Wow...

Guys... I'm shocked!

Yes, Ryan, your info is correct... but not very succinct. And Jambo, I'm disappointed in you!

All territories occupied by Allied forces after the surrender of Germany and Japan were required to be either returned to the control of their original nation-states or to determine their own democratically established national identity by multiple treaties and agreements made by (initially) the US-UK-USSR. This has been established US policy since the end of the Spanish American War and the US allowing the Philippines to become an independent state. In other words, we do not fight wars to acquire territories abroad... ever.

This is the sort of established foreign policy that I feel benefits the US by giving us a position of strength when going to the table (figuratively speaking) with another belligerent state (Saddam's Iraq, for example... or Noriega's Panama). No one can accuse us of conquests or acquisitions of territory through military means since Cuba was Spanish-owned.

This leads me to point out what I expected one of you to mention over the last three days...

Surely you have all heard the news that our Secretary of State Clinton flew all the way to Moscow to negotiate a series of sanctions that both Russia and the US could implement-support to pressure Iran to abandone its nuclear develpoment agenda. By now, you have surely heard that, upon Clinton's return to the US, Russia announced that NO sanctions would be supported by the Kremlin because they would be "counter productive".

Counter productive to whom? The Iranians? The US? No, my friends... counter productive to the Russians, who profit every single time the Iranian problem sends ripples through the global oil market as the second largest producer and exporter of crude oil and natural gas on the planet. They are bargaining from a position of strength... exactly as we have predicted they wanted to for more then four years now.

Why have the Russians been able to bargain from a position of strength with the US in a compromised position? Because our new White House Administration has determined that our promise to support a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic was "counter productive" to its stated goals of frank and open diplomacy.

Our "frank and open diplomacy" really got us some fine results with the Kremlin, didn't it?

Welcome to the Age of Appeasement...