Grenada, the Crimea, and the GOP

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. It's always so much more complex than good guys and bad guys.

I suspect that Putin for example is a clever fox who is willing to be a brutal dictator when he thinks its important enough if he also thinks he can get away with it. He did rise up through the ranks of the KGB after all. No doubt he feels it is his historic calling to restore Russia to greatness while protecting its national interests. The beliefs driving that are no different than what most U.S. nationalists feel, including many if not most of those that we the American people elect to national offices.

Was it a coup or an uprising or a revolution that happened in Kiev? Probably a mix of all of that. There were neo-nazi's and grassroots anti corruption activists and liberal democrats and agent provocateurs and god knows who else playing a role in all of it. Clearly the U.S. had an active presence which in itself is not surprising. The Ukraine has swung back and forth between governments that tilt to the West or East. Objectively one could say the U.S. has some stake there but obviously Russia has a much bigger stake in what happens in its own back yard.

Step way back away from all of it and clearly there is unrest on Russia's borders even if nothing else is certain. That makes most nations nervous, why would Russia be any different? The bottom line with war is that good guys and bad guys all get killed indiscriminately during them.