Russia-US relations

[CanadaMan]

We got hit on 9-11 ...

Hit by who?

If you haven't already looked closely into the events of 9-11 have a look at this 3-hour video. This woman has studied the subject for many years.

[SANDRO43]

Your posts are always thoughtful Lord Mendeleyev.

Our contingent of non-Ducal peers is on the ascendant - unbeknownst to Her Majesty, the College of Arms and Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage .

[mendeleyev]

How many friends, brothers or cousins have you lostbecuase of Iranian or Syrian supplied IEDs? 

Sons of friends and my heart goes out to families whose children were put in harms way for no good reason. Maybe we should return to the practice of old where political leaders accompanied their soldiers to battle. It is easy to send the son or daughter of someone else.

What makes Russians more entitled to intervene in the Caucaus  more than the US, Saudi Arabia or Turkey?

Location and history. How would you like Russia intervening in Mexico?

[mendeleyev]

the College of Arms and Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage

Wait, you mean I have to go back to college for the title!? I already been and came a camel's breath of flunking out each time. Is there a test?     

Lord have mercy, help me!

[SANDRO43]

Wait, you mean I have to go back to college for the title!? I already been and came a camel's breath of flunking out each time. Is there a test? 

Yes, a blood test - if yours is blue, you pass .

[mendeleyev]

I've met some little old ladies with blue hair but if it takes blue blood, I'll have to bow out of that race. 

[SANDRO43]

I've met some little old ladies with blue hair but if it takes blue blood

Could have been witches using noble blood for a shampoo . Did they have a French accent? If so, they used frog's legs, too .

[mendeleyev]

Ah! No accents that I recall.

[mendeleyev]

CNN report on the Christian town in Syria just overtaken by rebels who defeated the Syrian Army defenders.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/08/world/meast/syria-civil-war/

[lordtiberius]

You Vietnamizing our war.  A war we won - not without personal risk and cost.  I find that when most people dismiss the merits of the war, they have never been, no less about strategy, tactics or the Middle East.  But it is so hip and so wide spread, it loses its impact.h


But what I find perplexing and almost offensive is that here you are no longer an impartial reporter but a forceful advocate some might say pro-Putin propagandist.  And you campaign for his ouster in the Moscow Mayoral race.  And you dismiss the Iraq war as pointless.

Now these positions taken individually may have their merits, but putting them all together as a sales pitch for us to agree with you, when the Christian Putin threatens to nukr is- its a bit much.

[lordtiberius]

85% of all Americans DO NOT want war Mendeleyev.  But you tell your Russian 'audience. that we will put the Northern, Black Sea and Pacific Fleets at the bottom of the ocean if one American sailor is harmed in this action.  If Russia nukes one American city, they'd better be ready to kill us all because their cities are forfeit

tired of threats from peace loving Russia

[mendeleyev]

Put down the vodka bottle slowly my friend. There, better.

Threats? Please enlighten me, LT. Putin at the G20 offered constructive ways for Obama to save face and act constructively. Yet he also assured Obama that Russia has no intent of starting WWIII.

Except in the fantasy war games of half illiterate kids, Putin has made no more threats of war than our own blithering excuse for a commander in chief.

I would have thought you of sufficient intelligence to understand MAD--it still reigns. Neither Obama nor Putin is that stupid.


Which war did we win?

Vietnam? Nope.

Iraq? You are drunk if you think it is either over, or won. It is neither.

Afghanistan? Please don't make me laugh--same as Iraq.

As for my views, I'm not a big fan of Vladimir Putin. I am a big fan of sovereignty of nations and just because I'm an American citizen does not mean I have to wear blinders. I refuse to be blindly nationalistic. My citizenship is not of this world as you should know.

The USA often flexes her military muscles at the expense of the sovereignty of other nations and I'm tired of it. So no, I won't blindly stand by if the USA is wrong. And on the Syria issue, we are dead wrong.

Period.

[mendeleyev]

That Christian village in the Syrian town of Maaloula, with the ancient monastery and churches built into the side of a mountain?

Your USA tax dollars at work: Islamic rebels broke thru yesterday and chased off the Syrian Army. Today the rebels announced that the monastery, the church and the children's orphanage are being destroyed as a "war prize."

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/09/syria-islamists-maaloula-threat-religious-coexistence.html

[lordtiberius]

Gobama!  Nuke 'em!   

[calmissile]

Sorry LT but you have reached the annoyance level to justify putting you on the ignore list.  Mendy, keep the info flowing.  Most of us really appreciate your work.

[lordtiberius]

Sorry LT but you have reached the annoyance level to justify putting you on the ignore list.  Mendy, keep the info flowing.  Most of us really appreciate your work.

 

oh well,

meanwhile the Dallas Cowboys defense force 6 turnovers to defeat Baby Manning and the NY Giants

[lordtiberius]

Obama will lose the vote in the House and possibly the Senate and may WAIT until an incident occurs to strike without their consent or he may just strike on his own.  50/50

If there is not Naval misunderstandings, the Russians will not attack US ships without being attacked first.  The collateral damage from an airstrike on a Russian national may escalate things.

Further, nothing could happen, but Turkey could have an incident on the Syrian border and with America's tacit consent invoke Article 5 bringing NATO in the conflict.  NATO borders Russia and such an invocation is a significant escalation. 

Our member representing the United Russia party is quick to invoke Iraq as a symbol of American failure and folly though he ignores Petreaus' surge and the peaceful north - Iraqi Kurdistan.  He also neglects to mention that it is Russia that is partitioning countries such as Georgia (Ossentia and Abkhazia) while crushing self determination such as Dagestan and Chechenya.  It is Russia who is supplying Syria and Iran (nukes).  Their alliance with China (N & S Sudan) and NK are enemies to stability but whatever . . . 

Time to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO

[Boethius]

I have to say, I don't find LT's posts here, which are of a debating nature, offputting.  I also get the impression he is not in favour of the Obama administration's strategy. 


Here is a good blog to read on background -


http://www.juancole.com

[GQBlues]

Just as with Uganda, Rwanda, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and now Syria...lend to reason the UN is de-facto useless.

I am however surprised about the turn-about in our present national strategy. Isn't Washington embarking on a massive campaign to bomb Syria that the Administration, including the media, termed an 'act' feverishly use against the Bush Administration as their major 2008 campaign platform?

Should we be bombed for having our political leaders con the majority of the public the past 6 years?

[Boethius]

I don't think you can compare Syria and Iraq. 


I don't believe there is an intention to invade Syria.  No false justifications are being made in Syria as was done with Iraq.  If anything, I think Syria is closer to the Balkans, and we all know how well that turned out.

[lordtiberius]

Just as with Uganda, Rwanda, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and now Syria...lend to reason the UN is de-facto useless.

I am however surprised about the turn-about in our present national strategy. Isn't Washington embarking on a massive campaign to bomb Syria that the Administration, including the media, termed an 'act' feverishly use against the Bush Administration as their major 2008 campaign platform?

Should we be bombed for having our political leaders con the majority of the public the past 6 years?

Agree with you sans lechon.  maybe world peace is possible

[GQBlues]

I have my reservations with Iraq, Boe....

Had there been no criminal activity in Iraq's oil-for-food program (you well know who were the chief beneficiaries in that scandal), the UNSC would've have had no problem holding Saddam accountable under the UN resolution post-Desert Storm...

The 'invasion' would likely not have taken place if the SC's members, including Germany, wasn't profiting from that damned scandal.

[GQBlues]

BTW- we aided and armed, under the Clinton Administration, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that initiated the Serbian war (the Balkan massacre).

Should we be bombed for that, too?

[mendeleyev]

Our member representing the United Russia party is quick to invoke Iraq as a symbol of American failure and folly though he ignores Petreaus' surge and the peaceful north - Iraqi Kurdistan. 

If you're trying to goad me into further debate on Russian sovereignty please give it a rest. You are far too intelligent, and a regular reader of the Mendeleyev Journal, to think of myself as aligned with UR.

What you don't like is that I don't drink the military complex kool-aid and refuse to don the "America's shit doesn't stink" hat.

He also neglects to mention that it is Russia that is partitioning countries such as Georgia (Ossentia and Abkhazia) while crushing self determination such as Dagestan and Chechenya.

Again, you are a regular reader of the MJ--I not only think you know differently, I know that you know differently.

So I gather that you're confused here: you cannot support self determination for places like Chechnya and Dagestan while refusing the same to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The issue is one and the same as they all stem from the same problem of overreach by the Tsarist Russian Empire into the Caucasus regions and peoples.

Just to clarify on Chechnya, Dagestan, etc, I understand Putin's stance and the danger that such independence would do with these regions having very violent tendencies. However I've also argued that holding back their independence will have nothing to do with their connections with radical Islam.

The Chechen wars have, to a degree, quieted down the terror attacks against European Russian cities and I also understand that releasing them to independent status would bring new terror attacks not only against Russia but against Georgia as well. The radicals are not only interested in independence but are hell bent on capturing Russia and Georgia for the glory of Islam.

The issue we have here, and I've written much about it previously, is that the real long term blame lies with the generations of Russian Empirical expansion. Those regions were not worth the fight and shouldn't have been forced into the Empire in the first place. Russia is reaping what was previously sown.

However, I am neither so blind as to fall the lie that Dick Cheney and Bush were patriots ready to liberate Chechnya for the sake of being good ole country boys.

There were two reasons they wanted independence for Chechnya:
1- OIL
2- Set up NATO on Russia's borders

By themselves both are vile reasons and I can condone neither.

We desecrate, actually violently rape, Ronald Reagan's memory and legacy by refusing to abide by his promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand Eastward. We've continued to violate that understanding for almost two decades and no wonder the Russians don't trust the US--we're liars. That tells me that my government has no honour.

[lordtiberius]

btw, If your only source for Iraqi news is RT's correspondent on this board, you may have missed this:


Syrian Kurds continue to flee to Iraq
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/18/syrian-kurds-continuetofleetoiraq.html

Thousands of Syrian refugees were stranded at the border with Iraq's Kurdish region Sunday after more than 15,000 crossed into Iraq since Thursday to escape the ongoing civil war in their homeland, the U.N. refugee agency said. Refugees who made it across, most of them believed to be Kurdish, were setting up makeshift homes at a hastily erected camp in Iraqi Kurdistan
 . . .
Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up more than 10 percent of the country's population and have seen their loyalties split in the conflict between pro- and anti-government groups.
 . . .
 Iraq hosted nearly 155,000 registered Syrian refugees, most of them Kurds, before the latest influx, according to the U.N. Most have fled to Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/world/middleeast/syrian-kurds-find-more-than-a-refuge-in-iraqi-kurdistan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Syrian Kurds Find More Than a Refuge in Northern Iraq

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/10/oil-iraqi-kurdistan-baghdad


Golden oil of Iraqi Kurdistan raises tensions with Baghdad



With an estimated 45bn barrels of reserves – the fourth largest in the world – and a century's worth of natural gas, the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) has become a big player in a geologically exciting but politically sensitive market.


http://www.theotheriraq.com/

Have you seen the Other Iraq?

 It's spectacular.
 It's peaceful.
 It's joyful.
 Fewer than two hundred US troops
 are stationed here.
 Arabs, Kurds and westerners all vacation together.

 Welcome to Iraqi-Kurdistan! 

 The people of Iraqi-Kurdistan invite you to discover their peaceful region, a place that has practiced democracy for over a decade, a place where the universities, markets, cafes and fair grounds buzz with progress and prosperity and where the people are already sowing the seeds of a brighter future.


All that glitters is not gold Mendeleyev