Who ya gonna call? Russia it seems
Loyal Democrats, and warhawks in general, would have you believe that eastern Europeans are trembling in fear of the Russian Bear, and are looking to America to save them.
Who you gonna call? For the citizens of four NATO countries asked which military power they’d want fighting on their side if attacked, the answer was simple -- Russia...
By far the largest number of countries polled by WIN/Gallup International chose the U.S. for their go-to defense partner, suggesting that it remains the world’s only military power with truly global reach and alliances.
At the same time, however, China and Russia picked each other, war-torn Ukraine and Iraq split down the middle, while those four members of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia and Turkey -- plumped for Russia.
The other day the EU President flat out said "no" to more NATO military spending.
Even those Europeans that picked the U.S., like Germany, aren't exactly enthusiastic.
Just 22 per cent of respondents trusted the US under its new leader – compared with 59 per cent just before the November election.
The sample of just over just 1,000 voters also found Germany’s trust in Russia had declined four points between November and February to just 21 per cent.
Don't these people know that Russia plans global domination? Don't these people read DKos?
To make matters worse, even Americans aren't doing their patriotic duty of obsessing over Russia while baying for more war.
Only 11% think the United States should deploy more troops to Europe, and 48% believe current troop levels should stay the same. 27% said the United States should recall troops back home, and another 15% were not sure.
When asked to identify the greatest security challenge currently facing the United States, 36% of respondents said ISIS, 12% said Russia, 12% said immigration, and 11% said the national debt. 7% said North Korea, 4% said China, 2% said Iran, and 1% said Syria. Another 15% said “other” or that they did not know.
35% of Americans think it is in America’s best interest to see Russia as both a rival and a partner when it comes to policy in the Middle East. 29% think Russia should be viewed mainly as a partner, and 17% think it should be viewed mainly as a rival. 19% were unsure
Speaking of policy in the Middle East. Remember the current round of Syrian peace talks? You know, the ones America was intentionally not invited to?
Well, guess what? If you actually want peace, excluding America is a smart move.
The UN's envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, says the latest ceasefire in the war-ravaged country is holding better than previous ones and that the pause in fighting should pave the way for talks toward a political solution.
A ceasefire between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups was reached in late December. It was brokered by Russia and Turkey, now seen as guarantors of the agreement, and despite some violations, it has held longer than any others since the war began almost six years ago.
ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formally known as Jabhat Al Nursa, are listed by the UN as terrorist groups and were not included in the ceasefire.
"The ceasefire is holding more than previous ones. And, in my modest opinion, has -- if we all look at it carefully and support it -- more chances to actually succeed than others," de Mistura told delegates Sunday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
So Russia is making peace, while the U.S. pushes for more war, but it's Russia we should be afraid of.
Comments
The way I interpret it is that the EU president was giving
a deliberate and considered "effyouse" to the USA and Donald Trump. Trump has been adamant that Europe was not "paying its fair share" of NATO when this relic of the Cold War is intent on provoking Russia by moving troops into the Balkans and Poland. Europe knows war and doesn't want one.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Moving those troops was ordered by Saint Barack.
And endorsed by Sainte Hillary. The Once and always True Queen.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
@The Voice In the Wilderness Sometimes I have a sick
Sometimes I have a sick feeling it was more the other way around.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Anyway, both of these martyred saints
worshiped at the same altar.
native
@native True, but Barack is
True, but Barack is more of a Jesuit. Hillary's more like a member of the Roman Inquisition of the 1500s.
Not that there wasn't some overlap...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bingo.
native
Don't think you give Obama full credit.
Liar and snake from the very start in Chicago. That is where he signed up with Citigroup and the Devil.
If you must, highest levels of SS have been compared to Jesuits. You might want to place him somewhere in Nazi constellation.
I hope it is clear how corrupt this man was.
Given the hopes people had for him, the AA community especially, he was worst of them all.
By far. Even the judas Sanders was better.
DOG FLUSH THEM ALL,PLEASE!
@irishking Obama is a bad
Obama is a bad man, and was a bad President. He did near-irreparable harm, on levels that frighten me, because he's the mind games guy. He's the one who's here to wage the battle on perception and to give moral credibility to the unjustifiable.
However, unlike the Clintons and George W, he pushed back three times against this insane march toward WWIII: twice in Syria, and once in Iran. He lost both times in Syria, once because the Pentagon disobeyed orders and bombed the shit out of the Syrians, once because an American journalist got beheaded on video by some people who were supposedly the Islamic State. I guess they might have been, but can't help remembering some of the supposed al-Qaeda videos released under George W., one of which at least was as fake as shit, obviously overweight white guys shouting alu akbar. I think it would be pretty easy to take some guys from Blackwater or wherever, dress them up, and have them behead the guy. Either way, whether it was crazy homicidal IS or some grimy US-paid mercenaries, it was pretty clear that that beheading was timed to make it impossible for Obama to refuse to escalate in Syria.
I don't like Obama's foreign policy--anybody who, as Jimmy Dore says, turns two wars into seven is not my friend. I don't like the normalization of torture and assassination either. But I think Obama would have preferred to limit the evil to things that don't threaten to destroy the entire world. I think, if he were actually the most powerful person in the world, he would have gotten us off fossil fuels and avoided WWIII, not because he's a good guy or a nice guy but because, when you have a global empire, you don't soak it in gasoline and toss a match just because you can. Why should you do that? You're on the top of the world. The world is your oyster, and you can eat it again and again. Why would you burn it up in nuclear fire, or poison it so it becomes a wasteland? To make money? Money is arbitrary. The people who have the power can rearrange the ways that an individual or a group can make or lose money, as they like. If anything is clear post-2008, that is. Only a fucking moron would push this PNAC-inspired nonsense at this juncture--a fucking moron or the kind of sociopath that craves a horizon filled with mushroom clouds, just because.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
His
most profound statement being,
Right up there with
his profound "Turns out I'm good at killing people'.
@irishking But I agree
But I agree with flushing them all. Actually, this is an ugly nasty little psy-op question from CNN...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
In a way, the whole of CNN
has become an ugly nasty psy-op. A big one.
native
@native No kidding.
No kidding.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Spanish inquisition?
@irishking
This is going to be how we feel in 2018 when Hillary 2: the Reckoning reveals itself.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
red uniforms!
@irishking LOL!
LOL!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What? Have they been martyred yet!
I missed the bonfire. Damn!
One can only hope.
I think it might be the D Party itself, along with the CGI (partners in crime as it were) that are enduring flames beneath their feet. Whether either Hill or Bill or Barry will be able to emerge unscathed from their ordeal like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego did, remains to be seen. But I kinda doubt they will. I think they'll be peeling off layers of skin for as long as they're alive. Hence I would designate Hillary, Bill and Barack, all as being "Martyrs in Waiting".
native
In related news
U.S. stops Russia from invading Poland
Protecting Bulgaria from Russia?
See essay above.
Many thanks!
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I wish Tapu would read my last two essays
but since I'm already a Putin Puppet, facts are irrelevant
I wish
Donald Trump would read them.
Facts? Facts are a dime a dozen.
My facts are better than your facts? Facts are just data, and there's enough data floating around the internet to prove (subjectively) almost anything anyone wants to prove, at least to their own satisfaction.
To synthesize data is to fabricate a coherent picture of reality from a limited selection of its elements. To analyze data is to separate, or to filter it so as to distinguish its constituent parts. But what if there is too much data, and too many parts?
We have come to a technological point where the net is the news, for the most part. But the net amounts a virtually bottomless ocean of unfiltered data, available to almost everyone, that seems stubbornly resistant to synthesis. It's as if the faster and more easily we can communicate, and the more information we have at our fingertips, the farther apart we drift from one another. I admit to being very perplexed about what the hell is really going on here.
native
Turns out a lot of Poles think they were better off in the USSR
43% of Poles over 40 and 25% of those 18 - 39 say they're economically worse off now.
http://thesaker.is/zmiana-piskorski-and-the-case-for-polish-liberation/
"Just 22 per cent of respondents trusted the US under its new
leader" I think is the kicker. I haven't met anyone over here that trusts him one iota and that includes a couple of local FN leaders.
And, very slim though it is, Trump is so egregious that
he may alienate level headed Europeans for a generation and perhaps end the reliance on militarism and confrontationalism. I've read, in only one place and I don't know if a good source or not, that many in the UK want to stuff their "special relationship" with the USA.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
@duckpin Unless the intelligence
Unless the intelligence services want to give up the "special relationship," it'll stay. It's about a lot of things, but more about them than anything else.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@LaFeminista Same here in the US.
Same here in the US. About a quarter of the people actually trust a Trump-directed government.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
And how many trusted a Clinton-directed government?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
@The Voice In the Wilderness Probably quite a lot.
Probably quite a lot. And look how well that went for us!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"making tactical units healthy"
Thanks for this great essay, as always. Was reading defensenews last month about build-up plans, another fire hose of icky stuff I can't always get through over there.
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/milley-additional-troops-would-fill-out-undermanned-tactical-units
but then later in a different article
Woo, foot-dragging ensues! Right actions for wrong reasons, take it!
How is having remnants of Barry "Seven Wars" Obama in DOD
a good move?
"deployed two National Guard divisions".....
why the hell do we still deploy NG. overseas? These people have jobs at home. The cost businesses pay to fill their positions while they are gone is borne by all of us.
I guess we will have to retire the phrase "Weekend Warrior".
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
hard for me to interpret those poll findings
I mean, I might have answered the same, not because I feel comfy with the US armed forces, but because I don't want them fighting me. We are the biggest, most expensive army on the planet, with the most advanced air power. Would you want to be fighting us?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The Russians are the ones that really won WW2 in Europe btw
But yeah our military is number one no one can defeat us, unless of course they are a mighty force like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were and of course Iraq is still ongoing along with the longest war of the all in Afghanistan so that must be the most powerful of them all.
The list of our failures in war are long but I think the best reason people may choose the US is because it is the only Country quite likely to nuke them without blinking,history has made that clear along with the fact it will never apologize for it no matter how much time passes.
@aliasalias I hope you didn't
I hope you didn't interpret my comment as praise for the US military.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@aliasalias I'm not sure we "failed
I'm not sure we "failed" in Iraq, Libya, etc. It's not like the Iraqis drove us out. We're creating a sea of failed states over there, but I thought that was by design. Isn't that what the lovely signatories of PNAC wanted--to have nobody but our "friends" left standing over there? Egypt, the Saudis, Israel, and the Saudis' little hangers-on: Kuwait, UAE, Qatar.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@aliasalias Yeah, it's kind of a
Yeah, it's kind of a catch-22: if you have the US fighting against you, that's extraordinarily dangerous, because of how we tend to approach civilizations and turn them into craters spawning refugees and terrorists--but if you have the US fighting for you, there's a tendency for them to use you for a while and then turn on you and stab you in the back.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
And we kill lots of people.
Did a paper napkin estimate last week,
pulled all the figures off the tubes. Here's what I come up with, plus or minus a few billion dollars; the top 5% in this country have enough wealth that they could fund our entire defence budget for 1000 (that's one thousand) years with just 7% of their money.
Conclusion.
They don't really fucking need us at all.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
@earthling1 but they don't want
but they don't want to.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
They do need us.
to clean their toilets, for example. but that is an amazing figure.
so used to thinking odf dod budget as impossibly big.
thx.
Obomber's contribution
Too many people know this one.
thx, buddy.
Glad to see that John Bolton isn't NSAdvisor pick
I don't know much about Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster but certainly not having Bolton in the executive branch is a plus.
Peace
FN
"Democracy is technique and the ability of power not to be understood as oppressor. Capitalism is the boss and democracy is its spokesperson." Peace - FN
McMaster looks promising
@#
He told his troops that every time they disrespected an Iraqi, they were creating more terrorists. He's known for standing up to his superiors when he disagrees. Actually, I've read that Trump is fine with his staff arguing with him - just not with them sniping at him behind his back.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-20/trumps-picks-retired-general-mc...
OT, but, bombing and occupying Iraq
over alleged WMD while giving rise to Al Qaeda Iraq and Isis Iraq is a lot of disrespect to overcome by addressing individual Iraqis politely. In fact, our entire Middle East policy since up from the ground came a bubbling crude and Standard Oil noticed should have created a terrorist of every Arab and Iranian. From trading desert sheiks a barrel of water for a barrel of oil, to our, um, helpfulness to Israel and our "anti-terrorism" efforts, we've shown that region mass quantities of disrespect. Soon after 911, we were shooting people to death when they couldn't answer questions U.S. troops were asking them in English. All that is a heck of a lot to overcome by being respectful to individuals.
I've never understood why certain minorities in this country don't spit in the faces (or worse) of the majority; and I've never understood why everyone in the Middle East has not been busy making IEDs to use against us. Maybe, they're better than we are.
Granted, we don't want to make it even worse by disrepecting individuals today, too, but crikey, talk about locking the barn door too late.
Very true.
Sadly. But it was probably all McMasters, personally, could do at the time. Sadly. "We" have not been nice, as a nation.
Merchants of Death
Major Kong?
Looking to Trump to save them from Russia?
Haven't they heard that Putin annexed us?
Catch up, people!
Deleted. Wrong spot.