Full-Court-Press Russians Slapping Obama Around Like a Rag Doll...

Anyone naively hoping for Obama's failed Russia policy to work out might be forgiven- I too thought we could forge a far more constructive relationship with them back in the early 90's...
then again in the wake of 9/11, considering the common enemies that emerged. But years after those harsh lessons in Russian intransigence and strategic opportunism, you'd think the current administration might have known a little better than to just waltz into the Kremlin and try to lay some hopenchange on 'em... and with no 'Plan B' in sight.

Wishful thinking aside, if Russia isn't a full-blown enemy of the United States today, they do about the best imitation of one I've ever seen. Accomplished Machiavellian snake Vladimir Putin recently violated the spirit -if not letter- of a UN arms embargo they were party to by selling advanced anti-aircraft missile systems to Tehran through straw-purchaser Venezuela in a deal that includes the construction of Iranian-operated missile sites on the northern coast of South America (!). 

Yet regardless of Obama's ongoing attempts to make nice with the Russians -selling out allies like Poland and the Czech Republic in the process- the Kremlin has continued to put itself on the opposite side of almost any issue/rivalry/conflict that could possibly provide advantage- be it military, diplomatic, or economic.

Now Georgia has produced unsettling evidence of a Russian intelligence agent's involvement in a series of Georgian bombings, including the Sept. 2010 blast next to the US Embassy in Tbilisi- a direct attack on American territory/property, and just three months prior to US Senate ratification of an arms treaty meant to be a cornerstone of Obama's Pollyanna 'Reset Button' strategy.

Then there's this gem: although the United States has actually purchased dozens of Russian helicopters for fledgling Iraqi and Afghan forces over the last few years, that wasn't good enough for greedy thugs in the Kremlin- they smelled weakness, and that's all it takes usually...

A Pentagon program to rush 21 helicopters to Afghan military forces in time for this summer’s fighting season was derailed by the Obama administration’s conciliatory policy toward Russia and by Army procurement missteps amid allegations of corruption, according to current and former defense officials and military contractors.

Four Russian-made Mi-17 dual-use civilian-military helicopters were sent to Afghanistan in September 2009 under a competitively bid Navy contract that delivered the aircraft in a record 45 days.

But eight other helicopters that were painted in Afghan National ArmyAir Corps colors are now sitting in a warehouse in Slovakia because their delivery was blocked last November by the Russian government. The reason: Moscow demanded the Pentagon use the state arms trader Rosoboronexport as the sole-source contractor for the helicopters.

The contract change boosted costs by tens of millions of dollars and delayed further deliveries until later this year, at the earliest, according to officials involved in the procurement.

“Gaining political points with the Russians trumped meeting military requirements, and as a result we have a one-year delay in getting aircraft into Afghanistan,” said John J. Young, former undersecretary of defense for acquisition under former President George W. Bush...

The government-owned company they insisted we use -Rosoboronexport- tacked "at least" $4M to each of the $15M helicopters (x21), and Obama quickly caved- what does he care, it's only taxpayer money.

Seems the Russian mafia has had some serious influence on Kremlin business practices, if it's not them running all this in the first place. And just look at all the neat stuff the nice people at Rosoboronexport sold Hugo Chavez, on parade  -here-

Figuring-out the Russians is not difficult: (1) for the foreseeable future they find more advantage in being an opponent of the United States than in aligning  themselves with us,  (2) they always push and push for more until you stop them- which the current occupant of the White House seems both unwilling and unable to do anything about.  

Understand too that the Russians have no real reason to be nice, and really don't want to be your friend. They tend to see kindness as weakness and are already getting all they ever dreamed of by treating us with ceaseless contempt... so why change now? 

Expect the worst until we get a real leader in this country- 

going to be a long 18 months in the meantime.  

WashingtonTimes   Foreign Policy  Rosoboronexport     

Russians, Kremlin, Obama, xxx hillary, reset button

Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! -and on Chasing Shady Characters Like Viktor Bout, Konstanin Yaroshenko . . . and San Fan Nan

First, some Tire Repair 101

How to set the bead on a giant off-road tire 
while stuck in the boonies: 

-MechanicsHubdotCom on Vimeo-

Speaking of resourceful types... 
Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout -major supplier to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in their 2001 war against the Taliban- has been extradited from Thailand to the United States to face terrorism charges:

CNN:

He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War," -an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired Hollywood villains. 

But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout, he is a somber man, sometimes nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him. 

Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six languages "and I could see him bargaining in all six at the same time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with Bout in 2002 in Moscow, Russia. 

Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from Thailand. He faces charges in the United States of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have spent years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an arduous one for them.

Naturally, the Kremlin is furious... but perhaps not due to the usual nationalistic-protective motives: Bout is believed to have sensitive information that could prove damaging to senior Russian officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin... and they surely don't need the Americans digging into that.
- Moscow Times.

More The Americans vs.
Decrepit-Jetliners-Stuffed-with-Contraband news:

U.S. prosecutors say they are beginning to unravel the latest innovation in drug smuggling: South American gangs that are buying airplanes, filling them with cocaine and using international teams, including Russians, to fly them more than 4,828 kilometers across the ocean to Africa. 

As aircraft prices have plummeted because of the financial crisis, and radar coverage over the Atlantic ocean remains spotty, at least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to U.S. indictments....

Most of the cocaine flown to Africa is bound for Europe, where demand has been rising over the past decade. South American gangs are turning to airplanes because European navies have been intercepting more boat shipments along the African coast, trafficking experts say...

The U.N. agency began warning about trans-Atlantic drug planes after Nov. 2, 2009, when a burned-out Boeing 727 was found in the desert in Mali. Drug smugglers had flown the jet from Venezuela, unloaded it and then torched it, investigators said. 

In the last year, arrests in Africa have begun shedding light on how the air routes work. The cases are being prosecuted in a New York federal court because some of the cocaine was supposed to have been sent to the United States. One case has attracted attention in Moscow because one of the defendants, Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, says Liberian police tortured him before he was handed over to the DEA. 

He and the other five defendants have denied the charges against them. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the United States of "kidnapping" Yaroshenko and failing to tell the Russian government. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called his arrest an example of the United States overstepping its bounds. 

The DEA denies that Yaroshenko was abused. "The quantity of cocaine distributed and the means employed to distribute it were extraordinary," prosecutors wrote in one case. They warned of a conspiracy to "spread vast quantities of cocaine throughout the world by way of cargo airplanes."

Then there's this one... I heard she just lost a plane too lol:

Dems Lash Out at Pelosi During Closed-Door Meeting: 

“You Are the Face of Defeat”

-Gateway Pundit-

Moscow Times   FAIL Blog   Pookie's Toons   Gateway Pundit

Konstantin Yaroshenko, Pelosi jet, Viktor Bout extradited, kremlin, dea, drug smuggling 727, drug gangs jetliners, africa, russia, russians, xxx, Konstantin Yaroshenko, Pelosi jet, Viktor Bout extradited, Konstantin Yaroshenko, Pelosi jet, Viktor Bout extradited, drug smuggling 727, drug gangs jetliners, Konstantin Yaroshenko 

"Racist" Attacks on Obama's Family a Liberal Fraud

As reported in the Gawker -hardly a bastion of conservatism- the supposed "hate speech" targeted upon Obama's family last week on the Free Republic blog's comments section is precisely the fraud that many of us sensed from the start. While the comments were indeed appalling, it turns-out it was a liberal journalist who posted them. For anyone familiar with the tactics of the Alinskyite left and David Plouffe's DNC-funded internet squad, the whole thing stank like trash-truck juice from the start:

We should've seen this coming: conservative blog Free Republic fired hate speech off at Malia Obama after this photo of her appeared, letting their commenters go to town. But the journalist who reported this as news isn't innocent, either.

Chris Parry of The Vancouver Sun highlighted some of the comments on the mainstream, hard right-wing blog/news aggregator Free Republic. Among them, a picture of Michelle talking to Malia Obama with the caption: "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds." Classy. These mouthbreathing, borderline morons then kept piled on:

"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion. "Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.

"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another. Such was the onslaught of derision on the site that the person who originally complained about the slurs, a Kristin N., claims only one comment in the first hundred posted actually criticized the remarks as inappropriate.

Free Republic claims to be a site that "does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government." Yet, the thread went down, and back up with the original comments in tact, and then some, notes Chris Parry, the story's writer...

It gets worse, though. Chris Parry, it appears, has advocated on his Daily Kos blog any number of egregious offenses, among them: posting hate speech on sites like Free Republic and blaming it on conservatives.

Parry posted under the name "hollywoodoz" on Daily Kos, where his signature was "Fool me once, I'll punch you in the f___ing head." Parry outed himself as hollywoodoz here, where he discloses the company he helped start. In essence: Parry, the journalist, found his story right where he'd been circling it for a very long time, and reported it as news. Sigh....

Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children [Vancouver Sun]

______________________________

Sadly, similar efforts from the Democrats have been with us for some time, and in various forms. During the Clinton impeachment scandal, a then-new leftist group out of California called MoveOn.org employed a plan to get its members to dial into right-leaning talk radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh with scripted talking points falsely claiming that they were Republicans. They then feigned revulsion and said they "would never vote for the GOP again if the case against Bill Clinton was pursued." The same MoveOn.org is, of course, today in the vanguard of the web's leftist-activists.

And one might also question how the narcissist Obama didn't blink an eye in using his 10-yr old daughter for a political prop, dressing her up in a hippy peace shirt the day after he signed his misguided deal with the Kremlin.

Talk about playing the race card- good grief. Such cynical abuse of controversial racial issues is sure to backfire on the left, while doing America no good at all... just as Affirmative Action will be set back decades by the way the left guilt-tripped so many into voting for Barack Obama in the first place.

What's becoming more clear by the day too is that Obama and his allies are anything but a uniting force in this country... a shameful wasted opportunity.

Obama Blatantly Snubbed by Russians

This one didn't seem to get any coverage, although it seems sufficiently newsworthy to me.

Of course, Obama getting snubbed, frustrated, and even visibly flustered by an entire row of Russian leaders on camera doesn't fit with the everybody-just-loves-Barrack narrative. He actually looked quite silly reaching out to one after another... only for them to act like he wasn't even there. This is the President of the United States we're talking about.


And the MSM press surely doesn't need you seeing that Obama's open hand to Moscow is being met with nothing but contempt by the other side... now literally! If you saw that, you may then realize what a comprehensive catastrophe his Pollyanna foreign policy already is- something the Obama sycophants in the American media will be keeping a lid on for as long as possible. 


 Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine ought to put a stop to that soon enough, though-

What Can We Gain From Russia, Anyway?

In the 1980's, Reagan actually toyed with the Russians in talks at Geneva and Reykjavik. The Kremlin at the time badly needed a deal to save the entire communist economic system -Gorbachev's #1 objective- and this had to include the cancellation of the US missile defense program, a technology the Soviets lacked the resources to compete with.

But Reagan knew it, and wasn't really interested in helping them save their dictatorship, nor in giving up his SDI plans- the aim was nothing less than freedom and democracy for Russia and all of eastern Europe, not just Glastnost and Perestoika. So The Gipper waited until 1987 -a full two years after his first Swiss summit with Gorbachev- before signing the INF treaty.

Today we have Barack Obama -who's in need of a foreign-policy victory- openly pandering for a missile deal as the START treaty expires... it's hard to imagine him bringing home anything of value from Russia now. Sadly for us, it appears that Obama's poker skills are in the same league with his bowling and girly-style baseball throw. And Russia recieved much of what it wants before Obama even landed, so how would anybody expect Barack to gain any advantage? Meanwhile, the Kremlin has failed even to comply with the terms of the truce signed with Georgia last year- continuing to do pretty much as it pleases.

At this summit in Moscow, Obama is to announce the restoration of bilateral military relations with Russia, as well as of the NATO-Russian Council. And to please the Kremlin, Obama has now put on hold plans for the deployment of American missile defenses on Polish and Czech soil. In a letter to Medvedev earlier this year, Mr. Obama floated the idea of cancelling those deals entirely if Russia can prod Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. The Russian's response was dismiss this out of hand, but they now know the installations are negotiable.

When a superpower like the United States faces the world with an insecure foreign-policy posture, you can really get taken to the cleaners in trying to convince certain people to like you. The Kremlin leaders Obama is rushing-into-the-arms-of now are in reality zero-sum, mostly ex-KGB thugs who are out to settle a few scores with the west; this crew can smell weakness, and will be taking advantage of any on the US side to the fullest. Wouldn't it be fascinating to read the Russian intelligence files on Barack and Hill's personality flaws... and how best to exploit them?

And as to set the tone, as Obama landed in Moscow thousands of Russian troops were involved in the biggest war games in the south Caucasus since the end of the Cold War... menacing the small, independent nation of Georgia yet again. President Saakashvili remains a thorn-in-the side survivor, resistant to Russian hegemony in what the Kremlin sees as its near abroad. A pro-Kremlin regime in Georgia would give Moscow the control it desires over energy routes through the Caucasus... and influence over independent-minded Azerbaijan and Armenia, too. But as Barack smiles and glad-hands Kremlin leaders, it's like the brutal war in Georgia never happened. The Russians have paid no real price whatsoever for their expansionist adventure there- and therefore would do the same thing again in a minute.

It's hard to imagine just what Barack Obama expects to gain for America by rushing over to Moscow like this- as with Iran, he's allying the US with unsavory, anti-democratic regimes for little benefit, while abandoning those who aspire to traditional American ideals of free elections, free press, free enterprise, and rule of law in Russia and the CIS.

And he might be betting on the wrong horse yet again- the evolving reality in Russia today is that Vladimir Putin is on the political ropes-

As reported in American Thinker:

A few weeks ago, a massive protest by unpaid aluminum industry workers in the town of Pikalyovo, outside of St. Petersburg, snarled traffic for more than a hundred miles on a major interstate roadway. Putin was forced to make an emergency visit to the town and put up significant government funds to assure payment of wages.

Nearly a quarter of Russia's population lives in "monotowns" like Pikalyovo, which depend entirely on a single industry for subsistence. Russia can't afford this kind of largesse everywhere, and economists were openly worrying whether the gesture in Pikalyovo could place the country on the road to ruin.

Putin's assumed plans of cruising right back into the presidency in a couple years are suddenly looking shaky; the collapse of the Russian stock market and the ruble have dented support, and it's not possible to blame it all on Medvedev- everyone knows where the real power lies. Like Gorbachev, Putin needs an arms deal to save his economic model -a brand of dictatorial crony capitalism- so Barack Obama would be well-advised to not let him have it.

The new missile deals Obama has made a priority seem to be of little value to US interests- few expect Russia to ever seriously face off with the US or NATO, let-alone with nuclear weapons. But any substantial nuclear arms deal with Moscow certainly frees them up to focus on far more useful endeavors, such as modernized conventional forces that could wipe the floor with Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, or Poland. More special forces and US-type weapons, communications, transport, and training is something Putin could actually put to good use... unlike 2000 ICBMs sitting in silohs.

Russia has little to offer the United States in any negotiations- and they have almost no influence on America's foreign policy. It would be difficult for the US to purchase gas without the necessary LNG infrastructure in place. Russia's state-dominated oil industry is a chronic underacheiver, and government property grabs discourage western oil tech firms from providing the needed development. Add to that the Kremlin's use of energy as a diplomatic truncheon and oil deals simply look better elsewhere. Moscow's industrial backwardness and continuing Wild East legal environment brought them a pitiful $36B in trade with the United States last year- much of that likely Stolichnaya, not notoriously shoddy Russian manufactured goods.

However, there are few things we would value coming from Russia- like maybe a halt to their calculated and opportunistic attacks upon US power and influence, i.e.- bad mouthing the dollar/calling for a world currency, selling high-tech weapons and nuclear know-how to our enemies/terrorist sponsors such Tehran, Damascus, Caracas, and Pyongyang, as well as nabbing that US/Kyrgizstan air base from right under Obama's nose... just to make a point. But it's difficult to address these issues when Obama appears to not be interested in any such unpleasantries while chatting with Vlad and Dmitri.

The prototypical narcissist Obama is primarily after power and fame- and at any cost. In practice this means looking for a headline weapons-control deal that props-up his man of peace schtick while allowing him to eliminate F-22 production, cancel needed missile defense programs, and perhaps even cut military aid for traditional American allies, and all in order to fund his expensive domestic programs and entrench the Democratic party politically.

Obama long-ago bet his whole foreign policy platform on appeasement and legitimizing dubious regimes, and has nowhere else to run... it's hard for him to now support America's traditional freedom agenda when he's already on the record abandoning it. Thus his kid-gloves treatment re. issues like Russia's bullying of Georgia and Obama's shameful acquiescence to the brutality deployed in Tehran last month.

We have a president who's more focused on his personal and far-left domestic political agendas than on what's in the long-term, common-sense strategic interest of the United States- at best, a warped world view. Today's Russia is nothing to be afraid of, either- really just a Saudi Arabia with trees. Russia is a deeply dysfunctional society who's industry, political culture, and rule-of-law all remain seriously underdeveloped. They've got oil, though- and pride themselves in punching-above-their-weight. What our president doesn't seem to realize is that the Russians are -as is so often their practice- bluffing... as they are dealing from a position of comprehensive weakness.

But the cynical Kremlin surely doesn't take Obama seriously at all, instead they purely see an opportunity for comprehensive strategic and diplomatic gains at America's and NATO's expense. The reality is that Russia has nothing to offer the US- so as Barack heads over there to flatter them and give away our strategic advantage, perhaps we should ask for what?

And the worst is yet to come. In 1978 Jimmy Carter met with Soviet Premier Brezhnev, extending his hand in friendship much as Obama is doing in Russia today. After seeing what kind of a zero they were dealing with firsthand, the Soviet Union promptly invaded Afghanistan- in direct violation of promises made to Carter in Moscow six months earlier.

It is hard to imagine today's Kremlin being cowed or intimidated after meeting with a smiley plastic mannequin like Obama, putting his arm around them and schmoozing all the time- they know he's not going to do anything.

Next year it's Yes We Can invade Ukraine... and what are you going to do about it?

UPDATE: Obama reaches all-time low of -3% differential rating in Rasmussen's latest -here-

Yes-We-Can (Get Laughed-At by an Eccentric Tin Pot Dictator)

Doesn't look like many countries take Obama and Hillary very seriously, does it?  And the reason it appears that way is because they don't. Time to break-out another goofy "restart" button, perhaps? 

(good luck spelling it right in Korean this time).

Dear Leader Comrade Generalissimo Kim Jong Il 

(I hear he's  one-hell-of-a-golfer ) somehow doesn't seem to have fallen under the charms of Obama's hollow schmoozing one bit.   Rather, sensing weakness, the communist North Korean regime responded to the conciliatory gestures with nothing but contempt and aggression.  The flurry of nuclear testing and missile launches timed for our Memorial Day weekend was yet the latest "diplomatic statement" from the pugnacious, Stalinist 

Hermit Kingdom.

Of course, it never really made a lot of sense to try and deal in good faith and "reach out" to a dark, evil, and Machiavellian regime that would "hate" Mickey Mouse if he was US president- and for a refresher, has shot-down civilian airliners, operates a cruel police-state with a chain of torture/concentration camps... and even had plans to assassinate Reagan on his visit to Korea's DMZ in 1983.  

So it's hard to imagine that a grown-man like Obama truly believed that Pyongyang was reasonable, trustable... and cuddle-able.  The difference with this president is that they will not only hate him, but will despise and disrespect him deeply for his cowardice, naivete, and lack of resolution.  Of course,  a man with all the diplomatic experience and strategic/moral clarity that Obama and Hillary lack -like say, a John Bolton- could have told you this is exactly how it would play out with Obama's appeasement-based posture... as he did. 

Sadly, all Team Obama are really considering is the same kind of "deal" that serial-failure Jimmy Carter talked Bill Clinton into ten years ago: bribing Pyongyang with fuels and food to stop their development of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, while they graciously accept our gifts and continue to do just as they please at secret, underground sites... and serruptitiously selling nuclear know-how to our other enemies like Syria and Iran.

Pyongyang is currently developing -and has now tested- it's longest range ICBM, one specifically designed to carry a nuclear warhead. The Taepodong-2 missile has a 6000 km range, bringing Alaska and even possibly the west coast of the US within range... and right as the misguided Obama seeks the cancellation of many of America's defense programs.

Although many still in the ether don't realize it yet, Obama is in a tailspin on the economy, ethics, and foreign policy.  Nobody that has any sense of how the world works respects (nor fears) him... and that includes Wall St., the military, the Kremlin, Tehran, Caracas, or Pyongyang.  

Somehow all the talk of how Kim is this crackpot eccentric while Obama is portrayed as all-knowing and wise doesn't quite square with reality when the "crackpot" is running circles around our flawless messiah.  This is the same oblivious President Obama that was apparently busy with his puppy-vetting process or playing basketball while the Russians where nabbing our Afghan supply air-base in Kyrgizstan 

In addition to his ethical and fiscal follies, Barack Obama is endangering our national security, a failure of his most primary duty as president... maybe we should draw a line here? 

The luxury of living in a celebrity-driven/liberal/MSM fantasy world is not a right that Obama supporters can cling-to indefinitely, as it's both the voters and the press' duty to make informed, responsible, good-faith decisions... not waste power making a self-indulgent PC fashion statement instead.  And it's getting to the point where this kind of willfully-ignorant "thinking" is not just irresponsible, but dangerous.  Obamania's sheeple are deeply delusional, and in desperate need of deprogramming... as the misguided Obama's enablers, these fools are going to get us killed.

Ruthless, insatiable foes clearly have no reason to take seriously a smiley plastic mannequin like Obama, they know he's not going to do anything.  He was hoping to half-surrender to everyone on his recent international glad-handing tours and have Gates handle Iraq and Afghanistan- in order to buy us some peace and tranquility for him to focus on his real pet project, a radical, far-left domestic agenda... but events tend to have a way of intervening-

I would say that we should now expect for Tehran to deal Obama even greater defeats... except for the fact that tiny Israel will likely be saving us from our folly.   Obama, like Jimmy Carter, is making the US into an impotent, irrelevant bystander as events take their course, and nations like Russia and China fill the leadership vacuum.  Allies such as Israel will be plotting a more independent course in the interest of self-preservation... and will -like our enemies- simply ignore Obama.

The White House is likely working diligently on how to offer-up a speech or statement full of empty platitudes and ludicrous apologies (as in Prague)... do nothing about Pyongyang's defiance... and then blame it all on someone else.  But the problem with this standard Obama default strategy is that Democrats Bill Clinton and ex-President Carter are the ones who created this mess ten years ago... and our new president has adopted the identical, failed policy lock-stock-and-barrel.  

If you're American or one of our allies, and not scared with Barack Obama as US Commander-in-Chief yet...  you sure ought to be.