Posted on 10/22/2007 11:58:47 AM PDT by duckln
I thought the reason for the shield is to protect us from rogue ME and Asia missiles. The last thing the EU is worried about is Russian missiles. Been there, done that. The more serious problem is their counter culture immigration policy.
The problem is that the Russians must believe that bases on it's border will be to their detriment. Is our approach to site selection worth the hassle?
Let's be honest, no one imo, ever ran Castro but Communist Dr. Castro himself. But he did get a lot of free oil for it, for doing what he was going to do anyway. To his credit, Putin went the free market way. Cuba didn't.
That was all back then, but now it's a new game and we aren't take full advantage of it.
Are you sure this hasn’t been the Russian game plan, all along?
As in, since Andropov?...
Who’s game plan, I’m missing your point.
While Moscow removed its military bases from Cuba and all over the Third World, we have sought permanent military bases in Russia's backyard of Central Asia.
PErmanent? Who called for permanent? Try temporary after 9-11, with the approval of Putin!
We dissolved the Nixon-Brezhnev ABM treaty and announced we would put a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
And Russia has ignored the treaty with defenses around Moscow forever! Besides the current impetus is the Iranian nuclear program, which Putin faciltates. If Putin worked with us on Iran and North Korea, we would be in a hurry.
Under presidents Clinton and Bush, the United States financed a pipeline for Caspian Sea oil to transit Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.
So we must pay homage Russian Revanchism and communist leanings?
With the end of the Cold War, the KGB was abolished and the Comintern disappeared. But the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and other Cold War agencies, funded with tens of millions in tax-exempt and tax dollars, engineered the ouster of pro-Russian regimes in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, and sought the ouster of the regime in Minsk.
Pro-Russia. Oh, you mean COMMUNIST.
At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred.
We blew it.
Earth to Buchanan. Communism isn't dead. It has blending with Russian nationalism and Slavophilia.
The wrong Bush is held to account. Bush I and Clinton should have demanded Nuremberg hearings. That would have killed communism. Instaed it has mutated and gained allies like Buchanan.
Ping.
IMHO we didn’t defeat the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, very deliberately has reinvented itself, and won over the hearts and minds of a good portion of the planet by acting as if, they had stopped being Soviets.
They carefully maintained the facade, while their population was equally carefully kept in miserable conditions, and anti-US propaganda continued (and was helped by Clinton attacking Russian allies who were fighting islamic forces very similar to those we now face)
Now, the population has been carefully trained that capitalism and democracy doesn’t offer any alternative to the old Soviet way — along comes a fellow KGB comrade of Andropov, who now is rebuilding what has never actually been taken down.
Perhaps.
I just recall hearing somewhere back in the late 1980’s, of a well-placed Soviet deserter who insisted that there would be changes in the Soviet Union, and those changes would fool even Americans.
I never forgot that. It was quite an amazing claim.
Especially when it started to happen.
It’s certainly consistent with what’s happening now, too.
IMHO.
Nothing wrong with an ally if we intend to succeed in our primary fight against Islamists. Or should I sat worlds' primary fight?
The wall came down, elections in Russia ever since, 70% approval. We, the world, won against Communisism, why create a problem. In our fight against the jihad, France and others were bigger obstacles than Russia.
Earth to Buchanan. Communism isn't dead. It has blending with Russian nationalism and Slavophilia
It's dead in Russia is obvious. Other places it's not. What we need in the US is some nationalism in place of all the treasonous actions of the Democrat leadership. We can't kid ourselves, Russia is on a roll, I can't get over his 70% approval. He's doing something right, maybe his flat tax, his embrace of Christianity and approach to increase the population.
Embrace of Christianity? Maybe that's his problem. Same problem as Buchanan, Coulter and Gibson has.
By your post I would think you're not of Slav orientation. It comes off, to me, as being a little bigoted.
Like what? I don't see it happening. No Gulags, wide open tourism. A couple a guys did get bumped off, but was it directed by the Government or party activists?
Russia dumped Communism and started fresh and apparently are succeeding. Hopefully Iraq and Afghanistan can, with a fresh start, have as much success.
Shall we agree, to disagree.
I’d like to believe your optimistic assertions.
However I look, and I see the Soviet Union re-forming, before our very eyes. As if all of it, the capitalism, the breaking of the “rice bowl” (Chinese communist reference to ending communist handouts, in favor of markets), was merely a gigantic exercise in re-engineering the massive organization called the CCCP.
Now, with additional dollars and foreign expertise, oil revenues are increasing, the foreign debt is paid off, and we see now the Soviets once again opposing us at every turn, and even bomber patrols against Allied countries.
And it all seems so somehow, to be going just according to that old plan.
We, the world, won against Communisism, why create a problem. In our fight against the jihad, France and others were bigger obstacles than Russia.
The Eurabia conspiracy is one threat. The Revanchist COmmunists Russians are another.
It's dead in Russia is obvious.
Where half of the elderly revere STalin? Where the old KGB runs the country and Derzhinsky's statue is back up at Lubyianka prison?
. What we need in the US is some nationalism in place of all the treasonous actions of the Democrat leadership.
I am a serious ethnonationalist. I understand that Russian national intersts are differst than ours. However, the KGB apparatchiks in Moscow are not Nationalists. They are imperialists who want to dominate the old empire and suppress true nationalism. History, the church, Russian nationalism and socialism must serve the authoritarian ruler.
We can't kid ourselves, Russia is on a roll, I can't get over his 70% approval. He's doing something right, maybe his flat tax, his embrace of Christianity and approach to increase the population.
Embrace of Christianity? More like the co-opting of a shell of Russian Orthodoxy, which had been a servant of the USSR.
Putin has 70% approval because all media is either run bey the state or subject to a lincence where they will be shut down if they say anything bad about Putin.
Embrace of Christianity? Maybe that's his problem. Same problem as Buchanan, Coulter and Gibson has.
Its cloack for those who know nothing of Russian history. It workerd with you.
By your post I would think you're not of Slav orientation. It comes off, to me, as being a little bigoted.
1. No. I'm Jewish. However, I care for Russia since I care for Europe. My family has lived in and around that region for over 1200 years. Some of my ancestors kept the Muslims from invading Europe in 3 wars over a 100 year period when they ruled southern Russia and Ukraine before the Rus.
2. I'm not anti-Slav. I simply reject Russian chauvanism. Russians think that they have a right to dominate all other Slavic peoples and have a non-Western heritage.
Clearly you are uneducated in Russian history, otherwise, you would know what Slavophilia is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavophile
A Slavophile was a member of an intellectual movement from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to Western European culture and its influences in Russia.[1]
As an intellectual movement, Slavophilism was developed in the 19th-century Russia. In a sense there was not one but many slavophile movements, or many branches of the same movement. Some were to the left of the political spectrum, noting that progressive ideas such as democracy were intrinsic to the Russian experience, as proved by what they considered to be the rough democracy of medieval Novgorod. Some were to the right of the spectrum and pointed to the centuries old tradition of the autocratic Tsar as being the essence of the Russian nature. The Slavophiles were determined to protect what they believed were unique Russian traditions and culture. In doing so they rejected individualism. The role of the Orthodox Church was seen by them as more significant then the role of the state. Socialism was opposed by Slavophiles as an alien thought, and Russian mysticism was preferred over Western rationalism. Rural life was praised by the movement, opposing industralisation as well as urban development, while protection of the "mir" (rural society) was seen as important measure to prevent growth of the proletariat.[2]
Pat's way off.
Putin needs high oil prices to retain power. Putin needs an unstable Middle East to keep oil prices high.
Surely you jest. Putin controls all media.
That number is reported by the western press. They lie so bad, it could actually be 80%. Who controls our press? The Reid/Rush phony story, other than on radio, wasn't yet seen the light of day.
Embrace of Christianity? Maybe that's his problem. Same problem as Buchanan, Coulter and Gibson has.
Its cloack for those who know nothing of Russian history. It workerd with you.
What's 'cloack' and what's your point?
http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Slavophilia Member of an intellectual and political group in 19th-century Russia that promoted the idea of an Eastern orientation for the empire in opposition to those who wanted the country to adopt Western methods and ideas of development
Earth to Buchanan. Communism isn't dead. It has blending with Russian nationalism and Slavophilia
You must mean Anti Slavophilia. Doesn't Putin consider Russia as Western and prefer it to Eastern.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russians expected us to be lulled to sleep. They expected us to be fooled into a false sense of security and disarm ourselves. Instead we took their retreat as an opportunity to advance our own interests in the world. Now they are unhappy that we gained from their loss of power. Too bad for them.
They are not that dumb. They expected us to take full advantage of their situation, it's happening and they don't like it.
The harder we push, the more they push back, bad for us, bad for them. We don't need the hassle. We have our plate full with Islamist supported terrorists and immigration.
On the positive side, it could be argued that Russia is more Democratic than many. Here too often it runs in the family to be a Senator or President. Here one family owns the a major newspaper, the rest and TV follow their action line, and the only balance is led by Rush.
The law is becoming a sham to be used only against conservatives, it's sickening.
Part of the problem with liberals is that Putin is a family man, has been successful in guiding Russia with 70% approval , photographs himself wearing a crucifix. The latter IMHO brings the wrath of the neocons, which is not in the interest of the US.
Don't fall for it Joe.
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