Seeds of Contemporary Russiaphobia

[dukkha]

 

[Cypress]

History has shown that Soviet apologists were fairly forgiving people. It's all about creating a better world, after all!

Tepid.

You are going to have to up your game man, if you want me to read and respond!

 

[cawacko]

annatta, if I may ask. Where did your passion/love for Russia come from? Is it part of your families background or you've just always been a fan? Or does it have to do with Trump?

Not trying to be a d*ck asking the question I'm just curious.

 

[anatta]

annatta, if I may ask. Where did your passion/love for Russia come from? Is it part of your families background or you've just always been a fan? Or does it have to do with Trump?

Not trying to be a d*ck asking the question I'm just curious.

When I find areas of interest or need to know more I dive into them.
I force myself to read up on specifics and background as well as current topical newsworthy events..it's all self study,and it's all EZ to do with the internet.
(If I had digital access when I was a productive young adult...we could all have been self taught geniuses.)

The last big 3 for me was
the Middle East when we got into Iraq/Afghanistan.
Mr Meangeans R.I.P (remeber him?) on DCJ#1 got me into studying weapons as a function of ME power projection.

that led to
GWOT ( Long War on Terror) and ISIS and AQ . Libya tied into that because of the terrorists state it became post-Qadaffi
then Russia after the Crimean annexation.
What did it for me was seeing Sevastopol at risk, and the forced hand of Putin's Little Green Men annexation

I'll spend a couple years on each trying to master the terms/geography/players/powers ( either economic or political) until something else becomes pressing

Putin is an interesting guy too.
You can see him as a Thug, or you can see him as a geo-political chess master.
It's best to look at him thru both perspectives

hey cawacko? do you think Trump's gonna go thru on tariffs? been some talk otherwise..

 

[Airstrip One]

When I find areas of interest or need to know more I dive into them.
I force myself to read up on specifics and background as well as current topical newsworthy events..it's all self study,and it's all EZ to do with the internet.
(If I had digital access when I was a productive young adult...we could all have been self taught geniuses.)

The last big 3 for me was
the Middle East when we got into Iraq/Afghanistan.
Mr Meangeans R.I.P (remeber him?) on DCJ#1 got me into studying weapons as a function of ME power projection.

that led to
GWOT ( Long War on Terror) and ISIS and AQ . Libya tied into that because of the terrorists state it became post-Qadaffi
then Russia after the Crimean annexation.
What did it for me was seeing Sevastopol at risk, and the forced hand of Putin's Little Green Men annexation

I'll spend a couple years on each trying to master the terms/geography/players/powers ( either economic or political) until something else becomes pressing

Putin is an interesting guy too.
You can see him as a Thug, or you can see him as a geo-political chess master.
It's best to look at him thru both perspectives

hey cawacko? do you think Trump's gonna go thru on tariffs? been some talk otherwise..

He's a thug. Time will tell if he is a masterful foreign policy ace.

My daily viewing of Fox Business gave me some opinion that it's just Trump trying to force people to the table to renegotiate trade deals. Certainly, the fact that he has claimed that tariffs will be reserved for nations that actively cheat at trade (China) would suggest he might have already exempted at least Canada if he was really serious.

 

[dukkha]

He's a thug. Time will tell if he is a masterful foreign policy ace.

My daily viewing of Fox Business gave me some opinion that it's just Trump trying to force people to the table to renegotiate trade deals. Certainly, the fact that he has claimed that tariffs will be reserved for nations that actively cheat at trade (China) would suggest he might have already exempted at least Canada if he was really serious.

I think/hope that is correct ( bolded)

Putin is both -he's a needed nationalist after the drunken Yeltsin, and impotent Gorbechev.

Ironically it may very well not be Syria or Crimea or even the war in Donbass that is his big loss.
He won those gambits by and large.

It's the self-inflicted damage from sanctions due to a troll factory that really hurts Russian economy.

 

[Airstrip One]

I think/hope that is correct ( bolded)

Putin is both -he's a needed nationalist after the drunken Yeltsin, and impotent Gorbechev.

Ironically it may very well not be Syria or Crimea or even the war in Donbass that is his big loss.
He won those gambits by and large.

It's the self-inflicted damage from sanctions due to a troll factory that really hurts Russian economy.

Yeltsin was the man. He even was gracious enough to stand before the troops and convince them to spare the worthless Gorbachev's life. He made the necessary hard decisions to allow the Russian economy the chance to restart so that it could grow. Putin owes much politically to Yeltsin in the sense that Gorbachev owes him organically.

 

[kudzu]

I think/hope that is correct ( bolded)

Putin is both -he's a needed nationalist after the drunken Yeltsin, and impotent Gorbechev.

Ironically it may very well not be Syria or Crimea or even the war in Donbass that is his big loss.
He won those gambits by and large.

It's the self-inflicted damage from sanctions due to a troll factory that really hurts Russian economy.

Nationalism is always aggressive and expansive. Seems weird to me when Russia is so impoverished and could do some work at home.

 

[Darth Omar]

annatta, if I may ask. Where did your passion/love for Russia come from? Is it part of your families background or you've just always been a fan? Or does it have to do with Trump?

Not trying to be a d*ck asking the question I'm just curious.

How about we turn the question around?

I can’t speak for Noise but I haven’t budged on Putin in a decade lol. It’s practically everyone else that’s moved. I’ve always accepted that Putin is former KGB and a thug. But, that he can and should be dealt with for what he is *in addition* to former KGB thug. Putin is an important world leader.

And you know what else? That’s been the prevailing foreign policy stance of every administration going back to Bush!

So I’m curious to ask you: what has changed your stance?

 

[cawacko]

How about we turn the question around?

I can’t speak for Noise but I haven’t budged on Putin in a decade lol. It’s practically everyone else that’s moved. I’ve always accepted that Putin is former KGB and a thug. But, that he can and should be dealt with for what he is *in addition* to former KGB thug. Putin is an important world leader.

And you know what else? That’s been the prevailing foreign policy stance of every administration going back to Bush!

So I’m curious to ask you: what has changed your stance?

I wasn't aware my stance had changed. I disliked/hated the Soviet Union when they were communist and I feel the same about them today with Putin in charge.

 

[blackascoal]

The threat of war in Ukraine is growing. As the unelected government in Kiev declares itself unable to control the rebellion in the country's east, John Kerry brands Russia a rogue state. The US and the European Union step up sanctions against the Kremlin, accusing it of destabilising Ukraine. The White House is reported to be set on a new cold war policy with the aim of turning Russia into a "pariah state".

That might be more explicable if what is going on in eastern Ukraine now were not the mirror image of what took place in Kiev a couple of months ago. Then, it was armed protesters in Maidan Square seizing government buildings and demanding a change of government and constitution. US and European leaders championed the "masked militants" and denounced the elected government for its crackdown, just as they now back the unelected government's use of force against rebels occupying police stations and town halls in cities such as Slavyansk and Donetsk.

"America is with you," Senator John McCain told demonstrators then, standing shoulder to shoulder with the leader of the far-right Svoboda party as the US ambassador haggled with the state department over who would make up the new Ukrainian government. (Nuland's "Fuck the EU" remarks)

When the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover, politicians such as William Hague brazenly misled parliament about the legality of what had taken place: the imposition of a pro-western government on Russia's most neuralgic and politically divided neighbour.

Putin bit back, taking a leaf out of the US street-protest playbook – even though, as in Kiev, the protests that spread from Crimea to eastern Ukraine evidently have mass support. But what had been a glorious cry for freedom in Kiev became infiltration and insatiable aggression in Sevastopol and Luhansk.

After Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, the bulk of the western media abandoned any hint of even-handed coverage. So Putin is now routinely compared to Hitler, while the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime has been airbrushed out of most reporting as Putinist propaganda.

So you don't hear much about the Ukrainian government's veneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government's ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down, and false identifications of Russian special forces are relayed as fact.

The reality is that, after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west's attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure, via an explicitly anti-Moscow EU association agreement. Its rejection led to the Maidan protests and the installation of an anti-Russian administration – rejected by half the country – that went on to sign the EU and International Monetary Fund agreements regardless.

No Russian government could have acquiesced in such a threat from territory that was at the heart of both Russia and the Soviet Union.
Putin's absorption of Crimea and support for the rebellion in eastern Ukraine is clearly defensive, and the red line now drawn: the east of Ukraine, at least, is not going to be swallowed up by Nato or the EU.

Meanwhile, the US and its European allies impose sanctions and dictate terms to Russia and its proteges in Kiev, encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan.
But by what right is the US involved at all, incorporating under its strategic umbrella a state that has never been a member of Nato, and whose last elected government came to power on a platform of explicit neutrality?
It has none, of course – which is why the Ukraine crisis is seen in such a different light across most of the world. There may be few global takers for Putin's oligarchic conservatism and nationalism, but Russia's counterweight to US imperial expansion is welcomed, from China to Brazil.

In fact, one outcome of the crisis is likely to be a closer alliance between China and Russia, as the US continues its anti-Chinese "pivot" to Asia. And despite growing violence, the cost in lives of Russia's arms-length involvement in Ukraine has so far been minimal compared with any significant western intervention you care to think of for decades.

The risk of civil war is nevertheless growing, and with it the chances of outside powers being drawn into the conflict. Barack Obama has already sent token forces to eastern Europe and is under pressure, both from Republicans and Nato hawks such as Poland, to send many more. Both US and British troops are due to take part in Nato military exercises in Ukraine this summer.

The US and EU have already overplayed their hand in Ukraine. Neither Russia nor the western powers may want to intervene directly, and the Ukrainian prime minister's conjuring up of a third world war presumably isn't authorised by his Washington sponsors. But a century after 1914, the risk of unintended consequences should be obvious enough – as the threat of a return of big-power conflict grows.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

MORONIC .. as usual.

With all the mounting evidence, here you are still clinging to Trump's ass.

INCREDIBLE

 

[anatta]

MORONIC .. as usual.

With all the mounting evidence, here you are still clinging to Trump's ass.

INCREDIBLE

Good to see you again my friend. Politics aside. what mounting evidence of Russian collusion?
Like the Steele dossier being paid for by the Clinton campaign? Like FISA abuse by the FBI?

Or did you just feel the need to stop by and take a dump on what has become a decent thread talking bout
NATO expansion, Crimea and how the sanctions hurt the Russian economy ( not just the oligarchs)?

Meanwhile, the US and its European allies impose sanctions and dictate terms to Russia and its proteges in Kiev, encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan.
But by what right is the US involved at all, incorporating under its strategic umbrella a state that has never been a member of Nato, and whose last elected government came to power on a platform of explicit neutrality?

^
at one time you would have been calling Brennan out, as well as US meddling ( a form of interventionism)
in a neutral country on RUssia's border

 

[blackascoal]

Good to see you again my friend. Politics aside. what mounting evidence of Russian collusion?
Like the Steele dossier being paid for by the Clinton campaign? Like FISA abuse by the FBI?

Or did you just feel the need to stop by and take a dump on what has become a decent thread talking bout
NATO expansion, Crimea and how the sanctions hurt the Russian economy ( not just the oligarchs)?
^
at one time you would have been calling Brennan out, as well as US meddling ( a form of interventionism)
in a neutral country on RUssia's border

Good seeing you as well brother.

But .. surely you jest. It simply is not possible that you've somehow missed the rising tide of indictments and pressure on all the rats jumping ship.

At what point do you come down to earth so we can have a real conversation?

 

[anatta]

Good seeing you as well brother.

But .. surely you jest. It simply is not possible that you've somehow missed the rising tide of indictments and pressure on all the rats jumping ship.

At what point do you come down to earth so we can have a real conversation?

anything is possible with Mueller's fishing expedition..Now he's supposedly looking into Trump and UAE deals??
How is this even tangentially related to Russian collusion?

Once we get done with this -we need to ban Special Prosecutors by DoJ like Congress did for itself.

To your point on the indictments, it looks like they are process charges or matters unrelated to Trump and Russia

 

[kudzu]

anything is possible with Mueller's fishing expedition..Now he's supposedly looking into Trump and UAE deals??
How is this even tangentially related to Russian collusion?

Once we get done with this -we need to ban Special Prosecutors by DoJ like Congress did for itself.

To your point on the indictments, it looks like they are process charges or matters unrelated to Trump and Russia

Kushner tried to borrow money from the Emirates and from Qatar as well.. When he failed, he sicced the Saudis on them.

These are very sleazy, grasping people who expect financial bail outs when they are stupid and reckless... and revenge is always on the table.

 

[kudzu]

anything is possible with Mueller's fishing expedition..Now he's supposedly looking into Trump and UAE deals??
How is this even tangentially related to Russian collusion?

Once we get done with this -we need to ban Special Prosecutors by DoJ like Congress did for itself.

To your point on the indictments, it looks like they are process charges or matters unrelated to Trump and Russia

Kushner tried to borrow money from the Emirates and from Qatar as well.. When he failed, he sicced the Saudis on them.

These are very sleazy, grasping people who expect financial bail outs when they are stupid and reckless... and revenge is always on the table.

 

[dukkha]

Kushner tried to borrow money from the Emirates and from Qatar as well.. When he failed, he sicced the Saudis on them.

These are very sleazy, grasping people who expect financial bail outs when they are stupid and reckless... and revenge is always on the table.

annd??? where is the Russian collusion?