Reflections From a Murky Pond

Just because two things bear a prima facie similarity doesn’t mean that they’re truly similar, much less equal. A perfect example of this is the relative responses by Obama and Putin to ISIS in Syria.

Different Shades Of Red

We must hold this truth to be self-evident, not all red lines are created equal. One was drawn in ink and rhetoric by a narcissistic boy play-acting at being a man and the other was painted in fire and blood by a world leader. Those are quite different shades of red indeed.

Putin’s Just A Bully

Of course, Putin is just being a bully. The only reason that Russia has a vested interest in stabilizing Syria and ending ISIS’ threat to the people there is because kicking over Obama toy soldiers proves to the world that Putin and Russia are stronger than Obama and America under his attempt at rule.

To be fair though, it’s not a straight up, apples-to-apples comparison for two reasons. firstly, Putin always supported Assad, where Obama armed and funded ISIS. Secondly, Putin wants a strong Russia that is a superpower and Obama has always stated that he want America reduced to just one nation among many. Hence, Obama might actually be ruling from the bottom.

Tags: America | Geopolitics | Humor | ISIS | Obama | Politics | Russia | Sarcasm | Syria | Vladimir Putin | War | War On Terror

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2015 at 8:09 am and is filed under Humor, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

America, like all nations, is and always has been under threat from foreign powers. Like the peoples of all nations this is something that Americans are used to and something that they can deal with…or could deal with. Things has changed and the new threats to America are both existential and difficult to deal with.

The new threats aren’t military; they’re economic. They’re also not the run of the mill threat to international trade. No, the new threats to America are foreign governments choosing to punitively divest themselves of US sovereign debt and eliminating the use of the US Dollar as their nations’ reserve currency.

Russia has bluntly pointed this out.

MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti) – An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that authorities would issue general advice to dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine.

Sergei Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime.

“The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia,” Glazyev said. “Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don’t depend on them in any way.”

Glazyev noted that Russia is a creditor to the United States.

“We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” he said. “We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market.”

Do not mistake me; in no way would I normally think this was a credible threat at this time. These are not, however, normal times and the Russian cultural psyche has proved itself willing to use “scorched earth” tactics. They’re also fairly strongly allied with China, who could both tolerate the damage to themselves from divesting themselves of US sovereign debt and eliminating the use of the US Dollar as their nations’ reserve currency. In point of fact, China would likely benefit from doing so in short-term. Hence, while the threat is not imminent, it is credible.

This, in all likelihood, isn’t going to happen. What is going to happen is that the Obama Regime will not push for sanctions against Russia for just about anything. And this, in turn, means less than it might since Europe’s flagging and vulnerable economy is dependent upon trade with Russia.

The important point is the threat is credible, extremely serious, and has been made. This not only shows the soft and flaccid underbelly of the America of the 21st century, it’s removes one of America’s greatest weapons, our trade.

Tags: America | China | Debt | Deficit | Geopolitics | Glazyev | Money | Politics | Putin | Russia | Sergei Glazyev | Vladimir Putin

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2014 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

In almost every generation a leader emerges among the nations, quasi-nations, and pseudo-nations of the world. In our time that leader is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. As an American, this is both hard for me to admit and something that I cannot find to be a positive thing for my nation. That, however, doesn’t make it any less true and refusing to accept that truth would be even worse for America.

Vladimir Putin – The World’s Leader

The one thing that truly sets President Vladimir Putin apart from the rest of world’s, and especially America’s, politicians is that he is a leader of men and they, especially Obama, are merely politicians. Putin commands respect and gets it, they do neither.

Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes … but he makes a decision and he executes it quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.

— Rudy Giuliani

Mr. Giuliani is, quite sadly, completely correct. Of all the people on the world’s stage Putin is the man who is most the leader and who is most worthy of respect in that role. The key words in this are “Leader” and “Respect.” Those do not respectively equate to “Friend” or “Approval.”

Putin is neither friend nor ally to America and is, at a bare minimum, an adversary of Europe. There is little of his foreign policy that is not contrary to the West’s perceived best interests and even less of his domestic policies that the majority of the West’s peoples find acceptable.

Therein lies the problem. The greatest and most worthy of respect leader of this time is one that is not on our side. Nor do we have, singularly or collectively, such leaders as can effectively balk him with anything resembling ease. As the victors write the history books, this could well end up with us “on the wrong side of history.”

Tags: America | Foreign Policy | Geopolitics | Leadership | Obama | Politicians | Politics | Realpolitik | Respect | Russia | Ukraine | Vladimir Putin

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2014 at 10:08 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

There’s at lot hot air being blown about by politicians and their pet talking heads about Russia’s supposed invasion of Ukraine. All across the globe there’s a chorus complaints and threats set to the disharmonious twin beats of statecraft and sabre rattling.

But politically awkward reality is that Russian military forces have occupied only the peninsula of Crimea and have not imposed themselves upon mainland Ukraine. They’ve done this under the political pretext of protecting Russians and/or Russian speakers in Ukraine from violent reprisals from anti-Russian Ukrainian militants. Yet the best estimate at this time is that Putin is only really interested in maintaining control of- and providing security for Russia’s Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol, which is their Navy’s only access to the Mediterranean.

This is not to say that, given the right foreign impetus, this Crimean Not-War couldn’t turn into the next Crimean War. The Crimean Peninsula is more formally called the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and is only somewhat part of Ukraine – how a part much having been a point of contention for some time. It’s also more pro-Russia than pro-European, though there’s a strong antagonism between its two majority demographics, Muslim Tartars and Russian Christians. In other words, as it has always been, it’s ripe for conflict.

Tags: Crimea | Military | Politics | Russia | Ukraine | Vladimir Putin | War

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2014 at 11:12 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Political candidates garner endorsements from other politicians, organizations, and people of note through their actions and rhetoric. By and large, if people or groups like what the politician has done and said, they’ll give him or her their endorsement.

Alright – sometimes it’s quid pro quo, a straight-up financial transaction like Solyndra and the labor unions.

Of course, not all such endorsements are to a politician’s liking…

One has to assume that, with the 2012 elections just a few days away, both Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev endorsing Obama because they feel that he’d be better for Russia than Romney is one of those cases.

Then again, such an endorsement by unfriendly foreign powers, especially one’s like Russia, might sit very well with many of Obama constituents and cultists. Hence, assuming that Obama has largely given up on trying to woo the undecided voters, he might like these endorsement as a means of raising his base’s enthusiasm.

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Dmitry Medvedev | Leftists | Liberals | Obama | Politics | Progressives | Russia | Socialism | Socialists | Vladimir Putin

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012 at 6:46 pm and is filed under 2012 Election. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.