Putin sends air defense missiles to Syria to deter Turkey

Yahoo News AP ^ | November 25, 2015 | VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

[Navy Patriot]

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered state-of-the art air defense missile systems to be deployed at a Russian air base in Syria following the downing of one of its warplanes by Turkey, a move that raised the threat of a military confrontation between the NATO member and Moscow.

The S-400 missile systems will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with Turkey. The systems are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision. If Russia shot down a Turkish plane, NATO would be required to intervene.

Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on Tuesday, saying it crossed into its airspace from Syria despite repeated warnings. One of its two pilots was killed by militants after bailing out, while his crewmate was rescued by Syrian army commandos and delivered in good condition to the Russian base early Wednesday.

[MeganC]

Trolls offend me in general regardless of who they troll for. I object to someone trolling in favor of things I support.

Speak your mind, if you will, but trying to influence people by deceit is deserving of being exposed to the light of day.

And now my question to you: Link to a post of yours in the past week that is not on a Russian-interest topic or that does not mention Russia or Putin in it.

I looked and I can’t find one.

[marvel5]

Weasel words. Let’s rephrase it. “I condemn the US, UK, and Israel governments as much as I do Russia for internet trolling.” Can you agree with that?

There is no deceit as I am an American. Your problem is that you cannot deal with facts, argument, logic, and analysis, and your only resort is to say “troll,” as if that were a substantive response.

To answer your question, I post and comment mainly on Russian-related topics because I gave up on US politics decades ago and find Russia and Putin the only barrier to the cultural Marxism that has swept the US and Europe since the 60s. I have not voted for a major party candidate for President since 1992 and my vote for Bush I was a horrendous mistake as it was in 1988; I vote third party, usually Constitution or Libertarian.

By the way, do you consider Pat Buchanan, arch Cold Warrior, a Russian troll? http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-one-us-6071 In this column, he asks, “Is Putin One of Us?” and he has written at least a couple of dozen articles praising Putin.

[MeganC]

You post ONLY on Russian-interest topics. Not ‘mainly’.

For someone who asserts the legend of a Reagan Administration worker with a background in law, who attended NYU, and who lived in DC it stinks to the heavens that you don’t EVER post on topics about Reagan, NYU, jurisprudence, or events affecting the city you say you live in.

You only post on Russia and Putin.

Don’t mind me if I think you’re a paid-Russian troll who’s posting from somewhere near Dzerzhinsky Square and who likes a little sour cream in his borscht.

[marvel5]

Believe what you wish.

Logic is not your strong suit. Why would I post about Reagan, who left office January 20, 1989? This is a news forum after all. Why is NYU newsworthy or the general topic of jurisprudence? For local DC news, read the Post or the Times; it’s of no interest to most FR forum members.

Not willing to condemn unequivocally US, UK, and Israel trolling as well as Russian trolling or to comment on whether Mr. Buchanan is a “Russian troll?”

Meanwhile, here is an exercise for you. Based upon my personal internet research, here is a comparison of economic and social issues between Putin/Russia and Obama/US. Is there a single issue with which you disagree with the Putin/Russia position. If there is, you are not on the conservative side of the issue.

Which country today do you think is more communistic?

PUTIN/RUSSIA v. OBAMA/US

Putin FLAT INCOME TAX of 13% in Russia (instituted in 2001) v. US Marxist progressive income tax up to 38%.
http://rense.com/general36/flat.htm

Putin NO ESTATE TAX in Russia (abolished in 2006) v. US Marxist Estate Tax up to 40%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_tax

Putin CORPORATE TAX in Russia half that of US (20% v. 40%).
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/corporate-tax-rate

Putin Russia NATIONAL DEBT TO GDP RATIO 18% v. 101% for US
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/government-debt-to-gdp

Putin on ECONOMIC POLICY: “Look at their trade balance, their debt, and budget. They turn on the printing press and flood the entire dollar zone — in other words, the whole world — with government bonds. There is no way we will act this way anytime soon. We don’t have the luxury of such hooliganism.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/04/20/putin-u-s-monetary-policy-is-hooliganism/

Putin on WELFARE SPENDING: “European countries have been “living beyond their means” and are now “witnessing the rise of a dependency mentality … [that] endangers not only the economy but the moral foundation of society,” Putin said. “It is no secret that many citizens of less developed countries come to Europe specifically to live on social welfare.”
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20130614/181653890/Russia-Wont-Embrace-Europes-Inefficient-Welfare-Model—Putin.html#ixzz3n4o6GEe6

Putin on STATE INTERVENTION IN THE ECONOMY: “Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence.”

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/putin_warns_us_to_eschew_socia.html

Putin is said to consider GLOBAL WARMING a fraud. “Russia’s official view appears to have changed little since 2003, when Putin told an international climate conference that warmer temperatures would mean Russians “spend less on fur coats” while “agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that.” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/30/russian-president-climate-change-is-fraud/

Putin on IMMIGRATION POLICY: “Putin said those who break Russian immigration laws would be banned from entering the country again for between three and 10 years depending on the seriousness of their offenses, the Moscow Times reported.
The Russian leader also vowed that authorities would take forcible action to limit the stays of immigrants who linger in Russia without demonstrating a clear intent to find work.”
http://www.newsmax.com/World/GlobalTalk/russia-putin-immigrants-ultranationalists/2013/12/13/id/541629/

Putin on ABORTION: (1) abortion banned after twelve weeks of pregnancy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in Russia; (2) abortion advertising banned.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/russia-chooses-life-bans-all-abortion-advertising;
(3) baby bonus to couples of $9,000 for second and each subsequent child to encourage live births. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonus#Russia; new partnership between state and Russian Orthodox Church for anti-abortion counseling. http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2015/07/russia-church-and-state-sign-agreement-to-prevent-abortion/#.VhrVWxaFOxA

Putin on HOMSEXUALITY: gay propaganda aimed at minors banned; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_LGBT_propaganda_law “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values… Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/28/whos-godless-now-russia-says-its-us/?page=all

Putin on RADICAL FEMINISM: jailed “Pussy Riot” for desecrating Moscow cathedral: “They got what they asked for.” “One must not erode our moral foundation and undermine the country. What would be left then?” the president wondered. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/08/putin-backs-pussy-riot-conviction

Putin on MULTICULTURALISM.: “Multiculturalism “elevates the (idea of the) ‘right of minorities to be different’ to the absolute and, at the same time, insufficiently balances this right with civil, behavioral, and cultural obligations in regard to the indigenous population and society as a whole,” Putin argues. .” http://islamversuseurope.blogspot.com/2012/01/putin-multiculturalism-has-failed.html

Putin on CHRISTIANITY. “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their historic roots, including the Christian values that constitute the very basis of Western civilization>
The excesses of political correctness have reached the point where people are seriously talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote pedophilia.
People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations. Holidays are abolished or even called something different; their essence is hidden away, as is their moral foundation.
And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world.
Today almost all developed nations are no longer able to reproduce themselves, even with the help of unlawful migration.

Without the values embedded in Christianity, without the standards of morality that have taken shape over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity.” http://kiresearch.org/2015/04/how-russia-came-to-be-a-christian-nation/

ALSO: “Russia’s turn to Christianity is a virtually unknown phenomenon in the United States…Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev go to Church frequently…and seek political and moral counsel from the Russian Orthodox clergy…Putin wears a Christian cross with him at all times.”
https://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/Russian-Revival-Gives-Hope-for-America.html

Putin: RELIGIOUS EDUCATION now mandatory Russian schools. http://www.christianpost.com/news/russia-makes-religious-education-mandatory-in-schools-87634/

Putin REBUILDS CHURCHES. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/01/us-russia-kremlin-putin-idUSKBN0G13QL20140801

Putin DEFENDS CHRISTIANITY worldwide. “After delivering the facts, Metropolitan Hilarion asked Putin to make protection and defense of Christianity around the globe a major part of his foreign policy.
And, as reported by Interfax, Putin replied, “You needn’t have any doubt that that’s the way it will be,” assuring Hilarion that Russian foreign policy would defend Christians from persecution abroad.”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/vladimir-putin-vows-to-defend-christianity-worldwide-69002/

Russian court bans internet PORNOGRAPHY. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/internet-porn-is-now-illegal-in-russia-2015-04-14

[ETL]

Did Communism Fake Its Own Death in 1991?
American Thinker ^ | January 16, 2010 | Jason McNew

In a [] 1984 book [New Lies for Old], ex-KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn predicted the liberalization of the Soviet Bloc and claimed that it would be a strategic deception. ..."

"Golitsyn's argument was that beginning in about 1960, the Soviet Union embarked on a strategy of massive long-range strategic deception which would span several decades and result in the destruction of Western capitalism and the erection of a communist world government."

"Golitsyn published his second book, The Perestroika Deception, after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. This book contained further analysis of the liberalization, in addition to previously classified memoranda submitted by Golitsyn to the CIA. The two books must be read together to get a complete picture of Golitsyn's thesis."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html
_______________________________________________

Link to read "New Lies for Old" online:
https://archive.org/details/GolitsynAnatoleTheNewLiesForOldOnes
_______________________________________________

Link to read "The Perestroika Deception" online:
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-TVvzZzfXiMBkMdvD

[ETL]

Putin DEFENDS CHRISTIANITY worldwide.

Putin: Defender of Christian Faith and Morality?

September 2014

(excerpt from a long, detailed article)

First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.

It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.

But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.

In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.

Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.

Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:

According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.

Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.

Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."

much more at link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/19162-putin-defender-of-christian-faith-and-morality

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

"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."

"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[ETL]

From a 2007 article titled "Putin's Russia"...

"KGB influence 'soars under Putin,' " blared the headline of a BBC online article for December 13, 2006. The following day, a similar headline echoed a similarly alarming story at the website of Der Spiegel, one of Germany's largest news magazines: "Putin's Russia: Kremlin Riddled with Former KGB Agents."

In the opening sentences of Der Spiegel's article, readers are informed that: "Four out of five members of Russia's political and business elite have a KGB past, according to a new study by the prestigious [Russian] Academy of Sciences. The influence of ex-Soviet spies has ballooned under President Vladimir Putin."

The study, which looked at 1,061 top Kremlin, regional, and corporate jobs, found that "78 percent of the Russian elite" are what are known in Russia as "siloviki," which is to say, former members of the KGB or its domestic successor, the FSB. The author of the study, Olga Kryshtanovskaya, expressed shock at her own findings. "I was very shocked when I looked at the boards of major companies and realized there were lots of people who had completely unknown names, people who were not public but who were definitely, obvious siloviki," she told Reuters.

Other supposed experts - in Russia and the West - have also expressed surprise and alarm at the apparent resurrection of the dreaded Soviet secret police. After all, for the past decade and a half these same experts have been pointing to the alleged demise of the KGB as the primary evidence supporting their claim that communism is dead.

From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian security apparatus Cheka (and its later permutations: OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB) had been the "sword and shield" of the communist world revolution.

"We stand for organized terror," declared Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first chief of the Cheka for Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin. In 1918, Dzerzhinsky launched the campaign of arrests and executions known as the Red Terror. Krasnaya Gazeta, the Bolshevik newspaper, expressed the Chekist credo when it reported approvingly in 1918 of the terror campaign: "We will make our hearts cruel, hard and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood."

Unflinching cruelty and merciless, bloody terror have been the trademark of the communist secret police, from the Cheka to the KGB. Obviously, the demise of such an organization would be cause for much rejoicing. Hence, when the KGB was ordered dissolved and its chairman, General Vladimir Kryuchkov, was arrested in 1991 after attempting to overthrow "liberal reformer" Mikhail Gorbachev in the failed "August Coup," many people in the West were only too willing to pop the champagne corks and start celebrating our supposed victory over the Evil Empire.

But, as Mikhail Leontiyev, commentator for Russia's state-controlled Channel One television, recently noted, repeating a phrase popular among the siloviki: "Americans got so drunk at the USSR's funeral that they're still hung over." And stumbling around in their post-inebriation haze, many of these Americans have only recently begun noticing that they had prematurely written the KGB's epitaph, even as it was arising vampire-like from the coffin.

However, there is really no excuse for Olga Kryshtanovskaya or any of her American counterparts to be stunned by the current siloviki dominance in Putin's Russia. For nearly a decade, even before he became Russia's "president," THE NEW AMERICAN has been reporting on Putin's KGB pedigree and his steady implementation of a long-range Soviet deception strategy, including the public rehabilitation and refortifying of the KGB-FSB. ..."

(continues at link)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/8420-putins-russia

[MeganC]

Look, answering my accusation that you only post about Russia and Putin by putting up a big damned post that’s only on Russia and Putin doesn’t make your case that you’re not a troll for Russia and Putin!

If you’re going to use Free Republic to shill for Russia and Putin AND to dismiss Ronald Reagan as unimportant then I surely hope you’re supporting the forum with your hard-earned rubles!

[marvel5]

For the John Birch Society, the Cold War never ended. This is propaganda quoting BBC (UK government owned propaganda organ) and Der Spiegel, which might as well be owned by the German government. So, no, I don’t trust the sources. But even if true, what difference does it make? All that really matters as I have documented are the conservative economic and cultural policies that Putin and Russia follow.

I have an internet “pen pal” in Russia whom I “Skype” with. She is just an average Russian who lives in Kolomna, 70 miles SW of Moscow. Here is what she wrote during a recent conversation:

“As for discussing politics, we feel absolutely free to talk anywhere we want, absolutely no fear of being eavesdropped or arrested or anything. And quite numerous are today very hot and serious discussions on paramount issues televised on the primary channels and watched by millions. And there’s always enough criticism spoken there both on Putin’s current decisions or in their favor.

What is frowned upon, though, is the ungrounded bile-spitting like “He’s an idiot” or “only an imbecile would do that and that” just because it’s generally unacceptable for ANY person.

Absolutely everywhere, including the parliament debates very hot opinion exchanges can follow and are with certainty never prosecuted or punished.”

[marvel5]

I worked for Ronald Reagan unlike you. He is not unimportant, it’s just that he is not alive and in power any longer and thus not making current news. Get it?

[marvel5]

“Vladimir Putin — yes, he was an officer of the intelligence services, but he was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag. As for service in foreign intelligence, that is not a negative in any country — sometimes it even draws praise. George Bush Sr. was not much criticized for being the ex-head of the CIA, for example.”

“Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what was possible — a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, author of “The Gulag Archipelago,” now required reading in Russian schools.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-alexander-solzhenitsyn-i-am-not-afraid-of-death-a-496211.html

Putin personally awarded Solzhenitsyn the State Prize, Russia’s highest honor, and praised his work.

Since Solzhenitsyn had a little bit more “direct contact” with the KGB than you or even the John Birch Society presumably have had, I think we can rely on his judgment as to the relevance of Putin’s KGB background.

[ETL]

I worked for Ronald Reagan, unlike you.

Wow! This might need to be looked into. In what capacity did you work for Reagan?

[marvel5]

Deputy Assistant to the Secretary for Labor Relations, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Samuel R. Piece Jr., Secretary, 1986-89.

If it would help resolve the matter in your mind, I’ll be happy via private mail to give you my name, address in Washington, and telephone numbers (202 area code). You may even call me and ask what ever questions you like.

[ETL]

How comes nothing comes up on a search for “Secretary for Labor Relations”, even on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the US Department of Labor, website?

[marvel5]

Please read more carefully. The period I am referring to is 1986-89. At that time, the Office of Labor Relations at HUD was headed by the Assistant to the Secretary for Labor Relations; I was his Deputy.

Under the current HUD Table of Organization, the Office is called Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement and is headed by a “Director.”

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/labor_standards_enforcement/laborrelhq

Neither you nor Megan really believe that I am a low paid “Russian troll” based in St. Petersburg, who just happens to be familiar with the decades-old organizational structure of a relatively obscure Cabinet department.

[ETL]

Neither you nor Megan really believe that I am a low paid "Russian troll"

I don't know which of you are actually getting paid to do what you do, but you are certainly supportive of the KGB/FSB thug Vladimir Putin and his obvious anti-US, anti-NATO expansionist agenda, both in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. Did you really work for the Reagan administration?

[marvel5]

Yes. I suppose we have exhausted this thread but will doubtless meet again on future such threads.

[MeganC]

You forgot to mention Russia and Putin in your last post.

[marvel5]

Sorry! Putin = Russia’s Reagan (on steroids!)

[ETL]

Sorry! Putin = Russia's Reagan (on steroids!)

Are you saying you think Putin is a bigger, better version of Reagan?