Obama changes his mind on Russia
by Patrick Armstrong
It’s been quite a progression, hasn’t it?
Part One: Weak, Regional, Failing
Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength but out of weakness.
But I do think it’s important to keep perspective. Russia doesn’t make anything. Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking. And so we have to respond with resolve in what are effectively regional challenges that Russia presents. We have to make sure that they don’t escalate where suddenly nuclear weapons are back in the discussion of foreign policy. And as long as we do that, then I think history is on our side.
Economist interview, 2 August 2014
Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies, as we were reinforcing our presence with frontline states, Mr. Putin’s aggression it was suggested was a masterful display of strategy and strength. That’s what I heard from some folks. Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That’s how America leads — not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve. (Applause.)
State of the Union Address, 20 January 2015
Part Two: Maybe not
The bottom line is, is that we think that Russia is a large important country with a military that is second only to ours, and has to be a part of the solution on the world stage, rather than part of the problem.
Part Three: Powerful, Worldwide
With respect to Russia, my principal approach to Russia has been constant since I first came into office. Russia is an important country. It is a military superpower. It has influence in the region and it has influence around the world. And in order for us to solve many big problems around the world, it is in our interest to work with Russia and obtain their cooperation.
“constant since I first came into office”
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Finally the question is not how Obama sees Russia, but how the US (Neocon dominated) Power Elite sees Russia. That Power Elite has some nightmares!
„Geo-Politics: The Core of Crisis and Chaos and the Nightmares of the US Power Elite“ https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/geo-politics-the-core-of-crisis-and-chaos-the-nightmares-of-the-us-power-elite/
Regards
Another thing I hate about Obama is how spineless he is: one glaring example that comes to mind is the struggle for Blacks in USA during his 8 years in office: look at the rampant police shootings year after year, the Black Lives Matter movement, the massive increase in Black unemployment. Has Obama ever once actually taken a strong stand against police brutality? No. Never once. The best he ever comes up with is ‘everybody needs to calm down and play nice’ smarm. Another recent example, a very glaring one: a couple of years ago Obama actually went out to Standing Rock Native American reservation in N. Dakota to give a speech of solidarity with Native Americans: another of his flowery feel good speeches about ‘I stand with Native Americans, this is a time we need to all come together and make this country heal, great again, etc”: but now, with the massive crackdown on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe water protectors and their supporters against a massively over-militarized police force where is Obama? The Indians are crying out for help, imploring Obama to take a stand and follow through on his good words from his last visit out there, and guess what? Obama is nowhere to be found, has nothing to say won’t do anything for them! This particular instance really reveals how Obama has zero integrity, zero morality, and in truth is a liar through and through.
I could not agree with you more – his faux solidarity is going to cost people’s lives. I would like to see him held personally responsible for the grievous injury to Sophia Wilansky (who may lose an arm) for allowing the situation to escalate.
People should be aware that the dirty frackin’ oil he is prepared to have his militarized police kill to protect is not for energy security – but for profit – the oil is for export to China. Trump had a $2m stake in the pipeline – though in the last week I believe the rights have been sold so he may have divested. #NoDAPL
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dakota-protests-people-are-going-to-die-father-of-wounded-dapl-activist-sophia-wilansky-speaks-out/5558665
Well, as others have already alluded to, Obama is the smooth talker, the speech maker who gives flowery speeches to uncomfortably wanting audiences. Like during his 2008 campaign, he says exactly what the audience wants to hear (“Mr. Change”)–but he never does what he says he’ll do. Some excuse this lying behavior by saying “he didn’t know what he was up against” when he got into office, but I think that’s bullshit. After 8 years of looking at this guy and what he’s said on any given foreign or domestic policy issue, I think he says what is politically expedient at the moment, knowing that he’s lying and misleading the public, manipulating them. I never liked him–even during the democratic primaries in 2008 I knew right away that he was part of the Wall Street/DNC elite establishment just like HRC: both of them from the identity politics mold. Obama: what a shitty, uninspiring, lying sack of shit.
On the Five Nations tour with Hillary Clinton in 2010 Obama Knew exactly what was what and he spoke as though he was already the POTUS, there are no excuses that can be offered in his defence.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
YESTERDAYS NEWS GETS WRAPPED IN TODAYS FISH. It seems Obama knows the saying well or else he would have never stated it. Does any body recall the Obama Romney debates. Romney stated that russia was a threat to pax-amaericana. Obama replied rhetoric like that is not accepted it rehashes cold war mentality which is not correct. Hitler in drag with Victoria noodlebrain coup d’etat in Kiev. Bombing Libya back to thew stone age and using it as a front to destabilize and force regime change in Syria. Since the end of WW2 the Us and the west have caused more havoc than Hitler and the zionist regime of Tel-aviv combined
BHO was hired to read speeches… as they all have been, since Reagan, at least. The System filters out anyone with a genuinely positive agenda, a mind of his/her own and a corruption-free (secret) history. We should be focused on the Unelected (ie Actual) Rulers instead.
Excellent comment!
For Obama – read Kissinger/Brzezinski change his mind for him – it seems to me – to lay the diplomatic groundwork for Trump to pivot away from a ‘unipolar’ world (where the American hegemon is in direct conflict with Russia and China – the classic Cold War scenario) – to the ‘multipartner’ world – where America foments chaos, then under a banner of shared responsibility draws in Russia and China and lets them fight it out like two moles in a bag over the Middle East. America then picks off the last one standing.
Not much of a plan – especially as Russia and China are both ‘eyes wide open’ – but it is the best the two senile old twats – who are both overdue in the mortuary – can come up with. Obama of course has no mind of his own. Trumps pick for Secretary of State may indicate his.
Kissinger once said that “the elderly are useless eaters” – maybe it is time for him to take his own counsel and move on. Perhaps he could take Soros and Brzezinski with him?
Indeed! If only we could pop some corn and watch from a safe space… on another planet…
Should be titled “Putin’s Progress”.
During this tale many of the would be pretenders have fallen or are falling by the wayside.
Obama, Cameron, Johnson, H. Clinton, Nuland, McCain, Holland, Poroshenko, Merkel, the WMSM – the list of the damned goes on and on…
Their Faustian Bargain seems to have failed them and given rise to Mephistopheles incarnate Trump.
Putin, at least, seems to have a spine
Probably because he knows his policies are supported by those who could organise his removal or assassination.
Between end of January 2015 and October 2016, Barack Obama’s teleprompter changed and he didn’t notice.
Or he noticed and it doesn’t matter.
*This site is getting worse to navigate. There’s so many steps just to post and then I find it freezing altogether. Is it just me? I actually have to leave the site altogether, often, and load it again just to be able to post something and that’s ‘after’ I’ve gone through multiple steps already.
I think you need to check your settings as I never have any of the problems you outline.
Sometimes – after posting – it an take some time for the comment to become registered.
This may be because all comments are scrutinised before being posted.
Also, you normally need to respond to an email by clicking on the link to activate your comment.
I don’t know what settings I’d have to check. I also use WordPress and it makes no difference, even when I’m logged in already.
You might try only having one window open at a time.
I find that if I have more than one window open at any one time it slows the whole process right down and can be infuriatingly slow – especially when inputting text.
One other possibility is that you may have malware on your system which is slowing your system right down.
Do you regularly run anti-malware and/or malware-removal software?
You can get free versions of things like C-Cleaner, which clear a lot of crap off the system.
It might also be worthwhile to install Re-Image, which can periodically re-build your whole Windows system.
I do all that I can that I know of. I’ve used Ccleaner for years, even though a techie who’s helped me a few times says I shouldn’t trust any third party company to help with security on my computer and that windows can do it all. Windows doesn’t even want to do it all, ergo…
I run Combofix all the time. I also have a Malwarebytes anti rootkit scanner. And I use Avast. I was using AVG until, after investigating their reportedly unethical behavior, working with the government to reveal a HMA user, I deleted my HMA (a virtual privacy network) and AVG (who owns HMA) on all my laptops in protest.
The hoops are the same whether I have few or many windows open. It’s not here and there that’s there’s a problem. It’s been this way always. But it’s now – since windows latest update of my windows 7 professional – worse.
Actually, I think your problem may well be Windows 7.
I had it on my system for a while – and it was awful.
The Windows 10 upgrade is free.
I suggest you upgrade to Windows 10 ASAP.
You will need to leave it on upgrade overnight.
It is what I use now and it works fine for me.
It did occur to me. After the monstrous initial introduction of the Metro look (Windows was targetting the tablet market), and the horrible experience I had with that, I vowed to never upgrade to any further windows os. My mother needed a new laptop and so I bought one for her and took into the techie in the bank I worked at for him to put windows 7 on it, which he had done for me for my laptop previously. He seemed to have a harder time than usual (It was hard for him the first time, since Microsoft makes it hard) getting windows 10 off the machine (Asus, preloaded with win 10), at which point he offered to go through windows 10 with me on his computer there and then and demonstrate that it can be tweaked and made user friendly.
Only because he was able to satisfy me in that regard was I willing to entertain the idea of windows 10 on my computers. It was preloaded on my newest ultra book or whatever you call the new, expensive small laptops. It’s been fine. I’m typing this comment on that machine. I had already been blocking windows 10 for some time on my other two laptops and just figured I’d leave them alone. One of those is packed away as well, since I’m in the middle of moving. I don’t know whether the window for ‘free’ upgrades of the windows os is still open, but I suppose I could check into it.
Thanks for the suggestions. I won’t deviate, topic-wise, further here. My choices are clear now anyway. Later…
The only problem on this site I’ve noticed is that if you take too much time typing up your comment it will not immediately post once you submit it. A couple of times after doing this I thought my comment had vanished into cyberspace–but the comment appeared several hours later. From what you describe it sounds as if you have an older computer or outdated operating system. Also antivirus software can really slow down a system. Also, what ‘multiple steps’ do you mean? It seems quite simple: just click in the box, type, and post comment.
What a lesson this man has been.
Came in with soaring rhetoric, a promise of a new beginning, and a Nobel peace prize.
Failed to deliver on any of these, but did deliver:
Death by drone, without trial
Death by military misadventure in the middle east
Death of a civil economy via unaccountable military spending
And now trying to ‘burnish’ his ‘legacy’ of lies. With more lies.
At least Russia’s Putin, ruthless as he is, does seem to have a moral compass
You sum up the obama legacy perfectly.
The media for eight years have covered up for him.
He has done as much if not more than george bush – who avoided Cold War with Russia. He gets a free pass – gno one actually discusses what a dangerous failure he had been.
He’s been worked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. And badly at that.
“constant since I first came into office” Indeed you have Mr President, a constant disappointment, a constant liar, a constant weakling who failed to stand up to the US Jewish lobby, a constant war criminal, in fact a complete and total constant failure. Bravo!