The Russian Phoenix: Hope or Illusion?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

By Moti Nissami

Apart from the mainstream portrayal of Russia as a ruthless expansionist dictatorship (a portrayal too ludicrous to merit attention here), most awake commentators fall into one of two camps.

Members of the first camp believe that the realization of a better world depends on Russia’s success in its efforts to reform itself, maintain its independence, and contain American ambitions.

Members of the second camp believe that the Russo-American confrontation is of no significance to the long-term future of humanity either because that conflict is being engineered by the people who control both nations, or because both sides to the conflict are “criminal networks that use brutality and violence to enforce their control over given areas and to terrorize others.”

Neither camp, to my knowledge, provides a fact-based bird’s-eye view of this topic. The present article attempts to close this gap, thereby enabling readers to form their own opinion. The article concludes with my own tentative attempt to resolve the dispute between these two camps, arguing that both are partially in the right—and partially in the wrong. A conversation on the same topic is available here....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44167.htm

[cheapdate]

1. Putin=Trump

[mikehiggins]

2. Not at all. Putin is a very smart and vicious thug who has a habit of having critics

conveniently die. He originally came out of the old USSR security apparatus (NKVD? MVD? whatever) and is a very dangerous man.

Trump is a real estate developer from NYC who makes great, HUGE, BEST EVER!! deals but really never killed anyone.

So there's a pretty significant difference.

There is one similarity though. Neither of them will ever be President of the United States.

[MattSh]

3. Care to elaborate on that?

Of course you don't. It's just a knee-jerk reaction based on not knowing what you're talking about.

[cheapdate]

5. Right back at you.

Your knee-jerk hostile reaction is no surprise. It's exactly the kind of bombastic response one expects from fans of the Russian leader (or fans of the Donald.)

The traits they share are so obvious that I'm almost (but not entirely) suprised by your ostensible lack of awareness of them. Trump's jingoism and nationalism (Make America Great!) is shared by Putin. Trump's handling of oppostion voices (encouraging his supporters to rough-handle his opponents, constantly threatening legal action to shut-down unfavorable opinion, boisterously belittling and insulting opponents, etc) is very like Putin. Trump and Putin both use xenophobia to galvanize their support.

While the two men have very different backgrounds and political ideologies, they have some obvious traits in common.

[Blue_Tires]

4. His whitewashing of Syria doesn't surprise me

but I stopped reading when he said Toyota/VW/FIFA were all "manufactured scandals"...

Post this down in the crank forum where it belongs...

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

6. Thanks for your input Blue_Tires

[Blue_Tires]

7. Oh?

So you *do* believe the justice department trumped up those charges as some half-assed extension of "economic warfare"??

Have we really come to the point where we post *anything* as long as it reinforces our biases?

Good to know where you stand... We're done here.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. Oh?

So you *do* believe the O'reilly Factor trumped up BS smear rhetoric targeting Putin...

...https://m.

Have we really come to the point where you believe *anything* Fox News spews out your television set as long as it reinforces your biases?

Good to know where you stand... We're done here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Blue_Tires said nothing about Fox; that's all in your head

Blue_Tires pointed out the ridiculousness of the FIFA/VW/Toyota conspiracy theory the author puts forward (ie that they weren't actual criminal investigations, but "economic warfare" by the USA against Europe and Japan), and that he whitewashes Assad.

Your response - to claim that they must believe what Fox News says - is a complete non sequitur, and a rather insulting attempt to shut down any criticism of the OP you put up.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

10. I think you're confused Muriel.

When Blue_Tires claims a whitewash of Syria on the part of the author of the opinion piece, he's promulgating one of Fox News' favorite talking points i.e. Assad is the bad guy. This is pure and completely unsupported BS propaganda put out by Fox News and other corporate owned US media every day. The truth is Assad is viewed as a problem by the ruthless international bankster criminals who OWN the West because he refuses to sellout his fellow countrymen and become their servile puppet.

Non sequitur? Hardly. The complete non sequitur was Blue_Tires' bogus dismissal of the author's opinion piece on the basis of "conspiracy theory."

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. You need to look wider than US media. The UN accuses Assad and ISIS of crimes against humanity

As the war is poised to enter its sixth year, its horrors are pervasive and everpresent.
The lives of Syrian men, women and children have been ravaged as they suffer the
destruction of their country and the devastation of the Syrian mosaic. As the conflict has
intensified, civilians remain the primary victims, and are often the object of deliberate attacks
by the warring parties.

Flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law continue unabated,
aggravated by blatant impunity. Relevant Security Council resolutions remain largely
unheeded and unimplemented. Crimes against humanity continue to be committed by
government forces and by Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS). War crimes by the
belligerents are rampant.

The call for peace is imperative. Momentum must be sustained to ensure an all-inclusive,
Syrian-led process to end the armed conflict and transition towards peace. Accountability is an
essential part of this process.

Ensuring humanitarian access and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms
remains paramount. Local and international actors, with their underlying constituencies, bear a
shared responsibility to bring this process to fruition, while countering the spread of terrorism
and extreme violence in the region.

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-68.pdf

And Assad was a tyrant before the civil war:

The government remained intolerant of dissent. Critics, human rights defenders, alleged opponents of the government and others were detained, often for prolonged periods; some were sentenced to prison terms after unfair trials. Torture and other ill-treatment remained common, and were committed with impunity; there were several suspicious deaths in custody. The government failed to clarify the circumstances in which prisoners were killed at Sednaya Military Prison in 2008 and, again, took no steps to account for thousands of victims of enforced disappearances in previous years. Women faced legal and other discrimination and violence. The Kurdish minority remained subject to discrimination, and thousands of Syrian Kurds were effectively stateless. At least eight prisoners were executed.
...
Syria remained under a national state of emergency in force continuously since 1963 and which, over many years, has been used to suppress and punish even peaceful dissent. This pattern continued throughout 2009. Political activists, human rights defenders, bloggers, Kurdish minority activists and others who criticized the government or exposed human rights violations were subject to arbitrary arrest and often prolonged detention or were sentenced to prison terms after unfair trials before the grossly deficient Supreme State Security Court (SSSC) or Military and Criminal Courts. They included prisoners of conscience. Others, including former detainees, were subject to travel bans.

http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c03a7fb3e.html

Yes, the OP is a complete load of nonsense, with a particularly stupid conspiracy theory about VW. The author is an idiot.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

12. If there was a credible case to be made...

...against Assad, Western media would surely have put it forward by now. The links you provide certainly fail in that regard.

As for your zero substance ad hominem dismissal of the OP, this is the oft-used tactic of someone with no reasoned analysis or counter argumentation to offer.