IHT Poses the Rhetorical Question of the Day

"Can NATO Take A Tough Line When Putin Shows Up at its Summit?" No....of course not. NATO can't even get their act together to protect Afghanistan where the Taliban is even going to the great lengths of threatening cell phone carriers as the US is picking them off one by one when they ask, "where you at?" though they are most definitely not using Boost Mobile. NATO is becoming increasingly knock-kneed, which is truly a shame. Consider this passage from the article regarding Putin:

On Feb. 12, the same day he accepted NATO's invitation, Putin warned
Ukraine that it could become a target of Russia's nuclear missiles if
it joined the alliance. Last Friday, his official onlooker at NATO
headquarters in Brussels, Dmitri Rogozin, struck the same compliant
note.

If NATO "breaches its mandate" in Kosovo, Rogozin said, or if the
European Union reaches a unified position on the issue - subtext: don't
you dare - then, "We too would have to proceed from the view that in
order to be respected we must use brute force, in other words, armed
force."

Russia is stepping up it's rhetoric in a major way and threatening to point it's nuclear arsenal towards Eastern Europe should be a major cause of concern. I'm really not holding my breath for NATO go strongly criticize these words though. However, you can imagine what would be the reaction of our media and the hard left had Bush uttered a threat to point offensive nuclear weapons towards, North Korea, let's say. Outrage. Where's the left on this one? They hate armed conflict and protest President Bush at every opportunity but where's the outrage with Putin? Hmmmm....

Off in the horizon, you can practically see the dark clouds gathering. Russia has been increasingly hostile in its relations with a number of nations who are engaging in treaties with NATO and Western Powers. They are refusing to let go of the mentality of the East v. West even after the Iron Curtain was torn asunder and the Soviet Union fell. It would appear that in Putin's mind the consolidation of power and squashing of dissent is his best way forward, and that, my friends, is most definitely not good news for the world.

-Caomhin