From the Other Side of the Edge…..
Playing with the Big Kids….
By Joe Facinoli

Diplomacy, in its most basic form, is the art of getting what you want, …while at the same time, not making yourself, nor your country, look too Stupid.

To accomplish this, you sort of have to have some idea about what you’re doing, and perhaps a plan of some kind.

Some experience in this arena would also be helpful, and absent that, some deference to those who do, most often provides a better result.

Children, however, usually fail to understand these principles.

Especially those who are used to lying, and just making stuff up, to get their way.

These first lessons from real life, about how you can’t simply talk your way out of everything, nor just stand there and look puffed up and pretty, or use a bunch of cutesy “grass roots” phrases, are generally the hardest for kids to swallow.

They just don’t compute, within their own carefully constructed, and mostly imagined, world in which they live, and conduct their business.

So it is with our current President, and all of his fellow sandbox dwellers.

For example, there are finding out now, that this little Russian tike, from the other side of the neighborhood, doesn’t play like the rest of the kids.

If he wants something, or feels like doing something, he just does it.

And all their childish indignation, and pounding of chests, and standing on tippy toes, to make themselves seem “badder” and more believable, …just don’t matter to him.

And worse, …they simply don’t work.

If he wants to come into their yard, or a friend’s yard, and play with their toys, or take them, ….he just does it.

He doesn’t care that the other good little children are yelling at him, or calling him articulate names, with hands on hips, and ugly frowns on their faces, …if he wants to be there, for whatever reason he finds, …he just comes right in.

The harsh opinions of those other little whiners, make scant difference to him.

Especially if no one is big enough, strong enough, has guts enough, or can tell him compelling reason enough, …for not being there, or not doing whatever he wants.

Hell, he might even kiss your sister while he’s there, if no one’s going to stop him !!

Barack Obama, and John Kerry, and all the other ankle-biters presently at the switch in DC, are learning the hard way right now, that Vladimir Putin is not John Boehner, nor Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, nor Chris Christie.

Nor is he even like most of the Tea Partiers, or any others from the “loyal opposition” in this country, whom the group now in power has been able to push around, and intimidate so easily and so effectively.

None of those kids ever plays very hard, and usually give up at the first sign of trouble, or even the slightest bit of difficulty.

Not so with Vladdy, the bad boy from the dark side of town.

This young’un doesn’t know how to back up, nor give in, regardless of whether he’s right or wrong. And he doesn’t even know how to spell “intimidation”.

At least not when it’s some weak attempt, coming from other kids who hide behind things like “rules”, and desperate exhortations, like “…the teacher says you can’t”, or “I’m tellin’ Johnny’s mother on you!”.

No, no, …this young lad has to have a damn good reason, and has to know that he’s up against something that will cause him true harm, or be able to make him understand just how much he may have to lose if he continues his present path, for him to stop what he’s doing.

But so far, no threat, reason, nor anything that might give him a clear understanding that moving into someone else’s yard and setting up hearth and home, would not in his best, long term, interest.

And the other neighborhood kids are simply beside themselves.

They’ve told him, so many times, that what he’s doing is wrong, and that he just CAN’T be doing this. Why doesn’t he listen??!!

Why does he just stand there, with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face, saying: “Oh really? And why is that? Why is it that I can’t play here, and stay as long as I want to??”

He’s just waiting for one of them to throw a rock at him, or even use a cuss word, or, God forbid, even take a single threatening step in his direction.

Were anyone to do any of these things, he may not change his attitude, and maybe not even his behavior, but at least he might start to respect these other bratty kids, and might even negotiate with them, about how long he can stay in the offended yard, or what he can do while he’s there.

But he has a question of his own for them.

Since the yard he has chosen to play in, and the kids in that lot, all speak the same language as he does, and have the same customs, and habits, and culture, …and since everyone there seems to want him to stay, …well, …why shouldn’t he??

Whatever happened to “self-determination”, …he asks them, righteously.

And why should kids who play in yards so far away from this one, have any say in what this particular family, in this specific yard, chooses to do???

Yeah, yeah, …so he brought a lot of his tough friends with him, and they all have more weapons than the other kids could ever come up with, …but what business is it of these others, about what happens so far from their safe little homes??

If “Doing the Right Thing” is so important to the other kids in the world, and international law is going to remain the standard for which the behavior of nations is judged, …then somebody has to stand up and be the “Bad Cop” once in a while, when those laws are broken, and the “Right Things” are wronged.

But if doing “apology tours”, and making sure that all messaging and communications to other countries, world leaders, muchless any disagreeable groups, are all politically correct, and “never meant to offend” any of them, …if that is going to be the backbone of our foreign policy, …well, then we might as well as save our time and breath.

What was it, that “Indiana Jones” said, after he shot a sword wielding foe, with his trusty pistol? Ol’ Indy told a shocked onlooker, that “Sorry, …but he brought a knife to a gunfight!”.

That’s what needs to happen in the Crimea, and The Ukraine.

Putin only understands force. And really, only insurmountable, in his face, George Patton-like force.

Much to the chagrin of the modern day do-gooders, and the negotiate first, before they have any leverage, group of diplomats we have working for us today, most bad guys around the world still only understand that old gangland adage:

“They pull a knife on you, then you pull out a gun. They put one of yours in the hospital, then you put one of theirs in the morgue.”

I know, doesn’t play very well to modern sensitivities, and the moral righteousness of so many, who have forgotten, or never knew, how things work in the real, ugly world out there, ….but that’s just the way it is.

Check out some time, the official symbol/shield of the United States of America. You can find it on the back side of a dollar bill.

The American Eagle is holding two things in its talons:

1) 13 arrows, representing our strength, and readiness to defend our freedoms and liberty, and to help those who ask for our assistance. And…

2) An olive branch containing 13 leaves, with the implied meaning that we come in peace, and will negotiate with anyone, in all of our best interests.

Just don’t make us have to use those arrows.

Or at least, …that’s the way it used to be.



Joe Facinoli

--Joe can be reached at: joefacinoli@gmail.com
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©Copyright 2014, Joe Facinoli