[Olefin]

I dont agree with appeasing Russia for one big reason - its never worked in the past. With anyone. In fact appeasement has usually led to wars breaking out because of mis-calculations that the other side was too weak and that they wouldnt reply this time because they didnt all the other times.

Remember Hilter kicked off Big Mistake Number Two for the Germans on the assumption that he had gotten away with it by remilitarizing the Rhineland and the Saar, built submarines and battleships in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, taken over Czechoslovakia and Austria - so why should anyone mind if he settles accounts with Poland?

Tens of millions of dead later it was pretty apparent that if people had stood up to him earlier he would have backed down big time.

And Russia has nuclear weapons - but frankly I dont think even Putin is stupid enough to actually do something that he knows will end with his homeland a radioactive wasteland in the cause of defending the right of his boyos to shoot down unarmed airliners.

In the end if you let countries act like barbarians then you get barbaric acts and lots of of them.

And economic sanctions may work in the end - but it hasnt worked against North Korea or Iran or Cuba - and I dont see the Europeans hanging tough for years, especially if the Russians decide that their natural gas and oil can better be sold to other people.

And no one wants to start a war with Russia - but frankly Teddy Roosevelt was right - talk softly but have that big stick when you need it. Economics may in the end prove to be that big stick. And in the end that did bring down the Soviet Union. We just had to stick it out for 45 years to do that to them. But we also showed them the whole time that we were ready to back up economic power with military power as well.

And its time we grew a set and actually had the guts to stand up to Putin because frankly if the British and French had done that in 1936 or 1938 we may not have had Europe look like a moonscape by 1945.

Or are we saying that any country that has atomic weapons can act like barbarians and we will let them get away with it?