Russian to a Conclusion

[level_head]

There is much in the news about Venezuela and Iran and Russia. While many people are complaining about the Iranian missile base in Venezuela (that may well get the range to hit US cities), it's worth keeping in mind that all of this is being provided or guided by our Russian friends

Comments

[jordan179]

The Russians realize that America has the lead on becoming the nucleus of the future world government, and that their only chance of displacing us is if we are first cut down to size in squabbles with lesser Powers. They also grasp that if they fight us directly, they will be hurt worse than us, and hence are avoiding such a war.

I would agree that they are being clever, but maintain that they are not being wise: pumping up rogue Powers like Iran, which are located on their own continent, has a very serious risk of rebounding upon the Russians themselves. Russia is directly threatened by radical Muslims who deeply hate her and are outbreeding her, and a general growth of Muslim military-technological power is hence a very bad development for the Russian Federation.

But Obama, of course, is being neither clever nor wise: he drifts through his Presidency being hostile to our allies and friendly to our enemies, and hence reaps resentment from the former and scorn from the latter. He does not even seem to understand or notice the

[level_head]

I did say "clever," but I never suggested "wise" -- and I agree with your rationale.

We need to take this stuff seriously, and do more behind the scenes than complain about being "not reassured by the Russian response."

It is disappointing indeed to learn how petty -- and toothless -- the State Department is. That's not entirely a recent thing; I was concerned that the State Department changed Condoleeza Rice more than she changed it.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese told me a few years ago that the State Department sees its role as "making the world safe for cocktail parties." The leaks are damaging and bad -- and in part this is because of how much they expose the truth of AG Meese's jibe.

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[spieler2000]

russia is not "pumping up rogue Powers like Iran" - russia wants to avoid direct konflict with Iran as long as possible, so we are playing political games.

One must not forget, that 20% of Israeli population are former russian(soviet) citizens, so they continue to speak russian and mantain close relations to our country.

Thats why Russia can't support Iran. However there are millions of muslim russian citizens in the country, so we must balance our politics.

/excuse my bad english

[level_head]

Welcome!

Your English is not a problem. And Russian is not a language that is within my grasp. The best I could do was to memorize the words of the Hymn to Red October from the movie:

Do svidonia, byehreg radnoy...

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[partywhipple]

Well, now they are almost entirely run buy mobsters. When they were the USSR there were many more Statesmen in the mix. I'd take a statemen as an enemy over a mobster any day.

[level_head]

What do you get when you cross a mobster with a jihadist?

We're about to find out, I think.

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[partywhipple]

Yikes...

[level_head]

Incidentally, it is good to see you back.

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[deckardcanine]

I wonder if Russia's right hand doesn't know what her left hand is doing.

[level_head]

Perhaps there is some of that. But I think, instead, that Russia is playing a game and willing to sacrifice a few pieces (including their own citizens) to advance across the board into our hemisphere.

Like the left, the Russians are now jihadist apologists and enablers. I don't think this will work out, long term.

Russia and China each have large internal (and problematic) populations of jihadists. These murderous groups are stomped internally and encouraged abroad for the damage they can do to us.

But when the jihadists get nuclear weapons (with or without Russia/China/NK/Pakistan help), all bets are off.

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[spieler2000]

wow, how interesting! you are so klever!

[richardf8]

We still want to think we won the cold war.

We haven't.

[level_head]

We won the "major cold combat operations," certainly. But the mission is not completely accomplished -- and it has evolved some distance away from the original objectives.

But in a sense, you could say that even WWI, or WWII, was not truly won.

And it isn't just the "bad guys" in these conflicts that evolve; we fought in WWII on the side of China.

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[spieler2000]

it's better to stop playing this old game.
there was enough bloodshed in xx century.

[level_head]

I agree. But it is not easy to stop a war from only one side.

The attack in Sweden was blamed, partly, on the man who drew a cartoon of Muhammad.

This means that to make jihadists happy, we must never never offend them. Or they will kill us.

Then the jihadists can decide that anyone who is not Muslim offends them. Now what do you do?

People should be free to draw stupid cartoons, without facing death. But if that is all that it takes to start a war, the war was going to happen anyway.

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[jordan179]

Has it occurred to you that, if Western states yield to this sort of pressure and refuse to protect the freedom of their citizens to criticize religions, that

(1) The Muslims will simply come up with some new behavior which they refuse to tolerate even on the part of citizens of free countries, and then threaten or carry out violence against those engaged in that form of behavior (which might be something you like to do!)

and

(2) Other religions (and political factions) will note the Muslim success in this matter, and threaten or carry out violence against those who do things which offend them (which, again, might be something that you like to do)?

[spieler2000]

ok you are partly right. Muslims(as well as chinese, russian, hindus and other people) will find a way to convince western nations to respect their values regardless of which way.

Now we all have very complicated situation between western societies and their habit to behave as if they were alone in the house and the real situation in the world: there are plenty people in the house, and almost all of them thinking other way as you accustomed to.

So there are two general ways out: some of us understand, what one shall do, to build and keep good neighborly relations, or - another way - if the first seems too inconvenient to you - man shall use force to compel neighbors to live by his orders.

There are hundreds of folks in Russia, they live hundreds of years together, keeping their cultures, history and national specifics. Why?
Because russians were able to respect them, and to learn on their differences. There is strong national culture to speak open to each other, and not to twist arms.