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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9299
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 Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:43 am Post subject: |
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I have to agree 100% with Iso on what he said.
However, I agree with you too YouW. Bush was slobbering and gushing, while Putin schemed, because Bush was incoherent.
But, Rumy and Cheyney scared the hell out of Putin. There is no doubt about that.
Putin thinks O is a blabbering fool like Bush. The difference is Obama's cabinet is too busy reworking Amerika a la Cloward and Piven. They don't care about our global preeminence. Bush was crazy for war....Obama is crazy for redistribution. |
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uwindsurf
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
Posts: 968
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:41 am Post subject: |
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| stevenbard wrote: | I have to agree 100% with Iso on what he said.
However, I agree with you too YouW. Bush was slobbering and gushing, while Putin schemed, because Bush was incoherent.
But, Rumy and Cheyney scared the hell out of Putin. There is no doubt about that.
Putin thinks O is a blabbering fool like Bush. The difference is Obama's cabinet is too busy reworking Amerika a la Cloward and Piven. They don't care about our global preeminence. Bush was crazy for war....Obama is crazy for redistribution. |
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/12355000/ns/world_news-europe/t/putin-takes-swipe-cheney-over-criticisms/
Putin reserved his most acerbic words for Cheney, who angered the Kremlin with a May speech in the ex-Soviet republic of Lithuania in which he accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and of using its energy reserves as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.”
“I think the statements of this sort by your vice president are the same as an unsuccessful hunting shot. It’s pretty much the same,” Putin said in an interview with NBC 'Today' show anchor Matt Lauer, referring mischievously to the errant shot by Cheney that wounded a companion on a hunting trip.
and,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/11/idUSN10298525
BEIJING, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to express U.S. solidarity in the conflict with Russia and told him "Russian aggression must not go unanswered," the vice president's office said on Monday.
"The vice president expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Cheney's office said in a statement.
It said Cheney, in a phone call on Sunday, told Saakashvili that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community."
Russian troops are still in Georgia. Yeah Putin was a shakin' in his KGB boots thinking about Cheney and Rummy. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| youwindsurf--you rock! But how many of the rabid Obama-haters will actually even read your post, much less any mainstream media that requires fact-checking? |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9299
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:24 am Post subject: |
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| And Obama has done what? |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| stevenbard wrote: | | And Obama has done what? |
By his own admission in his interview with O'Reilly, he has given speeches. (For the left, that means he thinks reading speeches equates to governing and solving problems.) |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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Done about what? The fundamental problem with the United States' ability to project power in the Middle East remains the disaster in Iraq. A rush to war, poorly conceived in terms of implementation (read Fiasco, by a respected military historian to get a realistic view of Cheney and Rumsfeld from inside the military), demonstrated to the world that the United States can be bogged down in a land war in a different culture. Our losses don't stem merely from jungles--but from bad civilian, and military leadership, decision-making. We went into Iraq with far less of a force than the military recommended, and because of that could not maintain order. It blew our chances of winning hearts and minds. But we made sure of that as we backed the corrupt, and added corruption of our own in the military supply chain. The American people wanted out far before Obama took us out.
So the same chicken hawks, after having demolished any illusions of a credible threat, scream that Obama is weak. The only chance of improving the outcome we have is diplomacy and economic measures--which Obama is pursuing. Diplomacy is not even a recognized vocabulary world by the angry old white men in the Republican Party. The last time they saw any was with Bush I.
Best line about the current situation, courtesy of the Nation:
| Quote: | | Frustrated cold warriors filling armchairs in Washington's outdated "strategic" think tanks will continue to howl at the moon, but US policy should be run by the sober. |
Or you can continue to ignore the lessons of history and be doomed to repeat it. |
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pueno
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| stevenbard wrote: | | And Obama has done what? |
And what would you like him to do? Starve 'em? Invade? Nuke 'em 'til they glow?
Mikey would obviously prefer a speech, but what about you?
. |
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uwindsurf
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
Posts: 968
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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What's Obama doing? Why should he do anything? Even Fox News thinks he should do nothing. What do you want Bard? A war? Got some defense industry stocks?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/03/04/flashback-2008-when-a-russian-invasion-made-fox/198322
Fox News commentators have been rushing in to blame President Obama for the Russian military's excursion into Ukraine. It's because of Obama's "weakness" that Vladamir Putin has seized the military initiative, announced Sarah Palin.
The crisis proves Obama's guilty of misunderstanding the Russians and not being "interested in American national security affairs," according to John Bolton. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Fox viewers Obama "left a vacuum that Putin is filling," and Steve Doocy complained the president hasn't done "much" to solve the situation.
Also, Obama needs to get a "backbone" and he's "lost moral authority." All this while Fox has marveled over Putin's prowess as a true "leader," and swooned his supposed physical superiority over Obama.
Please note that in August 2008, during President Bush's final months in office, a strikingly similar scenario played out when Russian forces invaded the former Soviet state of Georgia. At the time, the Bush White House sounded an awful lot like today's Obama White House. From Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, now a Fox host:
"The United States supports Georgia's territorial integrity. We call for an immediate ceasefire. We urge all parties Georgians, south Ossetians, Russians to deescalate the tensions and to avoid conflict. We are work on mediation efforts and to secure a ceasefire, and we are urging the parties to restart their dialogue."
Yet unlike today, the Putin-led excursion in 2008 completely failed to spark the panicked rhetoric that's become Fox News' trademark since Russian troops crossed over into Ukraine last week. Notably absent from the 2008 Georgia coverage was relentless finger pointing and blaming the White House for the extreme actions of a foreign leader thousands of miles away. There was also none of the Putin cheerleading that we hear on Fox News today.
In fact, some of the Fox commentators currently stoking the flames of "crisis" were rather non-judgmental when Russian tanks moved into Georgia. "I don't think the Russians are reckless," Charles Krauthammer announced on August 8, 2008, as Russian fleets advanced into the Black Sea and Russian jets launched raids targeting government buildings in Georgia. "What they are doing here is reasserting control of this province. And when it's done, which will probably happen in a couple days, the firing will crease."
Three days later, Krauthammer insisted there was nothing for the United States to do as the crisis escalated: "Well, obviously it's beyond our control. The Russians are advancing. There is nothing that will stop them. We are not going to go to war over Georgia." Krauthammer's Fox colleague Jeff Birnbaum, agreed: "Because Georgia is not part of NATO, there's really no danger the United States or Europe will get in involved in what is really a civil war almost between--within this small part of Georgia."
Fox News' message to America then? Just relax. There's nothing the U.S. can do about Russia invading its sovereign neighbor and it will all be over soon.
Bill O'Reilly agreed with the laissez-faire analysis. "Even if President Bush wanted to help Georgia we simply don't have the ground forces to do it," said O'Reilly on August 11. "And confronting the Russians in the air would lead to major hostilities that the USA cannot afford right now."
Even Fox's usually bellicose, right-wing think tank commentators demurred. "There's no easy answer; there's only tough choices," said the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes on August 12, 2008. "Russia is a tough nut to crack."
Indeed.
Recall that early in his presidency Bush famously announced he had peered into Putin's soul and spotted goodness in the Russian leader. The Georgia invasion belayed Bush's gut instincts, but few Fox commentators mocked the president's for his misreading of Putin. (Nor was there discussion that Bush's failed war with Iraq had created an opportunity for Russia's military expansion.)
"I don't think that Putin spit in the eye of the president," insisted Karl Rove in 2008. And John Bolton, who this week accused Obama of not "paying attention" to Ukraine? Back in 2008, he gave Bush a pass when Russian troops poured into Georgia. "I think a lot of people missed it, not just the administration." Bolton said on Fox.
Whereas the current Ukraine conflict is all about Obama on Fox News (i.e. Putin: leader; Obama: weak), Bush was portrayed as a minor figure when Russia waged war in Georgia six years ago. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps this should go on the thread about the corporate citizenship of Exxon, but it seems more appropriate here:
| Quote: | Sometime this year, a team of deepwater oil engineers will probably start drilling in the Arctic Ocean. The team will likely be made up of Russians and Americans working for two of the biggest energy companies in the world: Houston-based ExxonMobil (XOM) and Russia’s state-owned oil giant, Rosneft.
As relations between Russia and the West sour over Russia’s apparent annexation of Crimea, ties between U.S. and Russian energy companies have never been stronger. The closest partners are Exxon and Rosneft. Not only are they exploring for oil together in the Arctic as part of a $500 billion joint venture formed in 2011, the two companies are planning to frack shale fields in Siberia, drill a well in the Black Sea, and start construction on a natural gas export terminal in eastern Russia. Exxon has such a good relationship with the Russians, last summer President Vladimir Putin awarded Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson the Order of Friendship during an economic forum in St. Petersburg.
In the two decades since the Cold War ended, the U.S. and Russia have forged some marginal partnerships in a handful of areas. Russian and American astronauts work together on the International Space Station. The Russian military helps the U.S. get equipment in and out of Afghanistan. But the strongest area of cooperation has come in the energy industry, where U.S. oil majors such as Exxon and Chevron (CVX) have entered into a number of joint ventures with Russia’s state-owned energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom.
These aren’t short-term deals either. Most projects involve exploring for oil and gas in extreme locations, and carry billion-dollar investments that aren’t likely to pay off for decades. As the U.S. and European Union ratchet up sanctions against Russia, it’s hard to see Chevron and Exxon being receptive to whatever pressure they may get from Washington to pull back from their newfound Russian comrades. After all, these companies may be headquartered in the U.S., but they derive much of their profits from operations overseas. Their fidelity is to their shareholders, not necessarily their government. In an infamous quote included in Steve Coll’s book on Exxon, Private Empire, former CEO Lee Raymond once said, “I’m not a U.S. company, and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”
It’s hard to imagine the head of a big U.S. corporation saying something like that at the height of the Cold War. Raymond was operating in an age of full-throated globalization in the 1990s and 2000s. And while that sentiment might still make sense, these big energy deals between U.S. and Russian companies suddenly feel strange, and awkward given the geopolitical consequences of Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
“It certainly casts a cloud over these large joint ventures,” says Lysle Brinker, who researches integrated oil companies at IHS Energy. As Russia and the West engage in what will probably devolve into a tit-for-tat chess game of sanctions over the next several months, any assets or project that has a U.S. or European Union partner attached to it could be subject to pressure from Moscow, says Brinker. Maybe not a direct sanction, but certainly an indirect one. In other words, if the West starts to push too hard with economic sanctions, could the Kremlin start making life hard for some of these Western companies doing business with state-owned Russian companies? “I think that’s a very real scenario,” says Brinker. And if so, does Exxon lobby the White House to tone it down?
We’re already seeing the early signs of how this may play out. Rosneft chief Igor Sechin is essentially issuing warnings to the U.S. over meddling too much in Crimea, saying that expanding sanctions would “only make the conflict worse.”
It’d be one thing if these were private entities U.S. energy companies were dealing with. But essentially the Kremlin is Exxon’s partner. The Russian government has a direct interest in tapping Western technical expertise to help boost its oil and gas reserves, which are of course the source of its power. In a way, you could argue that by partnering with Rosneft, Exxon is strengthening Russia’s strategic position, and helping increase the size of the energy stick that Putin carries.
On the other hand, the case can be made that the U.S. should cherish these business relationships. Let the Kremlin and White House poke at each other, but as long as Russian and U.S. companies can find common ground and forge long-term partnerships, isn’t that a sign we’ve not reverted entirely back to a Cold War footing?
That’s essentially the view of Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Ebinger worries that Congress, especially its more hawkish members, will get carried away with nationalistic fervor and look to impose much harsher sanctions against Russia, and that a White House tired of looking weak will be all too happy to oblige. “It’d be very dangerous to overreact to this,” says Ebinger. “Things could get out of hand on the sanctions front, and then no one benefits.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-20/post-crimea-exxons-partnership-with-rosneft-feels-weird
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It's probably only a rumor that has Exxon rewriting the Pledge of Allegiance to read:
I pledge allegiance, to the oil, and for the corporations for which it renders profits... |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9299
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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Two things: I have always been against war. Even Afghanistan in the beginning when everyone wanted to kill them. Maybe blockade them like the Romans did. Let them starve and die. But boots on the ground? no way. After 911 I thought the sane leaders would demand our borders be closed.
Second: Without big oil, there would be a WW3 by now. |
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