Posted on 12/12/2016 8:59:34 AM PST by shortstop
I am prejudiced against Russians.
There is no other people or race against which I have hard feelings, nor which I look upon with suspicion.
But Russians, I don't like them.
I don't trust them, I dislike their actions in the world, I think they look odd.
I'm not proud of that, and I'm trying to change, but I'm honest enough to recognize my bias and acknowledge it.
My prejudice is born of spending my adolescence reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and my military young adulthood studying flash cards of Warsaw Pact military vehicles with their fuel tanks and munitions lockers highlighted. I grew up with images of an ogre pounding his shoe on a table and of families being machine gunned as they tried to run across an Iron Curtain. I detested Russian adventurism from Angola to Nicaragua, and saw evil in near every Russian act.
When you've actually knelt in an elementary-school hallway in a nuclear-blast drill, you tend to think long and hard about the nation pointing nuclear weapons at you.
I am prejudiced against Russians, and Vladimir Putin seems to be the justification of my prejudice -- the proof and personification of the stereotypes in my mind.
Which brings us to the situation of the day.
American intelligence services suspect that Russia tried to influence the recent American presidential election. Politicians and the press have reacted with shock and indignation, as if they didn't know that Russia has tried to influence every American presidential election since shortly after the Bolshevik revolution. Or that Russia has put its finger on the scale in dozens of elections around the world over several past decades.
The public cries also seem to ignore the fact that the United States routinely tries to influence foreign elections, through the actions of our government or private groups. In fact, the likely motivator for Putin's presumed meddling in the recent American presidential election was a desire to get payback against Hillary Clinton who, as secretary of State, oversaw efforts to help his opponents in the 2011 Russian parliamentary elections.
Simply put, she screwed him, and he tried to screw her back.
And all the folks in the progressives-press complex see some sinister collusion between Putin and Donald Trump. The effort to delegitimize the Trump election tries this week to tie him to Putin and ascribe his victory not to the wishes of the people but the meddling of an enemy.
In that scenario, Putin is cast as a neo-Hitler and the face of evil in the world.
That jibes with my prejudice.
But it also avoids the fact that handling Russia is one of the many significant foreign policy failures of the dwindling Democratic administration. Hillary Clinton, a fan of Russian communism in her college years, famously reached out to Putin's world with her "Reset" button, calling for a new day of cooperation and friendship between our two nations.
Unfortunately for the world, she and Barack Obama got played for fools. The relationship between the United States and Russia has become dysfunctional and dangerous, and the rise of Putin as neo-Stalin has been made almost complete. In every contact, the United States has lost -- from the Syrian crisis to the invasion of Crimea.
Even in this matter, if the Russians meddled in the election, it means the Obama Administration failed to prevent it from doing so. There was a cyber battle to protect our democratic process, and we lost it in humiliating fashion.
The Obama era saw mismanagement of American foreign policy empower dangerous rivals in China, militant Islam and Russia, but only in Russia do we find hundreds of nuclear weapons still targeted on the American homeland.
Which means we are in a bad way and in very precarious times.
And if the Trump Administration can re-establish a relationship of respect or even cooperation with Russia, the world -- and American interests -- would be significantly bettered. Consequently, seeking such a relationship would be useful, if done from a position of strength, and not obsequiousness.
Russia and the United States face common rivals in both expansionist China and militant Islam. Our two nations also find in a shared Christianity and modernity closer cultural ties than could be found with either communist China or rising Islam.
Russia and the United States have different views of the value and rights of the individual, but we partnered heroically in the Second World War and maintained a peace-preserving detente during the Cold War. We have worked together before, and we may need to work together again.
And as much as I dislike Russians, it is only prudent and wise to at least explore the possibility of a working relationship that sees us as something other than rivals and enemies. Russia is not destroying our economy, dominating an ocean or ruling world trade and resource development -- as China is -- and Russia has not killed our people at home and abroad -- as militant Islam has.
So exploring cooperation with Russia makes sense.
In spite of my prejudices.
In spite of the whining of the people on the evening news.
Even with the threat of potential mutual destruction hanging over our heads, I felt safer during the cold war than I do during the war with militant Islam.
The Russians aren’t good, but honestly, they’ve suffered some real tragedies at the hands of Muslims and usually will fight with Shia and minority Muslim groups against Sunni.
Islam became a threat because of arab/Iranian oil. Enviros are part of the problem!
NO that is FALSE. There is a "leak" from an UNKNOWN source claiming to be speaking for the CIA. This from the same fake media that brought you the "Benghazi attack was caused by a anti Muslim video" lie. THERE IS NO REPORT. THERE IS NO SUSPICION. IT IS A LIE. Why the hell are even Conservatives so easily manipulated by the Fake Media?
But being in Russia, and wanting security you are stuck with the job.
We however got sick of being a sea power and tried to become a rival Asian landpower. It's insanity on our part.
No fan of Russians, either, but if I have to choose between them and muslims...
Yes despicable Russians, especially during WWII, heh heh
I’m not all that enthused about the looks of either their
men or their women. - Some of the Russian women get on
“dating” sites and snare themselves “rich” Americans. A
friend (a female doctor) was working her butt off several
years ago in her job. Her first husband had taken her for
a bundle; then her second husband began hanging on dating
sites all hours of the night. He hooked up with a Russian
woman, divorced my friend and took her for a bundle for
the second time. (She makes good money at her job.) The
Russian woman didn’t work and still doesn’t as far as I
know. I’m not sure the ex-husband is still with the
Russian “bride”. My friend has gone on to another older
husband and I hope she prepared herself going in.
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