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Page added on October 2, 2015
The Mind of Mr. Putin
So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us.
Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are once again fighting Taliban forces for control of Kunduz. Only 10,000 U.S. troops still in that ravaged country prevent the Taliban’s triumphal return to power.
A dozen years after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ISIS occupies its second city, Mosul, controls its largest province, Anbar, and holds Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, as Baghdad turns away from us — to Tehran.
The cost to Iraqis of their “liberation”? A hundred thousand dead, half a million widows and fatherless children, millions gone from the country and, still, unending war.
How has Libya fared since we “liberated” that land? A failed state, it is torn apart by a civil war between an Islamist “Libya Dawn” in Tripoli and a Tobruk regime backed by Egypt’s dictator.
Then there is Yemen. Since March, when Houthi rebels chased a Saudi sock puppet from power, Riyadh, backed by U.S. ordinance and intel, has been bombing that poorest of nations in the Arab world.
Five thousand are dead and 25,000 wounded since March. And as the 25 million Yemeni depend on imports for food, which have been largely cut off, what is happening is described by one U.N. official as a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
“Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years,” said the international head of the Red Cross on his return.
On Monday, the wedding party of a Houthi fighter was struck by air-launched missiles with 130 guests dead. Did we help to produce that?
What does Putin see as the ideological root of these disasters?
“After the end of the Cold War, a single center of domination emerged in the world, and then those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think they were strong and exceptional, they knew better.”
Then, adopting policies “based on self-conceit and belief in one’s exceptionality and impunity,” this “single center of domination,” the United States, began to export “so-called democratic” revolutions.
How did it all turn out? Says Putin:
“An aggressive foreign interference has resulted in a brazen destruction of national institutions. … Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster.
Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life.”
Is Putin wrong in his depiction of what happened to the Middle East after we plunged in? Or does his summary of what American interventions have wrought echo the warnings made against them for years by American dissenters?
Putin concept of “state sovereignty” is this: “We are all different, and we should respect that. No one has to conform to a single development model that someone has once and for all recognized as the right one.”
The Soviet Union tried that way, said Putin, and failed. Now the Americans are trying the same thing, and they will reach the same end.
Unlike most U.N. speeches, Putin’s merits study. For he not only identifies the U.S. mindset that helped to produce the new world disorder, he identifies a primary cause of the emerging second Cold War.
To Putin, the West’s exploitation of its Cold War victory to move NATO onto Russia’s doorstep caused the visceral Russian recoil. The U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government led straight to the violent reaction in the pro-Russian Donbas.
What Putin seems to be saying to us is this:
If America’s elites continue to assert their right to intervene in the internal affairs of nations, to make them conform to a U.S. ideal of what is a good society and legitimate government, then we are headed for endless conflict. And, one day, this will inevitably result in war, as more and more nations resist America’s moral imperialism.
Nations have a right to be themselves, Putin is saying.
They have the right to reflect in their institutions their own histories, beliefs, values and traditions, even if that results in what Americans regard as illiberal democracies or authoritarian capitalism or even Muslim theocracies.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans had no problem with this, when Americans accepted a diversity of regimes abroad. Indeed, a belief in nonintervention abroad was once the very cornerstone of American foreign policy.
Wednesday and Thursday, Putin’s forces in Syria bombed the camps of U.S.-backed rebels seeking to overthrow Assad. Putin is sending a signal: Russia is willing to ride the escalator up to a collision with the United States to prevent us and our Sunni Arab and Turkish allies from dumping over Assad, which could bring ISIS to power in Damascus.
Perhaps it is time to climb down off our ideological high horse and start respecting the vital interests of other sovereign nations, even as we protect and defend our own.
29 Comments on "The Mind of Mr. Putin"
makati1 on Fri, 2nd Oct 2015 11:42 pm
“If America’s elites continue to assert their right to intervene in the internal affairs of nations, to make them conform to a U.S. ideal of what is a good society and legitimate government, then we are headed for endless conflict. And, one day, this will inevitably result in war, as more and more nations resist America’s moral imperialism.”
A good summary of the situation. Putin is speaking from a position of power, unlike the warmongering US Government. Russia has the ability to turn the Us into radioactive glass anytime. Something Americans seems to have forgotten.
Nuclear weapons > Nuclear warheads
Russia 8,500 Ranked 1st. 10% more than United States 7,700.
And it has the ability to deliver them as necessary. With Russia’s S-400 and S-500 anti-missile systems, the US cannot be so certain of doing the same to Russia. The US has no missile shield that is as effective. Not to mention, that, by that time, China will have stepped up to the plate beside Russia and added their firepower to the fray. That is, if they have not decimated the US economy by then.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 2:32 am
What the hell has the world come to when I find myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan?
GregT on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:05 am
Even Buchanan can figure this stuff out. Why is it so difficult for other Americans.
Actually, I’ll answer my own question. They’ve fallen for the indoctrination, and the propaganda, hook line and sinker. They are unpatriotic.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:18 am
Here is something, not in the forefront of Putin’s mind. Nor any major leader for that matter.
Warning to Putin over wildfire ‘catastrophe’ with claim officials undercount forest infernos
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f0163-warning-to-putin-over-wildfire-catastrophe-with-claim-officials-undercount-forest-infernos-by-a-factor-of-40/
GregT on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:19 am
Mak,
You forgot to add China into the equation. China is sitting quietly in the sidelines, patiently, but they have also had enough. The US had the opportunity to get their house in order. They still don’t appear to get it. If DC doesn’t back down the US is in for an entire world of hurt. Another war that they will not win, this time, as the home team.
makati1 on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:55 am
GregT, I didn’t want to fire up the Missouri 1%er Russophobe/Sinophobe here. He looks for my comments so he can say something stupid. I don’t read them anymore, for that reason. Waste of time.
China and Russia has over 110 subs in total. Many that can carry and launch conventional missiles and nukes a hundred miles (<5 minutes by missile) off of the American coast. That is one minute after they take down the US communication satellites and black out the nation. Meanwhile, they are nuking the US bases and major military sites around the world. At some point they will see that it is the last option open to them to save their sovereignty and maybe some of their country. First strike and match.
As I keep saying, insanity now rules America, and the dumbed down sheeple keep supporting these psychopaths. They deserve what is coming. Maybe it is not nukes, but war is coming to America's homeland in one form or another. Wait and see.
theedrich on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 4:45 am
Buchanan is of course right. While Putin, given his record of corruption and subtle dictatorship, is far from the American golden ideal of leaders, he is the most successful man in a very tough sociopolitical environment. Regardless of his statements which, like those of politicians everywhere, are laden with falsifications, evasions, denials and the like, he is not another Stalin bent on conquering the earth with a mass-murdering religion.
In contrast, since at least 1989 (and probably since 1914) America has been led by a gangrenous horde of megalomaniacs. This host of political parasites feeds on self-delusion about “human rights” and other popular myths. Foreign military disasters are too distant for them to learn from, and reason plays little role in their minds except as a tool to achieve preordained ends. The natural riches of a continent comparatively unoccupied in 1776 are now nearly exhausted, but the potentates will not see what is happening and seek to compensate for our diminishing returns by expanding “American interests” everywhere else. The demigods are also blind to the concealed but increasing hatred of many foreign elites for the U.S. as Subjugator #1. They see what low-information Americans refuse to see: our leaders believe they have a right to destroy the world in order to save it.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 7:50 am
Ha, get out the rabies vaccines the rabid dogs are loose. The fact is boys Russia and China are in a fall. They are not ascending like you all were preaching for months. Putin is diving into a quagmire. I heard for months how Putin was peace loving and sane. I tried to tell you guys don’t believe Putin’s worlds he is telling you what you want to hear. What a joke you guys are with your heroes. Putin is now thinking “If you can’t beat them join them”.
You guys have a problem and that is you want your cake and eat it. I am not in that category. I agree with this article. What I don’t agree with is your failed predictions of the ascension of the Brics. Your preaching of a decouple of the Brics from a failing west. You want collapse to only be with the Americans. Instead it is happening to all of us. What I love the most is the US has a chance to be the last man standing maybe briefly but long enough for me to laugh hysterically at the ugly anti-Americans who want so bad for all the world’s misfortune to fall only on the US.
The ugly anti-Americans want to have their leader Putin be pure and clean but he is what he is a war pig, a thief, and a killer. They want to make excuses for China and Russia. There are no excuses for failed economies and leadership. I am impressed with Putin as a leader but this Syrian intervention is so risky for a country as unstable and weak economically as Russia. How long can they make it in Syria?
Just wait for the deaths to pile up and the world howl at the Russian killers just like the Americans. At least the Americans have experience with killing and have less mistakes after much practice. Yes, ugly anti-Americans, I am not hiding the fact Americans are killers and should not be in the ME. I look forward to the excuses for the Russians. The Russians have not had their learning curve with killing by air. They are going to be just like the Saudi’s and there killing machine slaughtering civilians by the bushels.
So let us let the ugly anti-American begin their tirades with links and the dog pack attacks. The fact is boys you can’t have your cake and eat it. Let that sink in before you call me a flag waiver and indoctrinated. I just told you the US is a failure. Well, that is not enough. The horrible thing is I criticized China and Russia. That is the real issue with the ugly anti-Americans no one can criticize China and Russia. Who else can they talk up Brazil or India? Picture me boys I am snickering because I am having fun. Tear into me and I am having more fun, Ha.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 8:38 am
woops, mayby one never learns how to kill politically correct:
http://www.rt.com/news/317482-afghanistan-kunduz-msf-hospital/
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 8:40 am
one more: looks like war mongering that is typically American is alive and well in Russia!
http://www.rt.com/news/317505-air-force-terrorists-raqqa/
dissident on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:51 am
@theedrich,
What corruption? The BS claim of some blogger that he supposedly has $40 billion? Don’t make me laugh. Nobody has been able to track this alleged money even though the blogger claimed it included company shares. This idiot blogger couldn’t offer a shred of evidence for his claims but apparently that is truth gold as far as the NATO MSM is concerned.
BTW, it is exactly for the reason that Putin is not corrupt that NATO hates him. The modus operandi of NATO regime change and puppet control is to promote corrupt people into power. Just look at NATO’s darlings Garry Kasparov, Alexey Navalny, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and so forth who were supposed to be Russia’s popular choice for president.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:20 am
Oh dizzy, everyone knows 40Bil is pocket change to Putin. Putin ownes Russia, dizzy. When one realizes that then you understand his real power. He is not stupid enough to worry about too many billions in a bank. There is no banking secrecy anymore. No, dizzy, Putin has absolute power and that is his real wealth. You should watch “House of Cards” then you would understand.
onlooker on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:04 am
I do think any idea of nuclear war between the major powers is ludicrous. Nobody wins and say goodbye to most life on this planet including us. So it is not particularly useful to speak of number of warheads or such. Their is a reason it is called MAD. Mutually assured destruction.
JuanP on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:19 am
This is a great essay. I basically agree with almost everything in the essay. It seems to me an honest effort to understand and explain the issues involved displaying unusual objectivity, insight and realism.
makati1 on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 8:47 pm
Onlooker, there was a time that most thought the same thing about world conditions.
Too much interconnected trade to have war. (WW1)
Too many dangerous weapons (gas/rockets/bombs) to have a war. (WW2)
Why do you think that the powers-that-be consider the death of a few billion or so of us to be a deterrent? It appears to be exactly what they want.
When has logic prevented war? Certainly not in the last 100 years. Why do people steal? Because they believe they can get away with it. Why do people start wars? For the same reason.
We have a few on here that believe that Russia or China could not win a war with the US. That we could “turn Russia and/or China into a field of glass”. THOSE are the kind of thoughts that will start WW3 and they are more common than you might want to believe. I would not rule out a war of any kind. And, we both know, that if a side is losing, it will use everything it has to prevent that, including nuclear. The World Wars proved it.
Bloomer on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:02 pm
There is no winner in a nuclear war. Thank-you Mr. Buchanan for clearly articulating what our mainstream press is afraid to print.
apneaman on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 1:23 am
One Day After Warning Russia of Civilian Casualties, the U.S. Bombs a Hospital in Afghanistan
“Early this morning, in the Afghan city of Kunduz, the U.S. dropped bombs on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)). The airstrike killed at least 9 of the hospital’s medical staff, and seriously injured dozens of patients. “Among the dead was the Afghan head of the hospital, Abdul Sattar,” reported The New York Times.”
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/03/one-day-after-warning-russia-of-civilian-casualties-the-u-s-bombs-a-hospital-in-the-war-obama-ended/
apneaman on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 1:24 am
‘Patients were burning in their beds’: Witnesses recall horrific Kunduz hospital airstrike
http://www.rt.com/news/317570-afghanistan-hospital-airstrike-survivors/
GregT on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 2:48 am
“You want collapse to only be with the Americans. Instead it is happening to all of us. What I love the most is the US has a chance to be the last man standing maybe briefly but long enough for me to laugh hysterically at the ugly anti-Americans who want so bad for all the world’s misfortune to fall only on the US.”
With all due respect Davy, respect that has been well earned I might add, you are losing it man. You are in a complete state of denial.
Apneaman on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 3:44 am
THE PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST SYRIA LED BY AVAAZ & THE WHITE HELMETS
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2015/10/01/the-propaganda-war-against-syria-led-by-avaaz-the-white-helmets/
makati1 on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 5:59 am
GregT, I don’t read his comments anymore. I came to the same conclusion a while ago. It’s that ‘Exceptionalism” indoctrination from birth, I guess. Or just plain denial. Ignore him. I do.
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:07 am
Greg said “With all due respect Davy, respect that has been well earned I might add, you are losing it man. You are in a complete state of denial.” You joined that club too you just have not figured it out yet.
makati1 on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:08 am
For your Sunday reading…
http://journal-neo.org/2015/10/03/putin-lives-in-the-real-world-obama-lives-in-a-fantasyland/
“What is blatantly clear from listening to both leaders’ speeches is that the moral leader of the world resides in Russia.”
For comparison…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/video-obamas-speech-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly/5479330
http://www.globalresearch.ca/vladimir-putins-speech-to-the-united-nations-security-council/5479334
For good measure…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-western-alliance-is-crumbling-eu-is-abandoning-u-s-on-overthrowing-assad/5479566
Enjoy. ^_^
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:11 am
AH, dog paw comments. Dog paw, I don’t ignor you. I will dedicate every opportunity to diminish and discredit you. You are an example of what I dispise. I will leave it at. Use your imagination for the rest.
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:34 am
Good job dog paw now it is time to justify the Russian killing in Syria. You know Russian bombs are ok it is the American ones that are evil. If you want to see a classic military propaganda piece that is like a super hero cartoon check out this link. The Russians want to be portrayed as supper men. Even the Americans are loath to go too far with war lust:
Russia Claims ISIS Now On The Ropes As Fighters Desert After 60 Airstrikes In 72 Hours
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-03/russia-claims-isis-now-ropes-fighters-desert-after-60-airstrikes-72-hours
Have the friggen Russians not learned anything from the absurdity of thinking you can rid the world of terrorist from the air? Did not the Americans prove this with 12 years of absurdities of Iraq and Afghanistan? I can’t wait until the Russian army along with their rump allies the Iranians and Hezbollah venture into the killing fields.
You can’t win this war. You will have to destroy the Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria to accomplish that. I don’t even think there is the potential of a negotiated settlement. War will never end in this region. The problem with Russia and Iran is their economies are shambles. How long can they prosecute a war? I might add Russia still has not paid for Ukraine, Crimea, and a Nato cold war. He is still in an economic war with the west with his Bric allies dying by the day.
I admire Putin and this stroke of genius but he is going to need lots of luck to pull all these adventure off. Can he stop before he gets stuck in a tar baby of conflict? Can his country afford it when it is bleeding economically daily? If they keep their ambitions to only maintaining Assad and his rump state and avoid grand ambitions maybe. Putin reminds me of Bob Lee and his great successes in the US civil war. He is brilliant but his hubris will bring him down in the end. His Gettysburg awaits him.
Dog paw, you can puke your agenda but one topic will make you really look like an idiot and that is Putin purity. Putin is showing his true colors. Russia is showing their pureness as a war lusting country little different from the Americans. Your Brics have crashed economically and now they are engaged in war. Just 6 months ago you were crowing about the end of the US, the dollar, and the crushing of the US military by any and all imaginations. Now look at you failed message. The Brics are dying and Russia is prosecuting an unwinnable war.
shortonoil on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:44 am
As the Killing Fields grow there are those who profit:
J.P. Morgan
Goldman Sachs
Boat on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 7:55 am
mak,
You and the apeman love to search. I read once it would take only 10 nuclear bombs triggered above 10 large cities to put enough debris in the air to cause nuclear freeze. What do you read
makati1 on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 9:11 am
Well, I never saw that but I doubt if 10 would do it. Many large volcanic eruptions put out more ash and gasses than a few nukes unless the nukes actually hit the ground before exploding. A lot of the materials would be vaporized instantly. Not a nuclear engineer, but 10 nukes would surely make a mess.
I doubt that it would stop at 10. After all, many of the missiles that would be used by nuclear countries, US, Russia, & China carry up to 10 nukes each and it would be foolish to fire only one missile. The exchange would likely be in the hundreds and then Nuclear Winter would not matter.
Not something I worry about. If it happens, it is all over. If it doesn’t, I’m sure we will do ourselves in in a slower fashion. We seem bent on species suicide.
joe on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 11:03 am
A sunni extremist theocracy that streaches from Ramadi to Damascus will scare the Saudis so badly it will drive them into US care for the rest of their sorry existence. Jordan could fall, and US would have to be carefully. The British had this same problem, trying to fix each problem in one country by entering and destroying it’s neighbours. The US almost fell into this domino trap and even accused the USSR of this. It causes imperial overstretch. Right now each country pays it’s own way because of the petrodollar. It’s when economic fortunes reverse and the empire teeters that America will become embarrassed by its stupidity and reject it in a wave of isolationism supported by the elites. But it’s some way off yet, most modern empires last 50-100years the US has had 40 as a parter and almost 30 as the last superpower.