There was a lot of talk at the presidential debate the other night about Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Hillary Clinton raced to denounce Russia for supposedly hacking the Democrat National Committee and her campaign manager John Podesta. Of course, she ignored the content of the material obtained by the hackers and the corrupt and disreputable actions by the Clinton campaign and the DNC that were exposed. Instead, Hillary said that Putin wanted to put Trump in office to be "Russia's puppet". Much has been said about what has been revealed in the hacked emails even though the mainstream media for the most part has ignored the subject. One thing that has been almost completely overlooked, however, is the substance of what Russia itself has done in recent years. Let's consider that substance for a few moments:
1. During the Bush years in the White House, Russia was not very aggressive and US - Russian relations were pretty good. That changed during the 2008 presidential campaign. At that point, Putin took advantage of the American focus on the election and had Russian forces invade the small neighboring country of Georgia. The response by Bush and his foreign policy team was to get the world to impose sanctions on Russia for this aggressive act. The sanctions hurt the Russian economy during the fall of 2008, but the Russians remained in place in two provinces of Georgia.
2. In 2009, president Obama took office and appointed Hillary Clinton secretary of state to run US foreign policy. One of the first moves by Hillary was to convince Obama to "reset" relations with Russia. That reset amounted to four things: a) the USA lifted all sanctions on Russia, b) the Russian takeover of the two provinces of Georgia was allowed to remain in place (and it is still there today), and c) the USA agreed not to put anti-missile systems into Poland and the Czech Republic which the Russians saw as a threat to them, and d) Hillary had a photo-op with the Russian foreign minister and gave him a red button. Hillary's first action towards Russia was appeasement. The aggressive war by Russia against its neighbor Georgia would be forgiven and things would go back to normal. The one-sided nature of this deal was not lost on Moscow.
3. In 2010, the USA and Russia completed negotiations of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (also called START). START replaced an expiring agreement between these two countries to limit the numbers of nuclear weapons. Hillary Clinton has proudly claimed this as her own achievement during the presidential debates and elsewhere. START focuses on the number of nuclear weapons launch systems allowed to each side. The START agreement limits each country to roughly 1500 ICBMs, submarine launch systems and long range nuclear bombers. Prior to signing the agreement, the USA had about 1800 such launch systems while Russia had about 1425. In other words, Hillary's big achievement with START was to let the Russians increase their nuclear forces while the USA had to cut ours by about 15%. The one-sided nature of that deal was not lost on Moscow.
4. In 2011, a civil war began in Syria when the president of that country, Bashir al Assad sent snipers to open fire randomly at people who were peacefully protesting in Damascus and elsewhere. The protesters did not back down and Assad escalated his attacks on the opposition into all out war. Both Russia and Iran supported Assad's moves. The USA did nothing as tens of thousands of Syrian civilians were slaughtered by the Assad forces. A few months earlier, Hillary Clinton had convinced Obama to send US forces to bomb Libyan government troops who were preparing to crush the political opposition in Benghazi. The USA said that the move was designed to prevent the slaughter of the people in that city. Estimates were that as many as 1000 people might have been killed had the USA not acted. The American response to massive slaughter in Syria or more precisely the lack of any American response to the Syrian mass murder was shocking after the USA's having just acted to stop a much, much smaller onslaught in Libya. It appeared that Obama and Clinton had lost the stomach for any further involvement. The weak US response in Syria was not lost on Moscow.
5. In 2012, president Obama was famously overhear on a "hot mike" telling the Russians that he would be able to be more flexible once he had been re-elected. After a first term during which Obama and Clinton gave the Russians everything that they wanted, Obama was promising more. This too was not lost on Moscow.
6. While Hillary was still in office, Obama announced a new US policy towards Syria. Basically, America would do nothing unless the Syrians started using chemical weapons. That was a "red line" for the USA. It was strange that in the face of over 100,000 dead Syrians at the hands of the Assad forces by that point, Obama was talking about the then non-existent use of chemical weapons. It was an amazingly weak policy, and it was not lost on Moscow.
7. During both Bush's and Obama's time in office, the US tried to get sanctions imposed on Iran for its program to develop nuclear weapons. The result was a rather strong set of sanctions that had a terrible effect on the Iranian economy. Russia cooperated with that sanctions regime.
8. About four years ago, the USA started meeting with the Iranians to discuss the Iranian nuclear program. These talks expanded into ones in which five countries including both Russia and the USA met with Iran to try to reach agreement. The negotiations were another major show of weakness by the USA. Nothing the Iranians did or demanded led to any strong response by the USA. The announced goal of the negotiations was a deal that would prevent Iran from even getting nukes. President Obama announced that the USA would never agree to any outcome under which Iran could continue to use its centrifuges to produce weaponized nuclear material. All missile development by Iran would also have to be stopped according to Obama. In the negotiations, the USA gave up on all these points. The final agreement actually provides that the sanctions are immediately lifted and Iran gets a path to having a nuclear weapon in at most ten years. Because the inspection regime in the agreement is highly deficient, Iran may be able to cheat and build nuclear weapons much sooner. After all, that is what the North Koreans did after making a deal with Bill Clinton not to produce nukes. The Russians watched first hand as the weakness of the US negotiators was put on display in Geneva. Moscow also watched as Obama accepted that all of his stated goals would be abandoned and all of Iran's goals were accepted.
9. Once the Iran deal was put in place, Russia understood that the world had really changed. America was no longer a country to be feared; it was led by a government that was both stupid and weak. Russia immediately moved into a close relationship with Iran once the deal was signed. The Russians sold the Iranians billions of dollars in weapons systems which were paid for with the cash that the USA returned to Iran. Russian troops began arriving in Syria and they cooperated with Iranian troops already there who were supporting the Assad regime. Russian planes began bombing in Syria. Russia said it was bombing terrorists, but less than 5% of Russian strikes hit ISIS. The bulk of the Russian strikes hit the Sunni rebels who oppose both ISIS and Assad. Russia then also installed and anti aircraft system in Syria. Remember, the rebels and ISIS do not have planes. The anti-aircraft system was designed to shoot down American planes. As all this happened, Obama did nothing.
10. Supposedly, the Russians also hacked into the DNC and the email of John Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager. According to Clinton's latest lie, 17 different US intelligence agencies have announced that the hack was performed by the Russians. Really? Is she kidding? There have not been 17 intelligence agencies of the US government who looked into that question. Since it affects the campaign, we finally got some sort of response from the Obama administration. Vice president Biden was sent out to announce that the USA would retaliate against Russia for the hacking. Biden actually then said that no one would know when it had happened. You could actually hear the laughter coming from Moscow all the way here in Connecticut.
The truth is that the terrible relationship between the USA and Russia is a product that was created by Hillary Clinton and president Obama. If the Russians indeed did hack the DNC, it is most likely something that Putin had done just to make clear to the world just how weak Obama and America really are. Putin knows that with Clinton there will be no consequences. In fact, most likely Putin has already let Clinton know that he holds some of the classified email from her private unsecured server and from the Clinton foundation which ought to be enough to see Hillary impeached and removed from office if she is elected. The DNC and Podesta hacks are to make it clear to Hillary just how vulnerable she truly is to the Russians.
1. During the Bush years in the White House, Russia was not very aggressive and US - Russian relations were pretty good. That changed during the 2008 presidential campaign. At that point, Putin took advantage of the American focus on the election and had Russian forces invade the small neighboring country of Georgia. The response by Bush and his foreign policy team was to get the world to impose sanctions on Russia for this aggressive act. The sanctions hurt the Russian economy during the fall of 2008, but the Russians remained in place in two provinces of Georgia.
2. In 2009, president Obama took office and appointed Hillary Clinton secretary of state to run US foreign policy. One of the first moves by Hillary was to convince Obama to "reset" relations with Russia. That reset amounted to four things: a) the USA lifted all sanctions on Russia, b) the Russian takeover of the two provinces of Georgia was allowed to remain in place (and it is still there today), and c) the USA agreed not to put anti-missile systems into Poland and the Czech Republic which the Russians saw as a threat to them, and d) Hillary had a photo-op with the Russian foreign minister and gave him a red button. Hillary's first action towards Russia was appeasement. The aggressive war by Russia against its neighbor Georgia would be forgiven and things would go back to normal. The one-sided nature of this deal was not lost on Moscow.
3. In 2010, the USA and Russia completed negotiations of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (also called START). START replaced an expiring agreement between these two countries to limit the numbers of nuclear weapons. Hillary Clinton has proudly claimed this as her own achievement during the presidential debates and elsewhere. START focuses on the number of nuclear weapons launch systems allowed to each side. The START agreement limits each country to roughly 1500 ICBMs, submarine launch systems and long range nuclear bombers. Prior to signing the agreement, the USA had about 1800 such launch systems while Russia had about 1425. In other words, Hillary's big achievement with START was to let the Russians increase their nuclear forces while the USA had to cut ours by about 15%. The one-sided nature of that deal was not lost on Moscow.
4. In 2011, a civil war began in Syria when the president of that country, Bashir al Assad sent snipers to open fire randomly at people who were peacefully protesting in Damascus and elsewhere. The protesters did not back down and Assad escalated his attacks on the opposition into all out war. Both Russia and Iran supported Assad's moves. The USA did nothing as tens of thousands of Syrian civilians were slaughtered by the Assad forces. A few months earlier, Hillary Clinton had convinced Obama to send US forces to bomb Libyan government troops who were preparing to crush the political opposition in Benghazi. The USA said that the move was designed to prevent the slaughter of the people in that city. Estimates were that as many as 1000 people might have been killed had the USA not acted. The American response to massive slaughter in Syria or more precisely the lack of any American response to the Syrian mass murder was shocking after the USA's having just acted to stop a much, much smaller onslaught in Libya. It appeared that Obama and Clinton had lost the stomach for any further involvement. The weak US response in Syria was not lost on Moscow.
5. In 2012, president Obama was famously overhear on a "hot mike" telling the Russians that he would be able to be more flexible once he had been re-elected. After a first term during which Obama and Clinton gave the Russians everything that they wanted, Obama was promising more. This too was not lost on Moscow.
6. While Hillary was still in office, Obama announced a new US policy towards Syria. Basically, America would do nothing unless the Syrians started using chemical weapons. That was a "red line" for the USA. It was strange that in the face of over 100,000 dead Syrians at the hands of the Assad forces by that point, Obama was talking about the then non-existent use of chemical weapons. It was an amazingly weak policy, and it was not lost on Moscow.
7. During both Bush's and Obama's time in office, the US tried to get sanctions imposed on Iran for its program to develop nuclear weapons. The result was a rather strong set of sanctions that had a terrible effect on the Iranian economy. Russia cooperated with that sanctions regime.
8. About four years ago, the USA started meeting with the Iranians to discuss the Iranian nuclear program. These talks expanded into ones in which five countries including both Russia and the USA met with Iran to try to reach agreement. The negotiations were another major show of weakness by the USA. Nothing the Iranians did or demanded led to any strong response by the USA. The announced goal of the negotiations was a deal that would prevent Iran from even getting nukes. President Obama announced that the USA would never agree to any outcome under which Iran could continue to use its centrifuges to produce weaponized nuclear material. All missile development by Iran would also have to be stopped according to Obama. In the negotiations, the USA gave up on all these points. The final agreement actually provides that the sanctions are immediately lifted and Iran gets a path to having a nuclear weapon in at most ten years. Because the inspection regime in the agreement is highly deficient, Iran may be able to cheat and build nuclear weapons much sooner. After all, that is what the North Koreans did after making a deal with Bill Clinton not to produce nukes. The Russians watched first hand as the weakness of the US negotiators was put on display in Geneva. Moscow also watched as Obama accepted that all of his stated goals would be abandoned and all of Iran's goals were accepted.
9. Once the Iran deal was put in place, Russia understood that the world had really changed. America was no longer a country to be feared; it was led by a government that was both stupid and weak. Russia immediately moved into a close relationship with Iran once the deal was signed. The Russians sold the Iranians billions of dollars in weapons systems which were paid for with the cash that the USA returned to Iran. Russian troops began arriving in Syria and they cooperated with Iranian troops already there who were supporting the Assad regime. Russian planes began bombing in Syria. Russia said it was bombing terrorists, but less than 5% of Russian strikes hit ISIS. The bulk of the Russian strikes hit the Sunni rebels who oppose both ISIS and Assad. Russia then also installed and anti aircraft system in Syria. Remember, the rebels and ISIS do not have planes. The anti-aircraft system was designed to shoot down American planes. As all this happened, Obama did nothing.
10. Supposedly, the Russians also hacked into the DNC and the email of John Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager. According to Clinton's latest lie, 17 different US intelligence agencies have announced that the hack was performed by the Russians. Really? Is she kidding? There have not been 17 intelligence agencies of the US government who looked into that question. Since it affects the campaign, we finally got some sort of response from the Obama administration. Vice president Biden was sent out to announce that the USA would retaliate against Russia for the hacking. Biden actually then said that no one would know when it had happened. You could actually hear the laughter coming from Moscow all the way here in Connecticut.
The truth is that the terrible relationship between the USA and Russia is a product that was created by Hillary Clinton and president Obama. If the Russians indeed did hack the DNC, it is most likely something that Putin had done just to make clear to the world just how weak Obama and America really are. Putin knows that with Clinton there will be no consequences. In fact, most likely Putin has already let Clinton know that he holds some of the classified email from her private unsecured server and from the Clinton foundation which ought to be enough to see Hillary impeached and removed from office if she is elected. The DNC and Podesta hacks are to make it clear to Hillary just how vulnerable she truly is to the Russians.
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