DescentBB

While Obama played at foreign policy less than he played golf, Putin didn't play and worked to lead Russia to become the new worlds superpower. Not in terms of material but in leadership. While Obama dreams on about social issues and climate change, Putin is tackling the nightmare of Islamic terrorism. It will be interesting to watch how Putin's coalition tackles ISIS compared to how the US coalition has handled it.:

"The baton was officially transferred Monday to the world’s new sole superpower — and Vladimir Putin willingly picked it up."

http://nypost.com/2015/09/29/obama-has- ... ul-leader/

It will also be fun to see how our politicians and Presidential candidates use this info.

sometimes it is smart to let others wallow in the morass. Too bad you missed that life lesson because you were so busy slagging Obama for the umpteenth time.
Putin doesn't have the economic or military resources to do anything more than get bogged down like the Russians did in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, his economy sinks daily, and he has to worry about folks after his job(or worse, his head). Well played, Obama, well played.

by the way, how serious do you wish anyone to view an opinion piece by Benny Avni, Israeli apologist, noted war hawk and Poduretz's running buddy? I mean, how many times do these people have to be demonstrably completely wrong for one to dismiss any opinion they form? It wasn't like you, or he, presented a single fact in your post or his linked piece. Not one.


edit--here is an equally credible counterpoint to Mr.Avni's piece:
http://liberaldarkness.com/2015/09/29/n ... nic-power/

Let Putin get into the mess. He'll end up regretting it like his predecessor did in Afghanistan years ago. Syria is going to be the Russian's military morass like it was for us. Maybe Obama's smarter than we thought. He did the old reverse psychology number on Putin. We're staying out of the fray, saving money, keeping our hands clean and not forfeiting our own lives in the devil's hell pit that's called the Middle East, while Putin's getting into the mess up to his eyeballs, has to pay out his precious Rubles to fight it, and then he'll become the new Jihadist target, not the U.S. for once.

I would like to see the clever face of Barack Obama when one of the generals of NATO reported to him that of those 60 Muslim commandos on military training which the United States has spent $ 8 billion, only 5% of the commandos began to fight in the interests of the United States, 60% have fled in an unknown direction, and the rest went over to the side of ISIS.

Like Putin will have any better luck dealing with these people. They'd just as soon stab you in the back first. Russia is not a Muslim country and you are nothing but a bunch of infidels to these radicals, who won't do any better than our infidel country at trying to stop them. Putin will have to wipe ISIS off the map, totally. I don't think he can do it either, militarily or monetarily. Good luck.

Operation Enduring Own Goal. The gift that keeps on giving.

Russia is doing what we, for various reasons, cannot: Support Assad. And it's likely a necessary course of action to prevent Syria from devolving even further. And Russia probably has a better set of cards for dealing with it, or at least aren't hamstrung by allies who would rather isolate Iran than confront ISIS. Trying to create a "moderate" force has been pretty ridiculous. Who are they going to fight, Assad or ISIS? Both? Preposterous. But I guess sending arms to war zones is our gig.

ISIS is a miscarriage of copulation US and Saudi Arabia. While Russia is forced to correct this mistake, trying to protect and save people and the independence of sovereign states in the Middle East against the attacks of this the US-Arab aggressively brainless imbecile cocksucker.

Which is worse? A superpower that panders to it's electorate by instigating changes of regime, leaving a big frigging vacuum, then panders once again to it's electorate by buggering off and leaving them to get on with it. Or a superpower that is going all old-school by beating it's chest in one place whilst doing the dirty in others. The US and Putin's playground are just as bad as each other.

Flabby Chick, I don't know of any country in the world, which is called "Putin". Maybe you wanted to say "Russia's playground"?

Flabby Chick wrote:Which is worse? A superpower that panders to it's electorate by instigating changes of regime, leaving a big frigging vacuum, then panders once again to it's electorate by buggering off and leaving them to get on with it. Or a superpower that is going all old-school by beating it's chest in one place whilst doing the dirty in others. The US and Putin's playground are just as bad as each other.

when all you have is a trough...

sigma wrote:Flabby Chick, I don't know of any country in the world, which is called "Putin". Maybe you wanted to say "Russia's playground"?

Syria is Putin's playground since he's in charge of Russia's military right now. He's the face of Russia to the rest of the world. He's also not bombing ISIS, but instead he's bombing Assad's opposition, who hate ISIS at the moment. Putin's is going to make ISIS stronger.

I suspect that the realpolitik behind this is a collective decision that(similar to Saddam Hussein) Syria at the current time needs Assad, no matter whether he is a murderous ★■◆● or not. The Russians will prop him up, and with that done, will likely focus on ISIS along with the other nations doing so. The Russians will, most likely go after any target the regime wishes to focus on, but if they DON'T include ISIS near the top of the list, they aren't going to succeed at saving Assad.

That's what I find laughable about all the Washington politicians, even Obama, who keep saying that we need to get rid of Assad. I say, leave him there. After what happened in all the other countries that eliminated their dictators, like Saddam and Gaddafi, you'd think we'd know better by now than to try and put in Democratic rulers in places that hate our guts. Assad may be brutal, but he keeps the lid on the ISIS radicals, unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan.

tunnelcat wrote:...... you'd think we'd know better by now than to try and put in Democratic rulers in places that hate our guts.

Obviously, this pretty much sums up the whole problem. And it encompasses all the problems Europe is going through, and is going to go through with it's influx of non-western based refugees. Though there are a few exceptions, Islamic culture is patriarchal, from the family unit on to a national level. Western cultures can't get the idea why they don't embrace the 'joys' of democracy and they feel aggrieved for us trying to force them to change.

It's very depressing, but it's going to take a large amount of bloodshed, i feel, before we all decide never the twain shall meet. Humans, huh!?

tunnelcat wrote:Syria is Putin's playground since he's in charge of Russia's military right now. He's the face of Russia to the rest of the world. He's also not bombing ISIS, but instead he's bombing Assad's opposition, who hate ISIS at the moment. Putin's is going to make ISIS stronger.

Let's start with the fact that we are going to look at the reality and not to retell the opinion of the American press. Actually, Syria is the playground of Salman of Saudi Arabia and Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (Sheikh of Qatar), are funding ISIS and the Syrian opposition; Barack Obama, who is the best friend of these guys and who is also funding and supporting the Syrian opposition with the support of Angela Merkel as the representative of the European Union and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as the President of Turkey, who is the coordinator of ISIS. Here's a nice bunch.
And suddenly there is Vladimir Putin and his Russian fighters when he tired to solve the problem ISIS diplomatic methods, bumping into the constant resistance of Barack Obama and his the European Union and decided to conduct a military counter-terrorist operation in Syria at the request of the legitimate President of Syria Bashar al-Assad, and in coordination with the UN. Of course, after Russian peacekeepers were bombed several headquarters and depots of weapons of the ISIS immediately began to resent foreign Ministry spokesman of Saudi Arabia that Russia is not bombing ISIS centers, and peaceful people with children. Putin wants the strengthening and prosperity of the ISIS, really! Tunnelcat read the news and thought, "So here it is, this cunning Putin!"

The US is supporting anti Assad forces.

The US is NOT supporting ISIS.

As far as our allies also supporting ISIS and the anti Assad forces…probably a distinct possibility…seeing how they have stabbed us in the back many times before, and vice versa.

Spidey wrote:The US is supporting anti Assad forces.

Obama supports the opposition in Syria to annex Syria just like Panama and Texas, to establish a regime in Syria, controlled by Obama.
Russia supports the global opposition of the free countries against the revival of the old tyrannical model of world order the US.

Spidey wrote:The US is NOT supporting ISIS.

Obama does not support ISIS only in words, actually he is arming the Syrian opposition, which, in turn, is arming ISIS. Obama did absolutely nothing and don't do to eliminate ISIS. Moreover, Obama resents the effective actions of Russia to eliminate the ISIS.

Sigma points to something very valid, above. The decision, pushed strongly by folks like John McCain and others, and, sadly, accepted by the Obama administration, to seek out and support anti-Assad groups is flawed. It is virtually impossible(and we've shown this in so many situations over the past decades) to identify insurgencies that will not be likely to use the guns on us down the road. It is impossible to sort out, especially in a situation where the insurgency is a loose coalition of various factions and we have no idea which will become the dominant faction. The fact is this: if ISIS, or some similar group, gets control of the Syrian infrastructure, there will be hell to pay. Thus, I suspect that a bit of noise will get made for domestic consumption, but behind the scenes folks have realized that propping up Assad for the time being is going to be part of destroying ISIS in Syria.

Yep. Sometimes the devil you know is better to deal with than the devil you don't know. Too bad our politicians can't seem to learn that one simple idea and keep their fingers out of the pot. Russia now seems for have forgotten their mistake in Afghanistan too.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan when the Soviet Union still believed in the West, as a naive child. This was done in accordance with the Geneva agreements of 14 April 1988 on a political settlement of the situation around Afghanistan. The final decision on the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was adopted in the Soviet Union January 25, 1989 and published the next day with the wording "The Soviet Union will remain faithful to the Geneva Conventions". Undoubtedly, the West immediately said about their "victory" over the Soviet Union.
If you didn't yet know about it, TC.

The only reason the Soviets went into Afghanistan was because the U.S. was paranoid enough to establish military ties in Pakistan after WWII to counter the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. All that military posturing with Pakistan and Afghanistan was nothing more than stupid Cold War maneuvering between our 2 countries. What a waste. Our countries really need to quit fighting these proxy wars between ourselves and start acting like adults. These wars cost both our countries a lot of money and lives and we still remain adversaries to this day. It's all so pointless. We should be working together for the greater good of the world, instead of competing against each other and creating more enemies in the little backward countries we usually fight over.

By the way, the Soviets paid a huge price monetarily for going into Afghanistan and they still couldn't bring the Mujahadeen to their knees despite all their military efforts. That's because we were stupid enough to supply them with weapons, some of those very same weapons which were eventually turned against the U.S. later on. I'm guessing that being mired in an expensive long war was a pretty good motivator for Russia to get out and cut their losses. Kind of like what happened to the U.S. in Iraq.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/asi ... iet_10-10/

You know, TC, I'm not worried about constantly cultivated fear of Russia and anti-Russian propaganda among the nations in the United States and Europe. As people say, the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on. I worry about what Obama's militaristic regime may overestimate their military ability. For the U.S. this is good at least that the US banking system by all means tries to avoid politics. After all, in fact, the real value and the last bulwark of the US - is the banking system, but not NATO.

Talk to any Republican here and they will tell you that Obama isn't militaristic enough.

sigma wrote:

Spidey wrote:The US is supporting anti Assad forces.

Obama supports the opposition in Syria to annex Syria just like Panama and Texas, to establish a regime in Syria, controlled by Obama.

*cough* Crimea *cough*

Top Gun wrote:

sigma wrote:

Spidey wrote:The US is supporting anti Assad forces.

Obama supports the opposition in Syria to annex Syria just like Panama and Texas, to establish a regime in Syria, controlled by Obama.

*cough* Crimea *cough*

The Crimea is an indigenously Russian territory. The population of the Crimea had implemented their right to self-determination after a referendum on the return to the Russian Federation, by a unanimous vote. During the previous year in the Crimea had no actions of the national protest against Russia. Economy and social infrastructure of the Crimea began to develop rapidly, there are many jobs, salaries and pensions have increased more than 2 times, while the Crimea as part of Ukraine was almost abandoned the impoverished territory*.
Moreover, Obama fell flat on his face again, apply economic sanctions against the Crimea for their decision to join Russia. Obama wanted to punish the Crimea, but applying economic sanctions against the Crimea, he unwittingly acknowledged the legitimacy of the referendum of the Crimean people to return to Russia and that Crimea is not a victim of Russian "aggression"! Here is a fool!

*While after the US intervention in other countries, always leaving only ruins and a mass exodus of the indigenous population from their native countries.

tunnelcat wrote:Talk to any Republican here and they will tell you that Obama isn't militaristic enough.

I tried to study in detail the election fever. All that is said Ed Royce, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, it's totally ludicrous. Common sense these politicians definitively died. It's like political incest with each other, degeneracy of the political elite. They urgently need fresh blood.

sigma wrote:by a unanimous vote

If you meant "popular vote" (like, they voted more than 50%) say that. But if you meant "unanimous" (100%), that's a fake result. You never get 100% agreement on anything with more than just a handful of people voting.

According to the official results, in the Crimea 96,77 % of voters supported addition of Crimea to Russia with a turnout of 83,1 %, in Sevastopol for joining Russia voted 95.6% of voters with a turnout of 89.5 %.

In my opinion, it can be called a "unanimous" (thank you, Lothar, you are always very attentive to detail).

Despite the fact that many countries do not recognize the legitimacy of the referendum, however, Russia recognized the legitimacy of the referendum, citing the precedent of recognition by many countries and the International Court of Justice Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence lawful.

That’s because all of the dissenters were scared to death to show up at the polls, I seen a good many interviews with these people.

Spidey wrote:That’s because all of the dissenters were scared to death to show up at the polls, I seen a good many interviews with these people.

That's kind of what I'm implying.

When's the last time you saw a legitimate vote that was over 90% in favor of one party or one position, in any country? You can occasionally find results like that in US House districts where a major party candidate runs against a third-party candidate (without the other major party), but I can't recall anything on a large regional or national scale where the vote total was in the 95% range.

There's a reason democratic countries question the legitimacy of votes when the totals are that lopsided.

You'd rather have a dictator running things? Democracies are messy, but they're a preferable alternative to being under the thumb of some "leader" with absolute power, like Putin.

Spidey wrote:That’s because all of the dissenters were scared to death to show up at the polls, I seen a good many interviews with these people.

You are absolutely right. The people of the Crimea was scared to death of US intervention in Ukraine, when the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has become, which is a creature of the United States. People just feared for their families and homes that Crimea will become another Vietnam, Libya, Yugoslavia, Grenada, Iraq, Syria or Ukraine. Thanks to the return to Russia, 2 million Crimean people now not see the war from the windows of their houses.

How the Western media makes the news and an interview, I am well aware. USA shouted to the whole world that the Indonesian airliner was shot down over Ukraine by missiles from the people's Republic of Donetsk after a few hours after the accident without providing any proof. As soon as the militia handed over the black box of MH-17 the European Commission investigation, the Commission immediately paused and remain silent for more than a year.
The BBC publishes a strange video, confidently stating that Russian planes are bombing Syrian civilians, not only without a single justification for their words, but the BBC posted this video a few hours earlier, when Russian fighters only yet warm up the engines on the runway. Flight of fancy in the inflamed brain of the Western media have already become an incurable chronic. In this no one doubts, except the Americans.