Obama vs. the Russian bear

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Obama vs. the Russian bear



September 8, 2008 - 6:00PM
By JAMES STERLING NEWSOM
FOR THE PORTERVILLE RECORDER

Whoever the next president will be, it is a job that I don’t envy. The U.S. projects weakness and our military is spread in small numbers all over the globe. Our economy is in crisis because our nation has never been $8 trillion in debt until now.

Russia invaded Georgia last month and stole the oil and gas pipelines from that nation. Each week the oil and gas from Iran, Iraq and Turkey will now give Russia $800 million. President Bush as usual was caught by surprise and is mumbling about how he is going to send in Rambo, but the Russian army is shockingly powerful.

At this moment, the Russians reportedly have 23,000 main battle tanks that they can throw into combat. Our army has 800 in Europe, 1,500 in a depot in Saudi Arabia, 400 in Iraq and another 300 scattered around the world.
The Russian air force is larger than the U.S. Air Force and their Sukoi SU-35 Flanker is superior to our F-15 Eagle.

China has an air force that is larger than that of Russia.

Russian airborne forces can deliver more than 100,000 soldiers anywhere in Europe or the Middle East within 24 hours. The U.S. and the 101st Airborne used to be able to send 12,000 troops anywhere in the world within 24 hours, but no more. Why? Because we have sent them to Iraq on three, 18-month tours. President Bush has taken our elite shock troops and turned them into policemen for Baghdad.

Some suggest that within eight months, Russia has plans to hit the Ukraine. Will Sen. Barack Obama be able to stop them? It is easy to talk about peace and love, but to stop 5,000 Russian tanks you need firepower and the will to use it. So far President Bush and Sen. Obama have demonstrated that they are naive fools who talk tough but have no real backbone or military forces to stop the Russian military.



When Sen. Obama takes office and meets with the prime minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, he will find a man sitting across from him who has stolen $40 billion from his own people, a man who has ordered the deaths of hundreds of Russian activists who only wanted democracy and peace for their nation, a leader who fooled President Bush for eight years on the world stage.



Oprah will not be there to promise a new car for every Russian family, or to hold his hand when Prime Minister Putin demands half of Europe to be returned to Russian control.

Presidents Dwight David Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy all knew that they would have to fight to save Europe, that if we had to we would wage nuclear war. Will Sen. Obama and his peace train and “love for everyone” be able to keep a straight face when Prime Minister Putin demands the Ukraine back?

However, all of this is not the real threat to the American people. The real threat is reckless and wasteful spending of our Congress. Proof of this is seen by walking out into your beautiful backyard on a summer night. Do we have a base on the moon that can support 22,000 people? Do we have affordable health care? Why are the American people giving 40 percent of their incomes to a fat, corrupt, bloated Congress whose members regard the American people as moronic sheep fit to be sheared?

The greatest threat to America is not from the Russians, or from some terrorist living in a cave in Pakistan, but from our own Congress which has never learned to balance a budget, spend wisely and account for every tax dollar it spends.

-- James Sterling Newsom is a resident of Porterville

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Sizing-up Obama in Russia

The First Encounter
by Eric Shiraev

December 19, 2008

Pages: 1 2 3 Next



Russians were asked to select a person that they would want to see as a future president of Russia. The selection was wide: Ekaterina, Peter, Stalin, Gorbachev, and Putin. Photo courtesy Lylka/flickr.com

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Dr. Shiraev is a politcal psychologist located at George Mason University. He has authored and edited ten books, including several on Russia's transitions after the Cold War. His new textbook on Russian politics is coming out in 2009.

Prominent Duma Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Huey Long of Russian politics, albeit more flamboyant, declared at a political rally back in November 2008 that Barack Obama would become America’s Gorbachev. The outspoken leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party shouted that Obama would bring perestroika to America. This promise may have sounded pleasing to some enthusiastic supporters of Obama in the West.

Gorbachev, to the West, has always been considered a person of great courage and vision who believed in change and one day dared to tear down the Berlin Wall. But Zhirinovsky's comment was not intended for the West -- and his Russian audience had a very different image of Gorbachev in mind. Perestroika in the 1980s has been a catastrophic event, as many Russians perceived it both twenty years ago and today. Many people believe that the Soviet Union had committed suicide orchestrated by its own leader, who himself was merely a grand demagogue who promised change at the beginning but had no real plan of action. To Russians, promising “perestroika” in the United States today is to promise it to be stricken by a deadly plague. Zhirinovsky did not say this, but he certainly meant it. The crowd cheered. The blogs quoted him relentlessly.

Why did he express such sarcastic negativism against Obama and America? Some may quickly say that Zhirinovsky does not speak on behalf of the Russian people, that he has always been known for his big mouth and, to put it politely, irresponsible statements. This is, of course, true. Zhirinovsky is not the most prominent and respected politician in today’s Russia. Yet, he reflects opinions of millions of people who would gladly accept America’s quick decline and demise. All these people are not merely hard-core militarists or nationalists. They represent all demographic and social groups of today’s Russia. Their irritation toward America has been brewing for many years. Three factors contributed to this passive-aggressive stance. First, it was frustration rooted in the failed experimentations with wild forms of capitalism and deregulation of the 1990s. There is a popular view in Russia today that Washington deliberately provoked Russia to accept American-type capitalism to deliver the final blow to its economy and weaken the country for good. Second, numerous foreign-policy actions of three consecutive US administrations over 20 years were perceived in Russia as arrogant and incompetent. These actions included—among many others—the NATO expansion, the US-led war against Serbia, and support of pro-Western forces in Ukraine, Georgia, and other ex-Soviet countries. Third, and most importantly, it was the rise of Russian state chauvinism. At first surreptitious and then open and overwhelming, state chauvinism is a blend of official policies and favorable social climate rooted in nationalism and a sense of exceptionalism. This is not a kind of anti-Americanism common, for example, in the Middle East. Being positively correlated with the price of oil, this new Russian state chauvinism is not belligerent. It is a form of grandstanding. Russian leaders would never admit this, but in fact, the Kremlin would love to do everything that Washington does globally. Limited interventionism is Russia’s foreign-policy dream. The problem is that Russia does not have enough power to do that. And this is most frustrating. Overall, these and several other factors have been contributing to the overall negative perception of the United States and its policies.

It would be an exaggeration to say, however, that Russians are preoccupied with the United States and pay undivided attention to its new president. In fact, they are not. Russian politicians, like Zhirinovsky and scores of others, commonly use criticism of US presidents and US policies as a rhetorical device to address Russia’s own domestic and foreign-policy issues and receive approval. The difference among these politicians is in the audiences they appeal to and the coded language they use, which requires additional translation and interpretation.

It’s up to you, Mr. Obama

Reactions of top Russian officials to Obama’s victory in November 2008 were generally predictable. Three major recurrent themes have characterized these reactions. First, the US elections were an important event but obviously not the most significant one. President Medvedev, for instance, released his official address to the nation on time, so that his picture would appear in papers above the reports about the US election results. Second, Russia should be cautiously optimistic about whether Washington is going to change its foreign policy. Third, it is too soon to judge about the future of Russian-US relations. Everything will depend on how Washington (and not the Kremlin) will behave in forthcoming months.
President Medvedev called Obama immediately following the election. Russian press, of course, noticed that the US president-elect failed to call the Kremlin, though he spoke with several other world leaders. Medvedev told his counterpart that at the time when the world is confronting serious problems of global significance, “which require a common effort of all states,” the Russian Federation and the United States “have common tasks and a common responsibility.” If we cut through the diplomatic layer, we find Medvedev actually meant two very specific things. First, not only has the United States failed to lead the world, but it pushed the world into a global crisis. Second, the only way out of the crisis is to let Russia play its global role the way it sees it. To send a signal, almost immediately on November 5, the Kremlin announced the deployment of missiles to the Kaliningrad region close to the Polish border as a response to the proposed US anti-missile radar system in Central Europe.

A few weeks later, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, speaking in the traditional, televised open-line public forum, again assigned the responsibility for the global financial crisis to Washington. He commented on the US elections carefully and diplomatically, underlying that the elections were somewhat important for Russia and now Obama’s could prove he is a nice guy. Putin said, “usually when there is power transition in any country, especially in the superpower such as USA, some changes take place. We are very much counting that there will be positive changes.” He continued and discussed Obama’s promise of change: “If these are not just words, but [they] would emerge as actual policies, then our reaction will be adequate and our [US] colleagues would feel that.” Then he mentioned some “experts” close to the new US president who had hinted about some possible changes in ongoing US foreign policies. In short, Putin’s message was “no” to NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine and “no” to the proposed anti-missile system in Europe.

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Monday, January 19, 2009
Russia strategy needed

In rebuilding the trans-Atlantic alliance President Barack Obama will need to confront Moscow's ambitions to divide Europe into permanent "spheres of influence." Facing a belligerent Russia and a fractured European Union, Mr. Obama must combine practical engagement with the Kremlin on issues of mutual concern, such as anti-proliferation and counterterrorism, with a strategic assertiveness that strengthens the Atlantic community.

Mr. Obama's election has been perceived by the Kremlin as an opportunity to undermine America's global reach. In his "state of the union" address after Mr. Obama's election, President Dmitry Medvedev asserted Russia's global interests, threatened to position nuclear weapons along Poland's borders, and accused Washington of provoking conflicts in the Caucasus. In effect, Mr. Medvedev challenged Mr. Obama to make strategic compromises by withdrawing from the planned Missile Defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and acquiescing to Moscow's goal to establish more clearly demarcated "spheres of influence" in Eastern Europe.

Behind the Kremlin's rhetoric lurks a fear that the Obama administration may be a potentially grave threat to Russia's objectives to rebuild its superpower status and diminish U.S. leadership. The new president's evident popularity could raise America's global stature, reduce anti-Americanism, increase criticisms of Kremlin authoritarianism, and provide impetus for a renewed Western strategy that could undercut Russia's expansive ambitions.

Since Russia's de facto partition of Georgia last August, two broad strategic approaches toward Moscow have been germinating in the European Union - the passive and the active. The passive "spheres of influence" position accommodates Moscow's goals to delineate Western and Russian zones of predominant influence within Europe, while the active "Wider Europe" approach seeks an expanded Euro-Atlantic community. Moscow is anxious that President Obama may embrace the activist position.

Acceptance of geopolitical divisions with Russia may not be explicit in any European Union capital. However, it is evident in calls to forestall further NATO and EU enlargement and the general acceptance of Russia's claims that its national interests are more important than those of its immediate neighbors, including staunch U.S. allies such as Poland and the three Baltic States.

Such neo-appeasement by Western powers will have far-reaching implications for the security orientations and foreign policies of countries in either sphere. It would signal a Yalta-like acceptance of Russia's aggrandizement by assigning the post-Soviet states - including Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Belarus - to Moscow's indefinite suzerainty while undermining the security of NATO's eastern flank.

In marked contrast, the Wider Europe position dismisses Russia's zero-sum calculations with respect to Continental security. It recognizes the sovereign decisions of all states to accede to multinational institutions such as NATO and the EU that do not threaten the security of any neighboring power. Although the "wider Europeanists" do not seek confrontation with Moscow, they are willing to challenge Russia's empire-building objectives.

There is urgency in Central Europe to devise effective forms of protection against Russia's advances. Doubts about the practical validity of NATO's Article Five security guarantees have escalated in recent months given the accommodationist approach toward Russia exhibited by several older Alliance members such as Germany and France.

The apprehensions and aspirations of America's newest European allies as well as those states that seek NATO and EU membership will require a concerted and activist U.S. and Allied approach. Europe's new democracies need to have their security ensured through concrete NATO defense plans combined with military modernization and the procurement of effective weaponry.

Russia remains a serious threat to its weaker neighbors, irrespective of its structural and fiscal weaknesses and overdependence on hydrocarbon revenues. Moscow continues to engage in a policy of subversion and destabilization across the former Soviet empire especially through its control of vital energy resources. The current dispute with Ukraine over energy prices and the cutoff in Russia's gas supplies contributes to weakening the Ukrainian state and limits Kiev's advances toward Western institutions.

Russia's internal problems during the deepening global recession could actually magnify its external threat. Moscow traditionally manipulates the sense of besiegement to mobilize the populace and applies pressures on neighbors to deflect attention from domestic unrest. The financial crisis is precipitating even tighter state control over the economy and further concentrating power in the Kremlin, which may engineer crises in neighboring states to raise Russia's stature.

As a result, President Obama will face two stiff challenges - rebuilding the Atlantic alliance and dealing with a neo-imperialist Russia. Above all, Washington must reject any moves toward redividing Europe into Cold War zones or sacrificing the security of any European state. This can be accomplished by intensifying links with all of Europe's new democracies and offering NATO aspirants a clearer road map toward inclusion.

If handled adroitly by a united West, Moscow's internal problems and its inability to construct a durable sphere of dominance will provide an important boost for the reanimation of democratic and pro-Western developments along Russia's long borders.

Janusz Bugajski is director of the New European Democracies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His newly published book is titled "Expanding Eurasia: Russia's European Ambitions" (CSIS Press).

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Obama’s Shameful Surrender to Russia’s Putin

By Cathryn Friar

Ronald Reagan understood that evil in the world exists. He also understood the benefits of a strong missile defense to combat that evil. Barack Obama, apparently, not so much.

Russa’s Vladimir Putin

Move over France - there’s a new surrender monkey on the block! Barack Obama has completely canceled plans for the U.S. to base an anti-missile defense system in Europe. The $4.5 billion program, which was endorsed by NATO allies - over opposition by their citizens and the loud cold-war whining from Russia - was to place 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. While we completely betray our allies who stood by us in the GWOT when others would not, the ones to benefit the most from Obama’s shameful surrender to Russia’s Putin is Iran.

You probably remember when Russian officials loudly complained to the Bush administration that the proposed missile defense shield threatened Russia’s security. The U.S. officials assured the ever-increasingly-paranoid Putin administration that the missile shield was to be aimed at Iran, with the intention of protecting Europe.

Now, we will instead deploy what The One says is “a better, cheaper plan” to defend Europe and the United States against the evolving missile threats from Iran. Of course, after 9 months of Barack Obama’s incompetent presidency, we painfully know what it means when he says something will be “better and cheaper”.

This change in policy is apparently predicated on supposed new intelligence estimates that confirm the threat of long-range Iranian missiles was not as bad as once feared during Bush’s two terms. Obama says the more pressing need now is protection from Iran’s medium and short-range missiles. I suppose that our Appeaser-in-Chief is hoping he will get Russian cooperation on everything from nuclear weapons cuts to efforts to curb Iranian and North Korean nuclear ambitions. Rots of Ruck with that! Putin has proven himself to be totally unreliable and unhelpful. We also know Obama’s record isn’t super reliable either.

This is all so curious to me and seems to be a huge turnaround in our thinking about national security and the protection of our allies. At the very least it is a huge propaganda victory for the ever creepy Vladimir Putin. Or, it can represent a significant weakening in our ability to fight back and defend ourselves from Iran’s ballistic missile program.

How does this relate to our alliance with NATO or our long-term commitment to defend Europe? And what about all those former Soviet satellites who just a few years ago, reminded us all about the cost of freedom and liberty? To this day, they are bullied by Russia.
I only hope that Obama’s shameful surrender to Russia’s Putin is a decision that we will not regret in regards to both the unhinged Iran and the now unprotected eastern Europeans. You can see photos and watch a couple of great videos below.

Photos: www.wenn.com

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Putin punks America

By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday praised the U.S. decision to back down on building a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

And that automatically makes the decision a highly questionable one.
Putin's support for Obama's action -- which liberal groups are hailing -- ignores a salient point: Putin is a despotic leader, the kind that America should not want to get in bed with.

Check out Putin's challenging words Friday.

He was already telling Obama that the president will have to do even more to win over renewed cooperation from Russia on other matters, such as trying to make Iran back down from its nuclear weapons research projects.

"I very much hope that this correct and brave decision will be followed by others," Putin said.

Sorry, Putin said, he didn't have any of his own country's concessions to offer as a way to thank Obama for backing down on missile defense.
Score this a big victory for Putin and Russia.

Whether it's a huge loss for America -- and Eastern European countries that depend on U.S. protection from an overbearing Russia -- time will tell.

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Putin expects U.S. to back WTO bid, lift technology transfer ban



Alexey Nikolskiy | Buy this image

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15:4018/09/2009
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SOCHI, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's prime minister said on Friday he expects the United States to back a joint bid by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to join the WTO after its "brave" decision to scrap missile defense plans for Europe.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Thursday it was dropping plans to deploy elements of a missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland as Iran is perceived a lesser threat.

Moscow, which fiercely opposed the plans as a security threat, welcomed the move as part of efforts to "reset" ties strained by a host of issues under the Bush administration.

"I expect that this correct and brave decision will be followed by others, including the complete removal of all restrictions of high technology transfers to Russia and more active efforts to enlarge the World Trade Organization to include Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus," Vladimir Putin said at an investment forum in the Black Sea city of Sochi.

Russia has for years been trying to have the United States lift Cold War-era restrictions on technology exports to the Soviet Union and other Communist-bloc countries. The restrictions have been a major irritant in relations with the United States.

Russia is also the world's only major economy still outside the WTO. President Dmitry Medvedev earlier blamed Washington for blocking its accession in the trade body.

Ex-Soviet allies Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed in early June to form a customs bloc and seek joint accession to the WTO.

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Obama guilty of naivety, says former Israeli diplomat

Dan Gillerman says US president's recent actions reveal his 'inexperience in foreign policy'

• Jonathan Freedland
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 September 2009 16.10 BST
• Article history

Barack Obama was 'naive' to think his speech in Cairo will change the world, Gillerman said. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

One of Israel's most senior former diplomats has launched a scathing attack on Barack Obama, accusing the US president of "naivety and inexperience in foreign policy" and ranking him alongside those guilty of an "appeasement" mentality.

Dan Gillerman, who until last year served as Israel's ambassador at the UN, said he hoped international leaders would wake up to reality, especially "the president of the United States by whose naivety and inexperience in foreign policy, I am sometimes worried.

"Because thinking that going to Cairo and delivering a speech will change the Arab world is naive. Thinking that you can talk the Iranians into giving up their nuclear aspirations when you have a president who denies the Holocaust while preparing the next one and threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is naivety.

"Thinking you can praise Medvedev and put down Putin before you go to Moscow in today's world is naivety. And thinking that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the conflict and that solving it will make all other problems – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran – go away is naivety."

Later Gillerman said he hoped recent events would "awaken not only Barack Obama, [but also] some European leaders who have forgotten what happened over 60 years ago when appeasement was the name of the game."

Gillerman made the remarks in a speech to Jewish community leaders in London earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, will tomorrow meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for the third time this week in the hope of reaching an agreement on curtailing Israeli settlement construction.

Netanyahu has so far offered only a temporary stop to settlement building in West Bank, although he has refused to sanction a block on construction in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders have demanded a total freeze on construction as a prerequiste to re-entering peace talks with the Israelis.

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September 19, 2009, 7:00 a.m.
The Long Retreat
Our security will now depend on the kindness of strangers.

By Mark Steyn

Was it only April? There was President Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic-missile capability, and saluting America’s plucky allies: “The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles,” he declared. “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile-defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”

On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile-defense plans for Eastern Europe. The “courageous” Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the “threat from Iran” go away? Not so’s you’d notice. The dawn of the nuclear ayatollahs is perhaps only months away, and, just in case the Zionists or (please, no tittering) the formerly Great Satan is minded to take ’em out, Tehran will shortly be taking delivery of a bunch of S-300 anti-aircraft batteries from (ta-da!) Russia. Fancy that.

Joe Klein, the geostrategic thinker of Time magazine, concluded his analysis thus:

This is just speculation on my part. But I do hope that this anti-missile move has a Russian concession attached to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the US agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama Administration's diplomatic strategy is, I believe, wise and comprehensive—but it needs to show more than public concessions over time. A few diplomatic victories wouldn't hurt.

Golly. We know, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein, and many others, that we critics of President Obama’s health-care policy are by definition racist. Has criticism of Obama’s foreign policy also been deemed racist? Because one can certainly detect the first faint seeds of doubt germinating in dear old Joe’s soon-to-be-racist breast: The Obama administration “needs to show more than public concessions over time” — because otherwise the entire planet may get the vague impression that that’s all there is.

Especially if your preemptive capitulations are as felicitously timed as the missile-defense announcement, stiffing the Poles on the 70th anniversary of their invasion by the Red Army. As for the Czechs, well, dust off your Neville Chamberlain’s Greatest Hits LP: Like he said, they’re a faraway country of which we know little. So who cares? Everything old is new again.

It is interesting to contrast the administration’s “wise” diplomacy abroad with its willingness to go nuclear at home. If you go to a town-hall meeting and express misgivings about the effectiveness of the stimulus, you’re a “racist” “angry” “Nazi” “evilmonger” “right-wing domestic terrorist.” It’s perhaps no surprise that that doesn’t leave a lot left over in the rhetorical arsenal for Putin, Chávez, and Ahmadinejad. But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans “negotiate” with Iran over its nukes for years, and in the end Iran gets the nukes and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. “This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat, or rather the lack of one,” said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma’s international-affairs committee. “Finally the Americans have agreed with us.”

There’ll be a lot more of that in the years ahead.


There is no discreetly arranged “Russian concession.” Moscow has concluded that a nuclear Iran is in its national interest — especially if the remorseless nuclearization process itself is seen as a testament to Western weakness. Even if the Israelis are driven to bomb the thing to smithereens circa next spring, that too would only emphasize, by implicit comparison, American and European pusillanimity. Any private relief felt in the chancelleries of London and Paris would inevitably license a huge amount of public tut-tutting by this or that foreign minister about the Zionist Entity’s regrettable “disproportion.” The U.S. Defense Secretary is already on record as opposing an Israeli strike. If it happens, every thug state around the globe will understand the subtext — that, aside from a tiny strip of land on the east bank of the Jordan, every other advanced society on earth is content to depend for its security on the kindness of strangers.

Some of them very strange. Kim Jong-Il wouldn’t really let fly at South Korea or Japan, would he? Even if some quasi-Talibanny types wound up sitting on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, they wouldn’t really do anything with them, would they? Okay, Putin can be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with Eastern Europe, and his definition of “Eastern” seems to stretch ever farther west, but he’s not going to be sending the tanks back into Prague and Budapest, is he? I mean, c’mon . . .

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto tsar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire — not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too — in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is in effect under the security umbrella of the new tsar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

In a sense, the health-care debate and the foreign-policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.


— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2009 Mark Steyn

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May 17, 2011
Russia is not playing a game

By Kim Zigfeld

America and the West are being led into a trap set by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, mostly because of the craven, benighted "leadership" of Barack Obama and his foolish Russia policy adviser Michael McFaul. If the Republican Party does not act decisively and soon, we will suffer dire consequences.

Between 2005 and 2010, at Putin's direct order, just as the price of gold was setting new records, the Russian Central Bank more than doubled its holdings of the precious commodity. The Kremlin is now planning to increase those holdings by another 50% even as the price once again strikes a new high ground.

A Moscow Times article recently called Putin's 2005 decision "extraordinarily farsighted." That's because what happened next is that the price of gold tripled: the value of Russia's holdings rose from $4 billion to $12 billion.

The MT characterization of Putin's insight is deeply misleading and characteristic of a flawed Western analysis of the Putin regime.

One of the most poorly reported and understood facts about the Putin dictatorship is its fundamental, abiding interest in instability in the Middle East. Every time there is a flare-up in the land of oil, the price of oil rises sharply. When it does, it takes the price of Russian crude right along with it, lining the pockets of the Kremlin oligarchs. Putin himself also reaps enormous personal profits.

That's why it's routine to see Russia actively supporting the rogues and scalawags of the region. It has aggressively supported Libya, Iran, and Syria in their struggles against democracy and Western pressure, providing the regimes there with massive financial infusions, military hardware, and nuclear technology. In doing so, Putin the proud KGB spy is merely continuing the line originally adopted by the foreign policy of the USSR.

Calling Putin's gold move "farsighted" implies that Putin acted on his analysis of world economic trends he could not control but could divine. That implication is totally false.

Putin intended to move aggressively to unsettle and rile the Middle East so as to pressure oil prices as much as he could. He knew this because he knew the basic facts about the Russian economy. He saw its Soviet-like inefficiency and corruption, and knew that the price of oil would become ever more essential to Russian survival. That's why he moved to seize control of the Arctic seabed and the rich fossil fuel resources to be found there. He also worked feverishly to squeeze more and more production out of Russia's oil fields, so that today Russia produces more oil than any other nation.

Kremlin insiders have routinely let it slip that their goal is to drive the price of oil into the territory of $200 per barrel. Not only does such a price guarantee limitless wealth for the Kremlin oligarchs, but it also assures a severe weakening of the Western economies and a concomitant rise of Russian power.

And Putin knows that when the world economy gets nervous, the price of gold rises. The less stable the world's energy supply, the more it craves the security of gold. So it was child's play for Putin to realize that Russia could reap a windfall not just from oil prices, but also from gold prices. And into the market he went.

When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917, most of the world did not take them very seriously. There was a halfhearted military attempt to unseat them, but nobody realized that within half a century Russia would bristle with nuclear fangs and nearly pathological hatred of the United States and her values.

Similarly today, many view Russia's feeble economy and rusting military as insignificant. These same people then conclude they can ignore the Russian "threat." Barack Obama is leading this effort. He says not a word about Putin's efforts to destabilize the Middle East, and he tells us that we can trust Russia to act responsibly. Thus, instead of challenging Russia, we can ink a nuclear arms deal and seek to expand trade ties.

The West's failure to understand Putin's gambit is not a failure of journalism in the main, it's a failure of political leadership. And while the leading role played by Obama is important, probably much more important is the total failure of the Republican Party to challenge Obama's missteps. Obama is a leftist and a neophyte, and to see him suckered by a career intelligence officer like Putin is not surprising. What is surprising is the inability of the heirs of Reagan to step forward and demand something better.

If they do not do so soon, America and the West will pay dearly for their folly.

[American Patriot]

Leaders in this country are naive, sleeping sheep and are being played.

*I* will fight for my country in spite of them.

[Phil Fiord]

I dunno. Back when gold was around 250, I was telling people to buy as it would go up if any number of things happened. Metals are always moving in price and one way to look at this is silver vs gold. If things are right in values, silver trades at 1/16th the price of gold. If that is a smaller fraction, buy silver as it will correct to that 1/16th. Historically, it always does.

Anyway, my point being that it actually could have been a strategic move by Russia to maintain solvency if economies fell apart. Recall that the circles of world leaders differs from circles of those they lead and the information has to be treated that way to some degree.

If *I* we ruler of the world, I would have been stocking up on Gold and Silver back when it was 250 as its a no-brainer it would go way up again.

So, while we examine Russia and what they may use as weather beacons for how they devise a strategy, note that out own government does this as well. Just not as boldly or on as grand a scale. Now, when I say our government, I also am referring to a non government agency, the Fed and their 13 Trillion dollar easy loans outside of the bailouts.

[American Patriot]

Back when gold was 250 an ounce I was making just enough money to pay my bills, keep the kids fed and pay the rent. There was no "extra" to invest in anything.

That's the way of life with 80% of the people in America Phil.

I'm finally to the point where I can invest, but I'm half way through my life and about to retire on a pittance.

[Phil Fiord]

That's my point actually. While regular folks could not afford Gold, as I could not then either, tbh. It did not take a masters degree to see it would eventually rise though. A country could easily start to build Gold as a hedge against harder times as 250 is a toilet seat in some budgets.

So, my point was more about that than anything. Sure, Russian leadership may have had - nay, likely had - info from resources in the regional conflicts etc, but to buy Gold as a hedge is a known thing to do.

[vector7]

World
Aug 9, '13
THE ROVING EYE
Vlad the Hammer vs Obama the Wimp
By Pepe Escobar




As Barack Obama predictably throws another tantrum over Russia's part in the Edward Snowden affair, Vladimir Putin can sense a wimp in the White House like a polar bear hunting a seal. It suits Vlad the Hammer just fine that nobody in Washington has articulated a policy other than demonizing a Russian president who is otherwise engaged in the push for a new strategic reality.

Make a plan; then make another plan. Both won't work.
- Bertolt Brecht

This is getting ridiculous. The President of the United States (POTUS) screamed and shouted because he wanted his spy (Edward Snowden) back. Snowden, following Russian laws, was granted temporary asylum. The White House was "disappointed".

Then POTUS snubbed the bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow coinciding with the Group of 20 in St Petersburg in early September. The Kremlin was equally "disappointed".

Putin sent a telegram to George "Dubya" Bush - wishing him a quick recovery from heart surgery. [1] POTUS went to a US talk show and said Russia tended to "slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality."

Brechtian distancing tells us that "ridiculous" does not even begin to describe it. The Cold War mentality is actually impregnated in the Beltway genes - from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon. As for POTUS, he acted like a diplomatic dilettante at best. "Yes, We Can" has morphed into "Yes, We Scan"; and now it's "Yes, We Scorn". This may apply to assorted poodles of European breeding, but it won't stick to Vlad the Hammer.

The White House justified its decision by "lack of progress" on everything including missile defense, arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, human rights and civil society. Nonsense; this was all about an impotent POTUS prevented from prosecuting his war against whistleblowers. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yury Ushakov, was closer to the truth when he said, "The US is not ready to build relations on an equal basis."

Vlad the Hammer can sense a wimp of Carter-esque proportions like a polar bear hunting a seal. He quickly evaluated how the Obama administration turned its already shaky credibility to ashes on two simultaneous fronts; because of the scale of the Orwellian/Panopticon complex detailed by Snowden's leaks, and because of the way he was being mercilessly hunted.

Adding a few more nails in the coffin of mainstream media, the New York Times posted an editorial - arguably "suggested" by the White House - justifying the cancelation of the summit, saying, "Mr Putin is a repressive and arrogant leader who treats his people with contempt." [2] Right; and Snow White lives in the White House.

All aboard the Trans-Siberian
POTUS's adolescent tantrum has nothing to do with Cold War. For starters, the US and Russia are mutually dependent on a vast array of issues. At least in theory, some adults will be discussing them in Washington this weekend, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Pentagon head Chuck Hagel.

Vlad just needs to say the word to turn the already humiliating US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan - as in having their asses kicked by a bunch of Pashtuns with fake Kalashnikovs - into a cataclysmic disaster.

Vlad can subtly calibrate Russia's support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria - especially after Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar "Bush" bin Sultan paid him a visit in Moscow and allegedly offered to buy loads of Russian weapons as long as Russia backed off. [3] Putin was not impressed. Still, Bandar would not have done that without "consulting" with his US masters.

Vlad can offer plenty of extra diplomatic support for the new Rouhani presidency in Iran - including, crucially, new weapons sales, and solidify Tehran's position in possible negotiations with Washington.

In the Caucasus, Vlad is on a roll. Georgia is way less antagonistic towards Moscow. And in Pipelineistan, Russia influenced Azerbaijan's decision to privilege the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) over the perennially doomed Nabucco West, and immediately moved to solidify energy cooperation between Azerbaijan's SOCAR and Russia's Rosneft. Both Georgia and Azerbaijan are considered as proverbial "staunch" US allies.

In Europe, every cruise ship pilot on the Rhine knows about Russia's strategic partnership with Germany. On negotiations on natural gas deals with Italy, France or Poland, for instance, the name of the Russian game is to secure long-term contracts with plenty of price breaks and tax schemes.

In Central and Eastern Europe Vlad is also - what else - on a roll, with Russia buying scores of strategic manufacturing, chemical and transport assets.

Then there's the crucial Trans-Siberian gambit. I did the Trans-Siberian twice, in winter, in the early 1990s and then in the late 1990s; it's one hell of a trip. At the time it was mostly about impoverished Russians buying everything in sight in China and wily Chinese selling everything they could in Russia. Nowadays it's all about heavy cargo. The Trans-Siberian moves no less than 120 million tons of cargo a year - and counting; that's at least 13% of container trade between Europe and Asia. Russia is investing in a US$17 billion expansion and adding 55 million extra tons of cargo capacity.

Add to it tripling the capacity of Russia's Pacific coast terminals by 2020; the expansion of St Petersburg's port; Siemens supplying 675 extra cargo electric locomotives as part of a $3.2 billion deal.

The name of the game here is Russia increasing its export of raw commodities by all means available. At least 250,000 barrels of oil a day - and counting - move from Russia to Asia. The upgraded Trans-Siberian will do wonders for Europe-Asia trade. Via the Trans-Siberian, Asian products reach Europe in 10 days; by sea, from South Korea or Japan, it's at least 28 days to Germany. No wonder Japan and South Korea are huge Trans-Siberian fans. And from a European point of view, nothing beats the cheaper, faster Trans-Siberian way to Asia.

Ain't got a clue
Cold War? That's part of the nostalgia business. With a comatose Europe; multiple frictions between Europe and the US; Beijing looking inward trying to solve the puzzle of tweaking its development model; and a paralyzed Obama administration, Moscow has identified the perfect opening and has embarked in no holds-barred, strategic commercial expansion.

The cluelessness of the Obama administration - not to mention US Think Tankland - cannot be overemphasized. Nobody in the Beltway has articulated a sound Russian policy - apart from demonizing Putin. That suits Vlad the Hammer fine; he's busy carefully constructing a new strategic reality not only in Europe's periphery but at the core as well. Russia is back - with a bang.

In this larger scheme of things, drifting towards a post-Post Cold War environment, the Snowden affair is just a piece of the puzzle. And here's where the personal perfectly mirrors the political. Vlad the Hammer knows exactly what he's doing - while Obama the wimp looks like a deer caught in a Trans-Siberian locomotive's headlights.

Notes:
1. In wishing Bush well, Putin has message for Obama, Reuters, August 8, 2013.
2. What's the Point of a Summit?, The New York Times, August 7, 2013.
3. Saudi offers Russia deal to scale back Assad support - sources, Reuters, August 7, 2013.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He has also written Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Related Article:
Our man in Moscow (Aug 2, '13)

[vector7]

Putin Didn’t Save Obama, He Beat Him

1 Comment Posted by angelforisrael on September 10, 2013

With the Russian proposal on Syrian chemical weapons, the United States is being escorted out of the Middle East.

12:20 PM, Sep 10, 2013 • By LEE SMITH



Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn’t care that Obama’s taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob enforcer. “The only reason why we are seeing this proposal,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney, “is because of the U.S. threat of military action.”

Right, Putin is laughing to himself. Whatever. If Obama wants to sell it like a Christmas miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue that’s fine with Putin, because Putin won.

Reset with Russia was originally a strategic priority for the Obama administration because it saw Moscow as the key to getting Iran to come to the negotiating table. Putin, from the White House’s perspective, was destined for the role of junior partner. Now Putin has turned “Reset” upside down.

By helping Obama out of a jam with Syria, Putin has made himself the senior partner to whom the White House is now beholden. Accordingly, when Putin proposes the same sort of deal with Iran, with Russia having established its bona fides as an interlocutor for Syria, Obama is almost certain to jump at it.
What’s unclear is whether Obama understands that his foreign policy legacy will be to have ruined the American position in the Middle East, our patrimony of the last seven decades. If the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran signaled weakness, the Russian deal screams surrender. The real surprise is that it’s not Iran kicking the United States out of the region under Obama’s watch, but Putin.

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The Syrian government has accepted the proposal because they understand it is an empty formalism. As everyone knows, as even all but the most obtuse White House officials must also understand, Assad will not give up his unconventional arsenal because he cannot. The use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb August 21 is evidence that, contrary to the regime’s narrative, Assad and his allies are not routing the rebels. The district that was targeted is a strategically significant node that, among other things, is close to the Dumayr airstrip where the regime is supplied with direct flights from Iran. The rebels had held the territory for over a year, thwarting repeated attempts by Assad’s forces to retake it. Presumably, Assad calculated that given the importance of the area it was worth testing Obama’s red line to take it. Without chemical weapons, Assad fears he may lose the war.

But what’s even more terrifying for Assad is the prospect that he, his family and friends, regime officials, and indeed the entire Alawite community might lose their lives. In the event the regime should find itself in such an existential crisis, plan B is to withdraw from Damascus and head to the coastal mountains that make up the historical Alawite homeland. The question for Assad then is, how to ensure the safety of that retreat? Further, once there how are the Alawites to defend their redoubt from a Sunni community galvanized by a shared vendetta against Assad and his community? From Assad’s perspective, without chemical weapons the Alawites might fall off the face of the earth.

Who knows what the Russians told Assad? For God’s sake, just say it’s your chemical weapons arsenal you’re turning over for safekeeping. Send them canisters of perfume, or cat urine. The Americans just want a deal, the president thinks he’s saving face. If the Americans are smart, they’ll let the whole thing drop and call it a win, but knowing them they’ll come back later and complain that you’re not keeping your end of the bargain. No problem. We’ll stall them. And then every time Obama whines it will remind your adversaries and U.S. allies around the world that the Americans are empty suits, a bunch of legalistic bureaucrats who are incapable of standing with their friends.

It’s hard not to be impressed with Putin. A man who up until yesterday seemed merely crass, has revealed himself to be capable of great subtlety. For years his method was so transparent, so obvious, his vulgarities intended to appall and shock the White House. He accused one secretary of state of plotting against him, and another he calls a liar. He gave Edward Snowden refuge. He dispatches his thugs to beat up LGBT teenagers. After a while, the administration learned not to be surprised by anything Putin does. He’s a bully, smitten with his own macho self-image. That’s all true, but now we see that Putin was testing Obama and looking for openings.

The president’s supporters and publicists in the press know how to package Obama’s weakness. The fear that everyone else in the world smells emanating from him like a wounded animal is really just humility and modesty—fitting attributes for the leader of a superpower that needs to make amends for having meddled so long in the affairs of others. And besides, this talk of strength and weakness is juvenile—the world is not a schoolyard.

And so Obama ignored Putin’s slights and held his head high. This revealed to Putin Obama’s real liability, his vanity. Obama always needs to look good. He will embrace defeat so long as he can still imagine himself a handsome princeling. After pushing Obama around for five years, now Putin escorts him out of the Middle East. Here, friend, take my hand. Let me help you to the sidelines.

As David Samuels wrote last week, Putin’s goal is to replace the United States as the regional power broker. Sure, Russia is less a state than a criminal enterprise with lots of energy to sell, while the United States drives the global economy, but so what? What good are American aircraft carriers if you don’t have the will to use them? Putin will use anything he has to win, while Obama is looking for a reason not to fire a few cruise missiles into the Syrian desert. There is absolutely no chance Obama would risk a shooting war with Iran.

The Russian proposal not only saves Obama from having to do something about Syria, it also, and much more important, shows the way forward with Iran. From the White House’s point of view, its credible threat of force made Syria buckle and will similarly bring Iran to the negotiating table. Putin has shown his bona fides as a credible interlocutor with Damascus and will do the same with Iran. Obama can relax now and imagine that he has finally earned his Nobel Peace Prize and that that sound he hears is the tide of war receding.

In fact, it is the sound of American allies around the world—the Poles and Czechs, the Japanese and the South Koreans, the Saudis, Jordanians and Israelis, among others—gnashing their teeth. They now see that they are on their own, and that the word of the United States means nothing.

From The Weekly Standard | http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...im_753730.html

[vector7]

We Warned Putin Would Outsmart Obama

It’s not that we conservative commentators are smarter than anyone else, because we most certainly are not. It is, I suppose, because we pay closer attention to current events, especially political current events, that we sometimes see/sense future events before they happen.

Sending a tenderfoot President like Obama into the “lion’s den of world politics” was a REALLY dumb idea. He was sure to be eaten alive. And he has been. His name spoken around the globe illicts snickers from all quarters. THIS is the naive Socialist/Marxist, with the golden tonsils, America elected—then reelected—so they could feel good about themselves—and - vanquishing racism on their shores. (I say “they” because I didn’t vote for the man either time.) The realty is that we don’t feel a darned bit better about ourselves than we did before Election Day 2008 and racism in America, well, racism is even worse than it was before Obama was elected President.

A badly informed, youthful, electorate did not have the depth of knowledge or perception needed to understand that there is a world out there, beyond the oceans on either side of us, that doesn’t give a wit about what makes us feel good. See, those folk live in the REAL world where survival—just trying to survive from day to day—is, indeed, very real.

And—there is this: Any one elected to be President of the US MUST be qualified to handle both domestic and foreign problems. In Obama, we got a man who has proven unable to handle either.

Obama may have been an adequate community organizer, but dear reader, America is NOT a community. Thinking of America that way is a Marxist/collectivist perception. It is NOT real. Trying to deal with America and the world as communities has proven to be disastrous.

One does not have to be a genius to foretell where Obama is going and what he is going to do, or how he will react to certain stimuli. He simply is NOT that complicated. What he is—is a narcissistic Marxist and they are among the most predictable people on earth.

Based on our experience, we told you—over a year ago—(July 2012)—that this Syrian trap was going to snare Obama. It was clear that with his narcissism, his naivete, his arrogance, he was setting himself up to be eaten alive by Putin. Mr. Putin, complete with his Cheshire cat smile, simply lay quietly in wait and then pounced at the appropriate moment.

Actually, it was quite beautiful to watch. All Putin had to do was prepare for lunch. Obama did the rest.

From the standpoint of the American public it was a comedy of errors on the part of Obama and the Obama Administration.
Back in July of 2012, I wrote the following:

“Currently Russia and America have narcissists at the helms of both countries—Obama in America and Putin in Russia. Both are would-be dictators. Putin, in Russia, will probably be successful.

Syria is a mess. The Obama regime (Our narcissist) for some reason yet to be clearly defined to the American people seems to have some sort of vested interest in seeing that the Assad regime in Syria is dumped and a purely Islamic government is installed to rule Syria under Sharia/Islamic law. Now, Obama is never going to admit that, but, all things considered, that is the most likely outcome if, and when, Assad is shown the door—or taken out the door on a slab.

Russia does not want to lose its warm water port privileges in Syria and it sureas heck does not want to lose such a valued customer for Russian arms, etc. Plus, the Syrian situation allows Putin a shot at the world stage where he can flex his muscles in the spotlight for all the world to see.

He LOVES that!

Putin is not about to miss the opportunity to give Obama an opened palm slap right across the cheeks and he sees the Syrian situation as his means to accomplish that.

Putin sees an opportunity for a little pay-back (for the Russian version of defeat in Afghanistan) and he is laying it on very thickly.

Putin is a punk. A former KGB officer, he is skilled at what he is doing. Obama is, well, frankly, I don’t know WHAT he is beyond being a socialist/Marxist community organizer who would dearly love to make himself dictator of America. I don’t think he has thought much beyond that. Putin doesn’t think so, either. That’s why he is so sure he can make Obama look like a fool in the Syrian Situation.

My money is on Putin.

It is clear to Putin that Obama is in over his head in foreign affairs. It would seem that Putin and American conservatives arrived at the same conclusion rather a while ago ... “

In closing last year’s commentary, I made the following observation:

“For the US—Syria is a set-up, a tiger pit, a trap. Unlike most traps, this one has huge flashing neon-like signs warning the US of its dangers.

But—with America’s boy-king, Obama, fixated on securing reelection for a second shot at fundamentally changing America into a western Socialist/Marxist dung heap, there is every reason for Americans to worry that we will soon be entangled in yet another Middle Eastern Islamic blood feud in which both sides hate us before, during, and after the dust settles.”

And so, America’s wondrous journey with Obama continues as we lurch from one scandal to another, from one blunder to another, from one debacle to another, from one crisis to another.

Only three more years to go.

[vector7]

The Impostor President Gets Caught

By Jack Cashill
September 16, 2013

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the New York Times ran an article on what psychologists call the "impostor phenomenon." To measure it, they ask test subjects questions like, "At times, I feel my success has been due to some kind of luck" or "I can give the impression that I'm more competent than I really am."

Although the article had nothing to do with Barack Obama, he would surely have scored off the charts had he answered those questions honestly. He was a reasonably bright guy but not the "brilliant" author and savant white liberals thought him to be. His "luck" derived from the fact that he grew up almost exactly as those liberals had but in the body of a black man. Hearing him they heard themselves. Seeing him say what he said surprised them, validated them, delighted them with its very whiteness. Although they would be the last to admit it, they suffered conspicuously from what George Bush has called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

In speaking of Obama in early 2007, Joe Biden framed those expectations with dunderheaded clarity. "I mean you got the first mainstream African-American presidential candidate who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Not to be out-patronized, Senate majority Leader Harry Reid found comfort in Obama's having "no Negro dialect." The always-observant Shelby Steele summed up the phenomenon, "Blacks like Obama, who show merit where mediocrity is expected, enjoy a kind of reverse stigma, a slightly inflated reputation for 'freshness' and excellence because they defy expectations."

Throughout his ascendancy, Obama has had to fake something else besides competence, namely a belief in America. This trumpery was on full display during Tuesday night's Syria speech. "When, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act," said Obama at the conclusion of his disjointed speech on September 10. "That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional."

Exceptional? As Russia's Vladimir Putin promptly made clear in a taunting New York Times op-ed, Obama did not believe in American exceptionalism any more than he did. Indeed, Putin's old KGB pals had been working to undermine that belief since the agency's creation.

Obama's rise was, in no small part, a testament to the KGB's success. From his childhood on, Obama had been learning that just about the only thing exceptional about America was Barack Hussein Obama. In Hawaii, his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, reinforced his mother's casual anti-Americanism. "You're not going to college to get educated. You're going there to get trained," Davis reportedly told Obama. "They'll train you so good, you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that ****."

Obama drank deeply from Davis's well. In his acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama described the Americanization of Hawaii in Marxist terms as an "ugly conquest." Missionaries brought "crippling diseases." American companies carved up "the rich volcanic soil" and worked their indentured laborers of color "from sunup to sunset."

After hitting the mainland Obama surrounded himself with Davis's spiritual heirs. "I chose my friends carefully," he wrote in Dreams. "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets." With his new friends, Obama discussed "neocolonialism, Franz (sic) Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy" and flaunted his alienation. Dr. John Drew has confirmed that the Obama he met at Occidental College was a "Marxist planning for a Communist style revolution."

The literary influences Obama cited include radical anti-imperialists like Fanon and Malcolm X, communists like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, and tyrant-loving fellow travelers like W.E.B. DuBois. "Joseph Stalin was a great man," DuBois wrote upon Stalin's death in 1953. "Few other men of the 20th century approach his stature." In Dreams, Obama gave no suggestion that this reading was in any way problematic or a mere phase in his development. He moved on to no new school, embraced no new worldview.

In April 2009 in Strasbourg, France, in response to a question about America's role in the world, Obama let that worldview slip through. "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism," he said. In other words, he did not believe in American exceptionalism at all.

In these last few months, the world has seen what happens when an intellectual lightweight with no fixed principles beyond the vestigial Marxism of his youth faces off against an unscrupulous post-Marxist survivor like Putin. For those paying attention, it wasn't hard to predict.

In 1975, when Obama was goofing off through his freshman year at an elite Hawaiian prep school, twenty-two year old Putin joined the KGB. The opportunistic Putin stayed with "the organs" until 1991 when he schemed his way out of the abortive KGB-backed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev. "As soon as the coup began," said Putin later, "I immediately decided which side I was on." That same year Obama -- in his own words, "someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career" -- secured an unearned berth in the Ivy League at Columbia University,

In 1995, both Putin and Obama got political. The wily Putin, always one step ahead of the law, took control of the Saint Petersburg branch of the pro-government Our Home Is Russia political party. In 1995, terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers, recognizing Obama's puppet potential, finished writing Obama's memoir, got Obama appointed chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant, and held a fundraiser for his state senate run in his Chicago home.

For the next eighteen years, the resourceful Putin finessed his way through the occasionally lethal minefield of Russian politics. Obama meanwhile was wafted aloft by his own breezy rhetoric and the overheated passions of his deluded followers, including, unfortunately, most of the mainstream media.

When Putin shot Obama's balloon down over Syria no one should have been surprised. As America first learned at Benghazi, you can fake your way through college, fake your way through the Senate, even fake your way through the presidency, but you can't fake your way through a civil war in the Middle East.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/the_impostor_president_gets_caught.html

[Is45]

Whoever the next president will be...

Maybe... like ancient Babylon's weak degenerate co-ruler... Obamanation is the last.

... when Prime Minister Putin demands half of Europe to be returned to Russian control.

Half of Europe ?

Like Cyrus... who conquered ancient Babylon... Vladimir Putin will inherit the earth [Ezra 1:2.]

However, all of this is not the real threat to the American people. The real threat is reckless and wasteful spending of our Congress.

The real threat to the secular American people
is their haughty disobedience and offenses against God.

In the ancient Cyrus cylinder found in the ruins of ancient Babylon...
and now in the British museum... it says because of disrespect and
disobedience Babylon's god turned his back on Babylon and searched
the world for a righteous king to conquer the city... the rest... as they say... is history.


.

[Avvakum]

Maybe... like ancient Babylon's weak degenerate co-ruler... Obamanation is the last.

Interesting.... But remember the history of Cyrus the Great's conquests; he had to conquer Media and Lydia first before he could tackle Babylon. The Babylonian rulers were too busy to tend to the threat from him seriously; Nabonidus was making weird archeological excavations in the Arabian desert (hmm....) And his son Belteshazzar acted as regent in a manner that suggested total unawareness of the real geopolitical situation.

And another thing, I wouldn't count America, the real America, out just yet.







Half of Europe ?

Like Cyrus... who conquered ancient Babylon... Vladimir Putin will inherit the earth [Ezra 1:2.]






The real threat to the secular American people
is their haughty disobedience and offenses against God.

In the ancient Cyrus cylinder found in the ruins of ancient Babylon...
and now in the British museum... it says because of disrespect and
disobedience Babylon's god turned his back on Babylon and searched
the world for a righteous king to conquer the city... the rest... as they say... is history.


.

[Avvakum]

Well, don't count the real america out, and recall that Cyrus had to conquer Croeseus of Lydia and the Medes under Cyaxerses first