blue32
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You sure about that? Because I am pretty sure the election threads that I link here have supporting documentation or video.
Wikileaks Glimpse pt 2.
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You sure about that? Because I am pretty sure the election threads that I link here have supporting documentation or video.
riverman
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I understand, this isn't a topic you'd research because Hillary doesn't trust him.....although you've propped up a lot of Trump bluster, you fail to see Putin's corruption....uh sure
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I know plenty about Putin.
I question your statement that he isn't as popular in Russia as it seems.
Regardless of his motives and/or corruption, he's proven to be able to punk both Obama and Clinton.
For example, Obama made his line in the sand threat over chemical weapons use in Syria. When it came time to back up that threat, he blustered and failed to pull the trigger. He made us look weak - make threats we won't back up. Why would you take us seriously? And then Putin comes along and arranges to have the chemical weapons turned over to the U.N.
I'd call that Obama./Clinton being punked.
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Aside from turning over assorted military equipment at the time of our surrender in Iraq, there are plenty of stories about who funds ISIS.
You act like our leaders and those working for them don't bother to read the newspaper.
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riverman
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purely your opinion....not a fact...you give him more power than he deserves but you did the same with Trump....you think he's punked the Clinton's too...to my point...Putin has lost a lot of friends over his recent actions and faces sanctions....if that's punking America....you've redefined the term...Russia has no power of the US period....you might harbor this fear, but I sure don't
riverman
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a clip from an article about recent Putin politics
President Putin has put a lot of heavy metal in motion. What is his strategy? And what are the risks?
“A much bigger incident caused by the horrifying corruption of our authorities can take place any moment in Syria or Europe, or here in Russia,” former KGB captain and current Russian opposition leader Gennady Gudkov told The Daily Beast. “Our trouble is that President Putin is not capable of controlling even the army any longer, he just keeps control of the election process and financial flows, while all institutions with power are degrading, at all levels.”
President Putin has put a lot of heavy metal in motion. What is his strategy? And what are the risks?
“A much bigger incident caused by the horrifying corruption of our authorities can take place any moment in Syria or Europe, or here in Russia,” former KGB captain and current Russian opposition leader Gennady Gudkov told The Daily Beast. “Our trouble is that President Putin is not capable of controlling even the army any longer, he just keeps control of the election process and financial flows, while all institutions with power are degrading, at all levels.”
riverman
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Here Denny...read this
Russia Not As Great A Threat As Depicted In Media, But Does Need Slap In Face – OpEd
Russia's Vladimir Putin and United States' Barack Obama at the G20 Summit in Hangzho. Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru
By Ivan Eland November 4, 2016
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, couldn’t catch a break in America, even before the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Russian government had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and had given them to Wikileaks for public release. After Putin’s annexation of Crimea and meddling in the Ukrainian and Syrian Civil Wars, the U.S. government and media long soured on the macho man.
Yes, Putin is an autocrat who snuffed out democracy in Russia and wants to regain some of Russia’s status in the world long after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Yet the U.S. government, the world champion of unneeded military interventions around the globe since World War II and currently running simultaneous wars in at least seven countries, has little room to talk. In fact, one doesn’t have to like Dictator Putin to make a reasonable argument that the U.S. expansion of a hostile military alliance—NATO—eastward right to the borders of the defeated and downtrodden Russia after the Cold War ended, led to the rise of the nationalist Putin in the first place and compelled him to salvage what he could of his traditional sphere of influence in Ukraine, Crimea, Moldova, and Georgia. As for Putin’s intervention in Syria, he is trying to rescue the even more despotic Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Russia’s only ally in the Middle East and a country not strategic to the United States.
However, generally, Russia is much weaker than its “resurgent” depiction by the American media, which is always willing to find a cartoonishly diabolical villain with which the United States can joust for global supremacy. The Russia has been severely affected by low oil prices—a mainstay of the Russian economy—and Western economic sanctions imposed because of Russian meddling in Ukraine and Crimea. For the first time in Putin’s long tenure as the Russian strongman, the country’s incomes are declining. Much of Putin’s increased bluster overseas might be explained as a distraction from Russia’s ills at home.
The long economic recession will lead to the substantial reduction of Russia’s defense spending by six percent annually for the next three years, at a time when U.S defense spending is beginning to needlessly increase again. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States already spends more than six times what Russia does on defense and more than what the next seven highest spending countries combined expend on their militaries—including China and Russia. Also, this vast advantage in American military spending has been cumulative ever since the end of the Cold War, leading to a widening advantage of the U.S. military over other militaries, including Russia’s.
Thus, although Putin has recently exhibited military bluster, it hides military and domestic weakness. For example, with much fanfare, Russia recently sent its single obsolete aircraft carrier (the United States has 10 powerful modern carriers)—the Admiral Kuznetsov—to the Syrian coast to help Assad in his civil war. Yet what was supposed to be an impressive show of force to show that Kremlin is back as a maritime power turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment, because the decrepit carrier, prone to breakdowns, had to be accompanied by an oceangoing tugboat in case of mechanical trouble. The New York Times lampooned the carrier as a “lumbering tub fit for the scrap heap,” “something of a lemon from the start,” and “known more as a threat to its crew than anything else.”
In the long term, Russia faces potential economic decline because of a demographic crisis—as its population ages rapidly. And all the grandiose talk about costly new Russian military bases in Egypt, Vietnam, and Cuba is likely to be a ghost ship that will crash on the shoals Russia’s money problems and the lukewarm response of host countries.
However, despite Russia’s weakness and the general exaggeration of that country’s threat to American security, the U.S. intelligence community believes that to attempt to influence the U.S. presidential election, Putin’s Russia was behind the audacious hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and their subsequent distribution to Wikileaks. While Hillary Clinton had previously drawn Putin’s ire for criticizing a Russian election, and the United States has a history of meddling in other countries’ elections (which should stop), any foreign meddling in U.S. elections—critical to America’s system of government—needs to be quickly stanched. Fully defending the vast and decentralized American election system from attack is difficult, but such hacking can be deterred in the future by retaliating in kind on Russia’s computer systems with superior U.S. cyber attacking capabilities. For example, after the U.S. election is safely over, perhaps Moscow’s lights need to be turned off for a couple of days.
An aggressive U.S. posture toward Russia is unneeded—especially in areas not strategic to the United States, such as Crimea, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Syria—and, to counter a rising China, general U.S.-Russian relations should be improved, but U.S. elections are too important to the republic to allow Russia or any other country to feel that they can try to manipulate them without retaliation.
This article was published at Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.
TOPICS:Foreign PolicyMediaRussiaUnited States
About the Author
Ivan Eland
Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He is author of the books Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, and Recarving Rushmore.
Russia Not As Great A Threat As Depicted In Media, But Does Need Slap In Face – OpEd
By Ivan Eland November 4, 2016
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, couldn’t catch a break in America, even before the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Russian government had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and had given them to Wikileaks for public release. After Putin’s annexation of Crimea and meddling in the Ukrainian and Syrian Civil Wars, the U.S. government and media long soured on the macho man.
Yes, Putin is an autocrat who snuffed out democracy in Russia and wants to regain some of Russia’s status in the world long after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Yet the U.S. government, the world champion of unneeded military interventions around the globe since World War II and currently running simultaneous wars in at least seven countries, has little room to talk. In fact, one doesn’t have to like Dictator Putin to make a reasonable argument that the U.S. expansion of a hostile military alliance—NATO—eastward right to the borders of the defeated and downtrodden Russia after the Cold War ended, led to the rise of the nationalist Putin in the first place and compelled him to salvage what he could of his traditional sphere of influence in Ukraine, Crimea, Moldova, and Georgia. As for Putin’s intervention in Syria, he is trying to rescue the even more despotic Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Russia’s only ally in the Middle East and a country not strategic to the United States.
However, generally, Russia is much weaker than its “resurgent” depiction by the American media, which is always willing to find a cartoonishly diabolical villain with which the United States can joust for global supremacy. The Russia has been severely affected by low oil prices—a mainstay of the Russian economy—and Western economic sanctions imposed because of Russian meddling in Ukraine and Crimea. For the first time in Putin’s long tenure as the Russian strongman, the country’s incomes are declining. Much of Putin’s increased bluster overseas might be explained as a distraction from Russia’s ills at home.
The long economic recession will lead to the substantial reduction of Russia’s defense spending by six percent annually for the next three years, at a time when U.S defense spending is beginning to needlessly increase again. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States already spends more than six times what Russia does on defense and more than what the next seven highest spending countries combined expend on their militaries—including China and Russia. Also, this vast advantage in American military spending has been cumulative ever since the end of the Cold War, leading to a widening advantage of the U.S. military over other militaries, including Russia’s.
Thus, although Putin has recently exhibited military bluster, it hides military and domestic weakness. For example, with much fanfare, Russia recently sent its single obsolete aircraft carrier (the United States has 10 powerful modern carriers)—the Admiral Kuznetsov—to the Syrian coast to help Assad in his civil war. Yet what was supposed to be an impressive show of force to show that Kremlin is back as a maritime power turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment, because the decrepit carrier, prone to breakdowns, had to be accompanied by an oceangoing tugboat in case of mechanical trouble. The New York Times lampooned the carrier as a “lumbering tub fit for the scrap heap,” “something of a lemon from the start,” and “known more as a threat to its crew than anything else.”
In the long term, Russia faces potential economic decline because of a demographic crisis—as its population ages rapidly. And all the grandiose talk about costly new Russian military bases in Egypt, Vietnam, and Cuba is likely to be a ghost ship that will crash on the shoals Russia’s money problems and the lukewarm response of host countries.
However, despite Russia’s weakness and the general exaggeration of that country’s threat to American security, the U.S. intelligence community believes that to attempt to influence the U.S. presidential election, Putin’s Russia was behind the audacious hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and their subsequent distribution to Wikileaks. While Hillary Clinton had previously drawn Putin’s ire for criticizing a Russian election, and the United States has a history of meddling in other countries’ elections (which should stop), any foreign meddling in U.S. elections—critical to America’s system of government—needs to be quickly stanched. Fully defending the vast and decentralized American election system from attack is difficult, but such hacking can be deterred in the future by retaliating in kind on Russia’s computer systems with superior U.S. cyber attacking capabilities. For example, after the U.S. election is safely over, perhaps Moscow’s lights need to be turned off for a couple of days.
An aggressive U.S. posture toward Russia is unneeded—especially in areas not strategic to the United States, such as Crimea, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Syria—and, to counter a rising China, general U.S.-Russian relations should be improved, but U.S. elections are too important to the republic to allow Russia or any other country to feel that they can try to manipulate them without retaliation.
This article was published at Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.
TOPICS:Foreign PolicyMediaRussiaUnited States
About the Author
Ivan Eland
Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He is author of the books Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, and Recarving Rushmore.
MarAzul
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I most certainly call it punking when the Nobel Peace Prize winner was saved from going to war by Putin's intervention.
Oh, the irony.
MarAzul
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I don't know if it's true either. But the press/media has special protection in our system, and it seems they abuse the right without the public receiving any benefit these days.
Perhaps unsubstantiated claims, accusing people without proof, should receive it's proper rebuke in some way within the same system. Not law suits but via automatic triggers.
I am more concerned about where we are going, lead by Clinton and the Democrats than any fear I have of the Russians. It appalls me to hear Hillary blame the Russian or Putin for
someone, anyone exposing the shady deeds she or her people are involved in. After all, our press should actually be uncovering some of this skulduggery on their own, but they do not.
We only have Wiki doing the job, while under threat from the government. Not right!
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riverman
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the irony is the empowerment you like to give dictators and the idea that Putin saved the US from a war is....well.....sort of like you trying to make Russia great again......it's ok...I didn't think you'd read those articles posted by informed journalists....you counter with Putin to the rescue!!!!!! It's glaring apparent that you have more fear of Democrats than Russians....how do you come to the conclusion that Putin is the voice of reason in Middle eastern politics......he has one ally there....only one. To trust Putin more than Obama concerning foreign diplomacy is your choice......and Trumps....got it
riverman
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by the way...I believe our stance in the middle east has saved a lot of lives from being in harms way....Obama has done more to promote peace than Putin could even fathom....he's a warlord
MarAzul
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Ha! Yep! Me too.
riverman
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Steven Segal felt the same I guess.....
blue32
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Wikileaks, shall I link it?
riverman
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Putin has already done that for you
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Yes, if you have proof, not just a vague possibility, that government favors were traded for cash, please do post it.
But if it's just more 'oh, she's obviously guilty because I think so', you can skip.
barfo
blue32
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Maybe, maybe not. Assange says otherwise, but again all they do is collect information given to them via their "drop box".
But Assange said himself he has the evidence of Saudi Arabia funding ISIS.
blue32
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Sure:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE131801_a.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...oney-saudi-arabia-qatar-funding-a7397211.html
watch the video I guess. If you want more, find it yourself on the Wikileaks site.
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Uncovering corruption is important. But, you really think the press should be stealing documents and dumping them online? It doesn't bother you that innocent people might be damaged by that? And that it's criminal behavior?
Anything goes as long as it uncovers corruption? How about we kidnap people and waterboard them until they confess whatever knowledge of corruption they might have? Is that going too far?
barfo
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So according to Twitter Hillary is now a satanist due to some kind of wikileak? I'm at work so I can't dig too deep but it's the #1 trend on twitter. Or was.
This seems plausible.
This seems plausible.
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Maybe I'll read that second link later, don't have time right now, too long. The first one seems to just be saying that bad guys contribute to charity, and bad guys also fund terrorism. Not clear to me what the issue is, other than that bad guys exist.
barfo
riverman
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She's also apparently an alien reptilian shape shifter...gotta love these storylines
Nikolokolus
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You think it's absurd that political actors make moves and counter-moves behind the scenes to effect a particular outcome?
The West and Russia have been natural adversaries going all the way back to the fall of the Tsars (and before that really if you look at the Crimean war, The Franco-Russian wars). Big nation-states with big ambitions are always going to have friction. That Russia would attempt to sow chaos and manipulate its adversaries through spycraft, propaganda, and statecraft seems like a given to me.
blue32
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You wanted proof that Saudi Arabia provides money to ISIS. I provided. That is all. Assange states Clinton is aware of this and that they do it clandestine. Clinton also takes pay for play favors from this same country, while in the State Dept.
This is corruption and likely more.
blue32
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No, John Podesta visited a "spirit cooking" demonstration. Apparently he's into satanic rituals, or thinks its interesting.
I didn't even know this was a thing. But fuck, it's weird.
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No, I didn't ask for proof of that.
ok. well, if it is happening, then it is good that Clinton is aware of it.
That's the part I was asking for proof of.
barfo
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People do weird shit for Halloween every year...usually involving occult themed activities
