Posted on 12/18/2015 3:44:24 PM PST by mtrott
What started as a seemingly mild admiration between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin took an uncomfortable turn Friday when the GOP White House hopeful seemed to defend the Russian president’s strong-arm tactics – and dismiss his alleged killing of journalists and others who cross him.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ask Michael Hastings his opinion on this.
Not really. Most people won't bother with links. And we have a very serious ignorance problem on this site nowadays. Sometimes you just need to ram the facts down people's throats to get them to wake the hell up.
And you haven’t considered that most FReepers just scroll right on by your overly verbose posts?
Ok, so we get that you’re terrified of Vladimir Putin, what do you think we should do about him? Sanctions on Russia? Nuke the sonuvabitch?
Enlighten us please.
So you think it would have been better to just let Hitler sweep his way unimpeded all the way to the Pacific?
I was just pointing out your colossal understating of what Stalin did.
Sounds like you’re more focused on semantics.
So what IS your view of the whole Hitler vs Stalin issue?
Should FDR and Churchill just let the Soviets twist in the wind, and deal with Hitler once he had conquered the entire Eurasian land mass?
It’s a serious question.
First of all, we should never have allowed Putin to be in the position he is in today. We, if we had a president who wasn't, in all likelihood, in cahoots with Putin in this scheme to basically restore the Soviet Union and then-some with the addition of the Middle East, should have been far more aggressive in taking on and taking out ISIS ourselves. Unfortunately, we do NOT have such a leader, and so Russia was (purposely IMO) given the opportunity to move in, supposedly 'do the job', then set up permanent shop there and grow more powerful and threatening to US and our NATO allies than they are at the moment.
As for a solution for this "between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place" situation the saboteur-in-chief (Obama) has put us in, I have confidence that Ted Cruz knows how to handle it at this point.
____________________________________________
Ted Cruz on ISIS, Russia, Obama, missile defense, and the New START Treaty with Russia...
"If we want to actually dismantle ISIS, we need to dramatically change course. We need a real, robust campaign that maximizes our overwhelming air advantage.
We need to focus our efforts not on trying to create friends, but on supporting our real ones, especially the Kurds in Iraq and Syria who have actually had success against ISIS."
-snip-
"We can redouble our efforts to develop the defensive weapons that neutralized the offensive Soviet threat -- particularly missile defense, which has seen a 25% budget reduction under Obama, according to an analysis from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and has been constrained by bad arms deals like New START.
We should not only move quickly to install the canceled interceptor sites Putin opposed in Poland and the Czech Republic, but also to develop the next generation of systems that will only increase his discomfiture.
These options do not entail a ground war in Syria, yet would effectively shake us free from the failed policies that have brought us to our current impasse.
These options set us on a new path that puts Putin on notice that the United States is reclaiming our traditional role as leader of the free world."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/opinions/cruz-syria-putin/index.html
**********************************************************
"I think it would be a mistake to get involved in the Syrian civil war. There have been voices in Washington eager for us to send our sons and daughters over to fight that civil war for some time. I haven't been one of them. I think the touchstone of U.S. military policy should be protecting the national security of this country."
"What we're seeing Putin in Russia do is a direct response to the profound weakness of Obama over six and a half years.
Putin views Obama as weak, as ineffective, and frankly, as a laughingstock. And, as a result, he is moving in, he is invading his neighbors, like Ukraine, he's kidnapping Estonians, and he's moving into Syria to gain a stronger foothold in the Middle East."
**********************************************************
Ted Cruz:
"We need a coherent plan to address both the specific crisis in Syria and the challenge posed more broadly by Putin's resurgent Russia.
The good news is that America still has options, if our leaders can summon the will to exercise them.
For starters, in Syria we can't double down on the failed strategies that have given Putin his opportunity to intervene.
We are now two years out from President Obama's proposed intervention after al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. ..."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/opinions/cruz-syria-putin/index.html
Will get back to this complex subjct later.
For now...
“As Stalin reneged on promises concerning Eastern Europe, perception of Yalta changed and Roosevelt was blamed for effectively ceding Eastern Europe to the Soviets. While his poor health may have affected his judgment, Roosevelt was able to secure some concessions from Stalin during the meeting.
Despite this, many came to view the meeting as a sellout that greatly encouraged Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe and northeast Asia. The leaders of the Big Three would meet again that July for the Potsdam Conference.”
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/p/yalta.htm
American POWS sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.
The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.
Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.
The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the United States National Archives is releasing Monday and putting online. Historians who saw the material days before the official release describe it as important and shared some highlights with the AP. The most dramatic revelation so far is the evidence of the secret codes sent by the two American POWs - something historians were unaware of and which adds to evidence that the Roosevelt administration knew of Soviet atrocities early on in the war.
The declassified documents also show the United States maintaining that it couldn't conclusively determine guilt until a Russian admission in 1990 - a statement that looks improbable given the huge body of evidence of Soviet guilt that had already emerged decades earlier. Historians say the new material helps to flesh out the story of what the U.S. knew and when.
The Soviet secret police killed the 22,000 Poles with shots to the back of the head. Their aim was to eliminate a military and intellectual elite that would have put up stiff resistance to Soviet control. The men were among Poland's most accomplished - officers and reserve officers who in their civilian lives worked as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or as other professionals. Their loss has proven an enduring wound to the Polish nation. ..."
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Katyn-massacre-Roosevelt-Stalin/2012/09/10/id/451258/#ixzz3un7uqkVN
You appear to be laying the groundwork for asserting that the allies should not have assisted the Soviets one iota during World War II, is that about right?
The reason many of us praise Putin is that he has turned Russia back towards her religious heritage--a major need after over 70 years of Communist corruption;--has not fallen into the insanity in so much of the West, which denigrates your own identity as a people; and has not embraced the corruption of the sanctity of marriage & normal sexuality, which embraces such idiocy as the oxymoron of "same sex marriage."
Putin is certainly not perfect; but the side he is showing since he regained his high office, looks pretty good compared to what we have had the past 20+ years.
Not necessarily. There are definitely times in which we need to temporarily ally with bad regimes in order to take out some other bad one. In these cases we need to be extremely careful about what sort of arrangements we make with them, during and afterwards. And be very mindful of any ulterior motives that temp evil ally might have. ie, Putin seeking to use the situation in Syria as an opportunity to help restore the Soviet Union, or something similar to it and then-some with an expansion into the Middle East.
Well said.
You cannot excuse the one and not the other, unless you intend to be hypocritical about it.
I was explaining why many Conservatives think that what we know about Putin is encouraging us to hope that he is moving in the right direction--even as we know that America is moving in the wrong direction.
This is relevant as to why Trump & Putin exchange compliments. It is relevant as to why we should encourage, not discourage, Putin from dealing with Isis. It is relevant to all sorts of other considerations.
And I don’t have any problem with Trump and Putin exchanging pleasantries. When Trump starts serving dissidents polonium-flavored tea, then I’ll start to worry.
If the "we" you're referring to is the US Government, as I believe Trump meant, I don't answer ridiculous questions. If you're really that naive, I choose not to play at your level.
If it’s not the pogroms, what explains the enduring resentment of Russia? That Putin didn’t let the oligarchs keep all they’d stolen?
You can understand Trumpese, then. I can't -- I need it translated. Then again, I never watched "The Apprentice."
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