The American left has been going to great lengths to first show collusion with the Trump Campaign and Russia, as well trying to highlight what a great threat Vladimir Putin is to the United States. First, a reality check:
- Russia does not have over 100 military bases spread around the world. In fact, it maintains a grand total of two outside its own borders.
- Russia did not unilaterally withdraw from the ABM treaty. That would have been the United States in 2002.
- Russia dissolved the Warsaw Pact and moved on from the Cold War, while the United States has maintained and expanded NATO. In so doing, it broke promises not to position bases near the Russian border.
- Russia watched the US intervene in Ukraine, overthrow its democratically elected president, and then ramp up military assistance to its puppet government. To be sure, this event led to Russia’s bloodless coup in Crimea in 2014. This response was unfortunate but more moral than US-instigated bloody “regime changes” in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
- Russia’s military budget is about 10 percent of the US’s. In fact, recent Trumpian increases in the defense budget exceeded the Russian military budget in toto.
The social and political forces shaping the United States in its first decades understood the deleterious effects standing armies and foreign entanglements had on liberty in the home front. Looking for “monsters to destroy” makes us less free, enriches connected classes, and centralizes power. Pre-Buckley, Old Right conservatives used to appreciate how an expanding warfare state breeds the welfare state and would not be surprised with the growth of government we have today.
Second, the looming specter of peace — to say nothing of the Prince of Peace — terrifies the military-industrial complex and those who would be enriched by it, which by now must include half of the Washington, DC, metropolitan statistical area. The wailing and gnashing and calls for Trump’s impeachment (and even his head in that Portland “art” exhibit) are by bought parties on the left and right (McCain and Clinton, George Will and Wolf Blitzer) whose livelihoods depend on Cold War II, and they’re aghast that Trump won’t allow it to come about.
In the aftermath of Trump-Putin, it might be worth noting Russia and the United States control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and that they are, right now, pointed at each other’s population centers. Dialogue, understanding, interdependency, and (especially) trade between these countries are crucial.
That Trump gets this and would act on it, very much against the zeitgeist, is heroic, representing — if only in this instance — he is striving to enter through the narrow gate.
Excellent. Thank you.
What an intelligent and well-documented commentary on these insane times we find ourselves now living in.
I can’t believe how many people I come across today who are literally petrified of Putin, and see him as the world’s arch villain, as if all the turmoil in the world were caused by him.
And you can’t have any kind of intelligent discussion with those people, as their minds are totally closed.
How did it become that way?
I for one am at a loss for words to say.
There’s a book called the Dictator’s Learning Curve, about the modern ways autocrats consolidate power and prohibit social uprisings. In this book the author, William Dobson, discusses how dangerous Russia is to journalists. People who speak up against the corruption of the system have of way of being beaten or killed. State media presents the party line, and the capitalists who did not kowtow to Putin when he came to power fled the country or were imprisoned. Putin’s wealthy friends are rewarded with lavish projects.
None of this means persay, that we ought to go to war with Russia, but he really is a bad man, who does not mind killing the innocent to maintain power. We shouldn’t be naive about that fact, nor that Putin may benefit from a weakened United States. Putin understands the power of controlling the narrative, which is why Russians would like to infiltrate social media.
Additionally, the fact that our press is now referred to as “the enemy of the power” is certainly chilling. Dictators thrive on misinformation and propaganda. If you’re concerned about tyranny, you should certainly support a free press.
Note: The point is Putin is not a threat to America. Internally, maybe, although Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi would probably prefer Putin after what Obama did to him. And, how is the press not free??? Really?
Good afternoon, Laurie, and thank you for expressing your thoughts in here on this subject.
Your citizenship is very much appreciated.
With that said, what exactly is a “free press,” Laurie, other than a jejune soundbite?
And outside of the Cape Charles Mirror, exactly where do you expect to find one?
Search the internet, Laurie, asking “what is the role of free press in society,” and see what you come up with.
How about “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Jay in 1786, “nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”
But wait, throw that out because everybody knows Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, so we cannot go by anything he said without being racists.
So rapidly moving along from there, lest I be accused of being a racist for even knowing who Thomas Jefferson is, let alone daring to quote him, how about “If the cornerstone of a free and just society is an open marketplace of ideas — where competition of thought and debate are requisite tools to find the truth— then a media free to investigate and educate on the shortcomings of its government becomes essential to society’s functioning.”
Do you accept that, Laurie?
Or how about this: A governing body in a democratic society must be able to be held accountable by the governed, but this can only happen if the people are informed, so that in this way, freedom of the press is not just about protecting journalists, television stations, newspapers, citizen reporters, and bloggers; to the contrary, it is also a protection of the individual’s right to access what is needed to make informed decisions and guard against abuses of power.
As to “There’s a book called the Dictator’s Learning Curve, about the modern ways autocrats consolidate power and prohibit social uprisings,” how about the Sedition Act of 1918, Pub.L. 65–150, 40 Stat. 553, enacted May 16, 1918, which was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds?
It forbade the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt.
Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.
The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion.
Where are you on that, while we are on the subject of autocrats consolidating power and prohibiting social uprisings?
Are you for that, because it happened here in America, and was done for our own good by a benevolent Democrat president?
Did you know, Laurie, that in April 1918, our government arrested industrialist William Edenborn, a naturalized citizen from Germany, at his railroad business in New Orleans, Louisiana, accusing him of speaking “disloyally” when he allegedly belittled the threat of Germany to the security of the United States?
And surely an educated person such as yourself cannot have forgotten that in June 1918, the Socialist Party figure Eugene V. Debs of Indiana was arrested for violating the Sedition Act by undermining the government’s conscription efforts and he was sentenced to ten years in prison, serving his sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary from April 13, 1919, until December 1921, when President Harding commuted Debs’ sentence to time served, effective on December 25, Christmas Day.
Debs actually conducted a presidential campaign, if you recall, from his prison cell.
As to the book itself, not surprisingly Foreign Affairs magazine did an interesting review of it in the January/February 2013 Issue reviewed by G. John Ikenberry, calling it an engaging book in which Dobson reports from such outposts of despotism as China, Malaysia, Russia, and Venezuela, detailing authoritarian regimes that are remarkably sophisticated in resisting the formidable forces that have put illiberal states on the defensive: Western democracy promoters, the international human rights movement, and the spread of social media.
As to who the author is, which I always think is important in matters like these, according to his bio, William J. “Will” Dobson is an American journalist and author who writes frequently on foreign affairs and international politics, and he is currently the Politics and Foreign Affairs Editor for Slate.
From 2004 to 2008, Dobson was the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine, and during his tenure at Foreign Policy, the magazine was nominated for a National Magazine Award five years in a row – the only magazine of its size to receive five consecutive nominations – and won the top prize twice.
Previously, he served as the Senior Editor for Asia at Newsweek International and as Associate Editor at Foreign Affairs, and he has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Getting back to the review:
Modern autocrats increasingly eschew overtly oppressive methods of control, such as mass arrests and executions, and instead manipulate legal systems—tax rules, health codes, media regulations—to isolate and undermine opponents.
end quotes
Now, Laurie, tell us true – in what country is that happening, where modern autocrats manipulate legal systems—tax rules, health codes, media regulations—to isolate and undermine opponents?
That is happening right here in America, is it not?
And what about this: Appearances increasingly matter, so today’s authoritarians hold rigged elections and pay lip service to democracy to distract attention from their abuses?
Didn’t the Democrat National Committee in 2016 rig the election so that Hillary Clinton would get to run for president as opposed to Bernie Sanders?
As to Hillary herself, you must recall the CNN article “Clinton: Chinese human rights can’t interfere with other crises” from February 22, 2009, as follows:
BEIJING, China (CNN) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broached the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders on Saturday, but emphasized that the global financial slump and other international crises were more pressing and immediate priorities.
The United States will continue to press China on issues such as Tibet, Taiwan and human rights, she told reporters accompanying her.
“Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them.”
“But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis,” she told reporters in Seoul, South Korea.
She met with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday and discussed the framework for further high-level and mid-level discussions.
“It is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship,” Clinton told a group of reporters.
Earlier Saturday, Clinton met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, where they discussed what they regard as the new defining Sino-U.S. strategic goals: the world economic crisis, regional security and the environment.
Human rights, a traditional topic in discussions between the two countries, was broached during Saturday’s meeting between Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who agreed to engage in a continuous discussion on the issue.
Secretary Clinton said both nations will continue to hold frank discussions on crucial human rights issues, such as Tibet and freedom of expression in China.
In a welcoming response, Yang said China was willing to discuss the often-contentious subject of human rights.
“Although differences exist, China is willing to conduct the dialogues with the U.S. to push forward the human rights situation on the premise of mutual respect and noninterference in each other’s internal affairs,” Yang was quoted by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
On the economic front, both leaders emphasized the importance of working in cooperation since their economies are intertwined.
China, the world’s top holder of U.S. debt, wants to ensure liquidity and security in its dealings with U.S. treasury bonds.
“We did use foreign exchange reserves to buy U.S. treasury bonds.”
“Our principle of using reserves is to ensure security and liquidity,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told reporters.
China-U.S. trade volume rose by 10.5 percent in 2008 to 333.7 billion U.S. dollars, Xinhua reported.
end quotes
Realpolitik that is called, Laurie.
And soundbites.
The United States has been cozy with autocrats who are human rights abusers all my life, and remains so to this day.
Ah, but they are not Putin, are they, so their human rights violations are AOK with the American people.
Just saying.
As to your comment, Laurie, that Putin may benefit from a weakened United States, the only way that could happen, and it is happening right before our eyes, is for the American people to hand him that gift on a silver platter by becoming weak themselves, which they are doing, especially your millennial generation, as we clearly see from a FOX News article by Jennifer Griffin on 27 June 2017, as follows:
Former Obama defense secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta says perceived “weakness” encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to direct cyber-attacks against the United States and interfere with the 2016 election.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Panetta responded to Washington Post reporting over the weekend that the Obama administration “choked” in response to Russia’s interference, even after the CIA told then-President Barack Obama the meddling was directed by Putin.
“I think when [Putin] conducted the cyber-attacks in the United States during the last election, he felt he could get away with it, without any kind of response,” Panetta said.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned in dealing with the Russians, it’s that you have to show them that there’s a line beyond which they cannot cross.”
Panetta said Putin took advantage of perceived American “weakness.”
“He’s somebody who takes advantage of weakness, and if he senses weakness then he’ll take advantage of it,” Panetta said, giving the example of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
end quotes
As to Ukraine and “a bad man who does not mind killing the innocent to maintain power,” SALON had an interesting article on that subject on March 8, 2014, as follows:
The U.S. is backing Ukraine’s extreme right-wing Svoboda party and violent neo-Nazis whose armed uprising paved the way for a Western-backed coup.
Events in the Ukraine are giving us another glimpse through the looking-glass of U.S. propaganda wars against fascism, drugs and terrorism.
The ugly reality behind the mirror is that the U.S. government has a long and unbroken record of working with fascists, dictators, druglords and state sponsors of terrorism in every region of the world in its elusive but relentless quest for unchallenged global power.
Behind a firewall of impunity and protection from the State Department and the CIA, U.S. clients and puppets have engaged in the worst crimes known to man, from murder and torture to coups and genocide.
The trail of blood from this carnage and chaos leads directly back to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and the White House.
As historian Gabriel Kolko observed in 1988, “The notion of an honest puppet is a contradiction Washington has failed to resolve anywhere in the world since 1945.”
end quotes
And you will find this AFP article interesting as well:
“Merkel fumes at US diplomat’s curse of EU”
By Michel Viatteau and Dmytro Gorshkov
8 February 2014
Kiev (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage on Friday over a leaked conversation in which a top US diplomat used the f-word to disparage the European Union’s handling of the crisis in Ukraine.
The candid remark by the US State Department’s most senior European official threatened to drive a dangerous wedge between the allies in the midst of one their most high-stakes diplomatic tussles with Moscow since the Cold War.
The embarrassing row came as Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych prepared for crisis talks with his Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
Washington and Brussels have engaged in an intense standoff with Kiev and Moscow over deadly mass protests that erupted in Ukraine in November when Yanukovych rejected an historic pact with the EU in favour of closer ties with old master Russia.
But the leaked phone call hinted strongly at Washington’s mounting frustration with the Europeans’ handling of Ukraine’s worst political crisis since its independence in 1991.
In the recordings, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Washington’s Kiev ambassador frankly discuss which opposition figures should go into the new Ukrainian government — comments that play directly into Russia’s charges of Western meddling in its neighbour’s affairs.
“That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it and you know, f**k the EU,” Nuland says at one point.
Nuland herself did not dispute the authenticity of the call while refusing further comment.
“I will not comment on a private diplomatic conversation,” Nuland told reporters in Kiev on Friday.
“It was pretty impressive tradecraft,” she added.
“Audio quality was very good.”
The US State Department immediately pointed an incriminating finger at Russia for allegedly bugging diplomats’ phones.
“Certainly we think this is a new low in Russian tradecraft,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
end quotes
That was when Hussein Obama was president and Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state.
And neither of those two were at all squeamish about killing innocent people to grab more power.
And Laurie, come on here with you talk about Putin being a bad man.
Twice he was for Obama being president,.
First there is this article from The Telegraph entitled “Vladimir Putin praises Barack Obama and pledges strong rouble – Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that he has received ‘positive signals’ from US president-elect Barack Obama that could open the door to positive developments in Moscow’s relations with Washington” on 4 December 2008, as follows:
“Usually… when there is a change of power in any country, and even more so in a superpower such as the United States, some changes occur,” said Mr Putin, who served as president of Russia from 1999-May 2008, when he was appointed as prime minister.
“We very much hope that these changes will be positive.”
“We are now seeing these positive signals,” he said during a televised question and answer session with the Russian public.
The Russian prime minister said two issues in particular – Nato enlargement and US missile defence plans – had dogged relations with the US under President George W. Bush’s administration.
On Nato enlargement, fiercely opposed by Russia, Mr Putin said: “Speaking to people who are very close to the newly elected president and his circle – his assistants – we are hearing that there is no reason to hurry….”
“There is no reason to damage relations with Russia.”
And referring to US missile defence plans pushed hard by the Bush administration, he added: “We are hearing there is a need to re-evaluate the appropriateness of deploying the missile-defence system in Poland and corresponding radars in the Czech Republic.”
end quotes
And then a Moscow Times article on September 27, 2012, as follows:
In 2008, then-President Dmitry Medvedev expressed a desire to work with a “modern” U.S. leader rather than one “whose eyes are turned back to the past.”
He was referring to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
During Putin’s interview with RT state television, he also called Obama an “honest man who really wants to change much for the better.”
This comment was widely viewed as Putin’s most direct endorsement of Obama in the presidential race.
Obama’s decision to improve relations with the country and establish strong ties with Medvedev despite Russia’s war with Georgia in August 2008 was essential.
Despite all the Kremlin’s frustrations, it remains hopeful that Obama will be re-elected and that he will help to move U.S.-Russian relations forward.
end quotes
So, Laurie, tell us, what is up with all of that?
Was he a is a “bad man who does not mind killing the innocent to maintain power,” then?
If so, then what does that make Obama, who obviously was in contact with Putin before Obama was even president?
And then there is this statement: Putin understands the power of controlling the narrative, which is why Russians would like to infiltrate social media.
Oh, really, Laurie?
And Hillary Clinton and Hussein Obama don’t understand the power of controlling the narrative?
Why do you think the pair of them are on TWITTER?
What modern politician anywhere doesn’t understand the power of controlling the narrative?
James Risen and Sheryl Atkinson were actively spied on by the Obama administration, Judith Miller was JAILED by Patrick Fitzgerald because she wouldn’t lie about Scooter Libby(who was exonerated by a DC appeals court due to Fitz’s manipulation of Miller’s testimony, and returned to active Bar status by the Bar association’s investigation that ALSO fond him to be innocent) whom also reduced access to themselves- to the point that even the NYT had to write an article stating that the Obama administration was the least transparent ever, especially compared to the Trump admin- and your side had no problem with that at all not even a wee little bit.
And, , the term is “per se”. It would have been correct if phrased…….”None of which means we should go to war with Russia, per se but…” Grammar and syntax are important.
And grown ups know we don’t have other nations as ‘friends’, we have them as allies both temporary and long term.
I’m a political Ent. “I am not on anybody’s side because no one is on my side”. I don’t support Hillary Clinton and am not interested in discussing her.
I’m sorry for the grammatical errors. However, charity would probably commend not fixing people’s small mistakes as it you clearly understood the gist of my argument.
No, Laurie, for your argument is very unclear and quite muddy, in fact.
What exactly is your argument?
And if we should not, per se, as you put it, go to war with Russia, then exactly what is it that you would have us do about Russia, given that it is a foreign country with its own laws and customs and history that actually is many, many years longer then ours, which is quite puny as histories of nations go?
How about at noon this Wednesday, we all drop trou like the Scots did in Braveheart and take selfies of our butts and collectively send them to Putin as TWEETS so he will know just how much we don’t like him?
I bet that would make him feel bad enough about himself that he would then beg our forgiveness and promise to stop killing all those people he is killing to keep him in power over there.
And what on earth is a political ent?
As some Brit said back when, Lord Palmerston, I think: “England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests.”
I thought they taught that in seventh grade or eighth grade.
Very well said. Thanks Wayne
I did not say the press was not free. However, attacks from both the left and the right have been troubling in recent times. I’m sure you support a free press, as the CapeCharlesMirror is an online publication.
The press in America, Laurie, is free to print any damn thing they want, without regards to truth or reality, and they use that freedom to do exactly that.