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Russia Is a Threat, But Not Because They’re Hacking John Podesta’s Emails
A Russian fleet is steaming toward Syria from the North Sea through the English Channel. The New York Times, formerly a newspaper, has no information about this anywhere on the front page and none on its world page either. You can read about how Egypt is having a sugar shortage and people with a sweet tooth are undergoing hardship because of it — no, really, you can — but you won’t be able to read about the real growing threat from Russia.
Published in General
I haven’t heard too much about Russian START treaty violations lately, but this item appeared yesterday.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/19/russian-violations-nuclear-treaty-have-worsened-lawmakers-say.html
Oops. Just saw the NYTimes INF link.
Do you accept that it is Russia because Obama says so? I don’t.
I stand corrected.
To the rest, colombo posted a link on the member page.
CB – not to worry, Joe Biden is on it – he’s got the answer to their aggression:
Especially when Russia and China are increasingly coordinating their actions.
Worse, China is working up a new antiship ballistic missile.
Taiwan is about 100 miles off the Chinese mainland.
I guess this is what fundamental transformation looks like.
Think of the press as democratic party operatives. Any kind of external threat like this is going to be good for Trump and bad for Hillary. Therefore, overlook and downplay.
I’m curious how we know it’s the russians?
Are we going to have to start building bomb shelters in our back yards and doing drills in schools like in the 50s?
If Russia is involved in any way in giving Trump an edge, it may be because they are concerned he may be a problem, so they think it’s a tiny insurance policy?
Pseudo-how and why have things escalated between US & Russia in so short a time? – my theory was the power grab by Putin and O’s lack of response, as well as the UN to keep them in check –
Stay tuned — NATO has been making lots of moves that don’t exactly get extensive coverage. Lots of chest bumping going on.
Hah. I was 8 or 9 when they had us do those “duck and cover” drills in case of a Russian nuclear attack, and I knew even then that “ducking and covering” wasn’t going to do me one bit of good.
@frontseatcat , I’m with you. I think Putin is getting away with what he can while our current do nothing president is in office. We are all distracted with our elections so perfect timing for him. He doesn’t care who gets elected as he will have his assets in place by then.
I sort of feel this way. If Putin is behind this he is more interested in the chaos of the event than actually getting one or the other elected.
It happens every time we have a Democrat in the White House. Every tinhorn despot dictator on earth claps their hands. Think we would have had the Iranian hostage crisis or the Mariel boat lift or Isis or Putin’s shenanigans if Reagan had been in office? Or just about any other Republican? I don’t know why more voters can’t put the pieces together. I really don’t.
It happens every time we let the CIA slip the leash just like during Iran-Contra. They’ve had an exceptionally long amount of leash and now comes the choke collar.
When your whole thread sounds like dialogue from The Hunt for Red October, it’s full of win.
Evidence? Mind you, I’d be happier if that were the case.
Face it. Any intelligence service that didn’t hack Hillary’s server should turn in their decoder rings and their miniature cameras. If you can’t run with the big dogs, you’d better stay on the porch.
Seriously? Wow. Had not seen that. Things could be getting interesting quick.
Russia is indeed very much a threat. Thank you, Mama Toad, for starting a discussion about this.
From my vantage point in Europe, Putin looks particularly frightening. The headlines in France read, “Putin divides Europe,” which is absolutely correct, and while everyone in Europe now knows this is happening, Europe — which, united, would be more than capable of mounting a strong defense — is now too deeply divided for collective defense. If Europe can’t hang together, it will hang separately. Everyone senses the ominous historical overtones of this, but everyone is helpless.
The White House welcomed the Italian prime minister to Obama’s last state dinner the other night. I have no idea what was discussed, but clearly it didn’t convince Renzi that he needed to put principle (and long-term self-preservation) ahead of short-term profit. Of course, part of the problem is that the Italian economy is in the tank, which makes it selling “doing the right thing” harder — every European leader is afraid that absent economic growth, the lunatics will take charge. And they’re not wrong to worry.
Here’s a short summary of what transpired here in the past few days:
This is where a stronger United States could knock heads together and provide incentives for these countries to hang together. It won’t happen under Obama, but I do think Hillary might be able to do it. This is the sort of thing she’s reasonably good at.
I haven’t seen anything to suggest that Trump understands this problem, and everything he’s said about it so far has been actively harmful to our interests. (Casting doubts about our commitment to NATO, insulting Merkel, insulting everyone in Europe, really; suggesting that the EU collapsing right now would be a great thing, etc. And obviously, all his warm-and-fuzzy comments about Putin. All of this suggests to many Europeans that they’d best cut separate deals with him, because the US is out of the game. His campaign, I fear, will have done lasting damage to the US even if he’s not elected, because everyone now sees that someone more politically skillful and disciplined could be in power in four years’ time — there’s clearly a market in the US for what he’s selling.) I believe Putin prefers him for entirely rational reasons, even if Putin’s objective is not rational.
But I don’t want us to be dragged into yet another unpleasant to-and-fro about Trump. For those who are genuinely undecided and trying to decide which candidate would better be able to deal with this threat, I recommend the PDF mentioned in the link above, The Kremlin Playbook. It’s a bit of a long read, at 90 pages, but it’s readable and very rigorous. They offer very solid evidence for the assertions they make; it’s not just another NYT opinion piece. Their recommendations, in particular, are worth reading, and might help you make up your mind.
In fairness he did grab South Ossetia while Bush was in office – but that was probably because Bush had a deeply hostile, anti-war Democratic Congress at the time. Ah, America.
Claire,
The policy you advocate seems highly corrolated to Trump’s positions and not Hillary’s.
If I had used the “knock heads together” language about Trump, you would have said that attitude is unhelpful.
Use of the term “stronger United States” with any Dem., especially she of the reset button, is laughable. The idea that she is any better than Obama, particularly given her extreme contempt for our military, is also laughable.
Also, the Georgians mismanaged that war.
“The Washington War Party is coming unhinged and appears to be leaving no stone unturned when it comes to provoking Putin’s Russia and numerous others. The recent collapse of cooperation in Syria—-based on the false claim that Assad and his Russian allies are waging genocide in Aleppo—- is only the latest example.”
“Indeed, Syria is a lawless, bombed-out, economically decimated failed state today owing to Washington’s heavy-handed intervention at the behest of the War Party’s bloody twin sisters. That is, the neocons — led by the contemptible Kagan clan — and the R2P liberal interventionist claque around Hillary Clinton, including UN Ambassador Samantha Powers and National Security Council head Susan Rice.”
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2016/october/11/enough-sabre-rattling-already/
“We are actually in some ways like the atmosphere before the First World War. Michael Howard, the famous historian, said, don’t read the diplomatic papers if you want to understand why the First World War broke out. Read the newspapers. Read the opinion articles. Read the atmosphere of belief that it was now or never on the part of the Germans. ”
Professor Almond continues that the atmosphere here, in the US and UK media, is that it is a game of chicken. Washington is not only telling Russia that it must back down, but the news media is threatening politicians that they must be tough or they will be the ones who look like chickens.”
Thank you for posting the link. It appears we have different definitions of rigorous. A central point of Putin’s arguments has long been that NATO is not to be trusted since it has broken its 1990 promise not to expand to the east except for the special case of post-reunification East Germany.
For that reason, I expected that a rigorous treatment coming to the conclusions the authors did would examine the Russian claim and refute it. I haven’t finished reading the piece, but I searched it for “Gorb,” “Baker,” “1990,” and “expan.” The putative agreement was rigorously not mentioned at all. I then found a Spiegel article which lends support to Putin’s contention;
Another excerpt from Spiegel:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!
And who is the biggest spider of them all?
“Soros is very close to the Ukrainian president, who was put in power after a US-backed coup deposed the elected leader of Ukraine last year. In the email correspondence, Soros tells the Ukrainian leadership that the US should provide Ukraine “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force.” In other words, despite the February ceasefire, Soros is pushing behind the scenes to make sure Ukraine receives top-of-the-line lethal weapons
Who is thrilled with Soros’ drawing the US government into more intervention in the region? The military-industrial complex for one is happy at the prospect of big weapons “sales” to Ukraine. The bankers are thrilled. Washington power-brokers are thrilled. There is something in this for everyone who is politically well-connected. The only losers are the people who will be forced to pay for it, the American taxpayers.
No one seems to ask why we are involved in Ukraine at all. Is it really any of our business if the east wants to break away from the west? Is it a vital US interest which flag the people wish to hang in Donetsk?”
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/june/07/soros-pushes-us-bailouts-and-weapons-for-ukraine/