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Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

The Vlad and Donald Show – A Glorious Blow for Peace! by David Stockman

Posted on July 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

It always takes a day or two after the reflexive hysteria over anything significant that Donald Trump says or does, but sanity does eventually emerge. From David Stockman at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

The Vlad and Donald show in Helsinki Monday was simply brilliant and breathtaking – we’d say even a beautiful thing to behold.

Between them, they left CNN’s nattering nabobs of neocon nonsense sounding like the shrieking monkeys they actually are. And that’s to say nothing of the fools they made out of the newly minted liberal and progressive warmongers on the Dem side of the aisle in Washington or the so-called journalists who fill 90% of the space in the so-called mainstream media with endless pro-war propaganda.

But most of all it was the single greatest blow to the War Party since it turned Imperial Washington into a colossal menace bent on global hegemony when the Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history in 1991.

We have said all along that Putin and Russia have been demonized because the Warfare State desperately needs an “enemy” to justify its $800 billion annual mugging of America’s taxpayers. Yet today’s spontaneous chorus by the two leaders in behalf of détente, dialogue and diplomacy puts the kibosh on that Big Lie more completely than could 100 Ted Talks or a year’s worth of pro-peace op eds in the Washington Post.

So Flyover America will have no trouble seeing the good of the Helsinki Summit. Trump and Putin just killed it on every topic where the War Party and its shills in the press wanted to drive a wedge.

That is to say, cooperation on Syria, arms control, terrorism, North Korea, Ukraine; friendly competition on supplying natural gas to Europe; an invitation to Mueller to send his legal sleuths to Russia to participate in the interrogation of the 12 GRU ham sandwiches named in the indictment; and best of all, a reciprocal notion that Russian prosecutors come here to question Deep State operatives about how they helped one of the greatest scoundrels of modern times, Bill Browder, abscond from Russia with almost $1.5 billionskimmed from its people and on which he and his posse paid zero taxes either there or here.

To continue reading: The Vlad and Donald Show – A Glorious Blow for Peace!

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Trump Calls Off Cold War II, by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on July 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Trump wants to improve the US’s relationship with Russia, and his critics are left screaming “Treason!”. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

Beginning his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, President Trump declared that U.S. relations with Russia have “never been worse.”

He then added pointedly, that just changed “about four hours ago.”

It certainly did. With his remarks in Helsinki and at the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump has signaled a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy that may determine the future of this nation and the fate of his presidency.

He has rejected the fundamental premises of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and blamed our wretched relations with Russia, not on Vladimir Putin, but squarely on the U.S. establishment.

In a tweet prior to the meeting, Trump indicted the elites of both parties: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”

Trump thereby repudiated the records and agendas of the neocons and their liberal interventionist allies, as well as the archipelago of War Party think tanks beavering away inside the Beltway.

Looking back over the week, from Brussels to Britain to Helsinki, Trump’s message has been clear, consistent and startling.

NATO is obsolete. European allies have freeloaded off U.S. defense while rolling up huge trade surpluses at our expense. Those days are over. Europeans are going to stop stealing our markets and start paying for their own defense.

And there will be no Cold War II.

We are not going to let Putin’s annexation of Crimea or aid to pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine prevent us from working on a rapprochement and a partnership with him, Trump is saying. We are going to negotiate arms treaties and talk out our differences as Ronald Reagan did with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Helsinki showed that Trump meant what he said when he declared repeatedly, “Peace with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

To continue reading: Trump Calls Off Cold War II

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He Said That? 7/14/18

Posted on July 14, 2018 | 1 comment

From Russian President Vladimir Putin:

A superpower is a cold war term. When people today say that Russia aspires to have this status, I interpret it in the following way: they want to undermine trust in Russia, to portray Russia as frightening, and create some kind of image of an enemy. … Russia is in favor of a multipolar world, a democratic world order, strengthening the system of international law, and for developing a legal system in which any small country, even a very small country, can feel itself secure, as if behind a stone wall. … Russia is ready to become part of this multipolar world and guarantee that the international community observes these rules. And not as a superpower with special rights, but rather as an equal among equals.

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Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump – Jockeying for Power in Syria, by Reese Erlich

Posted on July 14, 2018 | Leave a comment

Reese Erlich sees little chance of a breakthrough on Syria at the Helsinki summit. From Erlich at antiwar.com:

Russian bombs rained down on towns of southern Syria as an estimated 320,000 civilians fled for their lives. Over the past several weeks tens of thousands walked to the Jordanian and Israeli borders hoping to escape the onslaught.

Rula Amin, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, based in Jordan, told me the displaced people left their homes with few belongings and are sleeping in the desert. “They need shelter, food, drinking water – and mostly, they need protection.”

President Bashar al Assad (Photo by Reese Erlich)

“We appeal for an immediate cessation in hostilities and for a safe, unimpeded access to the displaced population that desperately needs assistance,” she said.

The crisis began in June when Syrian President Bashar al Assad, along with his Russian and Iranian allies, sought to recapture southern Syria, which has been under rebel control for five years. Russia negotiated the surrender of some rebel groups in early July. It’s not yet clear, according to the UNHCR, whether significant number of civilians can return to their homes.

Five countries are currently fighting in Syria. Russia, Iran, the United States, and Turkey have stationed troops. Israel regularly drops bombs and fires missiles.

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss Syria at their Helsinki summit July 16. The Trump administration is pressuring Russia to reduce the Iranian role in Syria, but will not likely succeed, according to Professor Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

“Iran is there to stay,” he told me. “Russia is not going to kick Iran out.”

A visit to Daraa

To understand the current crisis, let’s go back to 2011 when I reported from the southern Syrian city of Daraa. I tagged along with some Ukrainian TV journalists on an official tour of the city where the uprising had begun. Government minders claimed the Syrian people supported Assad and that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States had instigated the rebellion.

We visited an elementary school where adorable children recited their lessons in unison. Then, seeing the foreign reporters, many began chanting, “Freedom, Freedom,” the slogan of the anti-Assad opposition. Teachers led other students in chanting “Syria, Syria,” to show support for Assad.

The Assad officials blanched as the civil war divisions were on full display for foreign reporters. “The political chasm has reached the schools,” my government translator said. “First graders are now politically motivated.”

For roughly that first year, the Syrian government faced a popular uprising from a broad spectrum of religious and political opposition, part of the Arab Spring. Foreign powers did not create the rebellion, but they were very happy to take advantage of the regime’s lack of popularity to push their own agendas.

To continue reading: Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump – Jockeying for Power in Syria

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For Peace With Putin, End America’s Pointless Wars, by George D. O’Neill, Jr.

Posted on July 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

At his summit with Vladimir Puting, President Trump has a big opportunity to advance the cause of peace. From George D. O’Neill, Jr. at americanconservative.com:

Ignore the establishment: Trump has a huge opportunity at his upcoming summit.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet at the 2017 G-20 Hamburg Summit. Credit: Creative Commons/www.kremlin.ru.

The upcoming summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is an overdue opportunity for the American president’s next bold peace initiative. It is time for the U.S. to stop its wasteful wars, and Russia can be a constructive partner to this end.

The mainstream press on both sides of the Atlantic will howl against any agreement between Trump and Putin—no matter what’s in it. So why not take steps that the American public will instinctively understand and that will provide the support for Trump to end America’s failed interventions? Besides what are his opponents going to do? Vilify him for seeking peace and starting the process of healing the many wounds of the wars? The American people are not fooled by false claims that Trump is soft on terrorism; they are aware that U.S. military interventions oftentimes can—and do—fuel terrorism.

President Trump should propose a drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan in exchange for a drawdown of Russian troops in Syria (along with a pledge that America has no interest in reengaging in the Syrian Civil War). This would be consistent with Trump’s oft-stated observation that America’s wars (declared and undeclared) in the Middle East have been a waste.

Trump need not “recognize” the Russian annexation of Crimea but he should assert that a resolution to the situation on the ground in Ukraine is a European matter—to be settled by bilateral negotiations between Russia and Europe.

Understanding of this magnitude would obviate the main pretext for the senseless escalation of pecuniary diplomatic sanctions—the defenestration of embassy and consulate staff—on the parts of both Russia and the United States. The return of the possibility of civilian travel between the two nations would do wonders to lower tensions. (Remember, even at the height of the Cold War, President Eisenhower argued that populations denied contact with each other would tend to be suspicious of each other—and prone to minor conflicts that could escalate into larger wars.)

To continue reading; For Peace With Putin, End America’s Pointless Wars

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From Singapore to Helsinki: The Case for Peace, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on July 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The same usual suspects have lined up against Trump and Kim Jong Un’s negotiations and the Helsinki summit. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

North Korea’s opacity is a boon to the War Party: they can seize on any glitch in the ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration as “proof” that Kim Jong-un “will never give up his nuclear weapons,” as former anti-interventionist Daniel Larison tweets 24 hours a day. The contention is that Pyongyang has a different definition of “denuclearization” than the rest of the world: it means US withdrawal from South Korea, we are told. Yet Kim has reportedly agreed to not dispute the presence of US troops in the south, and this is clearly a distortion of what’s really going on.

So what’s the real story?

We don’t know: all the “news” stories about this matter pretend to be omniscient, as if reporters were flies on the wall listening in to the negotiators. This is obviously not the case, and it is especially true in this case: North Korea is a closed society, and access is granted only rarely. This has led to the improbable impression that it is a monolith, that there are no factions or political struggles. This is a) impossible, and b) disproved by history. Indeed, the history of the ruling Korean Workers Party is one of continuous power struggles followed by ruthless purges: there are even reports of actual fighting between rival units of the military.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s most recent trip to Pyongyang is being depicted in the media as a rebuke and a major setback for the peace talks, the major point being that he did not meet with Kim and was treated rather shabbily. Yet we don’t know the reason for this, although the “experts” and the media pretend to know. Of course, I don’t know, either, and yet my own theory is a lot more credible, given the historical context, than the “we got suckered” dogma that the phony “experts” – Trump-haters all – are circulating.

Kim is not just looking for a peace treaty and the elimination of hostilities: as I’ve written previously, he has launched a radical new turn toward the West. Today he rules over a ramshackle country that cannot feed its own people: the “Juche” system of absolute autarchy isn’t working because it cannot work. This failure undermines Kim’s legitimacy, and he is determined to correct it not with piddling little reforms but by transforming his country in much the same way as Mikhail Gorbachev transformed the Soviet Union and put the country on a path to complete de-Sovietization. In short, Kim wants Pyongyang to resemble Singapore rather than Senegal.

To continue reading: From Singapore to Helsinki: The Case for Peace

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US establishment in hysterics that Trump-Putin summit might succeed, by Jim Jatras

Posted on July 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

Of course, no matter what emerges from the Trump-Putin summit, the US establishment will label it a failure. From Jim Jatras at rt.com:

There are many reasons the bipartisan US establishment hates Trump. His heresies from neoliberal orthodoxies on immigration and trade are prominent. But top among them is his oft-stated intention to improve relations with Russia.

That’s fighting words for the Deep State and its mainstream media arm, for which demonizing Russia and its president Vladimir Putin is an obsession.

The fact that Donald Trump made his intention to get along with Moscow a priority during his 2016 campaign, both against his Republican primary rivals and Hillary Clinton (who has compared Putin to Hitler) was cause for alarm. This is because far more than even the frightening prospect that the 70-year state of war on the Korean Peninsula might end, US reconciliation with Russia would yank the rug out from under the phony justifications for spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to counter a “threat” that ceased to exist over a quarter century ago. Absent hostility to Russia that money has no reason to keep sustaining the power, privilege, and prosperity of a horde of moochers and profiteers, both at home and abroad.

That’s why when it was reported soon after his January 2017 inauguration that Trump was seeking to open dialogue with the Kremlin and set an early summit with Putin there was a hysterical counteraction. As described just over a year ago by conservative columnist and former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan:

“Trump planned a swift lifting of sanctions on Russia after inauguration and a summit meeting with Vladimir Putin to prevent a second Cold War. The State Department was tasked with working out the details. Instead, says Daniel Fried, the coordinator for sanctions policy, he received ‘panicky’ calls of ‘Please, my God, can you stop this?’. Operatives at State, disloyal to the president and hostile to the Russia policy on which he had been elected, collaborated with elements in Congress to sabotage any detente. They succeeded. “It would have been a win-win for Moscow,” said Tom Malinowski of State, who boasted last week of his role in blocking a rapprochement with Russia. State employees sabotaged one of the principal policies for which Americans had voted, and they substituted their own.

To continue reading: US establishment in hysterics that Trump-Putin summit might succeed

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