Saturday, December 04, 2010

From "Looking Into the Eyes" to Kissing Ass

When GWB famously 'looked into the eyes' of Vlad the Impaler Putin (there's really no difference, as you'll see below), it was a demi-comic line for quite a while.

Now, we have a President who doesn't bother looking at all. That strategery fits right into his equally-bizarre blindness toward the murderous Chavez of Venezuela.

Even the famously Commie-loving NYTimes was chary of Putin back in 2007, and since then, things have gotten worse.

...in recent weeks, two different Russian military figures have come forward with confessions about brutality in the Kremlin’s earlier military campaigns in Chechnya that can only be called barbarism. Major Alexei Potyomkin has admitted that a group of Red Cross volunteers slaughtered south of Grozny in 2006 were butchered not by rebels, but by Russian forces...

Oh, there's more at the link.

So. We have a renascence of Murder, Inc. run by a true-believer Communist thugocrat who's running a State which threatens European gas-supplies for fun and profit--and THIS is a country with which we "should" sign a treaty limiting our missile-defense?

Oh! You say Henry Kissinger thinks we should? THAT makes us feel better.

Not.

12 comments:

Jim said...

"a treaty limiting our missile-defense"

Not according to these people:

"One clear indication that New START will not limit the missile defense plans of the United States is the strong support for the treaty among current and former national security officials, from chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, to the head of the U.S. Strategic Command Gen. Kevin Chilton, to the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, to Secretary of Defense Gates. Their views have recently been reinforced by a letter from seven former commanders of the Strategic Air Command and the U.S. Strategic Command, who heartily endorse New START and explicitly state that “”[T]he treaty provides no meaningful constraint on U.S. missile defense plans.”"

Anonymous said...

Vladimir Putin is not a communist. He is a devout Russian Orthodx Christian, the first leader of Russia who could claim that since Nicholas II.

You are stuck in a cold-war mentallity.

Dad29 said...

Putin is stuck in a KGB "kill-em-all" mentality. That's not very Orthodox to my mind.

As to Jimbo: others differ. Mullen's Obozo's butt-boy, always has been.

Most controversial are the provisions related to missile defense and to the procedures and systems to be established to verify that each side is abiding by the treaty. No previous treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, or between the U.S. and the Russian Federation, has asserted a link between nuclear arms reductions and missile defense – but this one does.

"START II forbids each country from converting the hardware that was once used to launch nuclear missiles, either from land or submarine, into an interceptor that can be used in a missile defense system."

See: Most controversial are the provisions related to missile defense and to the procedures and systems to be established to verify that each side is abiding by the treaty. No previous treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, or between the U.S. and the Russian Federation, has asserted a link between nuclear arms reductions and missile defense – but this one does.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/Breaking-Down-START-II-Treaty-Amid-Raging-Debate_69091971

About 5 seconds' Google.

Jim said...

"The only missile defense "constraint" of any kind in New START is the prohibition on converting long-range missile launchers for use by missile defense interceptors. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, testified to Congress that there are no plans to convert launchers, and that if any new missile defense launchers were needed, it would be quicker and cheaper to build new ones. None of the critics have explained how this provision limits U.S. missile defense options in the real world. Moreover, O'Reilly explained that the treaty "...actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program [compared to the 1991 START agreement]," by allowing the launch of missile defense targets from airborne and waterborne platforms.

http://www.armscontrol.org/issuebriefs/NewSTARTClearsPathforBMD

About 5 seconds' Google. :-)

VSO said...

@ Nony

Putin is among the last I would call a "devout Orthodox Christian" because we, just like Catholics, are not supposed to do the things he and Medevev (spelling?) do. They are why (among other reasons more valid than others) some Orthodox refuse to have ANYTHING to do with the Moscow Patriarchate. I don't exactly blame them myself given the reasons.

Dad29 said...

Well, then, it's up to the Senate, eh, Jimbo?

Personally, I don't think the Putin gangsters deserve all that much love and respect.

Jim said...

"Personally, I don't think the Putin gangsters deserve all that much love and respect."

I'm fine with that, Dadio, but better to have them working with us than against us as other countries like China and India gain economic and military strength.

Dad29 said...

OH, yah, the Russkis have a LONG tradition of keeping their promises to the US.

PRC has never, ever, been an ally. OTOH, India has always been very leery of PRC.

About time Europe worried about the Russkis, not just us.

neomom said...

Jim - why on earth would you think that the Russians are working with us and not against us now? They are selling weapons and nuclear technology to Iran for cryin' out loud.

Not a fan for any "treaty" that has them overseeing anything of ours.

We should be cozying up to the Indians as much as we can and telling PRC to go fornicate themselves. China, is not now, nor will be anytime in the forseeable future anything but our opponent - economically (think debt and trade imbalance) and militarily. They aren't building up a military to fight off Japan...

We should also be nicer to the European countries that understand the Russian threat - like Poland and the Ukraine. Because Vlad really wants it to be the USSR again. And the current EU countries sure as hell aren't going to stop them.

Anonymous said...

Russia is not trying to rebuild the Soviet Empire.

Their main concern right now is to become a formidable regional power (let them police the Caucus region for example.) Part of this is restoring their own sense of national idenitity and trying un-do the rupture and damage of the Soviet Era. Icons and mosiacs of Christ and the saints that were destroyed during the Communist era are being rebuilt, even some monastaries have been restored in recent times (and Putin and Medvedev regularly visit monastaries and talk with monks.)

The Putin-Medvedev gov't is trending socially conservative (gay adoption was recently banned and if Putin is elected President in 2012 restrictions on abortion are likely.)

Wheras the schools were once vehicles of promoting athieism, subjects like "sex ed" are now taught from an Orthodox perspective, likewise soldiers in the field are never lacking in access to the sacraments thanks to the many Orthodox chaplains. Also the country just instituted a new holiday to commemorate the historic conversion of the country in 988 A.D.

My point in all this is that it is very unfair to just toss contemporary Russia in with the Soviet Union. While there are many many problems in that country, let us applaud what is good instead of cutting at them constantly.

Vladimir Putin has shown himself to be a strong and effective leader, he does what he does to increase the power and standing of his country, can you blame him?

Also Russia-Poland relations have improved greatly, remember in 2009 when Poland had events to mark the aniversary of the start of World War II? Germany, Russia, France, sent their heads of state, America sent a mid-level buearocrat. Recentlly Russia apologized to Poland for the Katyn Masacree and Cover-up during the Stalin Era. When the President of Poland died in the plane crash most world leaders ducked out (as they did not really like the guy anyway) but President Medvedev was there at the funeral Mass.

I think in the grand geo-political scheme of things the Russians prefer USA to China, but if Americans keep up this level of hate towards them, well...

neomom said...

Not hate anony... just serious skepticism.

They are as corrupt as the day is long - just try doing business with them.

They ARE selling nuke technology and weapons to the Iranians. And then we caved to them on the missile defense shield from those Iranian weapons in Poland and the Czech Republic - because they said defense was too... aggressive?

And yes, the preamble of this treaty has language that could allow the Russians an 'out' if the US pursues additional missile defenses.

Dad29 said...

Anony, because I don't know counter-facts to your assertions, let's take them one at a time.

OK, Russia wants to maintain its border integrity and keep the Muslims at bay in the Caucasus. Good.

Putin 'building up Orthodoxy'? The Russian Orthodox church has long been a Kremlin puppet. That MAY have changed, but I'll reserve judgment on that for a while.

As to "anti-abortion," that's easy to explain: Russia is, like Italy, DE-populating. At the rate they're going, Long Island will have more ByeloRuss than Moscow in 20 years.

And as NeoMom points out, it's still a Mafia-like State. Maybe that's what Putin wants, but hey! we didn't have to do that here.