Op-Ed By Vladimir Putin for the American People

[Mac1958]

Eyah.

On this very board there is thread after thread of right wing posters sucking up to foreign leaders that disagree with Obama.

I seldom ever saw that on the part of left wing posters in relation to George W. Bush, on the various boards of I have posted on.

Putin is a seriously vile Stalinist.

I realize you're just playing partisan politics -- you're always going to have the advantage on me there -- so I'll ask a question that doesn't have to be about politics:

If person A agrees with person B on one or two things, does that mean that person A agrees with person B on everything, or could it just be about those one or two things in a vacuum?

We both know the answer, we both know the answer would not support your behavior here, but I'm looking forward to your answer anyway.

.

 

[Edgetho]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dly52zARCk&feature=player_detailpage]Mitt Romney's Statements on Russia - Failing the Commander-in-Chief Test - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sallow]

Putin feels it is dangerous to make voters think they're important. It's harder to oppress them that way.

I wonder why Putin felt the need to say this now? Obama has been telling the world America sucks. Could it be just an affirmation of all of that negativity toward America in general?

And to think that Obama won election because of a negative perception supposedly caused by Bush.

I think the liberals in the media have more to do with this perception than anything.

Link?

Spare me.

Eyah..

Just as I thought.

By the way, admission of mistakes and faults isn't telling the world America "sucks". Quite the opposite. It says to the world that American can recognize where it goes wrong.

That's part of what makes America an exceptional nation. The FACT that our government can make drastic changes in policy without massive internal political upheaval. That one President like Nixon can make a foreign policy blunder like assassinating political leaders and the very next President, Ford, can admit and correct that..is pretty amazing.

That's what you folks don't, and never will, get.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Vlad disses American Exceptionalism

And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.

We aren't exceptional, fellow Americans, at least according to Putin.

Truth be told, exceptional is subjective.

 

[Sallow]

Eyah.

On this very board there is thread after thread of right wing posters sucking up to foreign leaders that disagree with Obama.

I seldom ever saw that on the part of left wing posters in relation to George W. Bush, on the various boards of I have posted on.

Putin is a seriously vile Stalinist.

I realize you're just playing partisan politics -- you're always going to have the advantage on me there -- so I'll ask a question that doesn't have to be about politics:

If person A agrees with person B on one or two things, does that mean that person A agrees with person B on everything, or could it just be about those one or two things in a vacuum?

We both know the answer, we both know the answer would not support your behavior here, but I'm looking forward to your answer anyway.

.

I'll differ you to Charlie Rangel.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX1lBOxoJeU]Rangel Responds to Chavez - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mac1958]

.

When you declare yourself "exceptional", you're just begging for a punch in the nose.

.

 

[deltex1]

Did Obabble loan Vlad one of his speech writers? Total BS,especially the last sentence...we are all equal in God's eyes...we are not equal in our individual or collective ability to fulfill His plan for us.
,

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Did Obabble loan Vlad one of his speech writers? Total BS,especially the last sentence...we are all equal in God's eyes...we are not equal in our individual or collective ability to fulfill His plan for us.
,

Please explain.

 

[Annie]

Sadly, our president, therefore us, are being played like a fiddle.

This may have been a too obvious play by Putin, what it really does is highlight just how much these two disrespect each other.

To those on the left, good luck with the "threat of force brought Putin to peace move," it's not playing. You're much better off with something like 'he's learned from this, as Kennedy did the Bay of Pigs...'

The 'bringing the UN down' is also not playing, too many conflicts without it. Only two UN approved 'wars' of significance, Korea and First Iraq War.

Anyone want to argue that Kosovo was NOT Humanitarian? UN did not go along...

 

[Trajan]

from the article-



No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.


what chutzpah, this from the guy who leveled Grozny, pop. of 400K....which is still only half populated to its pre-Putin numbers.

But hey, hes now been granted the moral authority to proselytize and wax poetic on human rights because Obama put him in the position to do so.....The Butcher of Grozny, schools the US Nobel Peace prize winner in the op-ed page of the NY Times.....talk about Signs of the Apocalypse.

The article is though, genius, Putin doesn't miss an opportunity often and hes spun it just right; just the right amount of fact, mixed with supposition, platitudes ala the lib/utopian ideal in the UN, garnished with emotional appeal. The guys all over this, gotta give him props.

 

[Annie]

And the commiecon lovefest with their leader continues..

Who loves him? Putin is anxious to find a diplomatic solution to the issue of Syria's chemical weapons. That's called a rational response to a tense regional situation.

On the other hand the US solution was to bomb the shit out of Syria in an attempt to weaken Assad and end up handing the country over to radical Islamists. Again.

The "rational" response would have been to condemn the usage of Chemical weapons from the onset and warn Syria not to repeat the event.

Putin waited until things got to this point. It was deliberate too.

Nice to see what side you folks are on.

It's definitely not America's.

It's your own.

Ok, what you're saying is that Putin let this play out until the last moment, then snatched a way out, (through Kerry's foot-in-mouth), and handed it to Obama, one Obama really was forced to take. As for the American people: right, left, and most assuredly the independents had made it very clear they did not approve of Obama's plan. They burned the phone and email lines to their representatives. He didn't listen to them, had all intentions, (actually tried in his speech), to make the point that the President has the powers to do what he wanted, in spite of popular opinion.

I agree that the president could have gone ahead, he still can. I don't think that he will, but I do fear his reaction to Putin's moves, especially this op-ed. The question becomes does Obama start leading from the front and get some experienced folks to help him and listen to them or does he continue down this road?

 

[TooTall]

we didn't have UN approval for iraq or afghanistan iirc....

Why lie about it when the truth is out there? Why did have approval for Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan was a response to an attack, which made it legal.

we're talking about the UN...please cite where we had UN authority for invading iraq. i agree with afghanistan, but we still did not have UN approval. and the UN was not destroyed.

There were 17 UN resolutions that indicated that Iraq had violated the cease fire agreement. Did you expect them to make a declaration of war on Iraq?

 

[Trajan]

Sadly, our president, therefore us, are being played like a fiddle.

This may have been a too obvious play by Putin, what it really does is highlight just how much these two disrespect each other.

To those on the left, good luck with the "threat of force brought Putin to peace move," it's not playing. You're much better off with something like 'he's learned from this, as Kennedy did the Bay of Pigs...'

The 'bringing the UN down' is also not playing, too many conflicts without it. Only two UN approved 'wars' of significance, Korea and First Iraq War.

Anyone want to argue that Kosovo was NOT Humanitarian? UN did not go along...

this whole charade is a....charade

heres a quiz for one and all-, most especially the whackadoodles who think this thing has a chance at all, Assad giving up wmds, the Russians brokering it successfully etc.;

what country has a veto and has exercised its veto 3 times to save Syria 'face' or official admonishment, sanctions etc.? It has only used its veto more often on one other 'semi country' or in its terms un- official entity?

They will sit back and in the end, swoop in and veto anything that requires Syria to play by any rules or suffer.

 

[mudwhistle]

Link?

Spare me.

II
Eyah..

Just as I thought.

By the way, admission of mistakes and faults isn't telling the world America "sucks". Quite the opposite. It says to the world that American can recognize where it goes wrong.

That's part of what makes America an exceptional nation. The FACT that our government can make drastic changes in policy without massive internal political upheaval. That one President like Nixon can make a foreign policy blunder like assassinating political leaders and the very next President, Ford, can admit and correct that..is pretty amazing.

That's what you folks don't, and never will, get.

Giving speeches pointing out the sliver in our eye while ignoring the 2X4 in everyone else's eyes does nothing to correct past mistakes. It simply give our enemies plenty of ammo to attack us politically.

Never mind all of the blundering Barry himself has done on the world stage. I figure he's made enough mistakes of his own. So does everyone else I'm afraid.

 

[NoNukes]

There is more to Putin and Russia's position than he is letting on. He is like the Russian dolls inside of dolls.

An so many right wingers are falling for his crap.

 

[Trajan]

this is the Political forum- if the topic isn't a major part of your post , its just a put down, we'll put you down for a nap......play nice.

 

[Edgetho]

Sadly, our president, therefore us, are being played like a fiddle.

This may have been a too obvious play by Putin, what it really does is highlight just how much these two disrespect each other.

To those on the left, good luck with the "threat of force brought Putin to peace move," it's not playing. You're much better off with something like 'he's learned from this, as Kennedy did the Bay of Pigs...'

The 'bringing the UN down' is also not playing, too many conflicts without it. Only two UN approved 'wars' of significance, Korea and First Iraq War.

Anyone want to argue that Kosovo was NOT Humanitarian? UN did not go along...

this whole charade is a....charade

heres a quiz for one and all-, most especially the whackadoodles who think this thing has a chance at all, Assad giving up wmds, the Russians brokering it successfully etc.;

what country has a veto and has exercised its veto 3 times to save Syria 'face' or official admonishment, sanctions etc.? It has only used its veto more often on one other 'semi country' or in its terms un- official entity?

They ill sit back and in the end, swoop in and veto anything that requires Syria to play by any rules or suffer.

Russia?

Besides that, even if Syria does turn over its CWs to the UN, it can take years and years to destroy them.

Even after Libya vowed to destroy their CWs with help from the UN, after 8 years they still weren't done.

We signed a Treaty to destroy ours over 15 years ago and they're not completely destroyed yet.

This whole thing is a sham. Like I said earlier, the next 'crisis' that comes along will displace this story and it will be buried along with every other fuck up of this regime; never to be brought up again by the media.

Let obama have his victory. It's better than a War with Russia and Iran.

And do NOT underestimate Iran. They can shut down the Straits of Hormuz over night if they're in the mood.

And a ground invasion of Iran would be more costly than any War since WWII.

the SCOAMF got a break on this one. And I, for one, am glad of it. He is just too amateurish to handle a real crisis

 

[TooTall]

Op-Ed Contributor
A Plea for Caution From Russia
What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria
By VLADIMIR V. PUTIN
Published: September 11, 2013 239 Comments


MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.


Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.

The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

A new opportunity to avoid military action has emerged in the past few days. The United States, Russia and all members of the international community must take advantage of the Syrian government’s willingness to place its chemical arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction. Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action.

I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.

If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?_r=0

Ronald Reagan would tell Vlady to go suck an egg, pretty much the exact thing Obama has done to date. Here's the funny thing; without the threat of attack, Putin never would have offered up his plan to have Syria turn over their chemical weapons to the international community to be destroyed. So many of you are acting like Putin is this great savior when in fact he's trying to save his own ass. It's incredible that you cannot see this.

Only a fool really believes that the threat of "an unbelievably small" strike frightened Putin.

 

[SherriMunnerlyn]

Why lie about it when the truth is out there? Why did have approval for Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan was a response to an attack, which made it legal.

we're talking about the UN...please cite where we had UN authority for invading iraq. i agree with afghanistan, but we still did not have UN approval. and the UN was not destroyed.

There were 17 UN resolutions that indicated that Iraq had violated the cease fire agreement. Did you expect them to make a declaration of war on Iraq?

Putin is the one speaking out for diplomacy and peace. I admire him for that.
And 17 Resolutions, that is far fewer than the much greater number of UN Resolutions addressing Israels continuing violations of intl law. We have not bombed Israel yet. http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/unresolutions/studyguide/sgunres1e.html

 

[Edgetho]

from the article-



No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.


what chutzpah, this from the guy who leveled Grozny, pop. of 400K....which is still only half populated to its pre-Putin numbers.

But hey, hes now been granted the moral authority to proselytize and wax poetic on human rights because Obama put him in the position to do so.....The Butcher of Grozny, schools the US Nobel Peace prize winner in the op-ed page of the NY Times.....talk about Signs of the Apocalypse.

The article is though, genius, Putin doesn't miss an opportunity often and hes spun it just right; just the right amount of fact, mixed with supposition, platitudes ala the lib/utopian ideal in the UN, garnished with emotional appeal. The guys all over this, gotta give him props.

Remember the Theater murders in Russia? Or the Grade School Murders? Or the Apartment Building bombings that killed 300 Russians?

Russian apartment bombings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moscow theater hostage crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beslan school hostage crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chechens.

Not a new thing. Been going on for quite a while.

The Russians got tired of playing patty-cake with them and crushed them.

That's how they role. Ask the Nazis