President Obama Tightens the Screws on Russia With New Sanctions (Video)
It has been 12 days since the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over east Ukraine, and Tuesday, previous rumblings that the airborne incident would lead to further strain between the U.S. and Russia came to fruition.
CNN screen shot
CNN screen shot
It has been 12 days since the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over east Ukraine, and Tuesday, previous rumblings that the airborne incident would lead to further strain between the U.S. and Russia came to fruition.
In a White House appearance that afternoon, President Obama announced new sanctions against Russia, warned that “the cost on Russia will continue to grow” and accused the Kremlin of thwarting investigations into the MH17 crash while emphasizing that the U.S. and its European Union allies favor diplomatic efforts to defuse the Ukrainian crisis (via ABC News):
Obama said he has been coordinating closely with European allies to ensure a unified response. Earlier today, the European Union agreed to a new package of sanctions on Russia — for the first time imposing “sectoral” sanctions on Russia’s finance and energy industries, as well as banning arms exports to Russia.
Obama, in his remarks this afternoon, called them the “most significant and wide-ranging sanctions to date.”
Obama’s speech closely followed a similarly hard-hitting announcement from the European Union earlier in the day, as The Washington Post reported. However, the president denied that a Cold War II is upon us, despite appearances to the contrary. “No, it’s not a new Cold War,” he said, managing down the anxieties of his audience. “What it is is a very specific issue related to Russian unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine can chart its own path.”
Watch Obama throw down the gauntlet in the video below (from CNN):
–Posted by Kasia Anderson
Rock Solid JournalismIn 2026, amid chaos and the nonstop flurry of headlines, Truthdig remains independent, fact-based and focused on exposing what power tries to hide.
Support Independent Journalism.
The most recent manifestation of the urge to engage in an “arms race” will no doubt create more insecurity in an already unstable world.
A deep-seated denial about the colonial ideology undergirding gun rights in the U.S. has hampered the left's approach to arms control.
Since at least 2001, the Saudis and Israelis have successfully reframed American policy in the Greater Middle East, and the results have been disastrous.
The president's arms sales are meant to promote pork-barrel politics, while pumping up the profits of U.S. weapons manufacturers. As for human rights or human lives, who cares?