Syria Crisis: Vladimir Putin's Letter To America

[jules]

queue the Aphex hand clap gif.

[olo]

 

queue the Aphex hand clap gif.

 

 

[youtubehd]Z-FPimCmbX8[/youtubehd]

[Guest Araungzeb]

Yeah, because Putin has been such a long-time champion of human rights. Like by killing off dissident journalists KGB-style with polonium, banning discussions of homosexuality in Russian media and brutally occupying Chechnya Bush-style. I agree with most of his points, but I have a hard time taking the messenger seriously.

 

 

I just fucking said that I agree with most of the points he made. Is it wrong to criticize his actions in the context of this argument? His op-ed makes himself out to be some sort of messianic MLK Jr. figure, his track record hardly supports the bold sweeping claims that he's making about human rights or world peace. As much as I can't stand President Obama and the kindergarten class that's writing his foreign policy, Putin obviously has tons to personally gain for this and is purely doing this for Russia and his own interests. He's been the leader of the second greatest military power in the world for almost a decade and a half, now he suddenly has an interest in human rights and brokering world peace? Please.

 

 

 

Java?

 

good overall point but...not a country

 

[awepittance]

his goal seems to be make to make the US continue to lose credibility globally, and he doesn't really need to do much work to make that happen, the US is doing most of the work themselves.

[lumpenprol]

definitely, I think the whole Prism thing probably burned a bucketload of goodwill. Certainly did with me.

[MisterE]

ha yeah i think thats exactly what he's doing. i agree with whoever called the letter passive aggressive too. it almost comes off as a threat. i think mostly hes trying to get some americans to side with him over their own president (obama) and he had a pretty good idea of what he needed to say to do that. whether or not he actually believes any of that stuff about peace which he said to that end i think is open to question, considering past actions. i dont like obama, obviously, but i dont really like the idea of siding with putin over him. basically i just dont like the situation. and the US has done more to undermine it's own credibility, in the past 10yrs, than putin could do himself. dude sees his opportunity and is making a power play big time.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

In Russia, President write letter to YOU!

[lumpenprol]

lol

[azatoth]

[goDel]

hahaha!

 

Kasparov for president!

[MadameChaos]

deranged crazy theory dont h8 me for my opinion:

obama has no authority, he's just an actor. if a prez actually did things his or her own way, they'd get WACKED. wacked i say.

 

i believe this to be true also. in effect the president is merely a puppet/figurehead and has little control over what happens.

 

we've seen what happens to presidents who actually try and change things (JFK) and i doubt the attempt is worth the risk.

 

the destablisation of this region plays right into the hands of the zionists who plan to further expand Israel.

 

let's not forget than part of Syria is already anexxed to this end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights

[eugene]

jesus fucking facepalms.

if there's one conspiracy theory i believe in is that there's some organization that has a goal of making the internet more stupid, i actually believe that there is some factory where people who spread those kinds of idiotic ideas are bred, next to it is a studio for making those 2 hour long youtbe videos who explain you the real, natural truth behind every topic imaginable.

[MadameChaos]

so why is Israel occupying Golan Heights eugene? for shits and giggles?

 

Edit: In 2010, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Syria to abandon its dreams of recovering the Golan Heights, just as it relinquished its dream of conquering Lebanon.^[20]

 

[Alcofribas]

don't worry, it's just eugene calling things "stupid" and "idiotic." his intellect generally fails beyond this point.

[Guest Araungzeb]

i believe this to be true also. in effect the president is merely a puppet/figurehead and has little control over what happens.

 

we've seen what happens to presidents who actually try and change things (JFK) and i doubt the attempt is worth the risk.

 

What did Kennedy try to change? He authorized Bay of Pigs, expanded the Cold War almost as much as Eisenhower and Truman, expanded commitment to foreign intervention in Vietnam, ect. He accomplished very little for social reform and even if that's how you think he "tried to change things" then Johnson would have been thrown from an airplane for Great Society.

[eugene]

so why is Israel occupying Golan Heights eugene? for shits and giggles?

 

because there was no political constellation in which it was possible to reach a peace agreement in return for withdrawal like there was with egypt, jordan and partially with palestinians during oslo accords.

[MadameChaos]

The UN has told the armed forces to leave as the occupation is illegal.

They have ignored them for one reason, Israel wants to keep the territory. Simple.

[eugene]

the un also declared that israel is a legitimate state and yet syria attacked it in 1948 and the un didn't send any forces to stop that attack. and more recently un ordered hezbollah to disarm but it didn't and it is constantly supported by syria. do you see a pattern here ?

[lumpenprol]

damn, looks like the only one who can one-up a clever russkie is an even more brilliant russkie

[apriorion]

 

damn, looks like the only one who can one-up a clever russkie is an even more brilliant russkie

 

LOL!

[MisterE]

 

i believe this to be true also. in effect the president is merely a puppet/figurehead and has little control over what happens.

 

we've seen what happens to presidents who actually try and change things (JFK) and i doubt the attempt is worth the risk.

 

What did Kennedy try to change? He authorized Bay of Pigs, expanded the Cold War almost as much as Eisenhower and Truman, expanded commitment to foreign intervention in Vietnam, ect. He accomplished very little for social reform and even if that's how you think he "tried to change things" then Johnson would have been thrown from an airplane for Great Society.

 

and didn't his daddy have mob ties which he used to help his boy get elected? if people are going to consider that his assassination simply must have been a conspiracy, isn't his mob ties just as valid of an angle as any possible evil dark entity that really runs things behind the scenes?

[awepittance]

it is, but that would be an over simplification. The real story behind the potential assassination theories rest on the fact that the CIA was working with the mafia as well as cuban mercenaries who defected from cuba during the cold war for things like assassinations, burglaries, espionage, fraud, identity theft, etc. So to say the 'government' or the 'mob' killed kennedy would not really be accurate even if you were to describe the most common conspiracy theories, most of the well researched ones usually don't surmise a conclusion like that, at least the ones I've seen. For example Jack Ruby worked for 'the mob' but also had connections to spreading anti Castro propaganda on behalf of the CIA and the cuban anti castro mercenaries they hired. Look up Operation Northwoods for an interesting insight into the way the US government thought (at least on paper) back at the time.
While it's possible the mob was involved in the Kennedy assassination, it wasn't possible for the mob alone to create the coverup of the Warren Commission and lose multitudes of forensic evidence like the mysterious disappearance of Kennedy's brain after his body was shipped out of Dallas.

[MisterE]

The UN has told the armed forces to leave as the occupation is illegal.

They have ignored them for one reason, Israel wants to keep the territory. Simple.

i'm not really siding with israel here and i honestly don't care too much about that whole situation and who is more in the wrong over there (because i think they all are to some degree so what's the point), but i also don't really feel that the UN has much or should have much moral authority over anything. i really doubt that putin would care what the UN had to say if they disagreed with him about something so it's precious that he tries to bring them into his letter to appeal to american left wingers who acted like and maybe actually believed that UN support was so important to have when bush wanted to go into iraq all those years ago. putin just knew that bringing the UN into his message would make him look like the good guy.

 

aside from the other reasons to be against the iraq war, i thought it was a joke that people here in my country were bringing the UN being against it as one of the reasons we shouldn't go. i'm not even saying i was behind that war. but considering the Oil for Food program scandal, i didn't think the UN had one iota of moral authority or any kind of authority when it came to iraq. those fuckers set up a program which was SUPPOSED to help the people of iraq get food and other necessities that they weren't getting under the tyrannical rule of Saddam. the idea, which almost seems like more of a front in hindsight, was that they would impose sanctions on Saddam, and keep track of and regulate how much of his oil he could sell, and they'd know how much he got for it, and so much of that would have to go towards the people of iraq instead of building more opulent palaces for himself and spending it on his military.

 

so the UN, or at least some of the very same members who worked to construct this program, ended up actually taking bribes, skimming money, helping Saddam sell some of the oil illegally and under the table so it wouldn't be accounted for and he could spend those profits on whatever he wanted (some went to weapons), and at one point it was even declared that lots of the food that the program did get for the people of iraq was unfit for consumption. there were people from plenty of countries cashing in on this, including britain, india, france, australia, pretty much everywhere. millions were made. there were so many angles played, and so much corruption with this program, that in hindsight it seems like the whole thing was DEVISED as a big money making scheme for members of the UN, at the expense of the people of iraq- the very people the program was supposed to help. they set up a program, probably with the idea of it being a scam all along. parts of it were probably designed to facilitate that end. they made a racket to make money from oil that they would help a tyrant sell illegally (so he could buy more weapons and opulent trinkets) while his people continued starving and existing in inhumane conditions all around. that's as disgusting as you can get. the program was rife with rampant abuse.

 

so i personally think it was utterly ridiculous for anyone to cry about the US not having the UN's approval to go into iraq. to me that was not one of the reason for not going in. personally i think the US has enough problems with it's own corruption and i would be glad to see the US just bow out of the UN altogether, because why should any country have to bow down to an international group of people who are also corrupt and just playing their own corrupt political power/wealth games? that organization is a joke, and the oil for food program should have completely tarnished their reputation, not that it's the only example of them being fucked up. its just one of the more hypocritical and disgusting. but it seems that graft, skimming, and corruption are pretty much the name of the game, with the UN. imo, putin can stick his pleas towards appeasing the UN up his ass. because he himself would not abide by that organization (which is possibly no less corrupt than his own regime) or their requests, if it came down to it and he really wanted to act. what makes the UN some supposedly perfect alliance of wise people who only care about what's best for the world, and always has the right answers for any situation? nothing. they are humans, and therefore fallible, as their history has shown time an time again. it's just another corrupt organization with it's own interests. it is nice to see democrats get a taste of their own medicine, however, with the non-cooperation/compliance of the UN being thrown in their president's face for a change.

[MisterE]

it is, but that would be an over simplification....body was shipped out of Dallas.

yeah it is a simplification. i don't really think for sure that the mob, or even necessarily any gov entity was behind it. i don't know what to think. because i think it would be almost impossible for a lone wolf assassin (which is a thing that can exist) to kill a president, and for there NOT to be just fucktons of 'suspicious' things that would creep out of that even just naturally. so many people would be operating in a heightened mode of near panic and shock/surprise, that things are going to be fucked up. actually, on any given day there are plenty of people in the gov, messing things up and doing things inappropriately. the main thing with a presidential assassination is that it brings the super powered magnifying glass down on every single minute detail of every single thing that is remotely connected to those events.

 

it's common sense that plenty of seemingly crazy things will come to light. those kinds of things are always going on. people are always bungling or even doing illegal things. but there just isn't a microscope of that intensity zooming in on their actions. people would probably shit themselves if they really knew how inept our governments are at handling even the smallest things. on the other hand of course it is entirely possible there was a conspiracy. i'm just saying that, it seems almost impossible for an actual lone wolf assassin to kill a president and there NOT be conspiracy theories out the ass. there always would be those theories, and a multitude of theories does not in any way prove an actual conspiracy, just a public in shock and wanting some grand reason to explain an event.

 

besides that i think it's funny how a president who had mob ties which helped him buy his way into office, and who clearly thought of women as objects (and had no qualms with using his position of authority to get his way with as many of them as possible), is brought up as a shining example of great presidents. even by plenty of people who would tell you that they support feminists, and were against the veitnam war or think it was wrong, regardless of the fact that he stated he believed in the domino theory which is why he took us into that war. he may not have escalated it to what it later became but who knows if he wouldn't have? he did start it.

 

he also had his lil' bro spying on martin luther king. possible so they could see what types of rhetoric the black communities respond to best, or at least that might have been something that they took from it besides whatever the original motive was. but their spying on and giving king so much attention could explain how bobby knew all the right things to say to get that particular bloc on his side during his own presidential run, where he campaigned against the very war his bro started. but uh, why don't all those types who go on about nixon's 'southern strategy' ever look into this kind of thing?

[joshuatxuk]

bump

 

Russia is officially involved now, launching airstrikes today.

 

I've always tried to be as pragmatic and cautious when it comes to my judgement on the Kremlin, Putin, and Russia's post-cold war policies in general. Clearly it's rubbing in the face of Obama's policy (or lackthereof) on Syria since the war erupted. BUT that t said, I really can't find any ulterior motives Russia's actual actions. Both the US and Russia are against ISIS for identical reasons (in fact Russia has dealt with terrorism stateside more often than the US since 2001 if you count all of the Caucus proxy wars). Backing Assad seems like an efficient means of stabilizing the country. It makes sense. Libya fell apart after the revolution, which is a critical comparison because their opposition was actually well organized and unified compared to the multifaceted and divided Syrian opposition. Even the sitting CIA director has admitted we should of never backed a rebellion against Assad in hindsight.

 

This might be the first potential joint US/NATO-Russia military operation (at least in parallel cooperation, not planning) I can think of. I just wonder how stubborn the US will be in not backing down from it's already weak anti-Assad effort.