RichardPrins wrote: 

What a fantastic article! A must read!

Putin’s Demonizers: A Dangerous Ploy » CounterPunch/Andrew Levine

(...) Real conservatives should therefore embrace Putin, not vilify him; and not just for his purported pre-Enlightenment sympathies.

Being pessimists about human nature, real conservatives tend to favor authoritarian political styles and hardheaded, realist diplomacy.  They like strong leaders, and despise floundering, clueless moralizers – like the ones now making foreign policy in the United States.

They have a point:  liberal internationalists – humanitarian interventionists especially – are more dangerous.

But, then, why demonize Putin for being the kind of leader real conservatives admire?

It was telling that one of the less fatuous attendees at the recently concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington effectively, though grudgingly, agreed.

Rudolph Giuliani took his turn disparaging Obama by praising Putin’s leadership.  Instead of muddling along like Obama from one situation to another, Putin, Giuliani pointed out, knows where he is going.

Like other great conservative leaders of the past – Charles de Gaulle comes immediately to mind – Putin approaches politics and diplomacy like a game of chess, envisioning the larger situation and anticipating the right move several steps ahead.

And so, when it suits his purpose, he will bail Obama out, as he did when he had backed himself into a corner from which, without Putin’s intervention, he would have gotten the United States bogged down in Syria’s civil war – to the detriment of everyone involved.

Or, when doing so is in his interest, he can prevail over the American president, notwithstanding the fact that the United States has a stronger hand to play.

Under the true conservative tent, there is evidently still room for a kind of greatness that is lacking in the liberal wing of the larger liberal fold.

Greatness, but not goodness.  On this, as on almost everything else, George W. Bush was wrong.  Hillary Clinton is wrong too.

Putin is the closest approximation the world now has to the great conservative leaders of the past.  Conservatives should appreciate this about him.  But the gap between real conservatives and the self-styled ones around us is extreme; they might as well be different species.

Still, though, the question remains: why is Putin demonized?

I would venture that the fact that Putin is the leader of Russia has more than a little to do with it.

Even in what Gore Vidal aptly called the United States of Amnesia, it registers at some level that, a century ago, Russians moved history forward; that they broke free from the capitalist system.

The Communists who led the Russian Revolution then went on to organize and oversee the construction of a historically unprecedented, ostensibly socialist, order.  It was a valiant effort – undertaken in an economically backward country and in the face of the relentless opposition of far stronger enemies.

Tragically, what they concocted turned out to be a mixed blessing at best.  Seven decades later, it all fell apart.

But Communism – in Russia, and then in Eastern Europe and China — was a living presence throughout much of the twentieth century; its effects on politics and reflections on politics were profound.

Even in a country and at a time when Republican-leaning states and regions are described as “red,” the memory of Communism lingers at some level.

Putin is no less pro-capitalist than anyone else in the liberal fold, and he is as fine a conservative leader as one can be in today’s world.

The east –the Russian part as much as the Chinese – is no longer even remotely red (except perhaps in the sense that Republicans are), but the memory persists in our collective consciousness.

And so, when a Russian leader becomes an obstacle in America’s way, the empire strikes back.  Step one is to vilify the leader.  And if there is anything our foreign policy establishment and our compliant corporate media are good at, vilification tops the list.

Demonizing Putin may be useful in the short run to the empire’s “bipartisan” stewards.

But, they are dealing with someone more formidable than themselves, and they are getting in over their heads.  It is a cynical and dangerous ploy from which incalculable harm could follow.

 kurtster wrote: 
If it isn't dead (at least some are very busy resurrecting it), then some people will be able to make lots of money again... (Are there already F-45, F-55s on the drawing boards?)

Official Washington is in deep umbrage over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine after a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected president. Some top neocons want a new Cold War, but they don’t want anyone to note their staggering hypocrisy, writes Robert Parry.

After all, you gotta have an enemy or two, three to rage against.



BTW, La Clinton could also have talked to the "Boys and Girls Club" about Pres. Polk and Texas/Mexico, but that would be embarrassing I guess, and no way to electioneer early.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Ah, Ms. Stoner - Weiss, a heavy hitter at the Council on Foreign Relations.

I'll just have to disagree with her assessment.  Timing is everything.  Imo, Putin wishes to reconstruct as much of the USSR as possible.  There will never be a better time to do it than now and there is nothing stopping him from doing so other than internal Russian factions.  Like him or not, Putin is pretty smart, ruthless and unafraid.

So is the Cold War dead as Obama and Clinton have assured us in the past or is ramping up again as Clinton has just warned ?

Hillary Clinton compares Russian president’s actions to Hitler — RT News

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has likened President Putin’s stance on Ukraine to tactics used by Hitler in the 1930s. Clinton claims Russia is trying to “re-Sovietize” it neighbors in a move that “threatens (the) peace of Europe.”

In her first public statement on the situation in Ukraine, Clinton criticized the Russian president over his policy of protection of minorities in Ukraine as a guise for intervention. Targeting alleged Russia’s decision to issue passports to citizens in Crimea, Clinton compared the move to tactics adopted by Adolf Hitler.

“That is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s, when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe," she said at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach on Tuesday.

The Russian government has, in fact, offered passports to members of the Ukrainian riot police Berkut who have been threatened by lynch mobs, though later Russia’s Consul General in Simferopol, Vyacheslav Svetlichny, said he did not exclude the possibility of Russian passports being issued to Ukrainian citizens.

Following her speech, Clinton denied she made a direct comparison to Hitler, arguing that Putin’s actions were “reminiscent” of the rhetoric used by Nazi Germany when they moved on Poland, Czechoslovakia and other parts of Europe. The potential presidential candidate said she just wanted everyone to have a little “historic perspective.”

“I am not making a comparison, certainly. But I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before," she said. Clinton added that Putin’s policy of “re-Sovietizing” the countries surrounding Russia is having a negative effect on development in Russia and threatens peace across Europe.

Clinton is not the first politician to make the comparison. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and his Czech counterpart, Karel Schwarzenberg, have both drawn parallels with Nazi Germany.

Kathryn Stoner, a Russia expert at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told AP that Clinton’s comparison was a little over-the-top. She said Putin “doesn't look like he is intent on spreading across the Ukraine and permanently occupying this area.” (...)

As predicted, and not the first, nor the last time, we'll hear that one being used...

 kurtster wrote: 

Sounds good to me.  I also agree with Richard's post below, these war mongerers and Obama haters that are using that same old weak card need to STFU. I would like for US foregin policy to be even weaker to be perfectly honest, the weaker the better. 

Lemme see if I got the facts straight ...

Ukraine is a big country in Eastern Europe through which passes around 40% of Western Europe's supply of natural gas from Russia.

In the past, there has been the occasion where Russia has cut off the supply flowing through Ukraine because Ukraine was stealing gas due to its inability to pay for it and causing shock waves in the EU at the same time due to interuptions of nat gas supply.

Russia (Putin) is still pissed off over losing Ukraine and all its goodies with the breakup of the USSR.  Through treaty though, they were able to keep their warm water seaport in Crimea.

All the goodies lie in the Russian speaking Eastern Ukraine like the fertile soil and their huge undeveloped nat gas reserves ( 1 Trillion cubic yards or so)

Russia and the EU have a co-dependency.  The EU needs the nat gas and Russia needs the revenue from the nat gas.

Russia is allowing the US to use its airspace to fly stuff into Afghanistan.

A couple of days ago, some big Russian Oligarchs and Putin himself lost about a total of $5 billion in one day due to the drop in stock prices that resulted from Russia's alledged invasion of the Ukraine.  These oligarchs privately kicked Putins ass for causing unnecessary tensions that cost them all them buckos.

Ukraine is a big mess all by itself without any of these peripheral considerations.  The last estimate I heard of how much money the deposed leader had snuck out of the country or is just plain missing was $100 billion.  The Ukrainians have issues with the Russians over a little matter of genocide where 10 million Ukrainians died.

The US is powerless to stop Putin from doing as he wishes A) because it has no power and B) because it needs the airspace to supply Afghanistan..  The EU is powerless to stop Putin cuz it needs the gas.  Putin can't really cut off anyone's gas because he needs the dough.  Putin can't piss off the Oligarchs much more cuz $ 5 billion in personal money down the toiddy is quite a bit to lose in one day.  So he has to be more careful not to scare the global markets.

Yep.  Its easy peasy.  The US needs to shut up and mind its own bidness.

Russia Didn't Invade Ukraine Because of US 'Weakness'
Whenever the United States fails to use violence abroad—a rarity—politicians and pundits howl* about America’s “credibility” being at stake.

* See the Syrian howler monkeys

---

(...) The media many trust described in hysterical tones how the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was under a full-scale Russian invasion with headlines like: “Ukraine says Russia sent 16,000 troops to Crimea”, “Ukraine crisis deepens as Russia sends more troops into Crimea,” as well as “What can Obama do about Russia's invasion of Crimea?”.

Facts, and ardent statements by top Russian diplomats were totally ignored by the western ‘war press’.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin pointed to the longstanding 25,000 troop allowance while FM Sergey Lavrov stressed the Russian military “strictly executes the agreements which stipulate the Russian fleet’s presence in Ukraine, and follows the stance and claims coming from the legitimate authority in Ukraine and in this case the legitimate authority of the Autonomous Republic Crimea as well.” (...)

---

Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose US Intervention in Ukraine « Antiwar.com Blog

(...) Over a decade of war will do that to a population. Part of the low support for intervening in Ukraine stems, I would suspect, from the lack of knowledge of Ukraine and the amount of people who probably could not point it out on a map (which I assume is very significant).

But more power to them. The way Washington is wringing its hands over the situation in Ukraine is indicative of, in John Mearsheimer’s words, the fact that “America’s national-security elites act on the assumption that every nook and cranny of the globe is of great strategic significance and that there are threats to U.S. interests everywhere.”

 steeler wrote: 
And what are you leaving unsaid today?

 RichardPrins wrote:  

The WSWS is criticizing the American media for disseminating propaganda instead of facts, but in doing so it leads with this paragraph:

In the wake of the right-wing coup in Ukraine organized by the United States and the European powers, the American media is responding with a torrent of inflammatory war propaganda directed against Russia

?????

 

 sirdroseph wrote:
I see massive cognitive dissonance ahead...

This best sums up the US position in the Ukraine.  This guy is usually an Obama suck up, but this is a good article;

In the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has a credibility problem

U.S. Increasingly Isolated On Russia Sanctions

On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed confidence that there was broad international support for imposing tough economic sanctions on Russia unless it withdrew its forces from Ukraine. It took barely a day for a vital American ally to say that it would pursue a different approach — and for evidence to emerge that a second one was likely to break with the Obama administration as well.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the most powerful figures in the European Union, signaled Monday that she wanted to hold off on sanctions while pursuing a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, not one based on the asset freezes, visa bans, and other punitive measures Kerry outlined during his appearance on "Meet the Press." Merkel's government instead favors direct talks with Moscow and the deployment of international monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, which would establish facts on the ground in Ukraine with the aim of assuring Moscow that the rights of ethnic Russians were being respected.

In a second potential blow to the Obama administration, the BBC reported that a senior British official was photographed holding a document stating that London "should not support for now trade sanctions or close London's financial centre to Russians." If the document is authentic, it would mean that the government of British Prime Minister David Cameron, a close U.S. ally, opposed the administration's call for economic sanctions on Russia. Some of that could come from self-interest — wealthy Russians own some of London's most expensive residential properties and are thought to have hundreds of billions of pounds stashed away in British financial institutions — but a Cameron defection would be a major setback for the White House. (...)

Aside from business considerations, maybe it's just the time to return the favour to Mrs. "F-the-EU" Nuland, a.k.a. the 5-billion-dollar-neoconic-woman. "We can rebuild it, we have the technology."

Nobody could see the following comin'...
US media escalates propaganda offensive on Ukraine

In the wake of the right-wing coup in Ukraine organized by the United States and the European powers, the American media is responding with a torrent of inflammatory war propaganda directed against Russia.

In the newspapers and on the airwaves, the demonization of Russia is unrelenting. The coverage of events follows a single simplistic story line. The actions of Russia are portrayed as the epitome of evil. Its president, Vladimir Putin, is the devil incarnate.

The historical background, the economic interests, the political context and the geo-strategic calculations that underlie Russia’s actions are ignored. No facts are allowed to get in the way of the programmed message. No lie is too absurd or ridiculous. The purpose of the propaganda campaign is not to convince public opinion, but to intimidate it.

Monday’s lead editorial (“Russia’s Aggression”) in the New York Times does not contain a trace of analysis. It consists entirely of denunciations, saber-rattling and limitless hypocrisy. (...)

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 

I predict that the US will invade a country in the future. Does this make me as important as Sarah Palin?  I think it does.

 DaveInVA wrote: 
Foreign Policy isn't impressed but thanks you for the clicks.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Russia is Europe's third largest trading partner (after the US, 1, and China, 2), so yeah, go and shoot yourselves in the foot with trade sanctions, why don'tcha.

Gotta love the EU when it gets really really mad:

But at an emergency meeting in Brussels the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Spain resisted calls for trade sanctions, instead limiting discussion to freezing long-running talks with Russia on visa liberalisation that would have made it easier for Russians to visit Europe.

  That's really going to have Putin quivering at the knees.

Heard the One About Obama Denouncing a Breach of International Law? - disinformation
"Rather than striving for an evenhanded assessment of how “international law” has become so much coin of the hypocrisy realm, mainline U.S. media are now transfixed with Kremlin villainy. (...) But especially in times of crisis, as with the current Ukraine situation, such inconvenient contradictions go out the mass-media window. What remains is an Orwellian baseline, melding conformist ideology and nationalism into red-white-and-blue doublethink."

Palin's folksy wisdom: the bees will get angry if you disturb a bees' nest.
(and the former obviously has to be blamed on the black man in the white house, never on any neocon hive-poking that's likely to keep on taking place in various designated trees in the forest).

In 'real' news:

Reuters - Russia's Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 0300 GMT on Tuesday or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying.

 

The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander. 

 

The ministry did not immediately confirm the report and there was no immediate comment by the Black Sea Fleet, which has a base in Crimea, where Russian forces are in control.

 

"If they do not surrender before 5 a.m. tomorrow, a real assault will be started against units and divisions of the armed forces across Crimea," the agency quoted the ministry source as saying.

Russian Defense Ministry dismisses Ukraine ultimatum reports as ‘total nonsense’ — RT News

 haresfur wrote: 

Had no intention of going down the hypothetical road.

Just based upon Obama's total lack of any coherant foreign policy (and his US Senate voting record), the outcome was very predictable and she got it right (and within a specified time period), for whatever reasons.

That is all.

 kurtster wrote: 
I don't see how she got anything right.  The quote said they might invade the Ukraine I think everyone knew there were instabilities there at least since Russia started using energy supply as a political weapon during the time of a previous US administration.  And there are pretty clear reasons they would support the ethnic Russian nationalists in the Crimea so it was pretty obvious to everyone, including the Ukrainians that this was likely to occur.  But of course they weren't going to do anything while there was a pro-Russian Ukraine government.  I don't think anyone is suggesting that keeping that government was a better situation.  The fact of the matter is that we have awfully limited influence there and that would be true under any administration.  And we don't have an alternate world to test the hypothesis that something different would have happened if she was president.