What does Putin think he is playing at? The West is good at making a mess of things but this guy is behaving like a thick school bully. His foreign policy is to do whatever he wants and explain it away with ridiculous statements that the whole world can see are nonsense. How frustrating is that? It is like catching a thief red handed and having to stand there and watch him say 'it wasn't me' over and over again. The CIA used to adopt a policy of Plausible Deniability' but Putin has taken it to a new level. For crying out loud just stop it man! You're going to get us all in trouble!
What does Putin think he is playing at? The West is good at making a mess of things but this guy is behaving like a thick school bully. His foreign policy is to do whatever he wants and explain it away with ridiculous statements that the whole world can see are nonsense. How frustrating is that? It is like catching a thief red handed and having to stand there and watch him say 'it wasn't me' over and over again. The CIA used to adopt a policy of Plausible Deniability' but Putin has taken it to a new level. For crying out loud just stop it man! You're going to get us all in trouble!
Agreed, worrying stuff. Russia has a long, long history of these kind of seemingly irresponsible interventions. I suspect Putin's target audiences are firstly Russian opinion and secondly a rag-bag of regimes relying on Russian support. It only needs some Turkish anti-aircraft missile battery to fire one off in panic and we could be in deep sh*t.
Is this much different than what the USA and others have done for the last 50 yrs: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, balkans, missile defence placements...etc. nothing very covert about these acts of aggression and all very dangerous .
It's also true the Russians went into Ukraine and fly over nato territory on a regular basis elsewhere. I think the risk is about the same.
Russia seems to me to have the same 'right ' as the US does to break and provoke international boundaries. If the west overreacts then they should remember what Russia has had to put up with in terms of incursions and threats to national security since and beginning with WW2
Is this much different than what the USA and others have done for the last 50 yrs: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, balkans, missile defence placements...etc. nothing very covert about these acts of aggression and all very dangerous .
I thought you were a closet Commie, Ian. The USA have appointed Andy Monium as their new Syrian peace envoy.
-- Edited by ridgeway kid on Thursday 8th of October 2015 08:32:25 AM
It's also true the Russians went into Ukraine and fly over nato territory on a regular basis elsewhere. I think the risk is about the same.
Russia seems to me to have the same 'right ' as the US does to break and provoke international boundaries. If the west overreacts then they should remember what Russia has had to put up with in terms of incursions and threats to national security since and beginning with WW2
Completely agree ian. It seems ok for us, ie Nato do go and do what ever we think fit where ever we so choose. You can add to your list Grenada, Somalia and bank rolling the Contras to overthrow the democratically elected government of Daniel Ortega, and a similar scenario in 1973 in Chile. The list is almost endless really, but in every case we are the forces of good and righteousness and we cant tolerate anyone else who want to play the same games as us. The end result of the game of politics are the ordinary people on the ground getting caught up in it all and suffering as a result.
It's also true the Russians went into Ukraine and fly over nato territory on a regular basis elsewhere. I think the risk is about the same.
Russia seems to me to have the same 'right ' as the US does to break and provoke international boundaries. If the west overreacts then they should remember what Russia has had to put up with in terms of incursions and threats to national security since and beginning with WW2
Completely agree ian. It seems ok for us, ie Nato do go and do what ever we think fit where ever we so choose. You can add to your list Grenada, Somalia and bank rolling the Contras to overthrow the democratically elected government of Daniel Ortega, and a similar scenario in 1973 in Chile. The list is almost endless really, but in every case we are the forces of good and righteousness and we cant tolerate anyone else who want to play the same games as us. The end result of the game of politics are the ordinary people on the ground getting caught up in it all and suffering as a result.
I do believe that relatively speaking the West are the "good guys" here. You can probably accept a cup of tea off a Western leader without dying from radiation poisoning, you are less likely to be hounded, beaten and arrested for being gay and while we have not always behaved impeccably there are few parallels to Katyn, Hungary in 1956 and the Gulags. The Berlin Wall and its other manifestations have generally been aimed at keeping people in rather than deterring vast numbers of Westerners eager to share the Soviet dream. The history of Soviet foreign policy since the 1930s has been one of aggression against its neighbours and Stalin was himself largely responsible for the German invasion with his ludicruous Soviet-German Pact from which he hoped to pick up the pieces from a war between Germany and France and Britain.
I met a girl called svetlana and stayed with her for several weeks. She worked 12 hours a day and travelled 4 hours to work. She lived with her parents, a brother and sister and her Grandparents in a 2 bedroom flat. She had an engineering degree, was an excellent cellist and could speak russian., english, french and spanish. she earned very little.
when I asked her about her life and remarked about her state education she didn't bat an eyelid when she replied, of course its a good education, i am privileged, what more could i want then to give back to Russia.
There was also a real beauty at the post office called Marsha. She smiled and laughed at my every attempt to speak Russian
whats not to like about the Motherland
-- Edited by ian on Thursday 8th of October 2015 01:40:06 PM
I would agree with you to a point Ridgeway and suggest better the Devil you know as they say, but during my lifetime I can only think of three occasions where Russia has been involved in foreign adventures directly, 1963, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1968 the suppression of the Czechoslovakian uprising and more recently their disastrous adventure in Afghanistan from which we seem to have learned little.
Other than that its been a more covert involvement such as supplying arms and funding like minded regimes, such as Tito in Yugoslavia and Ceausescu in Romania and so on, whereas we (Nato) are ready to get stuck into anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Ultimately its about National interests, ours or theirs, they do it their way and we have our own methods, but I do stick by my final point in that its the ordinary citizens who pay the ultimate price, just by being there.
Is this much different than what the USA and others have done for the last 50 yrs: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, balkans, missile defence placements...etc. nothing very covert about these acts of aggression and all very dangerous .
I thought you were a closet Commie, Ian. The USA have appointed Andy Monium as their new Syrian peace envoy.
-- Edited by ridgeway kid on Thursday 8th of October 2015 08:32:25 AM
If we read Oliver Stone's history of the US it is clear how bad the West has been. Personally I agree with Shakespeare when he said 'a plague on both their houses'.
If we read Oliver Stone's history of the US it is clear how bad the West has been. Personally I agree with Shakespeare when he said 'a plague on both their houses'.
I am no great fan of the foreign policy of the US or the West in general but I wouldn't take my history lessons from Oliver Stone, who recycles other people's work and presents skewed versions of it. The situation in Syria/Iraq presents a very real threat to us all. If Russia wants to prop up Assad then so be it, but the way they go about it is my issue. They say they are targeting IS but we can all see they simply aren't. They send men in unmarked uniforms into Ukraine and deny they are their men when they obviously are. They deny any involvement in the Malaysian Airlines plane coming down over Ukraine when there is concrete evidence that it was shot down by Russian equipment from Russian soil. They provoke Western Europe by fringing near or into other countries' air space but call it 'accidental'. Oil may play a part in Syria/Iraq but doesn't explain it all. The truth is that Putin is former KGB and is a Cold War politician at heart. He is playing to a domestic audience with his testosterone filled approach and rhetoric about a 'Greater Russia' but he is playing with fire. The West has a lot to answer for but there is no moral equivalence between our current approach to the Iraq/Syria crisis and theirs.
I am no great fan of the foreign policy of the US or the West in general but I wouldn't take my history lessons from Oliver Stone, who recycles other people's work and presents skewed versions of it. The situation in Syria/Iraq presents a very real threat to us all. If Russia wants to prop up Assad then so be it, but the way they go about it is my issue. They say they are targeting IS but we can all see they simply aren't. They send men in unmarked uniforms into Ukraine and deny they are their men when they obviously are. They deny any involvement in the Malaysian Airlines plane coming down over Ukraine when there is concrete evidence that it was shot down by Russian equipment from Russian soil. They provoke Western Europe by fringing near or into other countries' air space but call it 'accidental'. Oil may play a part in Syria/Iraq but doesn't explain it all. The truth is that Putin is former KGB and is a Cold War politician at heart. He is playing to a domestic audience with his testosterone filled approach and rhetoric about a 'Greater Russia' but he is playing with fire. The West has a lot to answer for but there is no moral equivalence between our current approach to the Iraq/Syria crisis and theirs.
Well said, Smiler. Very nicely put. Liberals who see a moral equivalence here should talk to the relatives of the 56 journalists in Russia assassinated in the last decade.
I am no great fan of the foreign policy of the US or the West in general but I wouldn't take my history lessons from Oliver Stone, who recycles other people's work and presents skewed versions of it. The situation in Syria/Iraq presents a very real threat to us all. If Russia wants to prop up Assad then so be it, but the way they go about it is my issue. They say they are targeting IS but we can all see they simply aren't. They send men in unmarked uniforms into Ukraine and deny they are their men when they obviously are. They deny any involvement in the Malaysian Airlines plane coming down over Ukraine when there is concrete evidence that it was shot down by Russian equipment from Russian soil. They provoke Western Europe by fringing near or into other countries' air space but call it 'accidental'. Oil may play a part in Syria/Iraq but doesn't explain it all. The truth is that Putin is former KGB and is a Cold War politician at heart. He is playing to a domestic audience with his testosterone filled approach and rhetoric about a 'Greater Russia' but he is playing with fire. The West has a lot to answer for but there is no moral equivalence between our current approach to the Iraq/Syria crisis and theirs.
Well said, Smiler. Very nicely put. Liberals who see a moral equivalence here should talk to the relatives of the 56 journalists in Russia assassinated in the last decade.
Thank you RK. You wouldn't want to be a political opponent of Putin - they seem to have a lot of bad luck. Being gay in Russia is not easy, and even being in a girl band can be dangerous. I have abandoned my plans to carve out a career for myself as a drag artist entertaining the masses in Murmansk. I class myself as a bit of a liberal/lefty but can see that Putin is a dangerous fellow. The missiles that didn't land in Iran (!) that you posted about his morning are another example of how things could go wrong and it only takes a mistake followed by an over-reaction to trigger a very bad situation. Great new avatar by the way. I also like Towdlad's cartoon hero. I may go with one of my own.
I normally avoid politics preferring more important things like comic book heroes. Anyone for cow pie? Your avatar also inspired the Bernard Hill line in Boys From the Blackstuff (I think) where the priest tells Yosser to call him Dan and he replies, "I'm desperate...Dan."
I prefer that my Avatar has some personal connection RK. The Errol Flynn Robin Hood one did in more ways than one, and those who know me would I think smile at the choice of Desperate Dan for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. All good fun. After all, we need something to take our minds off weightier matters such as threats to global security and who might be in line to lead the Millers to the promised land (mid-table safety).
I am no great fan of the foreign policy of the US or the West in general but I wouldn't take my history lessons from Oliver Stone, who recycles other people's work and presents skewed versions of it. The situation in Syria/Iraq presents a very real threat to us all. If Russia wants to prop up Assad then so be it, but the way they go about it is my issue. They say they are targeting IS but we can all see they simply aren't. They send men in unmarked uniforms into Ukraine and deny they are their men when they obviously are. They deny any involvement in the Malaysian Airlines plane coming down over Ukraine when there is concrete evidence that it was shot down by Russian equipment from Russian soil. They provoke Western Europe by fringing near or into other countries' air space but call it 'accidental'. Oil may play a part in Syria/Iraq but doesn't explain it all. The truth is that Putin is former KGB and is a Cold War politician at heart. He is playing to a domestic audience with his testosterone filled approach and rhetoric about a 'Greater Russia' but he is playing with fire. The West has a lot to answer for but there is no moral equivalence between our current approach to the Iraq/Syria crisis and theirs.
Well said, Smiler. Very nicely put. Liberals who see a moral equivalence here should talk to the relatives of the 56 journalists in Russia assassinated in the last decade.
Thank you RK. You wouldn't want to be a political opponent of Putin - they seem to have a lot of bad luck. Being gay in Russia is not easy, and even being in a girl band can be dangerous. I have abandoned my plans to carve out a career for myself as a drag artist entertaining the masses in Murmansk. I class myself as a bit of a liberal/lefty but can see that Putin is a dangerous fellow. The missiles that didn't land in Iran (!) that you posted about his morning are another example of how things could go wrong and it only takes a mistake followed by an over-reaction to trigger a very bad situation. Great new avatar by the way. I also like Towdlad's cartoon hero. I may go with one of my own.
Yet, every single point seems niave. The USA consistently shows an equal amount if corruption, intolerance and disdain for others. The US elects it's leaders via a corrupt elitist system. The US executes prisoners. The US imprisons people without trial. The US is the only country on earth that imprisons children for life. The US has bombed and murderd and trodden over countless countries , individuals and rights. It spies on its friends. It witholds health care to its people.half of its politics is crass, angry, reactionary, and dangerous. It's geopolitics are aggressive and antidemocratic. It seeks to undermine Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Egypt, and countless other democratically elected countries. It's own nation breeds killers, drug habits, molestation of its citizens beyond anything on earth. It is crass, superficial, superior, a bully. A teenager out of control. Full of fear of others and paranoid. It reacts to issues of its own making while denying any culpability. It is abusive. It used atomic weapons. It would position atomic weapons a few miles from Russia and China. Of course, it's brought light to the world too. Disney land and Donald Trump and George Bush, countless homeless people, gangsters, murderous and superficial society, raping the earth, gobbling up its resources, extolling greed and the individual above the weak and society. So I agree, I too wouldn't want to claim a moral equivalence.
I don't think that's a very balanced view, Ian. The American use of nuclear weapons against Japan was entirely justified. US losses at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Japanese behaviour in Manila, the presence of an army of 1m in China, plans to fight to the death in defence of the homeland including use of hundreds of kamikaze left the Americans with no sensible option.
The USA have appointed Andy Monium 
