Putin: Great Visionary or Just Lost

[Lauren Johnson]

Much of alternative understanding of Putin leadership is that he is the spanner in the inevitability of the NWO. Novorussiya. Syria. China. The SCO. A gold back Ruble and Yuan. An alternative to the dollar based hegemonic system that brings on a crash of the US debt system. The Russian S-400 missile defense system creates a virtual no-fly zone over Syria. And so on.

There are becoming more and more problems with this interpretation.

First, President Mevedev recently visited China. (If I could read Russian I could give more details.) Apparently, China has sent communicated its unhappiness with the current direction of the RF. Paraphrasing, China thinks says that Russia is now in a strategic dead end with its Ukrainian and Syrian as well as its economic policies.

Here are some of the strange events. Despite Russia's support for Assad or any Syrian official has ever been seen representing his country in any of the meetings. Russia in what can only be described as confused is it negotiations with the US, which it apparently knows is dedicated to its subservience. It's supposed war against ISIS, now includes a new policy of arming the Free Syrian Army, which is clearly composed of Islamists. Russia knows that the US sponsors ISIS, and has only pretended to attack it. Now, the Saudis have put together a coalition of 34 groups and have somehow provided a representative in the alleged future peace talks. Russia is all in on the deal.

In the meantime, Israel has bombed Damascus and killed a Hezbollah leader. Hezbollah apparently is beginning retaliation by sending a rocket into Israel. But Hezbollah a key ally in the fight against the FSA, et. al., gets no support when Israel attacks. Assad is not happy; but he doesn't count. The US, the UK, France have continued to bomb ineffectively, except for the highly effective bombing attack by US aircraft destroying many Iraqi fighters opposing ISIS forces. The oil convoys are now switching to Iraq routes protected by the newly invading Turkish forces occupying Mosul.

Russia is only displaying its weakness in this gambit.

And then there is the Donbass. The Kremlin wants it to just go away. Minsk I. Minsk II. Minsk III?

The Russian economic policies seem for the most part to be a copy of The Empire. The Russian Central Bank recently raised rates to 17%. There have been all kinds of proposals to break away from the West, including one from the Orthodox Church to provide free interest loans within Russia. Putin continues to be proud of how Russia continues to meet its commitments to the West, while the Ukrainian government has been allowed to default on its debt to Russia by the IMF.

The Putin led Kremlin appears to be a mass of confusion.

My read: Putin hopes to (somehow) become a global player again by leveraging his gambits in the Ukraine and Syria and by his closer ties with China. So far, his bizarre efforts appear to be failing badly. He would have to abandon the neo-liberal model for another economic model. I doubt he has any intention to do that. It may not even be possible.

[Magda Hassan]

Putin is already a global player. Which is resented by the west. However there is some confusion. He is not Yeltsin and he is not Stalin either. I also think this needs to be seen in the recent context of set backs in Argentina and Venezuela. I can understand China's frustration. Which cannot be more than those in the Donbass. There should be a plebiscite there and be done with it. The west will never accept it any way any more than they accepted Crimea and Russia need to stop trying to appeal to western approval or acceptance. The neo-cons will only ever accept Russia as a pliant vassal state. There has been at least a couple of decades of US neo-con managers who have had the run of the place and their influence and imposed structures needs to be purged for the most part. This is not an easy thing to do. But not impossible. There is still much of the previous structure there for the uncovering. I can say more but I have to go now.

[Michael Barwell]

...Assad is not happy...

The Russkis've been showing-off their wares to Sky; not sure if these vids show the singing pro-Assad Syrian journos, but they seem chuffed with Putins commitment to the Assad regime, & I presume Assad hisselfs just fine with it (hardly anything works now for me on the libraries computers - no vids, not much opportunity to check much; a blank page is YT these days, so I get dickheads ligging around with a YT page up, on Spiderman... -just so I know..) - http://news.sky.com/story/1609650/russia...t-in-syria .

RE: plebiscite in Ukraine; not sure that they had one in Kosovo, Serbia being Russia's pal an' all. It can't be just me who thinks the 'UN' taking a chunk of a sovereign states territory and handing it elsewhere is a bit odd.

I think the 'west' - loosely, is now a psychopathic militarists playground of insane hero-complexers, what with the broad range of influencing techniques an' all - some people are extremely susceptible to the mind machine, aggressively so - they think that what's in their mind is their own mind at work; doubtless, this very transient & real-time influencing includes 'foreign' politicians every bit as much as media-types; 'brainwashing'-torture-murder is now firmly within the traditional civic sphere of influence. Cameron seems to be all-over the place atm, in the sense of a Tourettesey jerkiness of aims & ambitions recently; I wonder whether he's on the end of it too, on occaision, and poor bloody Obama - high hopes dashed there - and then some.

[Lauren Johnson]

Putin is already a global player.

I fully agree, and the US/NATO goal is make sure that comes to an end.

My thesis is that Putin hopes that the West will back off on this goal given his strategies of parlaying his gambits into Syria and the Donbass via diplomacy into the survival of Russian independence, while maintaining the economic and political status quo. He's trying to tip toe past a lot of graveyards populated with zombies.

Dimitri Orlov said some time ago that Putin's weakness is that he is a statist in his adoption of Western capitalist models. I think he sees Russia as being European and that he still wants to be seen as a peer with Angel Merkel.

I think he's trying to fly an iron dirigible.

EDIT: Here is a another of Putin from Israel Shamir.

Heavy darkness befalls the North; the sun rarely emerges from between the clouds. This year, Russia has noticeably less street illumination, and the spirits are anything but festive. Only the whiteness of the snow and Christmas trees break the gloom and remind us of the forthcoming low point of the cosmic wheel, Yuletide, when days starts to wax and nights to wane. As this stellar event foretells the Nativity of our Savior, this is a period of hope after a very difficult year, all over the world.

Putin supporters are unhappy

The Russians keep guessing what President Putin will tell them in his traditional televised address to the nation at the break of the New Year. He should say, this year is over, and we shall all cheer, people propose. Even the most optimistic ones are disappointed by lacklustre economic performance, and they blame the government of Prime Minister Medvedev and his liberal monetarist team. Meanwhile Putin rises above the blame game, but the government is less and less popular.

• As the Rouble drops, even the rather pro-Kremlin mass-circulation newspaper KP (full disclosure: I write an occasional column for the KP) published a call for the economy and finance ministers to resign or to be fired. There is a very little chance that Mr Putin will take this advice and clean his government stables.
  
• He could beef up his credit by dumping some (or all) of his ministers, but Putin is stubborn and unusually loyal to his colleagues. No accusation has ever convinced him to dismiss a man of his team. His former defence minister Mr Serdyukov has allegedly been involved in some shady dealing, while Serdyukov's paramour and assistant amassed millions by selling prime MOD assets to her cronies. Still, Putin did not dump him, and saved him from jail. (He had to resign to become a CEO, while she served a few weeks in prison, at most).
  
• Last week, the opposition leader Mr Navalny aired some heavy charges against Attorney General Chayka. For his defence, Chayka said that the man behind the campaign is the notorious Mr Browder. Browder is an American crook who managed to appropriate many high-quality Russian assets for pennies during Yeltsin's privatisation. Eventually he was forced to part with his loot and he has been sentenced to many years of jail in absentia. Browder is slime, no doubt, but it is a weak defence for Chayka. Still, Putin refused to drop Chayka or even to initiate an independent investigation of his alleged crimes.
  
• Putin stands by the most hated politician of Yeltsin's era, Mr Anatoly Chubays. TheFinancial Times called him Father to the Oligarchs. After leaving the government, Chubays has been appointed to lead the RUSNANO, a state-owned corporation notorious for its embezzlement and waste. Putin saved him many times over from prosecution.
  
• Putin went, hat in hand, to Yekaterinburg for the grand opening of Boris Yeltsin's Memorial Centre (price tag nine billion roubles) and referred kindly to the loathed late President who appointed him his successor. People were furious seeing their president enjoying himself among the carpetbaggers of Yeltsin's regime.
  
• Can you imagine Fox TV transmitting Russian propaganda? In Russia, a major chunk of Russian media, state-owned or subsidised by the taxpayer, transmits pro-Western and anti-Russian agenda, alleged the eminent film director Nikita Michalkov, a staunch supporter of Putin, in his video seen by over two million viewers in a few days. He called upon Putin to assert his line and banish the enemies within, but state TV refused to broadcast the video.
  
• Putin's recent press-conference provided a chance for more criticism. Beside the points mentioned above, the journalists asked why state enterprise CEOs are paid millions of dollars a year, while everybody else is called upon to tighten the belt. They asked why the Russian Central Bank keeps buying US bonds and supports the US Dollar at the expense of the Rouble. They asked why import substitution does not work etc.
  

These are protests from the pro-Putin crowd, from people who supported his takeover of Crimea and his entry into Syrian war. They could bear some deprivation, but they are upset by Putin's condoning thieves, by his apparent cronyism, by his oligarch friends. Until now, the critics avoided attacking Putin, but these are the early swallows. Dr Stepan Sulakshin, the head of a Moscow think tank, publicly accused Putin of knowingly leading Russia into further degradation.

This bubbling dissatisfaction of Putin's supporters may yet turn more dangerous for the president than the 2011 Fronde of his hipster enemies. Meanwhile, head-strong Mr Putin does not wish to yield ground, sacrifice some of more hated ministers and CEOs, or attune internal policies to public expectations. Perhaps he is right, and things are not what they appear, but justice must be seen, not only done.

Talking Turkey with Israel

The Turkish friction caused by Erdogan's decision to shoot down the Russian bomber is another source of Putin's blues. He had spent a lot of effort nurturing relations with Turkey. All this effort went down the drain. There are multimillion projects, from a gas pipeline to tourism. All that was cut down at once. Putin's plans to deliver gas to Europe bypassing the hostile Ukraine collapsed. This is a huge setback for the Russian president.

The rhetoric between the leaders became acrimonious. Hotheads in Russia speak of seizing the Bosporus and Dardanelles, of turning Istanbul into Constantinople and planting the cross on the ancient St Sophia church. The Turkish president threatened to occupy Russia within one week with help of NATO.

Turkey's choice is a result of its over-involvement in Syria. With so much investment, Erdogan was loath to see Syria gone. While his decision to down the Russian jet was rather extreme, the relations already were tense.

Putin's trip to Erevan and his condemnation of "Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915" was an unnecessary provocation. No other world leader did it, but Francois Hollande of France who flew in for two hours and proceeded to Baku, the capital of Azeri Turks thus levelling the playing field. I actually called upon Putin to avoid this step, but the strong Armenian lobby insisted on this trip.

Afterwards, there was a supposed leak (in reality: a fake) of a harsh and insulting conversation between Putin and the Turkish ambassador. I checked with the Ambassador and other sides. It was a fake, but this fake has been spread in millions of sites and posts.

However, the $64,000 question is about Syria: will it become a vassal state to the reconstituted Ottomans or will it remain a sovereign state with strong ties to Russia. Russia thought it has a stronger hand as an invitee of the Syrian legitimate government; Turkey denied Bashar's legitimacy.

The rift between Turkey and Russia became a fact. Its main beneficiaries were the US and Israel. For the last five years, the relations between Israel and Turkey were hostile, since Israeli commandos massacred nine peace activists on board the Turkish vessel Navi Marmara. In face of the Russian threat, the Turks agreed to make peace with Israel.

Israel is involved in the conflict more than it admits. The Russians has published their evidence of Daesh oil being smuggled to Turkey by Turkish companies. This caused a lot of indignation in Russia and elsewhere. How do they dare to buy stolen oil and finance the terrorists!
The Russians forgot to mention that the smuggled oil goes to Israel. Israel is the main buyer of oil produced by the Kurds and by Daesh. This was reported and corroborated by the FT and by Al Araby al Jadeed. The Russian media avoided the topic, as Putin cherishes his good relations with Netanyahu.

Last week, Israelis attacked suburbs of Damascus and killed some Russian allies, Hezbollah fighters. Again, Russians took it quietly. None of indignation caused by downing of the bomber seeped into the Russian media.

Israel supports al-Nusra, declared a terrorist organisation by the UN. This is not a secret: recently the Daily Mail published a report glorifying Israeli soldiers saving lives of the Islamist fighters. Thousands of wounded guerrillas received medical assistance in Israeli hospitals and went back to fight Bashar.

Israel has a good working relations with Daesh, too. I was told that Daesh troops entered the Palestinian camp al Yarmuk being equipped with long lists of Palestinian activists. They were assembled and publicly executed. The Palestinians think that Daesh received the names from Israeli secret service and acted upon their request. Moreover, Daesh never ever attacked a Zionist target.

Putin and Russian media did not say a word on that. Perhaps Putin is right; Russia does not need such a strong enemy as Israel, since Israeli leaders can say "Jump, Uncle Sam," and Uncle Sam will ask "How high?" However, they could tone down their indignation regarding Turkish oil smuggling, Turkish help to the guerrillas and other Turkish misdeeds.

Israel is objectively an enemy: it is an enemy of Russia's allies Hezbollah and Iran; it wants dismemberment of Syria in order to keep Golan Heights for good; it prefers a Somalised Syria to a healthy and strong one. But Netanyahu plays his hand cautiously despite his feeling of invulnerability.

The Israeli attack on the Damascus suburbs took place despite the Russian C-400 operating in Syria. Experts say the C-400 has been placed in Latakia and it can't effectively protect the skies above the Syrian capital, while the C-300 purchased by the Syrians and located in Damascus has been hit by Israelis. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force is training at avoiding and coping with a C-300 in Cyprus, as that country has a C-300 of its own, recently bought from the Russians.

Putin has nothing to gain from confrontation with Israel; Israel prefers to have its way without fighting the Russians. Perhaps, sooner or later, the Israeli and Russian Air Forces will joust; but meanwhile both sides prefer to postpone that moment.

Putin hopes Erdogan will give up on Syria. This is not an easy task, but not an impossible one, either. For that, Putin must work with President Obama or with the next American President.

Putin vs Western Leaders

It is often said that President Obama is a weak leader. I do not think so. He is a wily and sophisticated player. He voids every agreement his country made with Russia. There were, and are agreements galore: from Minsk to the recent UN SC resolutions. At first (and second) sight, the agreements follow the Russian line. Otherwise, the Russians would not sign them. However, after a while Obama offers a different interpretation. I would not like to argue against him in a court of law. He is as tricky as any lawyer.

Did he give up on the "Assad must go" mantra? It is not clear. He, and his Secretary of State John Kerry sometimes say that he may stay, but quickly contradict themselves and insist on his departure. They introduce new and peculiar ideas daily. For example, they say "Only Sunnis may deal with the Syrian crisis". This strange idea inspired the Saudis and they even claimed they organised a huge coalition of Sunni states to fight Daesh. Needless to say, within a few days this "coalition" vanished like dew under sunrays.

However, at the bottom line, Obama plays by a Cold War script against Russia. Like a drunkard accuses others of heavy drinking, he accused Mitt Romney of "Cold War thinking", and warned Putin of his "Cold War thinking", but as a disciple of Zbigniew Brzezinski he hardly can think of anything else. Even Pentagon generals complained about this matrix of his mind, says Seymour Hersh.

There is nothing Putin wants less than a new round of the Cold War. He is not a new Soviet leader. People who dream of a new Stalin are barking up a wrong tree. One may regret it, and many Russians do regret it, but Putin has no great plans of social rearrangement. His ambition is more modest: he wants Russia to be independent, prosperous, great, and equal to other great nations like it was in 19th century.

Last week I was at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum, a gathering of artists, curators, and art ministers from 40 countries, and it was clear that Putin's Russia is much more interested in its pre-revolutionary past and in the 19th century in general, than in 20thor 21st century art. They performed a lost play by Puccini, they reconstructed Petipaballets, they read Tolstoy. They rebuilt palaces, they fixed old theatres, even the pre-revolutionary circus had been returned to its old glory inclusive of its old well-forgotten name and the royal circle. So many restaurants bear names reminding everyone of the Tsar times.

There is a wind of nostalgia in Russia, and it is for Russia of Leo Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. Putin has ordered that the remains of the White generals, philosophers, artists be brought back for burial on the Russian soil. Soviet and Communist memories are suppressed. Recently, Prime Minister Medvedev called for another bout of commemorations for Stalin's victims. I am not sure that this is a wise policy; perhaps it would be better to let past to take care of itself. But here we are: Putin and his crowd are old-style liberals, not social reformers. They do not want to raise the banner of revolt. They want to fit into the world as it is, but as equals.

The problem is, there are people who are hell-bent on hegemony and full-spectrum dominance, and they are not likely to allow Russia to go its own way. They want to impose their rules, and set in place their docile rulers. That's why the very modest intentions of Putin meet so much resistance in NATO and the Pentagon, in the White House and in Westminster. What's worse, these people already control the mainstream politics of many countries, from the US to Japan, to France and Sweden. It does not matter which of the mainstream politicians win elections, the result is the same.

Putin's (and Russia's) hope lays in politicians outside the controlled mainstream. Donald Trump is a good example. Putin is not particularly interested in US internal politics and in Mr Trump's unusual proposals. This is an internal matter of the US, and Putin steers clear of it, like he wants the US to steer clear of Russia's internal matters. For him, what is important, is that Trump's America would not try to dominate the world and impose its agenda. The moral question whether Trump's ideas about Muslims or Latinos are lofty or base is a question for the American people to decide. Putin and many other foreign leaders want America's non-interference in their internal affairs.

The rude Mr. Trump seems to be the candidate least likely to push the button for nuclear suicide of mankind. Much less likely than nice Mrs Clinton who could nuke Russia because Russians do not celebrate gay marriages. Remember, her nice husband bombed Belgrade because the nasty Serbs did not allow for the secession of Croats (or was it Albanians?)

Trump or any straightforward decent politician who does not take orders from the Masters of Discourse would be able to play ball with Mr Putin, by classical rules of international law. Trump and Putin could return the concept of sovereignty to its privileged position. This would end many wars. The war in Syria began when Mr Obama and Mr Hollande said "Assad must go". By the classical rules, no state may interfere in the affairs of another sovereign state. From the Russian point of view, the war in Syria is first of all a war for sovereignty and against global Imperial vassaldom.

The Russians want to light their Christmas trees and wish Merry Christmas and go with their women and children to a Christian church without being scolded by the Obamas and Clintons of this world for insufficient political correctness and failure to mention Kwanzaa.

That's why it is important for all of us if we may hope to reach peace, this Christmas or the next one.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
This article was first published at The Unz Review

[Magda Hassan]

.

My thesis is that Putin hopes that the West will back off on this goal given his strategies of parlaying his gambits into Syria and the Donbass via diplomacy into the survival of Russian independence, while maintaining the economic and political status quo. He's trying to tip toe past a lot of graveyards populated with zombies.

The west is not going to back off. Insane to think otherwise.

Dimitri Orlov said some time ago that Putin's weakness is that he is a statist in his adoption of Western capitalist models. I think he sees Russia as being European and that he still wants to be seen as a peer with Angel Merkel.

Orlov's weakness is he a Libertarian and thinks all problems can be solved by abandoning nation states and by living on a big boat in international waters. However, he is correct here in that Putin is too wanting to be accepted by the west as an equal. He will never be accepted as long as the western Anglo American empire is dominant. At least Stalin, coming from Georgia, knew Russia was also an Asian country. And he didn't give a shit about western acceptance or not.



EDIT: Here is a another of Putin from Israel Shamir.

• As the Rouble drops, even the rather pro-Kremlin mass-circulation newspaper KP (full disclosure: I write an occasional column for the KP) published a call for the economy and finance ministers to resign or to be fired. There is a very little chance that Mr Putin will take this advice and clean his government stables.
  
• He could beef up his credit by dumping some (or all) of his ministers, but Putin is stubborn and unusually loyal to his colleagues. No accusation has ever convinced him to dismiss a man of his team. His former defence minister Mr Serdyukov has allegedly been involved in some shady dealing, while Serdyukov's paramour and assistant amassed millions by selling prime MOD assets to her cronies. Still, Putin did not dump him, and saved him from jail. (He had to resign to become a CEO, while she served a few weeks in prison, at most).
  
• Last week, the opposition leader Mr Navalny aired some heavy charges against Attorney General Chayka. For his defence, Chayka said that the man behind the campaign is the notorious Mr Browder. Browder is an American crook who managed to appropriate many high-quality Russian assets for pennies during Yeltsin's privatisation. Eventually he was forced to part with his loot and he has been sentenced to many years of jail in absentia. Browder is slime, no doubt, but it is a weak defence for Chayka. Still, Putin refused to drop Chayka or even to initiate an independent investigation of his alleged crimes.
  
• Putin stands by the most hated politician of Yeltsin's era, Mr Anatoly Chubays. TheFinancial Times called him Father to the Oligarchs. After leaving the government, Chubays has been appointed to lead the RUSNANO, a state-owned corporation notorious for its embezzlement and waste. Putin saved him many times over from prosecution.
  
• Putin went, hat in hand, to Yekaterinburg for the grand opening of Boris Yeltsin's Memorial Centre (price tag nine billion roubles) and referred kindly to the loathed late President who appointed him his successor. People were furious seeing their president enjoying himself among the carpetbaggers of Yeltsin's regime.
  
• Can you imagine Fox TV transmitting Russian propaganda? In Russia, a major chunk of Russian media, state-owned or subsidised by the taxpayer, transmits pro-Western and anti-Russian agenda, alleged the eminent film director Nikita Michalkov, a staunch supporter of Putin, in his video seen by over two million viewers in a few days. He called upon Putin to assert his line and banish the enemies within, but state TV refused to broadcast the video.
  
• Putin's recent press-conference provided a chance for more criticism. Beside the points mentioned above, the journalists asked why state enterprise CEOs are paid millions of dollars a year, while everybody else is called upon to tighten the belt. They asked why the Russian Central Bank keeps buying US bonds and supports the US Dollar at the expense of the Rouble. They asked why import substitution does not work etc.
  

These are protests from the pro-Putin crowd, from people who supported his takeover of Crimea and his entry into Syrian war. They could bear some deprivation, but they are upset by Putin's condoning thieves, by his apparent cronyism, by his oligarch friends. Until now, the critics avoided attacking Putin, but these are the early swallows. Dr Stepan Sulakshin, the head of a Moscow think tank, publicly accused Putin of knowingly leading Russia into further degradation.

All of this is problematic for Putin.

The Turkish friction caused by Erdogan's decision to shoot down the Russian bomber is another source of Putin's blues. He had spent a lot of effort nurturing relations with Turkey. All this effort went down the drain. There are multimillion projects, from a gas pipeline to tourism. All that was cut down at once. Putin's plans to deliver gas to Europe bypassing the hostile Ukraine collapsed. This is a huge setback for the Russian president.

Yes, huge set back. Should have worked with Serbia, Montenegro and Greece.

The rift between Turkey and Russia became a fact. Its main beneficiaries were the US and Israel. For the last five years, the relations between Israel and Turkey were hostile, since Israeli commandos massacred nine peace activists on board the Turkish vessel Navi Marmara. In face of the Russian threat, the Turks agreed to make peace with Israel.

Turkey totally capitulated to Israeli demands. Completely sold out their own murdered citizens. Not sure how well this will play out for Erdogan.

Israel has a good working relations with Daesh, too. I was told that Daesh troops entered the Palestinian camp al Yarmuk being equipped with long lists of Palestinian activists. They were assembled and publicly executed. The Palestinians think that Daesh received the names from Israeli secret service and acted upon their request. Moreover, Daesh never ever attacked a Zionist target.

Well, isn't that interesting....?

Even Pentagon generals complained about this matrix of his mind, says Seymour Hersh.

I am finding Hersh's comments very interesting. Shows there are faction in the military that are not supportive of their C in C nor are they of the Cheney brigade.

His ambition is more modest: he wants Russia to be independent, prosperous, great, and equal to other great nations like it was in 19th century...... There is a wind of nostalgia in Russia, and it is for Russia of Leo Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. Putin has ordered that the remains of the White generals, philosophers, artists be brought back for burial on the Russian soil. Soviet and Communist memories are suppressed. Recently, Prime Minister Medvedev called for another bout of commemorations for Stalin's victims. I am not sure that this is a wise policy; perhaps it would be better to let past to take care of itself. But here we are: Putin and his crowd are old-style liberals, not social reformers. They do not want to raise the banner of revolt. They want to fit into the world as it is, but as equals.

Russia was then an irrelevant primitive provincial backwater. Russia is truly doomed then if this is the limit of his and others vision. They were never accepted as equals by Europe then and will not be now.

The problem is, there are people who are hell-bent on hegemony and full-spectrum dominance, and they are not likely to allow Russia to go its own way. They want to impose their rules, and set in place their docile rulers. That's why the very modest intentions of Putin meet so much resistance in NATO and the Pentagon, in the White House and in Westminster. What's worse, these people already control the mainstream politics of many countries, from the US to Japan, to France and Sweden. It does not matter which of the mainstream politicians win elections, the result is the same.

Putin's (and Russia's) hope lays in politicians outside the controlled mainstream. Donald Trump is a good example. Putin is not particularly interested in US internal politics and in Mr Trump's unusual proposals. This is an internal matter of the US, and Putin steers clear of it, like he wants the US to steer clear of Russia's internal matters. For him, what is important, is that Trump's America would not try to dominate the world and impose its agenda. The moral question whether Trump's ideas about Muslims or Latinos are lofty or base is a question for the American people to decide. Putin and many other foreign leaders want America's non-interference in their internal affairs.

The rude Mr. Trump seems to be the candidate least likely to push the button for nuclear suicide of mankind. Much less likely than nice Mrs Clinton who could nuke Russia because Russians do not celebrate gay marriages. Remember, her nice husband bombed Belgrade because the nasty Serbs did not allow for the secession of Croats (or was it Albanians?)

Trump or any straightforward decent politician who does not take orders from the Masters of Discourse would be able to play ball with Mr Putin, by classical rules of international law. Trump and Putin could return the concept of sovereignty to its privileged position. This would end many wars.

This is true. And I hate most of what Trump has said, horrified by some of what he has said, and he would make a terrible president for many reasons but on the foreign policy side he sounds far preferable to Hilary and the other Republicans. I don't find any thing nice about Hilary at all. Sanders will be best for everyone and I'm really holding out for Jeremy Corbyn in the UK to get some sanity in politics.

[Peter Lemkin]

Putin [and his power base] feels very vulnerable, and is now going to start silencing his political enemies [I'd expect some strange deaths in coming weeks and months]. Just yesterday Russia issued an arrest order for murder in 1998 [they hadn't discovered in all these years they had him in prison] for Khordorkovsky. Putin is a clever player of international politics, but a democrat he is not....in analogous ways to his counterparts in the 'West' are not either - although there are differences in 'style'. Sadly, totalitarianism of various flavors are coming to the fore all over the world now. I think we are entering a very dark age indeed. Evil and Power seem to be subsuming everything everywhere. Intelligence agencies, police, and militaries are doing the bidding of those few in power. While it was ever thus, the levels of repression and modest freedom varies over time and place; now, freedoms seem to be shutting down most everywhere - certainly in the larger countries - and repression coming fast, like a growing storm........::. Since we are talking Russian and Putin here, I offer this recent chess move......
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia has issued an international arrest warrant for Mikhail Khodorkovsky on suspicion of ordering a contract killing, investigators said on Wednesday, prompting the former oil tycoon to declare the Kremlin had gone mad.
The move came a day after armed police raided the Moscow offices of a pro-democracy movement founded by Khodorkovsky, one of President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critics.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was pardoned by Putin in 2013 and freed after a decade in jail on fraud charges he says were politically motivated. He has angered the Kremlin in recent months with critical statements.
He accused Putin in November of leading Russia into a 1970s Soviet-style period of stagnation that could eventually trigger the country's collapse. Earlier this month he said a peaceful revolution was "inevitable"
Russian investigators said they had concluded that Khodorkovsky, then head of the now defunct Yukos oil company, had ordered subordinates to kill Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, a Siberian oil town, in 1998.
Petukhov was shot dead by a gunman near his office.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, said Khodorkovsky's motive for allegedly ordering the official's murder was related to Petukhov's demands for Yukos to pay local taxes he said it was evading.
"WANTED FUGITIVE"
Markin said Khodorkovsky had also ordered the killing of a businessman, Evgeny Rybin, who was shot at in 1998 and had his car bombed the following year but survived.
"For the investigation, it is completely obvious that these crimes were carried out for mercenary motives," Markin said in a statement. "We declare Mikhail Khodorkovsky a wanted fugitive internationally."
Khodorkovsky denies the allegations and condemned the decision, suggesting it was politically motivated.
"They have gone mad," he said of the Kremlin, saying his arrest in absentia had been approved "without any obvious facts."
He told a news conference earlier this month that the Kremlin had been using the Petukhov murder case against him since 2003 to punish him for speaking out about corruption in Russia.
"The murder was solved that same year, 1998, and the presumed perpetrators were arrested. (But) for some reason, they were then freed and were subsequently killed," he said.
Khodorkovsky left Russia immediately after being released in 2013, and now spends his time mostly in London and Switzerland.
A spokesman for Putin said there was no contradiction between the president pardoning Khodorkovsky and the businessman then being declared an international fugitive.
"The head of state takes decisions about pardoning people on the basis of appeals, but a decision about an investigation or declaring someone a fugitive ... is not taken by him. It is taken by investigators," said the spokesman.

[Richard Coleman]

Just in case any of you guys might be interested in letting Putin speak for himself...comments delivered by President Vladimir Putin, who just one day earlier had berated Western powers in the UN General Assembly for the massive mess they had created in the region.

"I'm urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you've done? But I'm afraid that this question will remain unanswered, because they have never abandoned their policy, which is based on arrogance, exceptionalism and impunity," Putin told the audience.


The Russian leader went on to make a direct connection between the West's blundering foreign policy, which has recklessly usurped various leaders and governments without any clear idea as to what or who will fill the vacuum, and the rise of Islamic State.


"The so-called Islamic State has tens of thousands of militants fighting for it, including former Iraqi soldiers who were left on the street after the 2003 invasion. Many recruits come from Libya whose statehood was destroyed... And now radical groups are joined by members of the so-called 'moderate' Syrian opposition backed by the West. They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join the so-called Islamic State," he noted.

Confused, huh? Lost, huh?

Opportunities to hear Putin speak FOR HIMSELF: (there are many more)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7fsXGWiuDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwWMaJJ_MSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjrlTMvirVo *::rockon::

*I REALLY LIKE THIS ONE!! Can you imagine any American president talking to a bunch of thieving, lying businessmen like this? Other than JFK of course.........

[Lauren Johnson]

Just in case any of you guys might be interested in letting Putin speak for himself...comments delivered by President Vladimir Putin, who just one day earlier had berated Western powers in the UN General Assembly for the massive mess they had created in the region.

"I'm urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you've done? But I'm afraid that this question will remain unanswered, because they have never abandoned their policy, which is based on arrogance, exceptionalism and impunity," Putin told the audience.


The Russian leader went on to make a direct connection between the West's blundering foreign policy, which has recklessly usurped various leaders and governments without any clear idea as to what or who will fill the vacuum, and the rise of Islamic State.


"The so-called Islamic State has tens of thousands of militants fighting for it, including former Iraqi soldiers who were left on the street after the 2003 invasion. Many recruits come from Libya whose statehood was destroyed... And now radical groups are joined by members of the so-called 'moderate' Syrian opposition backed by the West. They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join the so-called Islamic State," he noted.

Confused, huh? Lost, huh?

Opportunities to hear Putin speak FOR HIMSELF: (there are many more)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7fsXGWiuDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwWMaJJ_MSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjrlTMvirVo *::rockon::

*I REALLY LIKE THIS ONE!! Can you imagine any American president talking to a bunch of thieving, lying businessmen like this? Other than JFK of course.........

Thanks Richard. I love that speech. At the UN in front of the assembled nation's representatives. Ouch.

Nevertheless, I am arguing that Putin speech needs to be interpreted in the light of entire range of actions by the Russian Federation. I don't pretend to live inside of Putin's mind or that of the Kremlin, for that matter. Just yesterday for example, Surkov complained that the US behavior is not conducive to constructive communication. Oh, really? Ya think?

My goal in this thread is to get people to think more critically about Putin. The Putin fan club that The Saker was hosting just no longer holds water. Furthermore, he hardly mentions Novorussiya any more and how it will bring salvation to Russia and the world. All signs are that Putin wants it to go away.

[Lauren Johnson]

An excellent critique of the Russian elites by Vladimir Suchan. He sees Putin as another version of Yeltsin. I am beginning to think he is correct.

The Cold War was not only a geopolitical clash, it was, as well known, also a clash of ideologies (both of which were products of the Western Enlightenment/Illumination/Lustration). The Cold War was, however, also a clash of political cultures. It would certainly be a gross simplification, but one which does hold an important kernel of the truth within, that at first jazz and then rock'n roll were something, which the Soviet Union and its top-down heavy and progressively bureaucratically deadening "culture" could not match or outgun. If the early 1960s were marked by the triumph of Soviet cosmos and rocket technology, the cultural revolution of that time was a global revolution blazed by the American spirit.

In this regard, bureaucrats, especially the soulless ones or those spiritually dead, either tend to see culture not much more than a can of worms with some occasional mass diversion functions and if these do show any taste, it weighs heavily on the side of the vulgar and the base, but of an especially hollow kind (think of Yeltsin or the other one). In a sense, the Cold War was also decided by a competition of the two systems' music and "spirit of music." Had someone like Nietzsche lived today or in those days, we would have had a very interesting book about it, which would be very instructive and valuable in this respect.

In this regard, we do also know that, despite occasional pretense or protestations to the contrary, the Russian leadership and the current Russian elite (oligarchy, really a hybrid and merger of certain sections of the KGB, former party bosses, the mafia, and the higher state apparatchiks), their desire and goal, which they do regularly state openly and vehemently, is to be part of Western (political) culture (and the Western elite) as they understand and perceive it.

So, if one wants to be objective and realistic, one has to recognize (without aspiring to be any Tocqueville) that U.S. political culture includes certain traits and strengths that proved to be not only more popular in the end, but that they also had more vitality and were not only more "compatible with the next stage of the development of the production forces and relations of productions," as they used to say, but also more conducive to the demands and requirements of technological progress. In my view, the deep down reason for this was quite simple--the ugly truth was that the bureaucrats did lack proper political and even social culture and what they have was a strong sense of jealousy for other people's excellence, talents, worth, and intelligence. Once you give these people with such a character power over others, there is not much that can save or redeem the situation.

No system is inexhaustible, and each system can afford to neglect and waste human and social capital only up to a certain point of perceived "return," behind which lurks the point of no return. In its initial phase and first decades, the Soviet system unleashed and tapped into an enormous human potential and power. The final phases were those of mortification--some of its planned, some of it out of ignorance, other part out of utter disdain for human potential, and the rest was due to incompetence.

Anyway, much of this was to serve but as a sort of musing and introduction for acknowledging and singling out these peculiar traits in American political culture--its pragmatism (a sense of realism and a focus on the results), the enormous drive, which lifeless and soulless bureaucrats cannot quite match, unless they mistake energy for some their outbursts of anger, sophistication (good liberal arts education helped the Romans, helped the British, and also helped the US elites), and, at times, even a sort of disarming honesty (contrast that, for example, with the veil of secrecy with which Putin is trying to shroud his daughters and their billions, thus according them the status of the highest state secrets).

Speaking of that sort of thing, which I dubbed disarming honesty, and which may be especially of great significance for the "negotiations" ordered by the US with Russia's help for transiting Bashar al Assad out and moving in some new "provisional government" presumably with a notable "FSA" input, I have become puzzled by the provenance of the strange brand and meme called South or Southern Front. Then, thanks to US technology and that honesty, which has almost a certain democratic feel to it, google search offered to me right on top of the quick search this suggested answer:

"The Southern Front was established on 14 February 2014 in southern Syria[1] and receives support from the US led Military Operations Center (MOC) based in Amman, Jordan."

[Magda Hassan]

I like Vladimir's analysis usually. Perceptive.