Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

International news

Reaction to ‘Brexit’ vote is most revealing

trump-scotland

What am I missing here?

President Barack Obama is dismayed at the results of the British referendum that means that the United Kingdom is going to leave the European Union.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is saddened, too, by the outcome.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who staked his reputation on keeping his country in the EU, announced his resignation.

Meanwhile, Russia has applauded the result.

So has the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Here’s the best one yet: Donald J. Trump has joined Russia and Iran in cheering the referendum result.

Yes, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is now in league with Russia and Iran.

Aren’t these countries two of our more fearsome adversaries?

Oh, I almost forgot. Trump says Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is a “strong leader.” He’s also endorsed the ham-fisted tactics of other totalitarian regimes, such as Iran, for their firmness.

national news, political news

Who’s afraid of Megyn Kelly?

Donald-Trump_3372655b

The individual who vows to stare down Russian strongman Vladimir Putin while making America “great again” appears to have come down with a case of the quivers.

Donald J. Trump’s tough talk about how he’ll make Mexico pay for the wall, how he’ll take the oil from the Islamic State and how he’ll make Russia toe the line around the world has backed out of a debate with several other Republican presidential candidates.

His reason? Well, he hasn’t exactly told us.

Trump bails out

He calls one of the debate moderators, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly a “lightweight.” He said she doesn’t like him and then adds that he doesn’t like her, either.

Trump said Kelly was mean to him in that first Fox-sponsored debate when she asked about his views of women.

Trump’s latest stunt has demonstrated beyond a doubt — as he’s done so many times before — that he is totally, utterly and categorically unfit to become the next Leader of the Free World.

How on God’s Earth do we take this guy seriously? I don’t, but hey, that’s no surprise. What still amazes me, though, is that others continue to tell those ubiquitous pollsters how much they love and adore this clown who’s so willing to stick it in the eye of those who adhere to that dreaded “political correctness.”

But he just can’t bring himself to stand in front of an American broadcast journalist and answer tough questions.

Vlad Putin, wherever he is today, is likely laughing out loud . . . at Trump.

 

International news

Russia showing it might want Assad out, too

assad

Cracks may be appearing in the once-ironclad alliance between Russia and Syria.

The Russians are now indicating that they’d accept a world without Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad if the warring factions ever can find a way to stop the shooting, bombing and plundering of that ancient land.

It’s not the same as an outright ouster, which the United States and many other western allies would prefer. But the language from diplomats close to the Russians seems to indicate that Assad’s support in Moscow might be fraying around the edges.

Western powers should welcome this bit of news.

The Russians have been bombing anti-Assad forces. They also have joined the fight against the Islamic State, flying combat sorties against ISIS targets. The Russians, of course, have reason for their outrage,  given ISIS’s taking of responsibility for the downing of the Russian passenger jet that was flying out of Egypt.

Assad’s departure, of course, cannot occur until there’s a peace agreement that ends the horrific violence in Syria.

Is there reason to mistrust the Russians on this? Well, yes. Russian President/strongman Vladmir Putin, one must remember, once was a KGB spy who got paid to lie. So, he’s not the most trustworthy head of government in the world.

However, if there’s diplomatic pressure to be applied to Putin, now is the time to start ratcheting it up.

 

International news

Allies tighten ties against Islamic State

air-strike

France and Russia are allies with a common enemy.

It’s the Islamic State.

The two nations’ presidents — Francois Hollande and Vladimir Putin — have agreed to tighten their alliance in the shared fight against the monstrous terrorist cabal.

Wait, though, for critics of President Obama to weigh in. They’ll wonder aloud: Why isn’t Barack Obama in the lead?

What difference does it really make?

France and Russia have skin in this game. The Russians lost more than 200 of their citizens when a bomb exploded on a jetliner; ISIS took responsibility for the deed. Then came the Paris attacks that killed 130 victims; ISIS took responsibility for that deed, too.

Hollande and Putin agreed to share intelligence and to intensify their air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria. As the Associated Press reports: “We agreed on a very important issue: To strike the terrorists only, Daesh and the jihadi groups only, and not to strike the forces and the groups that are fighting against the terrorists,” Hollande said after the meeting, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym. “And we are going to exchange some information about that: what can be struck, and what must not be struck.”

Both countries employ significant military assets. Let us welcome them more fully into this fight.

As for the United States, there’s plenty of pressure being applied for our president to kick our own immense military establishment into an even more active role in the war against ISIS.

My bigger hope, though, is that President Obama is continuing to seek out more allied help — from the rest of the European Union and friendly Middle East countries that more than any other ought to want to destroy ISIS.

For now, I see nothing at all wrong with France and Russia locking arms in this mortal combat.

 

International news

ISIS might have enlisted a new, powerful foe

russianjetcrash

Is there any chance that the Islamic State has opened the door for a powerful new adversary to enter the active worldwide fight against the terrorist monsters?

British and U.S. intelligence officials are beginning to piece together a theory that a bomb was placed aboard a Russian Metrojet charter airplane that exploded over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

All 224 people aboard the craft, mostly Russian, died in the tragic crash.

ISIS takes credit

Then we hear that ISIS has taken credit for the explosion, even though recovery teams at the crash site initially said they couldn’t find evidence of a bomb.

Well, if there is to be any possible silver lining in this tragedy — and the world is sending its sympathy to the families of those who perished — it is that Russia well might now become an active ally of the United States in this global anti-terror conflict.

If history is a judge of how the Russians might react to this carnage, then the Islamic State well might have picked the wrong foe to fight.

History tells us that when Nazi German troops invaded the then-Soviet Union in June 1941, they plundered the territory they captured en route to Moscow. They killed millions of Russians.

The Red Army then turned the tide against the Germans and began advancing westward, driving the Germans out of Russia. They returned the “favor,” so to speak, by killing German soldiers who were surrendering. They fought a vengeance-filled advance on an enemy that had brought so much misery to innocent victims.

Yes, history possibly can be a guide to the kind of vengeance that contemporary Russia might seek in this worldwide war against the Islamic State.

President Obama would do well to recruit his adversary Russian President Vladimir Putin to join us in this struggle.

 

International news

World is better without Saddam, but …

Marco Rubio said that thing that all of us know to be true.

The world, said the U.S. senator from Florida, “is a better place” without Saddam Hussein walking among us. He told Fox News Sunday that President George W. Bush made the right call in invading Iraq in March 2003, even though he acted on intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be faulty.

Presidents, said Rubio — who’s running for president himself — don’t have the benefit of hindsight when they make critical decisions.

Again, true enough, senator.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rubio-iraq-invasion-was-not-a-mistake/ar-BBjTt0s

But here’s the issue, as I see it — and no doubt others will see it differently:

The world would be a better place without a long list of sovereign leaders. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe comes to mind. So does North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. How about getting rid of Vladimir Putin in Russia? Other countries are ruled by tinhorn dictators and despots.

Is it our place to invade any of those other countries to get rid of evil rulers?

Rubio was standing behind his fellow Floridian, former Gov. Jeb Bush, who (now) famously told Fox’s Megyn Kelly he would have invaded Iraq, too, even with what we now know about the missing WMDs. Bush also, let’s add, is likely to run for president as well as Rubio and a host of other GOP candidates.

The problem with the Iraq War and the precedent it set is that we’ve now laid down a predicate for future efforts to rid the planet of evil men in high places.

The tough economic sanctions we had imposed on Saddam Hussein after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 had contained that madman. The invasion was unnecessary, costly and far more troublesome than any of the president’s inner circle led the nation to believe it would be.

Oh, and one more thing: Saddam Hussein had nothing, zero, to do with 9/11.

Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein? Sure it is. Is it a safer place because we got rid of him? Only if you discount the presence of the Islamic State.

 

media news, national news, political news

How's this for demonization?

2 Comments

A new poll shows just how polarized and how angry some Americans have become toward the president of the United States of America.

Get a load of this: A Reuters/Ipsos survey suggests Republicans believe Barack Obama poses a greater threat to the nation than Russian strongman/president Vladimir Putin.

Pardon me while I catch my breath.

There.

I’m better now.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-see-obama-as-more-imminent-threat-than-putin-reuters-ipsos-poll/ar-AAabXVM

One-third of Republicans believe Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outpacing the fear of GOP respondents about Putin’s threat to the country.

Reuters reports: “Given the level of polarization in American politics the results are not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of ‘The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things.’

“‘There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who is in the office,’ Glassner said, adding that “fear mongering’ by the Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign. ‘The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears,’ he said.”

I reckon so.

Another interesting aspect of the poll is that 27 of Republicans see Democrats as an “imminent threat,” while 22 percent of Democrats believe the same thing about Republicans. Pretty close call on that one. That, too, reflects the polarization that exists today.

Fear is everywhere. It’s a bipartisan affliction — and it’s unappealing no matter who’s expressing it.

International news

Let's ask: Did Putin play a part in this killing?

It’s easy for peanut-gallery observers far away from the action to ask questions those closer to the scene might not ask. So, I’ll ask it: Did Russian strongman/president Vladimir Putin have a hand in the assassination of a leading critic of his government?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/surveillance-video-appears-to-show-nemtsov-killing/vi-BBi6dTs

I’m not sure if the Russian criminal justice system has a presumed-innocent clause in its framework, but having watched Putin from a great distance over many years, and knowing of his background, my darker side tells me something just doesn’t smell right in Moscow.

Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a Moscow street — in the shadow of the Kremlin — this past week. Who is this fellow? He was considered perhaps Putin’s leading critic. He had a huge political following in Russia and was seen by some as a serious political threat to the Russian president. Many thousands of them marched in tribute to the slain leader.

http://news.yahoo.com/russians-march-memory-murdered-critic-putin-101910307.html

Now, what about Putin?

His background is worth examining. In his previous life, Putin fellow led the KGB, the intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, the one-time “Evil Empire” made infamous by its known practice of eliminating critics of the communist regime. The KGB’s name went away when the Soviet Union vaporized in 1991, but its infrastructure has remained pretty much in place, even as the agency was split into two parts.

Putin has served a couple of non-consecutive tours of duty as Russia’s president. Each one has demonstrated the hallmark of this individual’s makeup.

He is as ruthless as ruthless gets. He took over a portion of Ukraine, a supposedly sovereign country bordering Russia. The term “bully” doesn’t even come close to describing Putin.

I have this terrible feeling in my gut that Vladimir Putin — at the very least — just might have a good idea as to who killed Nemtsov. If he does — and I believe that’s the case — let’s not expect Putin to give up whoever did the deed.

 

business news, International news

Sanctions seek to punish North Korea

It turns out President Obama is going to be up front and visible as he responds to North Korea’s alleged cyber attack on a major American company.

He took time from his vacation in Hawaii to sign an executive order slapping economic sanctions on North Korea.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-sanctions-north-korea-sony-cyberattack/story?id=27965524

I’m still thinking the president had a hand in North Korea’s Internet crash shortly after dictator Kim Jong-Un bullied Sony Pictures into holding back release of “The Interview,” a fictional story about a plot to assassinate the North Korean dictator. The bullying included the alleged hacking into Sony’s emails and other communications.

Obama threatened a “proportional” response.

Now we have the sanctions. They’re sweeping and designed to bring serious economic pain to a government known for bringing plenty of pain of its own to its people.

According to ABC News: “The order authorizes the Treasury Department to shutdown access to the U.S. financial system, prohibiting transactions and freezing assets, for specific officials  and entities of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and anyone who supports them.”

Further, according to ABC: “‘The order is not targeted at the people of North Korea, but rather is aimed at the Government of North Korea and its activities that threaten the United States and others,’ Obama wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell notifying them of the action.”

Will the sanctions work? Well, Kim Jong-Un ought to ask Soviet strongman/president Vladimir Putin about the effectiveness of these sanctions.

Yes, they’ll work.

 

International news

Did the U.S. destroy the Russian economy?

A question is being bandied about in the international press while the world watches the Russian economy implode.

Have the U.S.-led sanctions against Russia brought about the collapse?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/barack-obama-vladimir-putin-russian-economy-113626.html?hp=t2_r

You remember when President Obama announced the sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and sent troops into the neighboring country because Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t like all that anti-Russia rhetoric coming out of Kiev.

Some hardliners on the right wanted the United States to do more, to bring military pressure to bear — perhaps by arming the Ukrainians who were fighting the advance of Russian armor and infantry into their country. The sanctions, they reckoned, wouldn’t have much of an impact.

Interesting that the sanctions all by themselves might have helped bring the Russian economy to its knees. The value of the ruble is plummeting, along with the price of oil, a major source of Russian income. The sanctions have tied up Russian investments abroad and have made it quite difficult for Russian businessman to function.

Russia remains a major military power. Its economic standing, though, has been reduced to second- or perhaps third-tier status.

According to Politico: “’It’s hard to disaggregate out the independent effects of the sanctions from the bigger story. Obviously the driver is oil prices,’ said Obama’s former ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul.

“’That said, there is no doubt that sanctions raise uncertainty about the Russian economy. Their own minister of economic development said today that the ruble is falling faster than the macroeconomic indicators would suggest it should be,’ McFaul added.”

The sanctions are punishing the one-time super power.

It remains to been, of course, whether Putin’s future adventurism will end. My guess is that he’ll have to think twice, maybe more, about getting involved in other countries’ internal affairs.