to annex Crimea and absorb the Ukrainian Navy.  And to Putin's surprise, it looks like he gets to keep as much of the Ukraine as he chooses.  It's no longer about Crimea.  The presence of a column of what appears to be functioning (nothing is guaranteed) Russian armor tooling around in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine is a clear indication to me that Putin has decided to "up the ante".  It is in Putin's nature to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible, which includes the west being distracted by events on Syria, Iraq and Liberia.  These distractions, and Obama's continued mantra about "no ground troops" (which is an example to be followed by everyone....except France), have given Putin the opportunity to decide just how much of

A horse with two asses . . .

Ukraine to keep.  Interestingly enough, while Putin dances diplomatic circles around Obama and the Europeans, he has had plenty of time to send equipment, supplies and possibly air units to his buddy Bashir al-Assad in Damascus.  I'm guessing that Vlad is trying to get as much accomplished as possible before 2016, when its likely that the White House will be home to someone "with a pair".  I can just imagine what the map of Ukraine will look like in 2016.  Eastern Ukraine does have a number of lovely forested regions, perfect for a topless Putin to go on lots of horseback excursions.  I only ask, for the sake of decency, Vlad: either find a training bra or put your shirt back on.