Thread: Obama in Moscow

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Expressions and body language? You can just FEEL the love!
I thought this picture was nothing more than a distinct lesson in body language on a monumental (and diplomatic) scale.

Lefties go full meltdown over Time journo’s side-by-side image of Obama and Putin [pic] ==> http://twitchy.com/2014/03/01/leftie...and-putin-pic/

Michael Crowley ✔ @CrowleyTIME

The point of that pic being that Obama's foreign policy is cautious, risk-averse.
Putin's more about "strength," swagger, pride/ego.

12:27 PM - 1 Mar 2014

Obama to Medvedev: I’ll totally cave on missile defense in my second term if Putin will give me “space”
posted at 8:40 am on March 26, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Ah, open microphones at photo ops. Is there anything they can’t expose? And is there any lesson about them that Barack Obama can learn? Five months after reporters picked up a conversation in which Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy disparaged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu, Obama forgot to check the microphones yet again in a conversation with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. This time, however, the microphones picked up the sound of Obama begging for some political help from Vladimir Putin — in order to gain the “flexibility” to cave on missile defense: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...re-flexibility

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Does anyone else remember this ???

The U.S. once had a strong relationship with Russia, with George W. Bush at one time saying Vladimir Putin would help bring the world peace. Over the next 14 years, the relationship between the two nations has eroded. Here's a look at the decimation of U.S.-Russian relations.

Special Report: How the U.S. made its Putin problem worse
Reuters
By David Rohde and Arshad Mohammed
April 18, 2014 2:59 PM.
WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK (Reuters) - In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War.

He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian aid could fly through Russian air space. He said the U.S. military could use airbases in former Soviet republics in Central Asia. And he ordered his generals to brief their U.S. counterparts on their own ill-fated 1980s occupation of Afghanistan.

During Putin's visit to President George W. Bush's Texas ranch two months later, the U.S. leader, speaking at a local high school, declared his Russian counterpart "a new style of leader, a reformer…, a man who's going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful, by working closely with the United States."

For a moment, it seemed, the distrust and antipathy of the Cold War were fading.

Then, just weeks later, Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so that it could build a system in Eastern Europe to protect NATO allies and U.S. bases from Iranian missile attack. In a nationally televised address, Putin warned that the move would undermine arms control and nonproliferation efforts.

"This step has not come as a surprise to us," Putin said. "But we believe this decision to be mistaken."

The sequence of events early in Washington's relationship with Putin reflects a dynamic that has persisted through the ensuing 14 years and the current crisis in Ukraine: U.S. actions, some intentional and some not, sparking an overreaction from an aggrieved Putin.

As Russia masses tens of thousands of troops along the Russian-Ukrainian border, Putin is thwarting what the Kremlin says is an American plot to surround Russia with hostile neighbors. Experts said he is also promoting "Putinism" - a conservative, ultra-nationalist form of state capitalism - as a global alternative to Western democracy.

NOT PAYING ATTENTION?

It's also a dynamic that some current and former U.S. officials said reflects an American failure to recognize that while the Soviet Union is gone as an ideological enemy, Russia has remained a major power that demands the same level of foreign policy attention as China and other large nations - a relationship that should not just be a means to other ends, but an end in itself. "I just don't think we were really paying attention," said James F. Collins, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Moscow in the late 1990s. The bilateral relationship "was seen as not a big deal."

Putin was never going to be an easy partner. He is a Russian nationalist with authoritarian tendencies who, like his Russian predecessors for centuries, harbors a deep distrust of the West, according to senior U.S. officials. Much of his world view was formed as a KGB officer in the twilight years of the Cold War and as a government official in the chaotic post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s, which Putin and many other Russians view as a period when the United States repeatedly took advantage of Russian weakness.

Since becoming Russia's president in 2000, Putin has made restoring Russia's strength - and its traditional sphere of influence - his central goal. He has also cemented his hold on power, systematically quashed dissent and used Russia's energy supplies as an economic billy club against its neighbors. Aided by high oil prices and Russia's United Nations Security Council veto, Putin has perfected the art of needling American presidents, at times obstructing U.S. policies.

Officials from the administrations of Presidents Bush and Barack Obama said American officials initially overestimated their potential areas of cooperation with Putin. Then, through a combination of overconfidence, inattention and occasional clumsiness, Washington contributed to a deep spiral in relations with Moscow.

COMMON CAUSE

Bush and Putin's post-2001 camaraderie foundered on a core dispute: Russia's relationship with its neighbors. In November 2002, Bush backed NATO's invitation to seven nations - including former Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - to begin talks to join the Western alliance. In 2004, with Bush as a driving force, the seven Eastern European nations joined NATO.

Bush and Putin's post-2001 camaraderie foundered on a core dispute: Russia's relationship with its neighbors. In November 2002, Bush backed NATO's invitation to seven nations - including former Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - to begin talks to join the Western alliance. In 2004, with Bush as a driving force, the seven Eastern European nations joined NATO.

Putin and other Russian officials asked why NATO continued to grow when the enemy it was created to fight, the Soviet Union, had ceased to exist. And they asked what NATO expansion would do to counter new dangers, such as terrorism and proliferation. "This purely mechanical expansion does not let us face the current threats," Putin said, "and cannot allow us to prevent such things as the terrorist attacks in Madrid or restore stability in Afghanistan."

Thomas E. Graham, who served as Bush's senior director for Russia on the National Security Council, said a larger effort should have been made to create a new post-Soviet, European security structure that replaced NATO and included Russia. "What we should have been aiming for - and what we should be aiming for at this point," Graham said, "is a security structure that's based on three pillars: the United States, a more or less unified Europe, and Russia."

Graham said small, incremental attempts to test Russian intentions in the early 2000s in Afghanistan, for example, would have been low-risk ways to gauge Putin's sincerity. "We never tested Putin," Graham said. "Our policy never tested Putin to see whether he was really committed to a different type of relationship."

But Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator John McCain and other conservatives, as well as hawkish Democrats, remained suspicious of Russia and eager to expand NATO. They argued that Moscow should not be given veto power over which nations could join the alliance, and that no American president should rebuff demands from Eastern European nations to escape Russian dominance.

DEMOCRACY IN OUR TIME

Another core dispute between Bush and Putin related to democracy. What Bush and other American officials saw as democracy spreading across the former Soviet bloc, Putin saw as pro-American regime change.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, without U.N. authorization and over the objections of France, Germany and Russia, was a turning point for Putin. He said the war made a mockery of American claims of promoting democracy abroad and upholding international law.

Putin was also deeply skeptical of U.S. efforts to nurture democracy in the former Soviet bloc, where the State Department and American nonprofit groups provided training and funds to local civil-society groups. In public speeches, he accused the United States of meddling.

In late 2003, street protests in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, known as the Rose Revolution, led to the election of a pro-Western leader. Four months later, street protests in Ukraine that became known as the Orange Revolution resulted in a pro-Western president taking office there.

Putin saw both developments as American-backed plots and slaps in the face, so soon after his assistance in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.

In 2006, Bush and Putin's sparring over democracy intensified. In a press conference at the first G-8 summit hosted by Russia, the two presidents had a testy exchange. Bush said that the United States was promoting freedom in Iraq, which was engulfed in violence. Putin openly mocked him.

"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq," Putin said, smiling as the audience erupted into laughter, "I will tell you quite honestly."

Bush tried to laugh off the remark. "Just wait," he replied, referring to Iraq.

A PITSTOP IN MOSCOW?

Graham said the Bush administration telegraphed in small but telling ways that other foreign countries, particularly Iraq, took precedence over the bilateral relationship with Moscow.

In 2006, for example, the White House asked the Kremlin for permission for Bush to make a refueling stop in Moscow on his way to an Asia-Pacific summit meeting. But it made clear that Bush was not looking to meet with Putin, whom he would see on the sidelines of the summit.

After Russian diplomats complained, Graham was sent to Moscow to determine if Putin really wanted a meeting and to make clear that if there was one, it would be substance-free.

In the end, the two presidents met and agreed to ask their underlings to work on a nonproliferation package.

"When the Russian team came to Washington in December 2006, in a fairly high-level ... group, we didn't have anything to offer," Graham said. "We hadn't had any time to think about it. We were still focused on Iraq."

Graham said that the Bush administration's approach slighted Moscow. "We missed some opportunities in the Bush administration's initial years to put this on a different track," Graham said. "And then later on, some of our actions, intentional or not, sent a clear message to Moscow that we didn't care."

THREE TRAIN WRECKS

Bush's relationship with Putin unraveled in 2008. In February, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia with the support of the United States - a step that Russia, a longtime supporter of Serbia, had been trying to block diplomatically for more than a decade. In April, Bush won support at a NATO summit in Bucharest for the construction of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

Bush called on NATO to give Ukraine and Georgia a so-called Membership Action Plan, a formal process that would put each on a path toward eventually joining the alliance. France and Germany blocked him and warned that further NATO expansion would spur an aggressive Russian stance when Moscow regained power.

In the end, the alliance simply issued a statement saying the two countries "will become members of NATO." That compromise risked the worst of both worlds - antagonizing Moscow without giving Kiev and Tbilisi a roadmap to join NATO.

The senior U.S. official said these steps amounted to "three train wrecks" from Putin's point of view, exacerbating the Russian leader's sense of victimization. "Doing all three of those things in kind of close proximity - Kosovo independence, missile defense and the NATO expansion decisions - sort of fed his sense of people trying to take advantage of Russia," he said.

In August 2008, Putin struck back. After Georgia launched an offensive to regain control of the breakaway, pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, Putin launched a military operation that expanded Russian control of South Ossetia and a second breakaway area, Abkhazia.

The Bush administration, tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, publicly protested but declined to intervene militarily in Georgia. Putin emerged as the clear winner and achieved his goal of standing up to the West.

ONLY ONE MAJOR ISSUE

After his 2008 election victory, Barack Obama carried out a sweeping review of Russia policy. Its primary architect was Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor and vocal proponent of greater democracy in Russia who took the National Security Council position previously held by Thomas Graham.

In a recent interview, McFaul said that when Obama's new national security team surveyed the administration's primary foreign policy objectives, they found that few involved Russia. Only one directly related to bilateral relations with Moscow: a new nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The result, McFaul said, was that relations with Moscow were seen as important in terms of achieving other foreign policy goals, and not as important in terms of Russia itself.

"So that was our approach," he said.

Obama's new Russia strategy was called "the reset." In July 2009, he traveled to Moscow to start implementing it.

In an interview with the Associated Press a few days before leaving Washington, Obama chided Putin, who had become Russia's prime minister in 2008 after reaching his two-term constitutional limit as president. Obama said the United States was developing a "very good relationship" with the man Putin had anointed as his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, and accused Putin of using "Cold War approaches" to relations with Washington.

"I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new," Obama said.

In Moscow, Obama spent five hours meeting with Medvedev and only one hour meeting with Putin, who was still widely seen as the country's real power. After their meeting, Putin said U.S.-Russian relations had gone through various stages.

"There were periods when our relations flourished quite a bit and there were also periods of, shall we say, grayish mood between our two countries and of stagnation," he said, as Obama sat a few feet away.

At first, the reset fared well. During Obama's visit, Moscow agreed to greatly expand Washington's ability to ship military supplies to Afghanistan via Russia. In April 2010, the United States and Russia signed a new START treaty, further reducing the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Later that year, Russia supported sweeping new U.N. economic sanctions on Iran and blocked the sale of sophisticated, Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Tehran.

Experts said the two-year honeymoon was the result of the Obama administration's engaging Russia on issues where the two countries shared interests, such as reducing nuclear arms, countering terrorism and nonproliferation. The same core issues that sparked tensions during the Bush administration - democracy and Russia's neighbors - largely went unaddressed.

A VAPORIZED RELATIONSHIP

In 2011, Putin accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of secretly organizing street demonstrations after disputed Russian parliamentary elections. Putin said Clinton had encouraged "mercenary" Kremlin foes. And he claimed that foreign governments had provided "hundreds of millions" of dollars to Russian opposition groups.

"She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work," Putin said.

McFaul called that a gross exaggeration. He said the U.S. government and American non-profit groups in total have provided tens of millions of dollars in support to civil society groups in Russia and former Soviet bloc countries since 1989.

In 2012, Putin was elected to a third term as president and launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent and re-centralization of power. McFaul, then the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, publicly criticized the moves in speeches and Twitter posts.

In the interview, McFaul blamed Putin for the collapse in relations. McFaul said the Russian leader rebuffed repeated invitations to visit Washington when he was prime minister and declined to attend a G-8 meeting in Washington after he again became president. Echoing Bush-era officials, McFaul said it was politically impossible for an American president to trade Russian cooperation on Iran, for example, for U.S. silence on democracy in Russia and Moscow's pressuring of its neighbors.

"We're not going to do it if it means trading partnerships or interests with our partners or allies in the region," McFaul said. "And we're not going to do it if it means trading our speaking about democracy and human rights."

Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that clashes over democracy ended any hopes of U.S.-Russian rapprochement, as they had in the Bush administration.

"That fight basically vaporizes the relationship," said Weiss.

In 2013, U.S.-Russian relations plummeted. In June, Putin granted asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Obama, in turn, canceled a planned summit meeting with Putin in Moscow that fall. It was the first time a U.S. summit with the Kremlin had been canceled in 50 years.

Last fall, demonstrators in Kiev began demanding that Ukraine move closer to the European Union. At the time, the Obama White House was deeply skeptical of Putin and paying little attention to the former Soviet bloc, according to Weiss. White House officials had come to see Russia as a foreign policy dead end, not a source of potential successes.

Deferring to European officials, the Obama administration backed a plan that would have moved Ukraine closer to the EU and away from a pro-Russian economic bloc created by Putin. Critics said it was a mistake to make Ukraine choose sides.

Jack F. Matlock, who served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow from 1987 to 1991, said that years of escalating protests by Putin made it clear he believed the West was surrounding him with hostile neighbors. And for centuries, Russian leaders have viewed a friendly Ukraine as vital to Moscow's defense.

"The real red line has always been Ukraine," Matlock said. "When you begin to poke them in the most sensitive area, unnecessarily, about their security, you are going to get a reaction that makes them a lot less cooperative."

A PLIANT RUSSIA?

American experts said it was vital for the U.S. to establish a new long-term strategy toward Russia that does not blame the current crisis solely on Putin. Matthew Rojansky, a Russia expert at the Wilson Center, argued that demonizing Putin reflected the continued failure of American officials to recognize Russia's power, interest and importance.

"Putin is a reflection of Russia," Rojansky said. "This weird notion that Putin will go away and there will suddenly be a pliant Russia is false."

A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, called for a long-term strategy that exploits the multiple advantages the U.S. and Europe enjoy over Putin's Russia.

"I would much rather be playing our hand than his over the longer term," the official said. "Because he has a number of, I think, pretty serious strategic disadvantages - a one-dimensional economy, a political system and a political elite that's pretty rotten through corruption."

Matlock, the former U.S. ambassador, said it was vital for Washington and Moscow to end a destructive pattern of careless American action followed by Russian overreaction.

"So many of the problems in our relationship really relate, I would say, to what I'd call inconsiderate American actions," Matlock said. "Many of them were not meant to be damaging to Russia. … But the Russian interpretation often exaggerated the degree of hostility and overreacted."

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report...185958789.html

4/07/2014 @ 10:35AM
Putin's Attack On East Ukraine Began Today: What This Means For Europe And The US

Vladimir Putin had to act before the Ukrainian presidential election of May 25, at which time his narrative of neo-Nazis and nationalist extremists in charge of Ukraine would vanish into thin air. Even Putin’s genius spin meisters could not portray a President Poroshenko from ex-boxer Klitschko’s UDAR party as a wild eyed extremist, nor could they whitewash the trivial vote for rightist candidates, although they would try.

Putin’s anti-Ukraine propaganda juggernaut rests squarely on the single fiction of a neo-Nazi, Jew-hating, extreme nationalist government in Kiev. If Putin waits out the election, his anti-Ukraine disinformation campaign directed to his Russian, southeastern Ukrainian, and Western audiences loses its credibility, even in receptive leftist quarters in the West.

True to expectations, Putin began today a coordinated attack on Eastern Ukraine and parts of Moldova.

The Russian assault’s first covert phase aims for the utter and complete destabilization of key cities that lie near the eastern border. As I write, mobs, directed by Russian special ops forces, FSB operatives, and local thugs are directing rent-a-crowds in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Kharkiv to storm public buildings, rough-up unarmed security forces, and demand referendums to join Mother Russia. As a slight variation, Donetsk demonstrators demand a “free republic.” The propaganda machine is at work full force. Babushkas are brought before the cameras to plead that all they want is peace and to be together with their brothers and sisters in Russia. They are sincere, but they serve the interests of their masked puppet masters lurking in the background.

Russia’s economic destabilization program began weeks or even months ago. Russian businesses cancelled their contracts with companies in Donetsk and Kharkiv. Desperate employees are going without pay. Russian propaganda is wafting a siren song about the prosperity that awaits them if they join Russia.

Putin’s destabilization campaign will take a week or so to complete. The covert phase will culminate with the deaths of demonstrators, supposedly at the hands of Ukrainian security forces, but actually by Russian snipers. (With luck increasingly violent demonstrations may yield fatalities without the help of rifles with telescopic lenses). Russian TV cameras will show scores of bandaged civilians sporting bloody wounds. The beleaguered “local” secessionists will issue prepared pleas to Putin to save them from the crazed Ukrainian extremists.

Remember, Putin already has authority from his rubber-stamp parliament to deploy Russian armed forces into East Ukraine. Russian troops amassed along the border can reach their targets in matters of hours. This is not rocket science, and it has already been perfected in Crimea. Assuming the role of true humanitarian, Putin will lament that he has no choice but to save Ukraine. Someone has to restore order before the whole place goes up in flames. He will not allow such atrocities in his back yard. That’s the kind of macho man he is.

In the campaign’s second overt phase, Russian troops, amassed on the border, will heed the call of their endangered brethren. The incoming Russian troops will be met with staged jubilation, the waving of Russian flags, brass bands blaring, and the referendums will be held, as in Crimea, under the watchful eye of Russian Kalashnikovs. International observers will either be banned or Russian forces will carefully monitor their every move. The new puppet “leaders” of East Ukraine regions will have the honor of sitting next to Putin himself in the Grand Kremlin hall as they sign annexation agreements. Putin may even bring in the discredited Yanukovich as the “legitimate” president of all Ukraine. On May 25, Ukraine may have two presidents.

Ukraine and the West will be confronted with this tragic fait accomplis in the next couple of weeks. It will be too late for the West to do anything other than to babble about enhanced sanctions and warn of further isolation of Russia. The transitional government of Ukraine will have to proceed with a presidential election that excludes its annexed Eastern portions. Putin knows that possession is 99 percent of the law. He has achieved part of his dream. The metallurgical heart of the former Soviet Union has been restored to its rightful place. Now it’s time to turn to Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and even Kazakhstan.

The West may not understand what is going on. The die-hards will continue to argue to their last breath that Putin really only wanted Crimea and why not let him have it.

Putin apologists will contend that these coordinated demonstrations are really spontaneous, that the Kremlin has nothing to do with them, and express gratitude for Putin’s armed intervention. After all, someone had to save Ukraine from disaster.

Kiev understands all too well. The acting prime minister has informed the people of Ukraine that they face the deepest crisis of their lives. He has warned them that the Russian plan “is an attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood, a script which has been written in the Russian Federation, the aim of which is to divide and destroy Ukraine and turn part of Ukraine into a slave territory under the dictatorship of Russia.”

Those under the attack of jackals better understand what is about to happen to them than spectators to the event. Kazakhstan is already moving native Kazakhs to the North to dilute the Russian population’s share. Unlikely allies – Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Kazakhstan – have begun consultations. They know the jackals are circling.

If Europe and the United States truly understand what Putin has planned, will they continue to refrain from meaningful preventative action, in the little time before they are presented with a fait accomplis?

Annexing Crimea, the West decided, did not threaten vital interests. Russia annexing half of Ukraine is a different matter. Will such a threat stir Europe and the United States to action? That, to quote Shakespeare, is the question.

In effect, Europe and the West are being confronted with two visions of the world.

In one, Russia remains, using Obama’s term, a regional power. With its nuclear arsenal, energy production, and security council veto, it can continue to play a spoiler role throughout the world as the United States’ number one geopolitical enemy, to use Mitt Romney’s words. Russia will be our nemesis in Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Cuba, and any other trouble spots it can stir up. If the West and the United States limit Putin to annexation of Crimea, we get this first version of the world.

In the second, Putin succeeds in taking southeastern Ukraine, leaving a mortally wounded West Ukraine, whose sole interest is survival. The Baltic states might be spared because of the NATO shield. But the other states of the former Soviet Union understand that they are completely at the mercy of Putin’s Russia. They will either be annexed (Moldavia, Georgia, Belarus, and perhaps Kazakhstan), or they become vassals of Russia, clearing their every move with Putin. Russia now controls the energy resources not only of Russia but of all Central Asia. The emboldened Putin is free to explore new areas for trouble making and intervention, knowing that no one is prepared to face up to a powerful bully.

We have a choice of the two scenarios right now. We will not have a choice in a very short while. What is our answer?

A bold answer would consist of the following measures:

First, immediate joint NATO exercises in Ukraine itself and in the Baltic States.

Second, flood East and South Ukraine with a thousand international observers to provide detailed reports on demonstrations, civil right abuses, and interference with the presidential elections campaign.

Third, immediate delivery of vital weapons (not lunch boxes) by the United States.

Fourth, Europe and the United States vastly expand sanctions of individuals in Putin’s internal circle including Mr. Putin himself.

Fifth, financial guarantees by Europe and the United States to Ukraine in the magnitude of $40 billion, half of which is Marshall-Plan-like grants that recognize that Ukraine is at war.

Sixth, a flood of advisors from the European Union to accelerate Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

Sixth, increase aid and assistance to Georgia, Moldova, and even Belarus to protect them from Russian armed intervention.

Seventh and most important, understand that Putin interprets concessions as weakness and action as strength. Playing nice with Mr. Putin gets you nowhere.

If the West does not learn this lesson, it has lost the game.

4/07/2014 @ 10:35AM
Putin's Attack On East Ukraine Began Today: What This Means For Europe And The US
Note on Sources:

My article contends that Russia is using professional diversionaries to destabilize major cities in East Ukraine with an eye to an eventual Russian takeover. Insofar as these are covert operations, Russian operatives will make every effort to conceal their operations and to dispute claims that they are taking place. We do have the authoritative account of Time Magazine on the stealth methods used to take over the Crimean government by Russian special forces. We would expect Russian operatives to use the same proven procedures in their infiltration of other parts of Ukraine. In addition, we have three published accounts of arrests of Russian diversionaries in the Lugansk and Kiev (and another Kiev case), tasked with subversion of municipal buildings and harm to authorities that provide some detail about Russian destabilization tactics. Another valuable source is a Facebook account (withheld to protect the writer) provided by an acquaintance of a large number of eye witness accounts of Russian operatives and their tactics in East Ukraine. Another colleague shared with me a thousand word first hand account of the April 6 brutality of Russian provocateurs in Kharkiv. Another valuable source is ARD German television’s coverage of the declaration of Donetsk independence with shots of the auditorium full of young men identifiable to those in the know as Russian “protest tourists.” German ARD coverage also provides the Ukrainian prime minister’s charge that the demonstrations are being directed by Russian operatives. The New York Times provides a good general account of the demonstrations in East Ukraine. The author has first hand knowledge of the economic sabotage of Donetsk industry by Russia through e mails and telephone conversations with local officials and residents. I also receive first hand accounts from reliable acquaintances who speak regularly with relatives in two Ukrainian cities and describe the activities of the neighborhood watch groups that capture so-called tituski (paid agents of Russia) engaged in nightly car burnings and other types of vandalism.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrode...pe-and-the-us/

From Russia With Love - A Letter From Putin to All Americans

September 8, 2013 by Kevin Lake

A letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin to the American people has been circulating around the internet for the past couple of days. In the letter, Putin re-introduces Americans to some unpleasant facts about history and life they’d rather forget, such as Nixon’s reasoning behind massive carpet bombing of millions or North Vietnamese for the purpose of ‘looking good’ while exiting the war, and how Pakistan has been using the U.S. as a ‘false ally’ to gain foreign aid, while using the funds to embolden the Taliban in Afghanistan. He calls out Barrack Hussein Obama for having the audacity to meet with gay rights activists while he is in Russia next week, a group Putin despises, while refusing to carve away time to meet with him and solve the Syria issue. He compares the action to the equivalent of him (Putin) coming to the U.S. and meeting with Obama’s domestic enemy, the N.R.A.

Read the letter below for yourself, and decide whether President Putin is on spot or not: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2...the-mind-putin

[QUOTE]How do I put this politely? You Americans are dumb. Today, Russia and America are fighting each other over fighting the Muslim radicals. Instead, we should be uniting to crush these violent Islamists, once and for all.

You Americans want to remove my ally, the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad. To borrow a phrase from your John F. Kennedy, Assad may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s my son-of-a-bitch.

So if you want to destroy him, what are you going to give me in return? If your answer is, “We will give you nothing,” well, why would I ever agree to that? That’s not negotiation, that’s dictation; it’s a return to the bad Yeltsin days, when Holy Mother Russia was pushed into the mud like a used whore.

Look, I’ll be the first to say that Obama’s “red line” comment was dumb. It’s obvious he hadn’t thought it through; one can see it in the words he used to express his policy. He said that the “red line” would be crossed if “a whole bunch” of chemical weapons were used. What kind of language is that? How does one quantify a “whole bunch”? This is the President of the High-and-Mighty United States, and he’s talking like a schoolboy? All for this silliness over sarin in Syria?

Do I think that Assad did it? Gassed those people? I don’t know; I’ve never asked him. He’s certainly capable of it, and yet only the Americans think that the case against Assad is a “slam dunk.” Everyone else agrees that the case is murky. Everyone else follows the first rule of intelligence-gathering: Consider the source–namely, the pro-rebel media. In this instance, the rebels were losing, and then they got “gassed”–and now Uncle Sam is rushing to their side. How convenient.

The Romans, who knew something about both imperialism and trickery, always asked, cui bono–who benefits? Well, the beneficiaries in this episode are the rebels–also known as Al Qaeda. Way to go, Americans!

So let’s check some other news items: Here’s a June 6 item from a Turkish newspaper reporting on “the case of Syrian rebels who were seized on the Turkish-Syrian border with two kilograms of sarin.” And it’s not just the Turks: Carla Del Ponte, the Swiss-born former UN Prosecutor for War Crime Tribunals, has echoed those same charges against the rebels. They’re the bad guys!

Yet could this evidence against the rebels all be Russian disinformation? Hey, we’re good, but not that good.

Meanwhile, go ahead: Look for this information in your mainstream American media–your so-called “free press.” You can barely find it. Yankee lapdog reporters will cover everything that Obama says, and everything that John McCain says, but they won’t send reporters to warzones to go and actually figure out what happened.

Nor will American “presstitutes” remind their people of their own country’s history of helping the Iraqis use poison gas, all the time, in the 80s.

Yes, American reporters are sheep. They try to figure out what Obama wants them to write, and then they write it. Or if Obama doesn’t have a clear line on some topic–which is often–they look over the shoulder of the reporter next to them and copy that. Like I said, sheep.

The result is a herd mentality, showing no understanding of what true necessity truly looks like.

Here’s an example of a real “red line”: It’s June 24, 1812, and Napoleon Bonaparte, having conquered all of continental Europe, is now leading a half-million soldiers across the Neman River, invading Russia, heading straight for Moscow. Six months later, Napoleon retreats in disastrous defeat, but only after he burns our sacred capital and leaves 200,000 Russians dead in battle. Now that’s a red-line situation.



But even the Czars, those blockheads, weren’t dumb enough to send Russian forces halfway around the world because someone wasn’t being nice to someone else.



So in my time, I can hardly get worked up over Assad using poison gas–if he did. Dead is dead, I say. In any case, Assad is adhering to the first rule of a leader: Stay in power. And so you do what it takes.



In fact, I’m not against gas warfare; I’m for gas warfare, if that’s what it takes. For example, I would love to gas the Chechens–all 1.2 million of them. They are like cockroaches, murderous Muslim cockroaches, and if the Chechens had done to Americans what they have done to Russians, maybe the US public would want to join with us. Oh wait, they have: The Boston Bombers, those Tsarnaev brothers, were Chechens. You took them in–against our advice. You put them on welfare for a decade, ignored our intelligence warnings, and then they terror-bomb you. The Chechens deserve to be fumigated. As an aside, what’s wrong with your media? They seem like “useful idiots”–to borrow Lenin’s phrase–for the terrorists. That Rolling Stone cover? Really? That would never happen in Russia.



In addition, there are another billion or more Muslims to the south of Russia–and a lot of them are trouble, too. Indeed, Russia has been fighting Muslims all across Central Asia for centuries. It’s not easy.



But the American leaders don’t seem to understand any of this. They are lost in their silly theories about liberation, human rights–all that nonsense. They don’t see that the struggle with radical Islam is a war, pure and simple. It’s a war that should unite all the civilized countries of the world. I didn’t say “democratic,” I said “civilized.”

One Western journalist who at least begins to understand where I’m coming from is The New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers. In his report of August 28, Myers accurately describes the Putin view of what’s been going on in the Middle East:

“In his view, the United States and its partners have unleashed the forces of extremism in country after country in the Middle East by forcing or advocating change in leadership — from Iraq to Libya, Egypt to Syria.”

That’s right. Over the last 15 years, from Clinton to Bush 43 to Obama, America has stirred up all the hornet-nests in the Middle East. For the most part, those angry hornets are far away from the US, but those insects are on Russia’s southern border–starting with those lousy Chechens.

And it’s not just the Americans stirring things up; it’s flunky-countries, too. It still kills me to think back to what British Prime Minister Tony Blair said just a few weeks after 9-11. In a speech that made the Americans swoon, Blair chose to regard all the coming wars as a great opportunity for international do-gooding.

After talking up the importance of “freedom,” Blair cited all needy peoples of the Muslim world and declared, “They, too, are our cause.” What kind of bull is that? Radical Muslims kill you, and so you want to go help them? Put them on welfare? America put its blacks on welfare, and were they grateful? Did they become less violent? Yet in Blair’s mind, these same Muslims were supposed to be grateful for all this “help.” That was the theory.

Then Blair concluded with these lines:

“This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.”

And of course, that’s what Blair and Bush did–they reordered the Muslim world. But not in a good way. They made it much worse!

Look, I’m a conservative. I have my imperial ambitions, to be sure, but the last thing I want to do is send all the pieces of the world-kaleidoscope fluxing around. We’ve had enough gratuitous messing things up in our own history, whether by Ivan the Terrible or Comrade Stalin. I want order–Russian Orthodox order.

So I’ve been predicting, all along, that the Bush-Blair crusade wouldn’t work–and I’ve been right, all along. A Reuters reporter quoted me as saying on September 1: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...98007P20130901

“We need to remember what’s happened in the last decade, the number of times the United States has initiated armed conflicts in various parts of the world. Has it solved a single problem?”

And the answer, of course, is “no.” The US made things worse. Today, look at Syria.

Indeed, by my count, the US has led six major interventions in the Muslim Asia and Africa over the last 30 years: Reagan in Lebanon, Bush 41 and Clinton in Somalia, Bush 43 in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Obama in Libya and Egypt. None of them have worked out well. And so now, Syria!



Needless to say, I’m happy to see the Americans make fools of themselves once again. Anything that weakens Uncle Sam helps Mother Russia.



Yet even so, after all this, I could be persuaded to make a deal with Obama on Syria. Other US presidents have done just that; they have gone over the heads of the crummy little countries they were fighting in some benighted corner of the world, and reached a war-ending agreement with us Russians.



That’s what Nixon did with Brezhnev in May 1972, as Vietnam was still raging. He said, in effect, I need to get out of this stupid war, but I must look tough so I get re-elected. So you Russians, pretty please, look the other way while I bomb the crap out of the North Vietnamese. So the US can stand tall on its way out of Vietnam, secure a “decent interval,” and not obviously lose our honor. And then we’ll owe you one.



Brezhnev went along, Nixon bombed and then got out, and the result was “detente,” a notable warming of US-Soviet relations in the 1970s.



So that’s the kind of deal that Obama could make with me today on Syria. Coincidentally, he’s coming this week to St. Petersburg for the G-20 Summit; we could easily peel off some time and figure out how to solve the Syria question.



Yet once again, Obama would have to give me something in return. What would it be? A free rein in Chechyna? A blind eye toward the incremental reclaiming of lost Soviet territories, back into the Russian Motherland? Or just a simple bribe? Who knows. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.



But that rendezvous at the bridge almost certainly won’t happen, because Obama doesn’t seem to think he needs me for anything.



Indeed, he is going out of his way to stick his finger in my eye: Just on Monday, we learned that the President is going to be meeting with “gay” groups while in Russia, as a not-so-subtle statement against recent Russia’s anti-homosexuality crackdown. He is meeting with my enemies! Right in my own country! I don’t do that to him. I don’t come to America to meet with, say, the National Rifle Association.



Yes, Obama would rather cultivate the worldwide “gay” constituency than work with me to solve Syria. The Americans still think they can have it all: They think they can clobber Assad in Damascus, snub me here in Russia, and pander to their liberal sexual constituencies.



In other words, they get everything, and we get nothing. The Americans have had it so good for so long that it just doesn’t occur to them that they might have to make some tradeoffs.



We Russians know about tradeoffs. Back during the Great Patriotic War, in ’42, the Nazis were besieging both Leningrad and Stalingrad. The Red Army had to manage its resources: Do we seek to relieve Leningrad in the north and keep a million people from starving, or do we relieve Stalingrad in the south and keep the Hitlerites from capturing our oil resources? We did the latter, of course, and not only did we save the Hero City of Stalingrad, but we wiped out the entire German Sixth Army.



So yes, it was a tough tradeoff, the kind you have to make when you need to win. Hundreds of thousands in Leningrad died–including my uncle–but the tide of the war was shifted, and the USSR was saved.



Today, of course, I will make it my business to see to it that Obama gets none of what he wants. I will help Assad, I will subdue the homosexuals here in Russia, and I will be still be in power when Obama is laughed off the world stage.



Yet while I will savor the prospect of humiliating Obama, I still lament the lost opportunity–the lost opportunity to focus on the real enemy, which is Islamic radicalism. We can deal with Saudi Arabia, that’s for sure–but even they have trouble with the crazies. They would be glad to have our help. But we should do it together, so that one party doesn’t come to dominate.



The Americans, the Europeans, the Israelis, the Christian Africans, the Chinese, and the Indians all have something in common with us: The jihadis are our collective enemy. From Nigeria to Libya, from Syria to Chechnya, we see terrorism and strife.



That’s the bad news. The good news is that we can manage this problem–again, if we work together. Let’s look at the globe. The truth is that we have Islam surrounded: east, west, south and north. So we, the civilized people, should make a deal.



For starters, let Russia reoccupy the Central Asian states–the five “Stans”–that broke away during Russia’s most recent time of troubles, in the early 90s.



In return, I will turn Assad over to his fate, and so will the Chinese. Why? Because the Chinese are cursed with 50 million or so Muslims in their westernmost province, Xinjiang, which is right next to Russia. So as part of the same deal, the Chinese get to suppress–I guess that’s the nice way of putting it–their restive Muslims.



Wait, there’s more. Under this new deal, the Israelis can do what they want with the Palestinians. My fellow ex-Soviet citizen, Avigdor Lieberman, the former foreign minister of Israel–he gets this. And he’s still close to Bibi.



And together, we can all deal with those two most troublesome nations: Iran and Pakistan.



Iran is a lot closer to Russia than it is to America–I don’t want those nuts to have nuclear weapons! But I have defended Iran to keep the Americans from filling the space instead. I’d rather have the ayatollahs in Tehran than a hostile US Army, bent on still more “liberation.”



As for Pakistan, the Americans are only beginning to figure out how badly they have been played by those guys. All along, the Pakistanis have using all their US foreign-aid money to boost the Taliban.



Those Americans–they thought they were so cool for helping to push the Red Army out of Afghanistan in the 80s. And look what they got after that–Osama Bin Laden in his new home.



Now, 25 years later, the Americans are finally giving up on their missionary work in Afghanistan. If we ever have to go back to bring order there, it will be no more Mr. Nice Guy! But Pakistan is the real problem–they make Afghanistan possible.



So those are the real evil empires: Iran and Pakistan. Bringing them to heel won’t be easy, of course, but we Russians have never shied away from strong measures. The Americans could learn a lot from us.



So that’s my vision. Let’s stop worrying about silly little niceties about the right and the wrong way to fight a war. Let’s stop trying to bring democracy to barbarians. Instead, let’s bring them the only thing they understand–force.



Let’s all of us–Moscow, Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, Jerusalem, Lagos, Addis Ababa, Beijing, New Delhi–come together in a new Holy Alliance, similar to that which kept Europe safe from radicalism in the early 19th century. Let’s join one another to crush the unholy, unruly, jihadi Muslims. The good Muslims will thank us for it. And if they don’t–too bad.

Admit it: You, too, think it’s a good idea[/QUOTE]

http://freepatriot.org/2013/09/08/ru...tin-americans/

U.S. Defense Department officials say that our fighter jets intercepted Russian bombers off Alaska and California earlier this month.
Saturday, June 14, 2014 - 9:00am



A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor (top) escorts a Russian Air Force Tu-95 bomber off the coast of Alaska back in 2011

U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian bombers off Alaska and California this month, the latest incidents in a string of recent aerial encounters over the Pacific.

On June 4, according to U.S. defense officials, four long-range Russian Tu-95 Bear-H bombers, accompanied by an aerial refueling tanker, flew into the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone, an area extending 200 miles from the North American coast, off Alaska, where they were intercepted by U.S. F-22 fighter jets.

Two of the Russian bombers peeled off and headed west, while the other two flew south and were identified by U.S. F-15 fighters within 50 miles of the California coast.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said it was the first time U.S. jets had intercepted Russian military aircraft off California since July 4, 2012.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said it is believed the Russian planes were on a training mission.

Davis said the Russian planes were entirely within their rights during the flight.

"They followed all the protocols, and it was a very professional encounter on both sides," he said. "There was nothing that they were doing that was contrary to international law."

The Russian planes never entered U.S. territory proper, which by international law extends 13.8 miles (22.2 kilometers) from the U.S. coast.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, any aircraft entering the Air Defense Identification Zone, which extends 200 miles from the coasts of the United States and Canada, must file a flight plan indicating their intentions, must maintain radio contact with air controllers and must have an operational radar transponder.

Davis said Russian flights into the air defense zone are intercepted about 10 times a year.

But earlier this year, a top U.S. Air Force general said Russia was stepping up its military activities in the Asia-Pacific region as tensions increased over the Ukraine and Russia's move into Crimea.

Gen. Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, in a presentation to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, talked up the increased Russian activity.

"They've come with their long-range aviation off the coast of California; they circumnavigated Guam," Carlisle said, showing a picture of a U.S. F-15 fighter "intercepting" a Russian bomber off the Pacific island.

Guam is home to Andersen Air Force Base, which has been used by the U.S. military for flights of B-2 and B-52 bombers across the Pacific.

Flights around Japan and the Korean Peninsula have also "increased drastically," as has naval activity in that area, Carlisle said.

The confrontations aren't just near U.S. airspace. In April, a U.S. Air Force surveillance plane was buzzed by a Russian jet fighter while flying over the Sea of Okhotsk between Russia and Japan, U.S. military officials said.

Describing the fly-by as "straight out of a movie," one U.S. official said a Russian Su-27 fighter jet flew within 100 feet of the nose of a U.S. Air Force RC-135U jet. The Russian aircraft turned and "showed its belly" to the U.S. crew so they could see it was armed with missiles, a U.S official said.

Also in April, U.S. defense officials say, a Russian fighter jet made a dozen low-altitude passes over the USS Donald Cook, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer that was operating in the Black Sea.

On April 28, a Russian Defense Ministry statement said Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had discussed both incidents during a phone call that day.

In response, the statement said, Shoygu "offered to instruct the commanders in chief of the armed forces of both countries to discuss possible additional measures to address the interests of both countries to prevent future misperceptions of actions."

On the other side of the world, F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands intercepted two Russian bombers in April. The Russian planes, which had come about a half-mile into Dutch airspace, were escorted out and then monitored by British planes as they flew north of Scotland.

In a high-profile training mission of its own, the U.S. Air Force this week sent two of its top-of-the-line B-2 stealth bombers to an air base in Britain to conduct training operations. Three B-52 bombers were also sent from the U.S. on a two-week deployment to England, also for training purposes, according to an Air Force news release.

http://www.fox44.com/news/officials-...arly-june-2014