Is Putin One of Us?

CNSNews.com ^ | DEc 17, 2013 | Patrick J. Buchanan

[Neoliberalnot]

With America clearly in mind, Putin declared, "In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered."

"They're now requiring not only the proper acknowledgment of freedom of conscience, political views and private life, but also the mandatory acknowledgment of the equality of good and evil."

Translation: While privacy and freedom of thought, religion and speech are cherished rights, to equate traditional marriage and same-sex marriage is to equate good with evil.

[ETL]

[ETL]

pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovich, president of the Ukraine

[Neoliberalnot]

Very good assessment.

[Neoliberalnot]

Suggest you look at Bo and Holder’s hit list of victims. You have to ask yourself, if Putin would pull the rug out from under his people and leave them to be executed like the Kenyan maggot did to our people in Benghazi?

[clintonh8r]

Is there a chief executive of any country today who promotes liberty, free markets and minimal government? (not a rhetorical question)

[Neoliberalnot]

How bout some pictures of Madame Albright (halfbright) and Bo’s son, Dennis Rodman, meeting with Kim.

[fabian]

Well..perhaps..but the truth spoken by demons is only expressed to do their ultimate evil...deceived, kill and control.

[FredZarguna]

Look, we all know who Putin was and is.

Seems that some don't. Just because he's jailing homos, they seem to think he's uberkewl. He's not.

Now, is it better to have him as an enemy, or a friend at arm’s length.

That depends on whether he really is a friend, which is doubtful.

Russia has been invaded from the West. Sure it is leery of the West.

Oh, Good Lord, NOT THIS SH!T AGAIN. We had to hear this tripe all throughout the Cold War. "We need to make concessions to Russia because Russia has been repeatedly invaded and their paranoia is understandable as a result."

Complete rubbish. When did America invade Russia? Who's going to invade Russia now? Germany? France? Lithuania? Please be serious.

I do think Putin can see problems with China too.

Putin is making alliances he sees as being in his interest, and looking to alliances -- real and threatened -- with China as a way to get leverage in his dealings with the West. This is Great Power diplomacy, and is NOT the issue. The issue is that Russia's interests are antithetical to ours and Putin knows it. Americans wearing rose-colored glasses don't. Russia's attitude toward Europe has never changed: Russia "belongs" there, America doesn't. If it wasn't, he wouldn't need China; he could talk with us directly.

We need to work out a relationship that is reasoned and beneficial to both nations. We have failed to pursue that to the extent we should have.

Again, nonsense. We hold Russia "as we hold the rest of mankind: Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends."

What should we have done? Opened our checkbook for Gorbachev? Why? Give me some specific issue on which the US has "failed." Just One. And please don't tell me NATO expansion or missile defense. NATO is a non-starter. The countries of the former Warsaw Pact are sovereign nations and are free to make defense alliances with whomever these please. The NATO military posture has virtually no offensive capability, and Russia knows that. Russia knows perfectly well that our missile defense in Eastern Europe cannot possibly stop any significant number of Russian missiles. Russia is opposed to US missile defense in Eastern Europe because it limits the ability of Russian proxy states like Iran and Syria to threaten our interests. Russia wants to use those proxies to threaten Europe, while pretending its hands are clean.

And while we are on the subject of "we didn't do enough," why has Russia repeatedly sided, both publicly and secretly, with China to undermine our efforts to keep Iran from getting a bomb, and to keep the NoKorea bomb program alive? Talk about being responsible for a bad relationship.

The only alternative is for Putin to go ahead and align with China in perpetuity. Would that be helpful?

So, your putative theory of diplomacy is "give Russia whatever she wants in order to keep her from aligning with another country in order to get what she wants?" Wow. Brilliant. Logic much?

[ilovesarah2012]

No you couldn’t. Neither love their people. They love power, as does Obama.

[ETL]

Putin may well be behind some of the so-called terror attacks in Russia. He poisoned to death a former KGB agent who spilled the beans on him. The book was called "Blowing Up Russia". He claimed Putin staged the attacks in order to rationalize a heavy crack down on the Chechens.

***************************************

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent fighting for his life in a UK hospital after allegedly being poisoned, has been a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin since before he became president in 2000.

Mr Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another opponent of the Kremlin who was shot dead last month, and said recently he was investigating her murder. It was after being handed documents apparently relating to the case that he was taken ill more than two weeks ago.

But he is perhaps best known for a book in which he alleges that agents co-ordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people. He now appears to have fallen victim to the kind of plots which he wrote about.

Arrest

Mr Litvinenko, 43, first became a security agent under the Soviet-era KGB, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in its later incarnations.

He is reported to have fallen out with Vladimir Putin, then head of the security service, in the late 1990s, after failing in attempts to crack down on corruption within the organization. In 1998, he first came to prominence by exposing an alleged plot to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. He was subsequently arrested on charges of abusing his office and spent nine months in a remand centre before being acquitted.

In 1999 he wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he accused the current Russian security service, the FSB, of carrying out several apartment house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. The attacks, which Moscow blamed on Chechen rebels, helped swing public opinion behind Russia's second war in the breakaway republic.

Petrol bombs

Complaining of persecution, in 2000 Mr Litvinenko fled to the UK where he sought, and was granted, asylum. But after settling in an unnamed London suburb, the former spy continued to behave as if on the run, constantly changing his contact details. The Times newspaper reported that over the summer someone tried to push a pram loaded with petrol bombs at his front door. Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he has continued to make allegations about his former bosses.

Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11.

http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/litvinenko.html

[gdani]

If Putin were president in America we would all be the first ones imprisoned.

[FredZarguna]

Putting out the message, whether he believes it or not, is enlightening to his people.

Were you born yesterday?

The Soviets said exactly the same kind of crap and believed it just as much as Putin does.

[ETL]

Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006

The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia’s retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is heading.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=BDBFAEF5-5295-400F-807B-83D20FFA285C

[FredZarguna]

Thank you.

I can't believe there are "conservatives" who fall so easily for what is clearly propaganda and dysinformatzia.

This is sickening.

[Fuzz]

Putin is anti-power and control, like Bizarro Castro.

[ETL]

Whoa - telling pictures....

Much more so than the photos have been Obama's ACTIONS during his time as president. He has bent over backwards to appease Putin. And not out of fear or intimidation, but because they share the same basic new world order goals.

[DoughtyOne]

Look, we all know who Putin was and is.

Seems that some don't. Just because he's jailing homos, they seem to think he's uberkewl. He's not.

Some may.  I don't think most folks do.  It's one thing to disapprove of something and work against it.  It's another to toss people in jail for it.  I don't support that.

Now, is it better to have him as an enemy, or a friend at arm’s length.

That depends on whether he really is a friend, which is doubtful.

Which is why we don't turn the store over to him.  Increase economic activity that will help the average Russian.  Keep military and related issues out of it.  Don't provide all our sensitive technology.

Russia has been invaded from the West. Sure it is leery of the West.

Oh, Good Lord, NOT THIS SH!T AGAIN. We had to hear this tripe all throughout the Cold War. "We need to make concessions to Russia because Russia has been repeatedly invaded and their paranoia is understandable as a result."

Complete rubbish. When did America invade Russia? Who's going to invade Russia now? Germany? France? Lithuania? Please be serious.Which is the most economically sound nation in Europe today?  Which nation in Europe has the largest and increasing population of skinheads and neo-NAZIs?  For something to be an issue, it doesn't need to be appearant like it will take place today.

In the early 1990s when some of us tried to urge extreme caution with our relations with China, folks laughed.  Now look at what is taking place.  China is emerging to be a real threat.  That's a real growing threat.  Who knows that Germany will be like in another twenty or thirty years?  Russia has every right to be cautious.  We had every right to be cautious too.  We were to stupid to be cautious.  Putin doesn't seem to be.  That's what a nationalist should be, in service to his own nation.  Unfortunately we didn't have a strong nationalist when folks decided to turn the keys to our nation's technology and financial future to China.

Again, nonsense. We hold Russia "as we hold the rest of mankind: Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends."

Yawn.  And who said we didn't.  Russia has a right to see things from their perspective.  That is neither wrong or evil, as long as it is merely a cautious stance.  I don't see Putin lining up troops on his Wester border, so I'm not sure why you're going balistic here.

What should we have done? Opened our checkbook for Gorbachev? Why? Give me some specific issue on which the US has "failed." Just One. And please don't tell me NATO expansion or missile defense. NATO is a non-starter. The countries of the former Warsaw Pact are sovereign nations and are free to make defense alliances with whomever these please. The NATO military posture has virtually no offensive capability, and Russia knows that. Russia knows perfectly well that our missile defense in Eastern Europe cannot possibly stop any significant number of Russian missiles. Russia is opposed to US missile defense in Eastern Europe because it limits the ability of Russian proxy states like Iran and Syria to threaten our interests. Russia wants to use those proxies to threaten Europe, while pretending its hands are clean.

Wow...Conducting some trade that is mutually beneficial is not surrendering to Russia.  For the record I think we screwed ourselves royally by what we have done in China.  I'm not advocating that.  Trade in goods can be a positive thing if managed properly.

And while we are on the subject of "we didn't do enough," why has Russia repeatedly sided, both publicly and secretly, with China to undermine our efforts to keep Iran from getting a bomb, and to keep the NoKorea bomb program alive? Talk about being responsible for a bad relationship.

Well, for one thing it did so because we hadn't developed it to be a better closer ally of ours.  I say we didn't, because we are the powerhouse.  We can craftily direct how things go.  It's not Russia's game.  We invite it in, to play by the rules in a manner that is mutually beneficial.  Once we have better relations, we make it known we respect the sovereignty of Russia, and will continue to as it peacefully joins the West to conduct trade and cultural norms.

You're going far afield here, as if I was a fan of the U.S.S.R. or Gorbachev.  I'm fan of neither.  We handled the Cold War as we should have.  We didn't handle the aftermath as well as we should have.

The only alternative is for Putin to go ahead and align with China in perpetuity. Would that be helpful?

So, your putative theory of diplomacy is "give Russia whatever she wants in order to keep her from aligning with another country in order to get what she wants?" Wow. Brilliant. Logic much?

Please link me to where I stated we should give Russia whatever it wants.

I made a suggestion that was quite qualitative in it's focus / scope.

[IbJensen]

Unfortunately when Putin kicks the crap out of the White Hut cretin we get the repercussion.

Get rid of Obama and ALL of his 1,000 plus leftist loons!

Vlad is a much more of a MAN than this Cupcake we’re stuck with. Impeach him, you gutless Congressrats!

[ETL]

Vlad is a much more of a MAN

Here's something you might (MIGHT) like...

[ETL]

How bout some pictures of Madame Albright (halfbright) and Bo’s son, Dennis Rodman, meeting with Kim.