Russia’s decisions to grant asylum to Edward Snowden and to send warships to the coast of Syria to protect that country’s regime from the United States are just the latest hostile steps taken by Russia against the US, in a long line of hostile actions take against the US under Vladimir Putin’s rule.
But these two events are notable in and of themselves, because they are the final nails in the coffin of the Obama Administration’s utterly failed “reset” (read: appeasement) policy towards Russia.
Despite, or perhaps because of, this utterly failed and shameful policy, Russia is even more hostile and virulently anti-American than it was in January 2009.
This is not surprising to anyone who actually knows foreign policy well – unlike the self-appointed “experts” populating the Council on Foreign Relations, the Obama administration, RINO Republicans like Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, and most Washington (and European) think-tanks, who to this very day delude themselves that the “reset” has been a success and that Russia is a partner rather than a foe. (Obama himself falsely claimed in September, AFTER the Snowden affair and Assad’s chemical weapons attack on Syria, that “we succeeded” and that the “reset” allegedly produced “a whole host” of outcomes beneficial to the US.)
Nor is it any surprise to Mitt Romney, who, last year, correctly called Russia “America’s #1 geopolitical foe”, although China seems to compete hard for that coveted title. Mitt Romney was absolutely right, and Obama absolutely wrong, all along.
Already during the Bush years, I was warning that the Bush administration, where Condoleezza Rice (a RINO of the same mold as Colin Powell who, just like Powell, voted for Obama) called the shots on foreign policy, was engaged in craven appeasement of Putin’s Russia – a policy that even Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s nat-sec advisor, condemned as shameful and Chamberlain-like.
President Bush unilaterally cut America’s nuclear deterrent, scrapped the USAF’s most modern and capable ICBMs (MX Peacekeeper missiles), and retired the USAF’s most capable cruise missiles, the AGM-129s. Moreover, he cravenly sought Vladimir Putin’s permission to deploy a meager 10 interceptors in Central Europe to protect the US from Iran.
Barack Obama and his administration elevated appeasement to an art, calling it “reset” and starting a long, one-way street of concessions to Russia in the vain hope the Kremlin would reciprocate.
Since 2009, the US has agreed (under New START) to cut its own nuclear deterrent by 33% while allowing Russia to grow its own; to intrusive inspections of its missile defense facilities; to allow Russia to join the WTO; to make no more than symbolic complaints about Russia’s massive human rights violations; and to cancel plans to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama has also made massive cuts in missile defense spending and programs, killing those programs that would’ve provided the most effective defense (MKV, KEI, ABL, SM-3 4th stage). In 2012, he even promised the Russians “more flexibility” on missile defense and nuclear weapons after his reelection.
And yet, Russia has not become even one iota more cooperative or less hostile since 2009.
While Russia has provided some meager assistance to the US in Afghanistan – renting aircraft and opening its supply lines to that country – it had already been cooperating on that front since 2001. Obama and his utterly failed “reset” policy had nothing to do with this. Russia is cooperating on Afghanistan out of its own national interest – NOT because of any desire to collaborate with the US on anything. Terrorists based in Afghanistan pose a much greater danger to Russia than the US.
Russia, in any case, is not much help there – renting its aircraft is far more expensive than operating the USAF’s own, and delivering supplies through Russia is several times more expensive than through Pakistan.
So Russia’s “help” on Afghanistan is utterly useless. The US could’ve procured a number of additional American-made C-17 aircraft (and thus also create some US jobs) instead of renting those grotesquely-expensive Russian planes.
On nothing else has Russia been cooperative.
It has not cancelled the sale of S-300 air defense systems as is often erroneously claimed – it has decided to sell a different (but equally capable) S-300VM instead of the S-300PMU. Moreover, it now plans to sell it to Syria as well.
It supplies America’s enemies – Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and even Hezbollah – with diplomatic protection and (excepting NK and Cuba) with weapons. Russia’s deputy foreign minister has even said this about Hezbollah:
“We cooperate with Hezb’allah and respect the Lebanese people’s will… this party, which has proven its credibility [over the course of time], must [have its opinions] respected.”
Russia has built nuclear reactors in Iran, has supplied tons of nuclear fuel to that country, and continues to supply it with that, as well as weapons and diplomatic protection. If Iran ever acquires a nuclear weapon, let alone uses it against anyone, Russia will be directly responsible.
Russia had the Boston bombers (the Tsarnayev brothers) wiretapped for months before the Boston bomb attack, and withheld critical information from US intel and law enforcement – information that could’ve prevented the terrorist attack. In other words, it willfully allowed the terrorist attacks to succeed. (But that doesn’t stop Putin from deceitfully posing as a friend of the US, and many Americans, including many Republicans like Dana Rohrabacher and Pat Buchanan, from being utterly duped by Putin.)
Moscow also continues to widely disseminate anti-American propaganda – at home and in the US itself – through state-owned radio and TV channels such as “Russia Today”/RT, which broadcasts in the US and on the Internet, is wholly owned and operated by the Kremlin, employs Russian propagandists and some useful American idiots, and spreads vociferous anti-American propaganda. (And because of births of a feather tend to flock together, Ron Paul fans like Julie Borowski love to appear on that channel.)
RussiaToday is, BTW, operating ILLEGALLY in the US, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires all those who perform PR work for a foreign actor, and all media outlets which perform such work or present a foreign actor’s viewpoint or propaganda, to register at the DOJ as foreign agents, constantly notify the DOJ of their financial operations, and, in case of TV channels, permanently display a “Acts on behalf of a foreign actor” strip on the TV screen.
RT has not satisfied any of these legal requirements, meaning that it is operating illegally in the US and is thus a criminal organization.
And, as a part of their craven appeasement policies, the Bush and Obama administrations have tolerated this.
You can see what persons and entities have registered in the US on behalf of any country here. Pick “Russia” from the list and see for yourself – the RussiaToday channel has NOT registered as with the DOJ as an agent of the Russian government.
Russia has been busy for the last several years building an increasingly capable missile defense system – while demanding that the US stop developing and upgrading its own and foreswear deploying it abroad.
Moscow has, simoultaneously, been pursuing an offensive arms race against the US – extending the service lifetimes of its current weapons while ordering large numbers of new ones. On order are, inter alia, 400 new ICBMs, hundreds of SLBMs, 8 ballistic missile subs, hundreds of 5th generation stealthy PAKFA fighters, and new tanks. Russia is also building new Tu-160 from stockpiled components and developing a new, stealthy bomber – the PAK DA. Russia’s navy is building new, more capable classes of ships as well, and one Akula class submarine spied on the USN’s submarine base at Kings Bay (GA) last year.
In the last year, Russia’s provocative and hostile actions have only worsened, as it has begun flying nuclear-armed bombers (and their escort fighters) very near US airspace and twice INTO Japanese airspace, as well as into Swedish airspace once. This included simulated strikes on US missile defense sites in Alaska, California, and Japan, on Japanese bases, on US bases in Guam (a strategically important island in the Western Pacific), and Sweden’s military bases.
When asked by reporters what they were doing flying close to Alaska, the Russians said they were “practicing attacking the enemy.”
This is what they consider the US to be: “the enemy.” Those are their words, not mine.
In September, the civilized world observed the 30th anniversary of the Soviet massacre of KAL007, a civilian airliner that erroneously ventured into Soviet airspace and was shot down. The commander of the base from which the Su-15 interceptors executing the shootdown originated was one Anatoliy Kornukov – later Commander of the Russian AF under Yeltsin and Putin, photographed happily sharing drinks with the later.
This criminal is one of Putin’s drinking friends.
But I’m not surprised. Once a KGB thug, always a KGB thug. Putin has spent his entire adult life learning to hate and to destroy, then trying to destroy, the Western civilization, including the US. He’ll never change, just like an Islamic terrorist will never forego jihad. What I am surprised by is that so many Americans were so foolish that they reelected Barack Obama, the author of the “reset” appeasement policy, last year – over the realist, tough, no-nonsense Gov. Mitt Romney. November 6th, 2012, will likely be the most shameful date in American history for perpetuity.
Below: Photos of Vladimir Putin meeting and shaking hands with other virulently anti-American dictators around the world.
