Skewering Passive President for Using Words Instead of Acting

Letters to the EditorLetters

By Robert Zirgulis

Right after President Obama gave his “tough speech” in support of Estonia and the other Baltic States of Lithuania and Latvia, guess what Vladimir Putin did?

An Estonian border guard was abducted from Estonia by Russian soldiers, taken into Russia and accused of being a spy.

This is how Putin replies to Mr. Obama's “tough talk”.  He knows that Mr. Obama is big talk and no action. 

I had to find this out by talking to my son in Lithuania where it has been reported in the local news.

Now everyone believes that Mr. Obama is just a gasbag, saying words, not backing them up.  The people in the Baltics are disgusted with Mr. Obama's empty rhetoric.

Oh, no, you won't hear about it from the mainstream media in our country. I have become disheartened how the mainstream media has been covering for Mr. Obama's incompetency in foreign affairs. They ignore the fact that Putin is rubbing it in Mr. Obama's face by violating Estonian sovereign territory, audaciously abducting an Estonian border guard right after his speech.

Mr. Obama has no strategy for dealing with the terrorists or Putin.  I am so sorry I voted for Mr. Obama.  Hillary would have been a better choice.

Later I  looked up the abduction incident on Google:

MOSCOW — A strange incident near the Russian-Estonian border on Friday ended with an Estonian intelligence officer in Russian custody and the two countries trading sharply contradictory allegations about what happened.

Estonia’s president and prime minister, among other officials, said the officer had been kidnapped at gunpoint from their territory and forced across the border in a blatant violation of sovereignty. The Russian Federal Security Service said the officer was in Russia and engaged in a clandestine operation when he was detained.

The episode threatened to heighten tensions between Russia and the NATO alliance, to which Estonia belongs, at a time when relations are already severely strained over the conflict in Ukraine. It came just two days after President Obama gave a speech in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, pledging that NATO would defend the Baltics against Russian aggression and suggesting that any attack on them would lead to war with the West.


Mr. Zirgulis may be contacted at zirgulisr@yahoo.com