more appeasement of Russia by barry....

[chefdennis]

Yeap barry and hilary are in the process of "giving away the house' in an effort to be "liked" to be "more friendly" and to show that we aren't the mean bad guys of the past....and what are they getting back in return.....?? Nothing, nada, zip....just the weaking of our country...We are just "giving the house away" while barry thinks he can save the world from the mean nasty Americans......

This is doing nothing but showing the world leaders just how weak and ignorant of foreign policy and our military defense barry is....Some are saying he is doing this on purpose, to lessen Americans power within the world and opening us up to the lead and directions of those that are our enemies....hey by the way, whats goin on with Afghanastan!?!? He make any decision on the plan he already had during the campiagn when he critized mccain?!?! Weak...he has no gut for war and experience to make any decisions on.....he is a dangerous man....

Disarming America

by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 10.16.2009
http://www.financialsense.com/stormw.../analysis.html

As part of the next arms reduction treaty between superpowers, the United States has tentatively agreed to unprecedented Russian access to American nuclear missile sites. According to published accounts, Russian weapons inspectors will be given an open door to American nuclear sites in order to monitor the number of missiles and warheads. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is quite satisfied with the deal. Perhaps it is an error of omission, but there is no news of a similar concession from the Russian side. This is psychologically and strategically significant: first, because it presents us with a President and a Secretary of State who are mistaken in their assessment of Kremlin trustworthiness; second, because it shows weakness in the President; third, because the Russians are demonstrating a kind of superiority.

The leaders of the United States are unlike any previous leaders we’ve seen at the helm of a major power. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made an extraordinary statement: “We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered.” And she means it. If a Russian foreign minister made a similar statement, one might expect to glimpse his colleagues suppressing giggles in the background. The America side makes such statements without the least cynicism, irony or humor. The U.S. Secretary of State is putting the concerns of her Russian colleagues first. She is not putting the concerns of the American people first. This is at the core of the process. The strategic interest of the United States holds no place in the President's policy. Some greater good – or alleged greater good – is being promoted. You may call this greater good by the name of "world peace."

This state of affairs is even more peculiar when we consider Russia's declared war policy. On 13 October Reuters reported that Russia had publicly reserved to itself “the right to undertake a pre-emptive strike if it feels its security is endangered....” This was recently announced by a senior Kremlin official. Meanwhile, the United States is publicly renouncing its right to undertake a preemptive nuclear strike in turn. If the United States sees someone else preparing a strike, no preemptive action will be taken. Washington is resolved to accept the strike, and heaven knows whether we have the will to retaliate.

Now let us imagine, if we can, the United States making an announcement that we are prepared to initiate a preemptive nuclear war. Imagine the outcry from the media, from the liberal pundits, and from Europe. Such would rate as a political bombshell, denounced at home and decried abroad as provocative. So we find, as with every issue along the Left versus Right divide, that a double standard exists. On the Russian side, provocative actions are acceptable. On the American side, they are deplorable. We must suspect that the Russians adopted their preemptive strike policy to reassure themselves, once again, that the Americans are guilty and timid creatures who are easily manipulated into concessions.

Under the present administration the policy is clear: The American side gives up one strategic advantage after another; and the Russians have come to expect these concessions. Logically, the Kremlin envisions a day when there is a final concession; a concession that cannot be revoked; a concession that is strategically decisive. Perhaps the arms reduction talks of today are approaching that point. Once the U.S. reduces its nuclear arsenal below 500 warheads – especially if those warheads are kept on submarines - a successful Russian preemptive attack becomes possible.

Many Americans will be puzzled by the analysis presented here. They do not see a threat from Russia. They see a threat from greedy corporate interests that allegedly own governments, like our own. I recently corresponded with a reader who described the market process of today as something that needs "to be put into the service of humanity...." Such an imperative is socialist, and whatever faults we find in capitalism (and they are many), socialism is far worse. And those countries that lived under socialism during the Cold War are still suffering from despotism and backwardness. You can ask anyone who has lived in a socialist country versus an imperfectly free country, and only those who have swallowed socialist propaganda will champion the socialist system as a better way of life. An honest and sensible person, having lived under both systems, realizes what socialism signifies. Such people appreciate American power as the only thing that stands between the imperfect freedom that makes a decent life possible, and a perfect tyranny that hinders and constrains.

It is difficult for Americans to grasp the psychology of socialist leaders in the former Soviet Union. The American Left supposes that government is benevolent, that it can be controlled once it is given absolute control over the economy. They see the corruption of capitalism and are disgusted. They have yet, in their own country, to taste the corruption of absolute government power over human economic choice.

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton treat with the Russians as though America was guilty of imperialist ambition and trickery. They give Russian military experts unprecedented access to U.S. missile sites. Could it be, having sat in the Trinity United Church of Christ, listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright calling God's wrath down on America, that Barack Obama is unconsciously setting up our nuclear destruction?

 

[layoutshooter]

What else would you expect from a person that got his B.S. Degree from the University of Moscow? He also studied under William Ayres, that world famous communist teacher and personal mentor to King PUTZ the 1st. He is ALSO following in the footsteps of that famous perjurer, Slick Willy, and turning over the sale of missile tech stuff to China to the Commerce Dept. Treason is looking more and more likely. I would have investigated Clinton on that charge too. He allowed the sale to Russia of computers and programs that allowed the Russians to quiet down the propellers on their nuke subs to the same level we were at. China is actively seeking programing and chips that will increase the accuracy of their ICBM's to equal that of ours. WAY TO GO OBAMA!! Making the U.S. safe by IMPROVING the weapons of our enemy!!!

 

[chefdennis]

thispretty much covers barry and hilary and their foreign policy....oh and i have the china story too, but i can't find at the moment, but ill.....

The peacenik gets a lesson

Friday, October 16, 2009http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/16/pruden-the-noble-peacenik-gets-a-hard-lesson/
By Wesley Pruden

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

A soft answer can sometimes turn away wrath, but not always, and presidents have to be wary of showing timidity and weakness in the face of a bully. This is the expensive lesson the tinhorns of the world are teaching Barack Obama. So far he is not an honors student.

Throwing Poland and the Czech Republic under that celebrated bus, a cramped space already brimming with old friends, pastors, mentors, tutors and even members of his own family who are no longer useful, was costly. It's never easy to be a friend of America, and Mr. Obama is making it impossible to be one.

He got a humiliating reminder of reality this week when the Russians, to whom he had paid such humble obeisance, gave him a hard slap across the face, just to remind him who he is and who is meant to be in charge of the world. Mr. Obama expected to get something when he blew off Poland and the Czech Republic, which had agreed to host NATO missile sites at considerable cost and risk, being close neighbors of the Russians.

What he thought he got was an implicit understanding that Russia recognizes the danger of the Iranian nuclear bomb, that it would change the power equation in the Middle East. Russia would join the West in imposing sanctions tough enough to get the attention of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But not so fast. It's not as if the Russians really meant it. Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and an old KGB operative who is obviously still in charge of everything important in Moscow, warned "major powers" - diplomatic softspeak for "the United States" - against trying to intimidate Iran into behaving itself. He said talk of new sanctions against the Islamic republic are "premature." This is diplomatic realspeak for "not now and not ever."

"We need to look for a compromise," Mr. Putin told reporters in Beijing, where he was learning to make the perfect chop suey. "If a compromise is not found, and the discussions end in fiasco, then we will see. And if now, before making any steps [toward holding talks] we start announcing sanctions, then we won't be creating favorable conditions for talks to end positively. This is why it is premature to talk about this now."

All this was while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Moscow, trying to find out just how much help the Russians intend to give to the West. Mrs. Clinton could not even see Mr. Putin, the real head man; there was a conflict of schedules and he had to depart for Beijing. This was a remarkable snub, treating the secretary of state as if she were merely the representative of the PTA, lobbying for more vegetables in the school lunchroom. Maybe there really was a conflict; maybe Mr. Putin had scheduled a haircut at the only hour she was available.

The Russians succeeded in putting Mr. Obama and the Americans in their place. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Presidential Security Council, manufactured an occasion while Mrs. Clinton was in Moscow to warn that Moscow reserves the right to make "a pre-emptive nuclear strike" against both small and large enemies.

In an interview with Izvestia, the important Moscow daily, he said Russian officials are examining "a variety of possibilities for using nuclear force, depending on the situation and the intentions of the possible opponent." In situations critical to national security, he said, "options including a preventative nuclear strike on the aggressor are not excluded." Even regional or "local" wars will be included in the new strategy, expected to be official policy in December.

A willingness to use any or all weapons, if the time and place is right, is nothing new, of course. If the stakes are high enough everybody will use everything, and only fools object. The significance of these remarks, which were certainly calculated for effect while Mrs. Clinton was in town, is what they tell about how the Russians regard the toughness of Barack Obama, the noble peacenik with a prize to prove it, and whether there is any "there" there.

Mrs. Clinton and her acolytes at the State Department, ever eager to seek the softest way to say nothing, tried to put a nice face on her visit to Moscow. The United States, Russia and China are "closer than before" on their policies regarding Iran's nuclear-weapons program, Mrs. Clinton told a radio interviewer. She seemed to be taking care not to say that actual positions are closer, just that everyone understands those positions: Russians tough, Americans soft.

Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

 

[chefdennis]

This admin is just sooo weak and they have no "cloat" whatsoever..Hilary not only left Russia after bein biotch slapped and laughed at, she lyed about what went on and was infered by the Russians...

Yet Hillary still had time to spin on American TV that if the "international community" approved more sanctions on Iran, Russia would follow.

That's not what Putin - or Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - said, or what the leadership in Beijing thinks.

THE ROVING EYE

Putin lays down law for Clinton

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan

For the (Western) news cycle, what stood out from United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Russia this week was an "appeal for cooperation" and a "challenge" for Russia to open up its political system, embrace "diversity" and shelve Cold War thinking.

Who's fooling whom? One might be forgiven to picture a torrent of laughter echoing in the Kremlin's corridors - later washed down with prime Stoli vodka - especially considering Washington's current poor standing in the world, as well as those usual suspects, "Western values"; and the fact that Russian intelligentsia has been pointing out for years that it is Washington hawks who are still in fact mired in the Cold War. Such a pity that

Iran hawk Hillary did not cross paths with chess master Vladimir.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had better things to do - he was away in Beijing for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In Beijing, Putin bluntly told the US not to intimidate Iran, stressing that more sanctions were "premature"; what was needed was an "agreement". Hillary was thrown by judo expert Putin - and she did not even see it coming. Yet Hillary still had time to spin on American TV that if the "international community" approved more sanctions on Iran, Russia would follow.

That's not what Putin - or Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - said, or what the leadership in Beijing thinks.

Lavrov, although slightly more diplomatic than Putin, defined sanctions as "counter-productive". That's still essentially Putin - and Beijing - thinking. As for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, he may have implied no opposition to further sanctions - but as a last resort, and way, way further in the future, not by the imminent December deadline flashing red in Washington's minds.

Lavrov went straight to the point, saying, "We want to resolve all issues relating to Iran's nuclear program, so that that country can make full use of its rights as a non-nuclear member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and of all opportunities arising from this connected with the use of peaceful nuclear energy." This means "all efforts should be employed to maintain the negotiating process" - and not advance a US/European deadline threat enveloped by the usual demonization of Iran campaign.

Putin plays Pipelineistan
As the architect of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom's seduction of China, Putin had more urgent things to do in Beijing than to listen to Hillary carping in Moscow. It was no understatement when he said, "China is a colossal market. The diversification of supplies is a very important direction for Gazprom." More than anyone, Putin knows that the name of the (New Great) Game is Pipelineistan.

Gazprom is bent on full strategic cooperation with Beijing. It's not only about Pipelineistan spreading to China - one pipeline from western Siberia, ready by 2015, another one from eastern Siberia, requiring a lot of Chinese investment. The plan includes the expansion of joint projects in Siberia and even in other countries.

This falls under what is known across Asia as the Asian Energy Security Grid. A key element of the grid is what the Russians have called the Eastern Gas Program - gas Pipelineistan from production to transportation, coordinated by Gazprom, not only to China but to all points across the Asia-Pacific. Another front is the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline.

Much has been made of a Moscow-Beijing rift on pricing (Putin dismissed it, announcing an imminent agreement to set gas prices according to an Asian oil basket). Anyway, that's just a technical issue. On a geopolitical level, the juiciest morsel is that Gazprom is wiling to commit to China almost half of the gas volume it is currently exporting to Western Europe - and this while the Chinese are also finishing a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. Unlike oil - 4 million barrels a day - China still does not import a lot of natural gas. But it will - because it needs it, and Russia knows it.

It's not all roses, though. Alexander Lukin, director of the Center for East Asian and SCO Studies at Moscow State University for International Relations, warns, "Russia will become nothing more than a raw materials appendage of China - just as it has already become for Europe."

What's the bottom line - for the moment? No further US-led sanctions against Iran is a key consensus of the SCO, which interlocks Russian, Chinese and Iranian interests - Iran is an observer of the SCO. For the SCO, the importance of an Asian Energy Security Grid is paramount. (See New Great Game revisited, Asia Times Online, July 25-26, 2009).

This goes directly against the Pentagon-driven, full spectrum dominance-style, US hegemonic designs on Central Asia and Iran. It was Putin who floated the idea of Iran enriching uranium in Russia in the first place - now a palpable way out for the Iranian nuclear impasse. As for Hillary, she could do worse than drown her own carping in vodka.