Thank you, Comrade...
Check is on way!
This is a very serious situation, and I certainly believe we could blunder right into a nuclear war. Absolutely.
After Reagan negotiated the end of the Cold War President Bush made a deal with the Russians that in exchange for them abandoning expansionism we would not enlarge NATO to their former Eastern Europe satellite nations. I dislike PResident Bush intensely but he nailed this one. It was the right thing to do for all concerned. Too bad we didn’t stick to it as Clinton promptly starting bringing in all those countries into NATO. Basically, we brought in 13 more countries into NATO and have ringed bases around Russia. BIG TIME DOUBLE CROSS. And then put missile interceptors in Poland while telling the Russians these were for our own defense from Iranian missiles. Lie.
Then here lately the US (in Putin’s view, and I think he is right) facilitated the removal of a pro-Russia government in Ukraine and helped install a regime friendly to the expanded NATO thus potentially blocking off their access to a warm water port. Why are we doing all of these provocations? Does anyone believe that Russia is trying to take over the world, now? Well, the Neocons who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton Administration no matter what party controlled Congress or the White House certainly think that. Or perhaps more precisely they believe the US should smack down any country in the world who tries to do anything that challenges the supremacy of the US.
And now here we are interfering in Syria, which so clearly is just the setting of a new proxy war between US and Russia. Russia is there at the behest of Assad — that is clear. We are not. Russia is slaughtering ISIS. We are not. In fact, we are trying to protect them from slaughter because they are working to overthrow Assad. Bad idea. Just like it was to overthrow Kadaffhi in Lybia, Hillary’s other terrible idea. So now we are threatening to shoot down Russian planes in Syria to enforce a no fly zone? Terrible idea? Seriously, we want to risk a nuclear confrontation over Syria! Retarded and insane. We should leave Syria and never bother with it again. Inmy view basically a vote for Hillary is a vote for continued provocation of the Russians and a vote for WAR.
I know there are many on FR that believe that the Russians are super-evil again, and who think Putin hates the West and all that stuff, but frankly I am quite sympathetic to the point-of-view that says the US is at fault in this relationship and has been for some time. Russia should and could be a great ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism. If we were serious about this fight we would join forces. But instead we just want to use the fight against Islamic terrorism as a pretense to create chaos and confusion everywhere but especially in Syria right now.
Electing Trump — someone with wisdom and no ties to the evil and stupid neocons — would be a huge first step to restoring some sanity to our foreign relations. A vote for HRC is a vote for nuclear war, basically.
Thank you, Comrade...
Check is on way!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america
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Kremlin pays internet trolls to flatter Putin
Ben Hoyle - Moscow
October 11 2013
Russian investigative journalists and bloggers have uncovered an army of internet trolls paid to pour invective on the Kremlin's opponents and heap praise on President Putin.
Posing as job applicants, the reporters discovered the government hacks working at a small company called the St Petersburg Internet Research Agency. ..."
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3891720.ece
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Russian Propaganda Is Taking Over Online Comment Boards
Pamela Engel
May 4, 2014
British newspaper The Guardian notes that recently, readers have been complaining of pro-Russia propaganda being posted in the comments section of articles about Russia and Ukraine.
One reader wrote to The Guardian:
"One need only pick a Ukraine article at random, pick any point in the comments at random, and they will find themselves in a sea of incredibly aggressive and hostile users (the most obvious have accounts created since February 2014 ... but there also exist those who registered with the Guardian before the high point of the crisis) who post the most biased, inciteful [sic] pro-Kremlin, anti-western propaganda that seems as if it's taken from a template, so repetitive are the statements. Furthermore, these comments are consistently capturing inordinate numbers of 'recommends', sometimes on the order of 10 to 12 times what pro-Ukrainian comments receive."
Guardian comment moderators believe this is an orchestrated campaign.
Russia has worked hard to make people believe that the country is supporting the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and defending those people against some type of threat. These "comment mills" play into that strategy.
Last year, The Atlantic wrote about how the Russian government apparently pays people to "sit in a room, surf the Internet, and leave sometimes hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers."
This practice isn't new, according to The Atlantic. But it can stifle open discussion about political issues in Russia, giving a louder voice to those who support the Kremlin.
http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-paying-people-to-post-pro-russia-propaganda-in-comments-2014-5
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"The term 'useful idiots' has been attributed to Lenin, as a description of those mindless people in the Western democracies who would always find ways to excuse whatever the Soviet Union did. Columnist Mona Charen's new book Useful Idiots shows that such people are still with us.
Long after the Soviet Union's horrors had become too widely known around the world for their sympathizers in the West to be able to get away with whitewashing the USSR, new Communist dictatorships arose to become the new objects of the affections of the Western intelligentsia and of like-minded people in the media and in politics. ..."
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2003/05/20/useful_idiots
Granted, many of the "moderate" rebels are also batshit crazy (by our standards), but that's life in Islamic middle eastern countries unfortunately.