Category Archives: Russia

Europe, Finance, Russia, Sanctions, US Congress, US Foreign Policy

Bipolar Economics and Hypocrisy in Pусский язык: Sanctions on Putin’s Minions?……….

      

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The media and halls of Congress are full of
talk about economic sanctions, talk of plans to impose American
sanctions against Russia. Sanctions
are in the cards for some Russians who are deemed responsible (or not) for ‘something’ in Crimea, but guess what? The man who ordered
the troops into Crimea will not be sanctioned. Putin is not being
sanctioned, just some hapless underlings. Now how do you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y in русский язык?
There are some stronger threats from U.S. law-makers (a few of them like Senator Bob Menendez are also suspected of allegedly being law breakers themselves) to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and on (former) Ukrainian officials. But not on Putin. On the senate floor, Senator McCain even expressed a burning desire to ban select Russians from going to Las Vegas. LasFuckingVegas? That is what he said (minus the expletive). Is that the best these august men can come up with? And what happened to the wonders of unfettered unregulated unsanctioned free markets?

Europeans are deemed too hesitant, considered wimpy by U.S. senators and Obama bureaucrats already tested and blooded in the battles for media sound bites and in the battles of other sanctions. The EU itself is almost certainly threatening more punishment than it is willing to actually apply.

Just think of the company (some) Russians will be keeping among the targets of Western sanctions: Cuba, Iran, Syria, Iraq (once), Lebanon (a big chunk of it anyway), Russia, North Korea. A gaggle of West African leaders and warlords. Probably others I can’t recall.

And suppose India and China and Pakistan and Indonesia and Brazil and Argentina and Algeria and Egypt and several other countries refuse to respect these expanded Western global sanctions? Which they almost certainly will. Would new sanctions be applied to these countries as well? Then will we have two worlds? Those sanctioned by the Western Powers and those not sanctioned by Western Powers? And how will this impact the love affair between extremely patriotic U.S. corporations and cheap Chinese (and Indian) labor and possibly Russian oligarchs, among others?

And if half the world is ‘sanctioned’ how does this affect the effectiveness of the sanctions being bandied about?


Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Russia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Another Crimea? USG and UN and Europe Set to Invade Oklahoma, Yeeeehaw………

      

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“With radical U.S. government and United Nations schemes such as “sustainable development” and UN Agenda 21 being quietly implemented across America at all levels of government under a variety of names and pretexts, lawmakers in the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly this week for legislation to protect the unalienable rights to private property and due process in the state. The “Oklahoma Community Protection Act,” which would nullify Agenda 21 and other outside assaults on individual rights in the state, now goes to the Oklahoma Senate…………”

Sometimes nothing can be more fun than to follow than some red state legislatures. They can be even fun-ner than the United States Congress and all the hot greenhouse effects some of its members emit. I am always on the lookout for new gems from the legislators of what the snobbish elites of the East Coast and Left Coast arrogantly (and I mean this: arrogantly) dismiss as “the fly-over states”. Sometimes they even seem to be the only force that stands between the Bible-belt and the universal application of Islamic Shari’a laws.
So now Oklahoma lawmakers worry about the Federal government and, get this, the United Nations taking over local property. The United Nations used to be the bogeyman of the American right in the old days of the Cold War. There was fear that the UN will become a world government and rule the USA. Many are still upset because foreign leaders are allowed to fly into New York to attend the UN meetings. Remember the outrage that Ahmadinejad or Qaddafi could breeze into into the city? Many wanted to keep them away, which also meant they had to keep away the United Nations and all the expenditures and prestige (and the unsavory foreign characters) that come with it.
Like I said, many on the right feared a plot to establish a world government. Imagine a world government elected by a bunch of Chinese and Africans and Russkies? Now the Oklahomans have acted, a bit late, but they have overlooked a new potent world government: the European Union. The EU has unilaterally decided that the last elected president of Ukraine is illegitimate and that the unelected man whom they appointed in his place is legitimate. They even have John Kerry and Barack Obama and John McCain and Wolf Blitzer and Fareed Zakaria going around saying exactly that: the elected leader is not legal, but the unelected leader is legal. How so? Because the EU said so.
Now how is that for a powerful world government?
Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Russia, Sanctions, US Foreign Policy

No Hypocrisy: Obama Administration Mulls Sanctions against Ukraine and Bahrain and Egypt and………

      

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“The US raised the prospect of placing sanctions on Ukraine on Wednesday after riot police moved against anti-government demonstrators, seemingly violating its pledges of restraint. Baroness Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs representative, all but accused Victor Yanukovich, Ukrain’s president, of misleading her in negotiations in Kiev that happened just hours before riot police launched a push to retake opposition-occupied areas of the city, including City Hall and Independence Square. The crowd resisted the police onslaught in temperatures of -11C but Baroness Ashton, who was in Kiev for crisis talks on Ukraine’s rejection of a strategic pact with Europe, said the authorities had crossed the line……………….”

Ukraine has crossed “one line”, has been doing it for a week. Just attacking protesters in the square, not raiding their homes and looting and arresting and torturing them. Bahrain’s regime has crossed many lines, has been doing it for almost three years: tear gassing, shooting, arresting, torturing, and killing. Raiding and looting homes of the majority of its rebelling people at midnight. Ukraine is mild compared to Bahrain. Someone forgot to tell the U.S. government that.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Saudi Princes Offer to Buy Syria from Russia..……

      

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“Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to buy arms worth up to $15 billion from Russia, and provided a raft of economic and political concessions to the Kremlin – all in a bid to weaken Moscow’s endorsement of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The diplomatic initiatives were anonymously voiced to Reuters by multiple Gulf state diplomats and senior leaders of the Syrian opposition, in the wake of last week’s meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi National Security Council chief Prince Bandar bin-Sultan. The Saudi politician has orchestrated his country’s foreign policy in recent months. “Bandar offered to intensify energy, military and economic cooperation with Moscow,” a senior Syrian opposition figure told Reuters. “Bandar sought to allay two main Russian fears: that Islamist extremists will replace Assad, and that Syria would become a conduit for Gulf, mainly Qatari, gas at the expense of Russia.” The $15 billion figure was touted by a representative of the anti-Assad opposition….………..”

The Saudi princes want to liberate Syria from its current rulers and hand it to others who are allied with them. So they offer to pay Russia in order to get Syria, effectively offering to buy Syria from Russia. They have again resorted to their best and most effective strategy for buying friends and gaining influence. There is nothing they have to offer anyone besides money, and they use it extensively. They have no ideology or set of values that appeal to anyone outside the ruling family. Nobody anywhere admires them for who they are or for what they do. It is all to do with how much they are willing to pay. That applies to the Arab peoples and to foreign countries, from North America all the way across to the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently their attempt to buy the Russian government, or to buy Syria from the Russian government, has failed so far.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Field Marshal Bandar of the Caucasus, Lebanon, and Syria, and Qatar………

      

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“In a country of the blind, the one-eyed jack is king” Not Nietzsche


“Many of these Russian fighters and their Syrian comrades are (theoretically) under the command of a single man: Bandar bin Sultan. For one thing, the top Saudi security man is their main financier, arms source, and their virtual political spokesperson, whether directly or through his deputy, the head of the Syrian National Coalition Ahmad al-Jarba……….. His most recent experience of a military nature took place in Lebanon, after 2006, when Bandar convinced the Saudi king to bankroll a militia for Saad Hariri. Some observers familiar with that experience say that Bandar spent more than $200 million to build this paramilitary force, only for the whole plan to meet a catastrophic defeat in less than 20 hours of fighting, in May 2008. In Syria, Bandar bin Sultan did not deviate from his usual approach. He has set very high expectations, and today, according to some who met him over the past few weeks, he sees no issue more important than Syria. For instance, Bandar rarely mentions Yemen, Iraq, or Lebanon, except from the standpoint of defeating Iran and Hezbollah in the Levant……… Nevertheless, these concerns did not prevent Bandar from wagering on his fighters’ achievements over the next few months. For instance, the Saudi prince wants to see breakthroughs by the rebels in northern Syria, starting in Aleppo, and in the south, where he will try to convince the Jordanian regime to allow fighters and weapons to flow into Daraa and the Golan….……”

No doubt Prince Bandar fancies himself some kind of strategist. He wants to be known as such rather than just another corrupt prince (you know: BAE Systems, Al-Yamama, SFO, Tony Blair, etc). And he is a strategist by Al Saud standards: the one-eyed jack is king in a country of the blind. He can plan and strategize (do strategery, as he learned serving in the Bush White House). On more than one front. He can liberate Syria and Lebanon (maybe the two are related) while keeping Iraq highly unstable and Bahrain under control and the Al-Thani of Qatar in their rightful place playing second or third fiddle. Putting Iran on the defensive until the USA or Israel come to their senses and start a new war in the Middle East. In the meantime keeping the captive peoples of the Arabian Peninsula (aka the Saudi people) under tight control.
 
It should be easy: Hitler did it by declaring war on Russia and America in the same year and making it stick for more than one whole year. Until his natural stupidity caught up with the fake aura of invincibility. But Hitler was never before defeated by the ragtag barely-armed Houthi tribal clan of Yemen, his Stalingrad was further north than Yemen or Syria or Lebanon.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Corruption, NATO, Russia, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Russia’s Wars and Deficits, Chinese Awards, Arab Woody Allen Awards, Prince Yin bin Yang……….

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“Un groupe de professeurs d’université chinois a décerné à Vladimir Poutine un «prix de la paix» copié sur le prestigieux Nobel, en saluant les «remarquables» talents pacifiques du premier ministre russe, notamment son opposition au «bombardement de la Libye par l’OTAN». Le nom du lauréat du «prix de la paix Confucius» a été annoncé mardi à l’AFP par l’un des organisateurs, Qiao Damo. M. Poutine était notamment en lice avec la chancelière allemande, Angela Merkel, ou Yuan Longping, le père du riz hybride chinois……………”

Interesting that the Chinese decided to give Russia’s Putin a peace prize. I suppose because his country has not been engaged in any foreign war for decades. The Russians have had no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no Yemen, no Pakistan, no possible Iran, no nothing: I wonder how the Russian budget deficit is faring.
In our region of the Middle East the potentates give each other prizes all the time. Prince X bin Y awards Prince Z bin W the award for the most wedded. Prince S bin OB awards shaikh B bin S the award for humanitarian thinking (not doing). Prince Yin bin Yang awards Prince Yang bin Yin the Prince Yin bin Yang bin Ying award for just “showing up”. You can call them Woody Allen awards: remember what he said about “showing up is 80% of life”?. After the ceremony they all leave by driving up the Prince Yang bin Yin bin Yang Al Yong Avenue. In the new township named after Prince Polygamous bin Greed bin Bribe bin Nepotism. Mutual incestuous awarding of prizes.
Now about that hybrid rice…………
Cheers
mhg


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