Response to Putin in Ukraine: We shall batter you with pillows
The following writer says it very well:
Western reactions are trivial. Immediately, Washington and the European Union announced sanctions: freezing bank accounts and denying visas for a handful of senior Russian and Crimean leaders….. Battered by feathers and pounded by marshmellows, the afflicted Russians professed vast amusement. Who would have been stupid enough to leave funds in U.S.-European banks when, for example, the Cayman Islands are far more secure and discreet? And one can be sure they can vacation in Crimea should they desire to travel. Then more Russians were denied the opportunity to visit the West and some financial institutions were restricted. Bombarded with cream puffs. (Putin: The best way to stop him is to empower Ukraine)
It would be laughable that the Obama administration and Europe think their sanctions are a meaningful attempt to curb Putin’s appetite for empire, except that they really do seem to think it. In that case, the naivete is frightening.
Our Putin-Ukraine response
The jokes must be flying in Russia these days: “Cut off visas for Russian high officials to the U.S.? There goes my Hawaiian vacation. Oh well, we have Crimea, I’d rather vacation there and celebrate our great victory. Who wants mai tais over martinis anyway?”
Well, I for one, prefer a mai tai to a vodka martini and prefer a Hawaiian vacation, but, then, I’m not Russian, and I understand coconuts grow in Crimea, too. As an American, I’m proud to see that we shall stand strong against the Russian overthrow of the Ukraine and other parts of Europe by seizing their vacation privileges. We are bold and mighty! We have frozen their non-existent bank accounts. We have paralyzed them with perplexity.
Russia now waits along the eastern border of Ukraine with 40,000 troops to entice people of Russian decent in Ukraine’s east to rebel. Then Ukraine’s response to quell the rebels will provide the ostensible reason Russia needs to invade “in order to protect Russian-speaking people from Ukrainian hostility and to bring order to a region along the border where Russia cannot risk political instability.” You can almost read the script in advance; yet our politicians are completely oblivious to it, waiting for Russia to remove troops that it has no intention of removing. The troops are “body language” that says to Russian people in the Ukraine, “We’re ready to back you up if you rebel. We are ready to do what we did in Crimea.” They say it without need of words that one would have to be accountable for.
The response of Obama and the rest of the Europe is, “If you take more parts of Ukraine, we’ll pound you with penalties.” One has to wonder how much more painful  U.S. sanctions will become if the Putin-Ukraine conflict intensifies. What cost shall be sufficient to give Russia territorial pause? Will we deprive all Russians of American movies for a year? Will we put a tariff on vodka imports? Stop allowing Yugos to compete against American automobiles here in the homeland? Maybe the U.S. and Europe will unite as a voting bloc on the Olympic Committee and tell Putin he can never host another Olympic game. Perhaps we shall ban the import of those nifty Russian nesting dolls — you know, the little red wooden guys that stack inside of each other.
We shall pummel them with pillows and smite them with plastic swords. And when they lie laughing themselves to death on the ground, we shall demand, again, that they seize no more land — that they do not advance to Poland or Moldova. Because, if they do that, then we shall get really, really mad. Maybe even so mad that we shall ban ALL Russians from visiting Hawaii … for a whole year!
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