(h/t Hannah Gais)
This is gonna be a black author…
Yep, it’s a black author alright. It’s always a black author.
Haldeman: “Not intellectual enough. Not smart enough… not smart enough to be spies.”
There were still conservative boomer doofuses casually interchanging Soviet/Russian as late as the Iraq War, but I think that finally wound to an end by around 2010. Nowadays, it’s only black affirmative action journalists – the only people dumber than conservative pundits – who still do this.
It was, in the end, not the Roman Empire that never ended: it was the Soviet Empire.
we wuz mccarthyitez
Here is an interesting story form NPR (November 23, 2016)
which leaves a lot of unanswered questions. It has nothing to do with Russia, however one may wonder who was backing the guy. He claimed he was mankind 10-30k/months from ads on his website.
It’s not that the journalists had gotten smarter, it’s that someone had finally updated the style manual.
On the other hand, communist symbols are often used as the shorthand for Russia even today.
https://globecartoon.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/n170219celr.jpg
You can whine about it, or you can embrace it.
I wouldn’t worry about the ones who don’t know the difference between Soviets and Russians. Or the ones sticking a red sickle on Putin with a sign ‘KGB’. They lack the ability to think continuously, so they lurch from nonsense to nonsense. I worry about the ones who know, but are for some reason letting this hysteria go on.
By the ‘Soviets’ themselves, in some cases
https://cdn.freebiesupply.com/logos/large/2x/aeroflot-russian-airlines-1-logo-png-transparent.png
It is different when Russians are doing it. Russians use communist symbols lovingly, driven by a sense of nostalgia. Americans do it to mark the enemy, it’s a form of racism. It’s like painting the Star of David on a person’s forehead – if a cartoonist in the US tried this, he would find himself permanently out of work.
Although it easy to dismiss these nagger kremlinologists as an inconsequential joke, they wield big influence in government and society. If someone like Maxine Waters became president (which is not that far fetched any more) then they would be utterly belligerent to Russia, even more than the neoliberals are now, their willingness to start a hot war would be a very real possibility.
How can they wield real influence when they are barely even sentient? At most they are puppets, tools for the Jewish interests, who are the primary source of Russophobia in America. You wouldn’t even hear about these kremlinologists, if it wasn’t for Jewish media owners giving them platform.
Not the same thing.
Associating “Red Don” with communist symbology isn’t the cleverest dig, but it’s not stupid, either.
Using Soviet instead of Russian makes you come off as a buffoon.
I certainly believe that jews are ultimately the ones that decide who is allowed to speak, that however does not invalidate what I said about the blacks. The jews have put them on a pedestal where they wield enormous cultural and intellectual power, one may not like this culture and intellectual discourse, but one cannot doubt its massive influence it has on the world.
ВАУ!
For this I forgive you everything, even the thread about horses.
Are you telling us you had a loving nostalgia for Aeroflot?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Las_Guasimas:
Blacks are animals, and being placed on a pedestal does not give them power, since the Jew can also remove them at any time. The one who owns the pedestal wields real power. lol You must think Hollywood actresses are powerful people!
Just because you are puppet to someone else does not mean you have no power,
Economy class Aeroflot did and still does beat economy class of any Western airline (at least, when you don’t find yourself on an airbus plane).
For sure the Aeroflot stewardesses are prettier, and nowadays they even smile.
This is true for American congressmen, not for actresses or talking heads on television.
What was wrong with my comment on horses?
Yes, but the most essential point, the one that must always be borne in mind, and that US strategists always do stay aware of, is that relative to America, the USSR and the Russian Republic are the same in the most important aspect: the ability to take America in a war. It would be a Pyrrhic victory at the very best, but no one in America doubts that Russia could obliterate America in a nuclear war. In one important way Russia is now more dangerous than ever before because it is no longer in possession a conventional advantage than the Soviets Union possessed after WW2. Russia could not steamroller Western Europe now., and it would be likely to toy with the idea of going battlefield nuclear much faster that the Soviet Union would have needed to (especially as
have have retained a lot of outdated tactical nukes). America or an American establishment cabal that could be called the US deep state simply would not dare frame Putin for interfering in US elections, or for assassinating Russian traitors in Britain.
It is inconceivable that the United States of America , as a country that does not want to start a slide toward war with he only other country on Earth that could destroy it, would allow any US intelligence, military, industrial, or political clique to have America officially accuse Putin of these things because Putin would know he had not been responsible for two murders and the rigging of the electoral defeat of Hillary Clinton that Western governments were publicly screaming he was guilty of. The West making a deliberately false attribution of guilt aimed at his country would perfectly predictably alarmed the Russian leadership to an extent that they would start raising their readiness for a surprise attack. The US would see such measure as preparations with offensive potential, and have to reciprocate and so on. A military build up is perfectly predictable was framed for things it had absolutely nothing to do with.
In his capacity as President of Russia, Putin personally ordered anti-Clinton election interference, and Putin personally ordered the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal. These were unfriendly acts that alienated Western countries, which Putin was ready to bear the cost of, and the West did not like it one bit, but the West still knows where they stand with Russia.
However, for Western countries to frame Russia for these same acts would not be equivalent, it would be orders of magnitude more dangerous because Russia, baffled and fearful as to what the West’s intentions were, would begin to prepare against a military attack and via symmetrical schismogenesis both sides would be locked into a slide to a hair trigger response. America and Britain would not do it, far too dangerous.
It wasn’t so much the horses as the women who love them. Some things I’d rather not think about.
But the mccarthyitez made my day.
Just like the Faker, living, retired, in Florida, you have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Kremlin. Because only such a person would truthfully be able to make those claims. Oh, but you’re a commenter living in some benighted part of England, so you have absolutely no first hand knowledge whatsoever.
The rest of your post is rambling and barely coherent. Please tell your Carer not to let you comment whilst under the influence of your medication. When you are lucid, you can do an awful lot better, so please do so.
Wait, so now the American left is seeing commies crawling out of the woodwork too? I get it, it’s confusing seeing how Russians, Soviets and Communists all speak Russian and call the USSR home while in America the right and the left both embrace capitalism and suffer from a bad case of stupidity induced commiephobia. A astute comedian could have a great time skewering all these fools.
You are claiming the accusations of murders and election hacking by Russia are deliberate lies by US intelligence. For the sake of argument, ignore the fact that people who are in the intelligence agencies of America are subject to the same concerns over their career, and supervision of their performance of assigned tasks, as people in the Armed Forces. In addition we will pretend that the intelligence and counter intelligence services are the only government agencies with influence over foreign policy toward Russia. The diplomatic service’s input does not exist, and interested US politicians do not either.
Instead, let us assume that CIA or FBI agents have some fanatic motivation rendering them implacable conspirators, and that like Hollywood spies they are more vastly more capable than other people, and don’t need authorization to use their agency’s resources for a deception operation against the only foreign government that can destroy America. The CIA and FBI could, therefor convince a domestic political audience of Russian guilt in the two poisoning murders in England and the election cyber-interference even though Russia was innocent . But they could not fool Russia.
The Russian republic would retaliate at first by naming the CIA and FBI agents who were were responsible for the frame (US intelligence knows the identity of ranking GRU officers, the converse is likely true). Russia would not just say, as it has, that the evidence against Russia was nonexistent to weak, it would publicly tell the American masses that their own intelligence services were lying to them and apparently going to start a war with Russia. Those people would not be faceless for long and they would not be in their jobs dealing with Russia for long either, they would be moved sideways.
If the publicity did not produce the desired effect, Russia would show America that Russia meant business, Russian armed forces would switch to a high state of readiness. There would also be provocative missile test and aggressive interception of US planes and ships anywhere near Russian territory and it would steadily ramp up over time. In a nutshell, Russia would begin to overreact in a very big way and frighten the American public into demanding a deescalation.
With vastly less of ability than Russia to flex military muscle and pressure America , Kim deployed something like the aforementioned scare tactic against the American public with Trump. Before that the Sony Pictures hack was by North Korea, which had a clear motive after a Sony film about the overthrowing of the North Korean regime. Everybody knows it was north Korea despite their denials and they did not much care that everyone knew. Russia does not much care either.
Reverse 4D chess.
He does sound vaguely like a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
It’s natural satire: the really, really stupid -ologists mock the very stupid -ologists. And that’s just about the top level in practice.
It’s reverse engineering the Russian reaction, which is so weak I find it incredible if they are innocent.
As John Mearsheimer says, where there is no 911 to ring, no higher authority to turn to, people or states do not, can not, turn the other cheek and hope to survive intact. And Russia are in that position. They would use, or credibly threaten to use, armed force to disabuse any elements within the US of the misapprehension that Russia could be assailed with impunity. Russian intelligence know the identities of the relevant CIA and FBI section heads and would use that knowledge to put their names and plots out in the open. This idea that an element in the CIA is a law unto it self, irremovable, and could hide behind official secrecy whatever they do to a very powerful foreign country like Russia is completely unfounded. Stuff from the movies.
So in your view, if the Russian government were innocent, how would they have retaliated?
A truly strange claim to make in light of the fact that all one encounters in stories involving US spy agencies is heavily redacted reports and the usual “to protect our spies” excuses to hide literally everything they do.
Currently the piece is missing…
My best source. From Daily Mail today.
You want polonium, you want novichok, I am sure they got it.
In this case supposedly they used Fentanyl but what was innovative it was the a delivery method via skin in ear.
If we ask Putin whether he still is beating his wife and there will be no response then we should conclude that he beats his wife?
The corollary of this is that a lot of people are saying he beats his wife, and since many are saying it means it requires no proof.
My best source. From Daily Mail today
By the way, you can read the entire text of the book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations HERE
See comment 25 for your answer, I think a furious campaign of denunciation of the actual CIA section and FBI heads (and MI5 and MI6) responsible would be the telling Western populations that their governments were heading for WW3., and an escalating series of Russia initiated confrontations on land, (especially the Baltic) sea and air would confirm that was the case. Putin would certainly not be meeting Trump if the US had just framed Russia; I am absolutely certain of that.
.
Reagan said that when he got to know the Soviet leadership’s concerns he was startled to realize that a deliberate and unprovoked military attack by America on the Soviet Union was something they did think was a real possibility. If Russia was framed, it would conclude that its military deterrence of such an attack had failed and extreme measures were now essential. The Baltic countries would be terrified of an Ukraine style unconventional war starting.
Can’t tell whether you’re LARPing or not, but my sense is that this is indeed the point of view of most Western citizens and politicians, although most of them don’t say it quite as clearly as you do here.
My sense is also that the (over-)reaction you think would have proved their innocence to the Western public is alien to the mindset of the current Russian elites. They (Putin in particular, I suppose) don’t understand that the West is governed by Wild West social rules. Even when he tries to insult the West, the insults come across in English as overly-intellectual and limp-wristed, for example, in his recent “off-script” remarks about those who accuse Russia of the Novichok stuff:
“they can peddle, sorry for my expression, various hard to swallow stories to millions of people”
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/putin-goes-off-script-slams-us-forces-undermining-russian-american-relations-video/
(really, is that a phrase that any red-blooded American would prephase with “sorry for my expression”? No, he would say “despicable outrageous lies” and not apologize for his language, either. Plenty of influential Westerners have compared Putin to Hitler, and I don’t believe a single one of them apologized)
Maybe after Donald Trump finishes his presidency, the Russian Federation should hire him as their foreign minister. It may give them better results, at least with the US and UK.
As for “putting stuff into the open”, they did some of that with Ukraine when they released that conversation in which Nuland picked Ukraine’s future government (the “f*ck the EU” tape). There’s been some more stuff like that, but most of it doesn’t get airtime on Western news; Russian narrative media reach beyond its own borders is rather more limited than it was in the Soviet era. Even if Putin himself says certain things (and he sometimes has), who’s going to report it besides small alternative news sites? You’re probably right, and being over-the-top is the only way to get noticed and respected, as with Kim Jong-Un.
I don’t think you realize that your argument is basically begging the question. You assume the Russians would react in a certain (over-the-top) manner to the false accusations, and because they don’t, you take it as proof that Russia is guilty as charged. It’s not really an argument.
Yes, but you would have to wait a while because the response proving Putin innocent of the allegation might come many weeks later. For example, if someone, (lets say for the sake of argument a traitor to the proud tradition of Russian secret service, who fled aboard to further betray the motherland while living in luxury) accused Putin of being a child molester.
Now if Putin actually was a child molester he might well just deny it and carry on as normal. But if Putin was not a paedo, Putin might think his accuser was damaging Russian prestige and having overstepped the mark he must be made an example of, so that everyone knew that Putin’s arm is long and he does not release his grip (except on little children obviously, because he is innocent). Mr Litivenko wrote an article accusing Putin of being a paedophile, and four months later he was poisoned. So I don’t think there was anything in that allegation.
It’s actually the other way around: if you accuse me of pedophilia, I won’t care because it’s nonsense. Accusing me of something I’m guilty of would be a bigger problem.
If someone accuses you of something wild, projection is a good possibility.
Yes, but you are presumably where there are authorities to punish anyone who went beyond wild accusations to seriously injure you in an unprovoked attack. Failure to react carries no penalty, unless you are in some hell hole prison or ghetto. It depends on the environment, if you have a higher authority as overlord the worst accusation can be laughed off, but where only your ability to represent yourself as a force to be reckoned with prevents others from preying on you, your acceptance of an affront would presage actual violence against you.
Russia could not suddenly make itself bigger, but it could become a lot badder and if his country being were framed and traduced by American intelligence and Congress, we would definitely not be seeing Putin going to Helsinki or inviting Trump to Moscow for another chat. The Russian deep state would not allow Putin to be subservient in the face of such provocation as the election and assassination allegations, if they were untrue.
Russia isn’t North Korea. Like China, it is to their interest to keep a lid on nationalism.
They can, and have, signaled that they have the capability and will to employ nuclear weapons. That’s all that is necessary.
Well I can see how the Russian dislike of being loud and emotional around strangers could lead to Putin seeming to be underplaying his denials, but actions speak louder than words and he went to Helsinki. As for Kim well he was something of a pioneer in cyber warefare against American cultural imperialism
There was follow up, Kim had Sony Pictures Entertainment hacked and Wikileaks publishes a series of embarrassing Emails; the company came close to going out of business.
In 2017 Kim had his father’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, (by then a critic of the regieme living in Malasia) killed with nerve gas, forsooth. In 1998 Kim Jong-nam had been heir apparent heading the North Korean Computer Committee, in charge of developing an information technology (IT) industry (subsequent events would indicate he was successful) , but in May 2001, Kim Jong-nam had been arrested in Japan because he had a forged passport, he had traveled to the country to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
The actions of Kim are paralleled by Putin’s own, Litvinenko was a traitor and so was Skripal, Putin said Hillary Clinton “set the tone” for the 2011 Snow Revolution protests across Russia against Putin. He pretty clearly identified her as figurehead for Western media,soft power, money and NGOs trying to do a Ukraine colour revolution on Russia. Litvinenko and Skripa were poisoned and Clinton, who would be a nightmare president for Putin’s Russia got her embarrassing Emails hacked and distributed a la Kim’s vengeance against Sony Pictures. Just listen to her a month ago
Did Putin cyberwarriors win it for Trump? Well Hillary trounced Trump in the second debate and she was probably well ahead for a time, she was very poorly advised, though not by her husband. She wouldn’t listen to Bill.
North Korea is a deeply dysfunctional state with some very unusual means of bargaining – I actually used to know people from the US side on the diplomatic staff that interacted with them. They are only semi-bluffing when it comes to the desire to inflict death and mayhem upon South Korea, and they are willing to run with it in order to get what they want(mostly foreign aid at the time).
There is, or at least was, a level of desperation that allows them to engage in very risky postures, policies and actions.
OTOH Russia has no real compelling reason to run a “blackmail the world” policy. They aren’t trying to extort foreign aid, and do not face an existential threat of collapse. For some odd reason, it does seem to be treated as a North Korea or “rogue state.”
This is, I think, because Russia is an under-achiever, and if it were to undergo a prolonged period of rapid economic growth (say 10% a year), as China has done, then it could overtake Germany in under twenty years. This is probably overly optimistic, since Russia is starting from a higher level than China did, but nonetheless if Russia were able to sustain even an average of 6% growth for 20 years, it could plausibly overtake each of France and the UK.
Such a changing economic reality would change the political balance in Europe, and some people dread this.
Even if Russia continues to underachieve, it will almost certainly overtake Italy to become the fourth largest European country by GDP. Sergey Brin’s a fool. Russia is actually Italy with snow. And nukes. Lots of nukes.
I see Korean diplomacy as being underrated., historical they play off larger powers against one another (a cause of the Russia -Japan war of 1905). For me, Putin wants Russia to stand alone and he is quite happy if a few traitors being poisoned and colour revolution promotors being hacked is keeping his country distanced from the West. In my opinion Putin is like DeGaulle, he is worried about Russia being culturally and politically co-opted once he is not around to prevent it. Considering it is a large country, Russia has little influence on the US
Call Doctor Krollspell!. Never far from the German Mindset – the End justifies the Means.
Still, even before reading, I would wager the success rate of that particular idiocy is 0%.
Oh…
Hitting Arafat with Polonium in his ambulance was a more surefire way to have him … “neutralized”.
Oh hey, another rank amateur show:
The plot thins: How gel became a liquid and the whole Novichok affair began to smell to high heaven
Gee, I wonder what’s going on here…
Thanks for the book.
Russia could plausibly overtake the UK within less than 20 years, with much less than 6% real growth.
Over time, nominal GDP tends to converge with GDP (PPP), and Russia’s GDP (PPP) is equal to Germany’s.
From 2000-2017, Russia’s real GDP growth averaged about 3.8%. Over those 17 years Russia’s GDP rose from 13% of the UK’s and 8% of Germany’s, to 60% of the UK’s and 43% of Germany’s.
Quite likely RFK’s supposed assassin Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotised, interesting that 68 was the year this happened.
I’m ignorant. Why is this?
As countries get richer, domestic price levels tend to converge with those of the developed world.
You’ve not answered my contention that you have no knowledge of the inner workings of the Kremlin whatsoever.
So dry out, sober up and report back when lucid. You can – and have – produced much much better posts when fully compus. As Dean Martin nearly said: ” Don’t drink and drive. Don’t even comment.”
( Sorry about trying to reduce your traffic, AK. )
Sure, but that’s not how I understood the claim, which seemed to be that the closing of the GDP gap between a poorer country and a richer country is much greater than would be predicted by the real GDP growth rate. Maybe the point is that the growth rate of real GDP, which corrects for inflation, so that the nominal GDP growth rate is much greater and accounts for the difference. When I wrote the first comment, I was assuming that the rates at which I was looking were for nominal GDP growth rate, but maybe they weren’t.
Some Ukrainian journalist now unsubtly calling for a military coup against the US president.
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/alexei-bayer-will-trump-face-a-military-coup.html?cn-reloaded=1
This is easy to believe, given that “American” flight attendants are usually homosexual “men” and a gloriously diverse assortment of white, African, and now Hispanic land-whales.
Excellent comment, sir. I’d just say that unless the us intervenes, of course Russia could steamroll its forces through all of Europe and the uk as well. Euro and UK defense forces are small, weak, and often not ready for combat.
Talking to rivals or even enemies is not “subservience.” On the one hand, you paint Russia as aggressors for reclaiming Crimea (with the local people’s support) but then Putin is subservient for meeting with President Trump?
Which is it, aggressor or subservient?
By the way, if we ever found actual evidence of meaningful Russian interference in our elections and took strong action against Russia, would we then surrender the whole succession of “our”presidents, DOD, CIA, NSA officials, and mercenaries to be prosecuted for their concerted interference in dozens of other countries’ elections and futures?
Yes. And the US gov complaining about other governments allegedly trying to influence elections, is laughably hypocritical. Absurd.
Good comparison. IF Italy had a population several times larger, a slightly higher native TFR, a much more powerful military, World-class energy and weapons and space industries, and some of the largest reserves of recoverable oil, natural gas, and commercially and militarily valuable minerals and rare-earth metals in the world.
And if Italy weren’t being overrun by millions of often violent, lazy, nonassmilating Africans and Arabs, in contrast to Russia.
And if Italy were able to maintain a government for a couple years on end.
Yeah, Russia is like Italy with nukes.
Can’t we analyze or criticize Russia without obvious exaggerations and falsehoods?
What about “the German mindset”? If you’re referring to the Israeli jews, the majority are Ashkenazim, shown to be genetically substantially ITALIAN on the maternal side, not german, as well as naturally Middle Eastern / Semitic on the paternal side. Almost all the rest are Sephardic and certainly typically do not have any german genetic or cultural background.
Don’t blame Germans or anyone else for the evil that the Israelis do.
I don’t think Britain can or ever could have been invaded easily at all. We are airstrip one and the US must keep us in the game. The Soviet Union using a nuclear MAD standoff/ conventional steamroller offensive strategy could have taken continental Western Europe with a conventional assault. Russia can’t do that, but it could pressure Baltic countries that have joined Nato with the threat of Ukraine type incursions and annexations.
As leader of Russia Putin has the power to scare the masses of the West into demanding that their leaders deescalate tensions with Russia, and if he was being framed for assassinations of Russians traitors abroad and intervening against American politicians he would use that power. But what we see him actually doing quite different: attending a summit meeting with the US president. Therefore I think Putin is not behaving like a wronged party. He accepts the opprobrium from Western MSM as what he expected before he even started. Get it into your head that Putin is not terribly worried about what people in the West think, and Putin is not all that bothered if his meddling in US politics hurts Trump. Putin is a Russian leader interested in Russia. He does not care about you, or what happens to you.
Bit late to the party here wrt a certain Guardian columnist, but if anyone wants to attempt to do a ‘James Gunn’ then this article might be of interest: Trigger warning: n word used
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/burberry-china-british-carole-cadwalladr
The hypocrisy/flip flopping/change in tone post brexit is also quite jaw dropping.
Google also thinks the USSR existed in 1896:
https://books.google.com/books?id=-FRHAQAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Animals and especially birds whose territory is invaded will take on a stronger creature. but when the same animal is poaching (prey or mates) that belong to another, the brave-at-home-beastie will run from a weaker opponent.
Putin said Hillary Clinton, merely head of the state Department at the time “set the tone” for the 2011 Snow protests across Russia against Putin. He pretty clearly identified her as cheerleader for American MSM soft power, money and NGOs trying to do another colour revolution in Russia.
In Ukraine the Kremlin was in the position of having its territory invaded and it reacted in a way that should have been predictable but wasn’t. Russia astounded the West with a reaction of ferocity:
Ten thousand people have been killed in the Donbass fighting (and hundreds noncombatants must have been among them ). The one who ordered this balked at the death of traitors?
Hillary Clinton looked like she was going to to win the election and become president, she was heavy favorite don’t forget. Now what would you have done if you were Putin?
It’s entering middle income area – it’s probably going to be averaging around 2% for the next decade (if lucky – last decade was a little worse).
But because population not increasing, in per capita terms will see significant increase in life-standard even if it just grows at this rate.
Israeli Jews are mainly Mizrahi (it is Hebrew for [Middle] Eastern).
Population is divided more roughly something like 40% Mizrahi Jews, 25-30% Ashkenazi Jews, 20-25% Arabs (Muslims), and 10% other groups.
As for politics – they are not “evil” enough probably to survive. Internal situation is very dangerous, but the policies are still more liberal than global average.
So he would initiate a nuclear Mexican standoff merely for… being wrongly accused of the Skripal attempted murder? And you think so, based on what, exactly?
Apparently you still haven’t realized that you’re just begging the question.
Population Italy is 92.8% Italian.
Russian Federation is 80% Russian.
In terms of demographics, Italy is still in a good (or simple) position. It varies by region though. In Napoli, for example (aside from one small immigrant area), city is almost completely Italian.
Italy was successful economy until around 2000. But economy – almost going nowhere since 2000.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/08/Italys-Lost-Decade.jpg
In Russia by comparison (economic growth golden age is 2000-2008).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/GDP_of_Russia_since_1989.svg/700px-GDP_of_Russia_since_1989.svg.png
If Russia murdered Edward Snowden and said the CIA did it ,then they got Julian Assange to Russia, murdered him and said the CIA did it. Then Russia said it had discovered that the US had successfully rigged Russian elections to defeat Putin, and Russia expelled most of the American diplomatic cover CIA agents in Russia, the US president would not be going to meet the Russian president in Norway and having a joint press conference with him. I am absolutely certain of it
That analogy makes no sense, who exactly is the Russian Edward Snowden and Assange equivalent, where did Russia rig an election (because that stupid “meddling” narrative is utter made up bullshit). You see US global mass surveillance and foreign intervention has no equivalent, it is the US that is the aggressor, it is the US that is causing global turmoil, and it is the US that needs complete regime change, to try make up hypotheticals that in no way match the real world and say the US is a reasonable regime is stupid.
But they’re still 8% Sicilian
I think at least 2.5-3.0% is more likely. Raising the retirement age alone is forecast to add around 0.4% to annual GDP growth over the next 15 years. Also, from 2005-2015 the state share of the economy rose from 35% to 70%. Reducing that back to 50% or less, which Putin has said is his goal, would significantly boost growth further.
I find that hard to believe, ignoring the low fertility rates of both nations, in Italy you will find large groups of blacks in cities like Milan, there is no such equivalent of large sub Saharans populating a Russian city. Then there is the endless immigration that despite Salvini will be hard to stop, Russian has central Asians and Caucasus types, but Italy has MENA and sub Saharans to deal with, so Italy has much bigger problems facing it.
A very strange case of Fort Lauderdale 2017 airport shooter.
Well a difference is, some of the non-Russian nationalities are not so bad and even civilized.
In Kazan, a high percentage of secularizing Tatars of Muslim origin, and yet the atmosphere is not bad at all.
–
Italy should deport Arabs and Africans before the situation becomes serious. (When Arab/Muslims are about 20% of the population, country can start to enter a low-level civil war).
But existence of immigrant quarters in Italy is not representative of a general population.
In countries like Italy and Spain, the illegal immigrants are living concentrated around train stations and in the center of main cities. So when you arrive there as a tourist, you see them everywhere, think there are much more, than there actually are.
Overall, Italy is still very Italian and the number of immigrants is small as a proportion of the country. At 92% Italian – then Italy can be fine, they just need to become more strict from now.
Sweden by comparison is only 80% Swedish – and it’s resulting in serious problems and massive rapes.
For a worse case scenario – you can look at Israel, around 20-25% is Muslim/Arab. And walking in the streets, you can feel sense of civil war and dysfunction in Arab areas (walking in Arab areas, feels like going back to a dangerous medieval world).
In France, around 10% Muslim/Arab – and country is already experiencing unpleasant atmosphere in some cities (Paris, Marseille) from this.
But in Spain which are 88% Spanish. Most immigrants are Latin Americans of Catholic origin. It’s not really very bad situation yet at all.- about 4% Muslim
Political ‘problems’ are coinciding with stupid Germans in Dusseldorf trying to get the Italians to actually do what they took the German’s money to do. Not paying your taxes is not officially a crime in Italy; a useful index to how they view classical economics.
Italy has always been the same
The Germans pay taxes and provide money for renewable energy and refugees and Italian just steal it, and beg for more. Italian police seize $1.7b in mafia-owned wind and solar energy assets
You are missing the point of the hypothetical, which was that America (as a stand in for Russia) was innocent.
However, the US is in a position of strength, while Russia is in a position of weakness. The Russian economy is seriously hurt by the American sanctions, and Putin is forced to take any chances to avoid further sanctions.
Again, you assume what Putin would do if he was framed, and then work from this assumption. This is begging the question.
But a crucial point is that America is strong. Unlike Russia.
Another crucial point is that American presidents have met with extremely crazy or hostile adversaries to make truce with them, like Nixon met Mao or Eisenhower met Khrushchev. Shall we make a list of what Mao and his henchmen had accused the Americans of? Or how he actually sent troops to fight the Americans?
You are also missing the point that Putin didn’t meet the Americans who accused him, he just met Trump, and Trump didn’t accuse Putin or Russia with anything, rightly or falsely.
I find it odd that you decided to float very forcefully your idea that from the behavior of Putin’s Russia after it was accused of Skripal attempted assassination we can infer whether Putin was or not involved. Using behavioral analogies of birds , animals and hoodlums in Black Ghetto trying to star you down is not very useful, imo. You are using these examples as rhetorical devices pretending to be genuine arguments. That’s why I begin to question your honesty and good faith.
With Skripals there can be only three possibilities: (1) hoax, (2) false flag or (3) guilty as charged.
You are trying to reconstruct the past on the basis of a very small signal. Inverse problem of reconstruction are always ill posed and thus unstable. This means than a little bit of noise will lead you to wildly different solutions. This is because the inputs (1), (2) or (3) produce very similar, almost undistinguishable outcomes. The behaviors of justly or falsely accused are usually not that different.
When confronted with (1), (2) or (3) I would rather concentrate on motive and who benefits in each case but we won’t really know the answer of whatever we do. People side with solutions that are for various psychological reasons comfortable to them. I do not know what is a truth in this case. All I can say what I would like it to be the truth. Knowing what I would want to be the truth is the most important safeguard against letting oneself being let astray by narratives that are appealing to this desire.
Situations like these sometimes are meant to polarize and divide. Think of the Dreyfuss affair and what it did to French society. Who benefitted?
This is just bizarre. I’ve been in both Arab parts of Israel, as well as the West Bank. The former were a bit shabby, the latter poor. But it certainly didn’t feel dangerous, or “medieval”, whatever that means.
People were quite friendly and helpful.
Yes, but being weaker means Russia cannot make concessions or give America the smallest advantage. It is the way of the world, one that even the least subtle minds instinctively grasp
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/NikitaNina.JPG
Khrushchev is a good example, not a typical leader but a typical Russian in every way, perfectly reasonable when he met Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev had no reason to think JFK was not the boss over the CIA. Two leaders, no one was framing anyone, and no one was kidding anyone either. As Mearsheimer says in Why Leaders Lie, you can lie to your own population but it is not worth trying to lie to other countries, they don’t believe you and it just complicates negotiation. It was only when Kennedy started to put into practice Eisenhower’s idea of giving Germany nuclear weapons, that Khrushchev became frantic and started offering all sorts of deals in relation to Germany (a major reason for his dismissal) then using more and more military pressure though the Soviet Union was much weaker. He forced the US to put itself on higher alert, and then he upped the ante again and so on. In effect the safety catches were being taken off one after the other until by the Cuba crisis everyone realised that Khrushchev though weaker actually meant what he said. He achieved his main objective (concerning Germany) indirectly and at the cost of his own prestige because the explicit concessions over Turkey were kept secret from the US public. Although weaker, the Soviets did coerce the West.
Trump understands that the Russian interference against Hillary is being conflated with the idea that the Russians were coordinating with him and he colluded with them. He publicly disbelieves all of it because he understands that trying to separate the two allegations is playing into his detractors hands. I doubt Putin takes Trump’s statements at face value, or is inclined to make concessions to America because Trump is running it. If Putin knew that the the US deep state had framed Russia and yet Trump seemed helpless to stop it then Trump would not actually have much power would he? Putin would be very likely to try denouncing the responsible people in the US intelligence agencies framing Russia and then use military pressure until a Cuba style crisis was reached in order to force a public demand for reigning in of the US deep state if he thought Trump was unable to reign in the US deep state
Putin in a 2017 interview with Le Figaro:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54638
You are still begging the question. Russia is much weaker than the USSR was circa 1960, and its leadership is nowhere near as tough mentally or in outlook. Khrushchev participated in the civil war as a commissar and then in the collectivization and the Great Terror. Putin is much softer, obviously, as we noticed during the Syrian Alleged Chemical Attack Crisis. (Notably, the Americans blinked, too.)
I don’t know what makes you think that Putin plays it in an optimal manner, when he couldn’t even play nuclear brinkmanship properly just this April. (It only worked, sort of, because the Americans were weak, too.)
Unpleasant, tenser atmosphere in the streets. Mainly groups of hooligan looking men outside in evenings. People looking at you as a foreigner. (And would be worse for women).
Arab/Muslim areas and towns – it’s actually the worse vibe or atmosphere, of anywhere I have travelled. The places which give me a bad feeling in the soul.
Complete opposite of how Mediterranean countries should be.
It’s not a good situation or desirable one. (I’m sure in Gulf Arab countries it’s much nicer – but I don’t like it at all in Levant).
My view is very strongly that, this (Middle Eastern/Arabian forms of Islam immigration) is exactly what you don’t want to allow to immigrate in Europe. Americans for example – complaining about Latino immigrants of Catholic background. They have no idea how much worse the atmosphere is in some other cultures are by comparison.
Italy was doing better, before there was ever “German money” for renewable energy and refugees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_economic_miracle
European Common Market and Custom Union was a great idea – but depth of union beyond here, it has a less clear any successes.
What concessions?
This is just bizarre. I’ve been in both Arab parts of Israel, as well as the West Bank.
I agree with you completely, having walked around Arab parts in both Israel and the West Bank.
In Jerusalem I rented a car to go to Massada, and got lost in East Jerusalem. People were very helpful in setting me on the right path, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, on the contrary they were far friendlier than people I encountered in “Jewish” Jerusalem.
Well, if one refuses the idea that Skripal (as well as Litvinenko earlier) was poisoned by Russian secret services, one is forced to conclude that, given the complexity of the poison used, it was the work of the secret service of another major power.
So we should believe that, say, Americans, French, British or Israelis poisoned the former double agent in order to provoke an international crisis with Russia?
Is not such a hypothesis rather too daring? Why, just to kill a very unimportant person, a Western secret service should risk being caught red handed and thus provoke an international and internal crisis? The risks were too high for the Westerners, while the profits from Skripal’s death would have been, as we see it now by the way, negligible : Russia once again accused of killing her former subjects living in the West and being booed for that by many Westerners.
So, if the risks were too high for the Westerners, we have to go back to the supposition that Russia was well involved in Skripal incident, because there could not have been other players besides the West and her.
The question then is: what political powers in Russia chose to attack Skripal? Was the decision taken by the Kremlin inner circle or maybe it was done by some Intelligence agency, acting without Poutin’s knowledge? And finally, why Russia or some Russian organisation thought it necessary to kill a man who, as far as I can see, was not a menace to Kremlin’s interests?
Western tourists might have some fun adventures there, as they will in most third-world places (at least, as sometimes happens, something goes wrong for them).
But atmosphere from point of view of somewhere you would want to live – truly awful for any normal people, and completely what a developed country does not want to import inside it, and completely opposite of the ideal, or even what’s on the other side of the same sea. It’s charming to experience these primitive cultures for a few hours or days – but not to condone their lifestyle.
What if the objective was to create international and internal crisis? That’s why very exotic poisons were used.
I remember from the long discussion on whether Polish Perspective was or not to Israel noticing a deep contempt and revulsion and perhaps fear Dmitri felt for Arabs in Israel. A bad combination of Russian provincialism and neophyte Zionism I thought. Trying to be more Catholic than Pope. I wanted to believe that the tint of fear he displayed was because of his bad conscience but this would require postulating he had one but I could not make myself going that far.
I agree, Dmitry. As individuals they may have various decent or unpleasant personalities, but as a collective – they create a sense of living death.
Personally I would like to live in a country where people have Northern-style temperaments, but I can appreciate that in places like Latin America and non-Saracenic Africa blacks – who are also dangerous – can at least produce a lively atmosphere.*
Although the international influence of American black culture (to use the term loosely), which seems quite negative, may change this.
It is my impression that blacks from the American South are more lively than other parts of America?
Who is asking to condone or not to condone?
So you don’t condone. OK. You will eliminate it. How? And why?
Sure. When they come in numbers to Europe, they are an invading threat to the natives. And if I were from Palestine, I’d feel the same way about the Jews, especially those making Aliyah.
Russia is only weaker in conventional arms, so it could not be at the Rhine in 2-4 days, but it never had any intention of doing that anyway. Russia’s secret weapon is its very strategic nuclear and conventional weakness; their massive arsenal of battlefield nukes has, suggests that they might “take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them”. When Russia can not destroy America, when Russia can only destroy itself by trying to destroy America, then Russia will be have to take what it gets and look happy about it. For now, the US cannot seriously provoke Russia.
Horpor said “just to kill a very unimportant person, a Western secret service should risk being caught red handed”. But the domestic Western reaction is not the thing; it is easy for governments to lie to their own people. They could not lie to the country they were framing. Russia would know instantly what was going on and would name the CIA- MI6 people responsible and explain how out of control Western intelligence services were . And if that did not work then Russia would escalate. It would be as if Russia knew that behind the scenes of western democracy, Hitler was in charge. The Russians would not wait to be attacked.
Nazi terrorist turnwd gangster Carminati was ex Italian PM Giulio Andreotti’s co-accused when he was tried for ordering the murder of a journalist. As PM Andeotti was instrumental in the creation of an EU Regional Development Fund, which the south of Italy was to greatly benefit from. So Italy, basically Southern Italy, got massive amounts of money to bring its infrastructure up to scratch, but now the EU enlargement means that Southern Italy is no longer the most backward region, and Italy is, shock horror, actually contributing as much to the EU as it gets from it.
Countries defend themselves against other countries and they could never do that effectively if elements of the government, the deep state, are pursuing completely different objectives. If Trump was some kind of Russian agent of influence, he would be removed from office, and by the same token if people in the the CIA and FBI were running their own foreign policy, they would be arrested and put in a secret prison. If the deep state were strong enough to fight, the army (probably the 10th Mountain Division) would be called out against them. Secret services can pursue their own policy even one of starting a world war, (Serbia’s did) but as happened to Dragutin Dimitrijević, they give you the death penalty.
Some countries bureaucracy are wining to betray it, after the crushing humiliation of Suez Britain’s bureaucracy identified its its role as being America’s sidekick. But we are talking about the bureaucracy of Russia which sees its interests as maintaining Russia as a great power. Putin does not strike me as someone who would kowtow to superpower America, and Russian bureaucracy would not let him anyway. Obama nice guy persona meant Putin was emboldened to do what he liked, so I can see why Putin like Obama. Reagan was a nice man, but his America supported governments that killed innocent peasants, who were massacred and tortured to death over much of Central America. Reagan did not know, or want to know.
Putin is more hands on, and I am quite certain that he authorized the poisonings of traitors, and the electoral interference aganst Clinton , who let us not forget ( the Russians didn’t ) had interfered in internal politics of Russia. Putin may see benefits in having Russian kept away from from the wealthy West. You cannot judge nation states or their leaders by the standards of normal morality, which is basically not morality by Kant’s definition, but rather what works and pays off in the long run.
No – just keep it separate, until modernization in the Arab culture.
Think about Gulf countries’s progress and modernization. There is strong religious and extremist resistance. But enormous wealth, as result of oil exporting, has brought still a kind of inevitable softening (places like Dubai are now popular with tourists who don’t go there for “adventures in backwards, third-world environment”, which is only kind of charm I could feel from Arab town in Israel). Sure, Dubai is never going to be a European atmosphere like Spain or Italy – but economy is resulting with native population taking unintentionally modernization traits with each generation, and converging much more with civilized world each generation.
OK, so you just used the wrong word; you don’t really mean you want people to condone or not to condone anything in particular. That seemed really quite bizarre to me, hence my puzzlement in the previous comment. Thanks for clearing it up.
I don’t really care whether Dubai ever has a “European atmosphere”; certainly by the time it does whatever is meant by a “European atmosphere” will have significantly changed in an unpredictable way.
I see you keep going out on a limb on Putin knew it and did it and nothing can stop you. I haven’t noticed this degree of singleminded obsessiveness in your previous comments that often I enjoyed. In my comment #83 I tried to point to you that you are engaged in solving an ill-posed unstable inverse problem. One should be always very skeptical about whatever solutions once gets even if they are consistent with the initial data.
Sean, You need to take into account how weak and helpless Russia’s propaganda and PR machine are and how powerful is British media machine with connection to the deepest bottoms of the Deep State.
Look for example at the following coincidence. On 18 December, 2016 The Guardian publishes an article on Herschel Grynszpan that he possibly survived the WWII. For me it was new and sensational though a similar article was published by Jerusalem Post on November 11, 2016 of which I did not know. Next day on 19 December, 2016 Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey is murdered. I do not think many people connected these two events but I did (Grynszpan’s case always interested me for entirely different reason.) and I am sure somebody at FSB must have noticed. And the following day (Dec. 20) Gerz Kuntzman of NY Daily News spelled it all out to those who were rather slow on picking it up:
Was Mr. Kunztman surprised “Frankly, I’m surprised his murder didn’t come months ago.” because he already read the article about Herschel Grynszpan in Jerusalem Post on November 11 and nothing happened? Apparently The Guardian has more ‘juice’ than Jerusalem Post. Or Jerusalem Post was just foreshadowing while The Guardian was announcing.
Obviously you may dismiss it as just a lucky coincidence. But I look at it as a glimpse at conversations the Deep State conducts with Russia. And Britain seems to have the most eloquent and powerful interlocutors even though they might be Israel’s sock puppets.
Russia only lacks soft power, it won in Syria by the application of brute force, while everyone else was underestimating the efficacy of armed violence, and overestimating the power of deep insider conversations. Obama thought Russia would get “bogged down” in Syria. Obama told Britain not to vote Brexit, Camerons sidekick Osborne told people that Russia might well attack if they voted for Brexit, no one thought the vote would go that way The Huffington Post said it would cover Trump’s campaign as entertainment, thinking that his polling was a result of coverage. But these deep state insiders in Britain and elsewhere have an incredible 100% record: 100% wrong.
When Kim Il-sung’s eldest son preferred visiting Disneyland to being supreme leader, that was soft power as when Sony Pictures made a comedy film about the current, second choice, leader portraying him as a buffoon who gets assassinated. The Rand Corporation expert advised Sony Pictures to ignore Kim threats. Sony’s chief executive had his emails hacked and the scandal over what was in them almost put the company out of business, Kim’s brother was poisoned with nerve gas compound.
Why would Putin not try and interfere in US politics against Clinton after she interfered in Russian politics against him? When he was a child, in between terrorizing the neighborhood with his buddies,Putin had the job of killing rats with his bare hands in the cardboard walled slum building he called home, he told friends the trick is to always let the rat think it has escaped. He is somewhat better accommodated of late.
https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/1194313/size/tmg-article_default_mobile;jpeg_quality=20.jpg
But he still is bothered by rats, so he poisons them, in the case of Litvinenko who accused him of being a child molester, sparing no expense to give him a slow and horrible death, all the better to gloat Anton Chigurh style “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” As he withered, Litvinenko was surely imagining Vlad chortling away in his palace.
Russians don’t think Putin ordered the poisonings.
We get fooled by our leaders, not theirs. .
This is how you remember? The tricks of memory plus the urge to confabulate. If found this:
Foreshadowing in media of agent poisoning and Novichok by Russians.