You can tell how damaging the remarks made by Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University Wednesday are by the total blackout they have received from the mainstream media. Here is Google’s listing of the keywords "Hillary+empathize" revealing that only conservative media have found her doctrine newsworthy.
The former secretary of state, reading from notes (this was no slip of the tongue), expressed some thoughts that will not go down well with the electorate when they consider who ought to be the next commander in chief. The video is embedded below, and Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard provides a summary:
"This is what we call smart power," Clinton said to a small audience at Georgetown. "Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one's enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view. Helping to define the problems, determine the solutions. That is what we believe in the 21st century will change -- change the prospects for peace."
I think Mrs. Clinton was trying to do some damage control on the standing joke that "smart diplomacy" has become in the wake of the chaos sown by her tenure as SecState. She was at Georgetown, home of th School of Foreign Srvice, after all, attempting to add some sophistication. But this is an amazingly tin-eared thing to say, and it ought to discredit her as a politician, much less a diplomat. It is a vulgarization of some useful advice on how to deal with adversaries, getting inside their heads, avoiding underestimation, and other commonsensical notions about fighting smart. But the blanket way she went about this, in effect calling on us to respect and empathize with the beheaders of ISIS and the kidnappers of Boko Haram, is just plain clumsy.
I have to wonder if the medical problems Mrs. Clinton suffered earlier have affected her mind. Seriously, I don’t mean this as a slam; I am at a loss to understand how she could have come to the conclusion that it would be a good thing to say something like this in a very public forum.
The MSM can bury this all they like. It won’t go away, and it will be available for any GOP opponent, or even for a Democrat primary opponent (Jim Webb comes to mind). Imagine the clips of this cut with images of beheadings.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Odumba is between a rock and hard place, ain't he?
lol
Indeed. Our leaders are weak and narcissistic buffoons, only interested in short term moneymaking. Although, I wonder about Obama, I know he's an intellectual lighweight, but I think his Islamic sympathies blind him to the real threats.
Other world leaders, and real world leaders, have to be thinking that 2016 is a long time away if Obama doesn't get his act together. Of course, we know here that the documentation of his black racism and islamist sympathies will probably make that impossible.
Last edited by Avvakum; December 7th, 2014 at 00:15.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
We need to ally with whoever we have to, marxist Kurds, the Russians, Syrian Baathists, and yes even the Iranians, to stop these Salafist/Wahhabai Nazi dogs in their tracks and beat them into total annihilation.
Last edited by Avvakum; December 9th, 2014 at 05:29.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
An alleged weapons maker for the Islamic State (IS) claimed that a “radioactive device” has been smuggled into an undisclosed location in Europe, according to an intelligence brief released Monday by the SITE Intelligence Group.
“A Radioactive Device has entered somewhere in Europe,” according Twitter user Muslim-Al-Britani, who claims to be a freelance jihadist weapons maker now working alongside IS (also known as ISIL or ISIS), according to tweets captured and disseminated by SITE.
The claim by Al-Britani comes just days after reports emerged that IS could have in its possession a dirty bomb, the elements of which were obtained via earlier IS raids on a university research facility in Mosul that contained uranium. Al-Britani is also responsible for the flurry of reports on the dirty bomb.
Al-Britani, who has disseminated on his Twitter feed “weapon instructions and manuals,” claimed on Nov. 23 that the “Islamic State does have a dirty bomb. We found some radioactive material from Mosul university,” according to the tweets reproduced by SITE.
While it is difficult to assess the veracity of Al-Britani’s claims, U.S. officials have expressed concern about IS potentially smuggling nuclear and radioactive material out of Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi officials inked a pact in September meant to step up efforts to combat this type of smuggling, which the United States deemed a “critical” threat.
“There’s always a concern about radiological or radioactive sources,” a State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon at the time.
While the United States, at that time, was “not aware of any cases of these types of material being smuggled out of the country thus far,” ISIL could potentially use these radioactive materials to create a crude bomb, the official said.
“This is the kind of thing where if ISIL got its hands on enough radioactive sources or radioactive sources of a sufficient radioactivity level and they decided to turn it into a bomb and blow it up in a market, that would be a very unpleasant thing,” the official said.
Iraq reportedly informed the United Nations in July that terrorists had seized nuclear materials being housed at Mosul University. Some 90 pounds of uranium were said to have been stolen, according to reports.
Former Pentagon adviser Michael Rubin said that intelligence officials should be considering the information disseminated by purported IS confidants.
“Too often, counterterrorism officials plan to prevent replication of the last terror attack,” Rubin said. “Terror groups, however, plan to shock with something new.”
“Maybe Britani is lying, and maybe he’s not. But Western officials would be foolish to assume that just because something hasn’t happened yet, it won’t,” Rubin said. “The terrorist groups have the motivation and, thanks to post-withdrawal vacuum created in Iraq, the means to strike the West like never before.”
The threats also should factor into the ongoing debates about border control, according to Rubin.
“Perhaps it’s also time to recognize that open borders and successful counter-terrorism are mutually exclusive,” he said. “It’s a lesson that might fly in the face of Obama’s ideology, but reality will always trump political spin.”
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Adam Kredo Email Adam | Full Bio | RSS
Adam Kredo is senior writer for the Washington Free Beacon. Formerly an award-winning political reporter for the Washington Jewish Week, where he frequently broke national news, Kredo’s work has been featured in outlets such as the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and Politico, among others. He lives in Maryland with his comic books. His Twitter handle is @Kredo0. His email address is kredo@freebeacon.com.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
A gunman is holding a number of hostages in a cafe in central Sydney. It is unclear how many people are involved in the siege in a Lindt cafe in Martin Place but people could be seen with their hands pressed against the windows.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
For first time, ISIS downs and captures coalition pilot -- a Jordanian
By Greg Botelho and Hadel Ghaboun, CNN
updated 8:14 AM EST, Wed December 24, 2014
Your video will begin momentarily.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: The captured F-16 pilot's name is Moaz al-Kasasbeh, his uncle says
NEW: "Jordan holds the terror organization ... responsible," Jordanian source says
The plane was reportedly shot down near the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa
Amman, Jordan (CNN) -- For the first time since an international coalition began striking ISIS, one of its pilots has been shot down and taken captive by the Islamist extremist group.
The captured F-16 pilot is Moaz al-Kasasbeh, a member of Jordan's military, according to his uncle, retired Jordanian Maj. Gen. Fahd al-Kasabeh.
A source in Jordan's armed forces said that the pilot was downed carrying out a mission Wednesday around Raqqa, the militant group's de facto capital in northern Syria, according to Jordan's official PETRA news agency.
"Jordan holds the terror organization and those who support it responsible for the safety of the pilot and the preservation of his life," the source said. Inside ISIS: Rare access to Islamic State Journalist: "ISIS were not kind to me" Al Qaeda "nothing" compared to ISIS
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported earlier Wednesday that ISIS had shot down an unidentified warplane near Raqqa, a city that has been a chief target in the U.S.-led military coalition's air campaign.
Photos purported to be of the downed pilot appeared on an ISIS-affiliated Twitter account, images that Fahd al-Kasabeh said showed his nephew. The retired general told CNN that he'd asked Maj. Gen. Mansour S. Al Jabour, head of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, to investigate the case and take all necessary actions. Jordan part of internationalcoalition
The international coalition has been conducting airstrike after airstrike against ISIS in Syria since September, an effort that began weeks after first going after the group in neighboring Iraq. In that period, the coalition has claimed many successful hits that have damaged the militant group.
But this time, it's the coalition that has taken a hit.
While the United States has been at the head of this coalition, it's relied on a number of other countries to help militarily as well as to help legitimize the effort internationally.
Many nations have signed up to do so in Iraq, whose government is actively partnering with the coalition to target ISIS. But Syria has been a bit more complicated.
Officials from the United States and elsewhere support moderate forces in Syria's years-long civil war trying to unseat President Bashar al-Assad, despite the fact they are both fighting against ISIS.
Some Middle Eastern nations, however, have joined the United States in going after ISIS in Syria.
Jordan -- which borders Syria, Iraq and Israel, and has a history of working with Washington -- has been notable among them. ISIS' grisly reputation for atrocities
One big question now becomes what ISIS does with Moaz al-Kasasbeh, now that it has him in captivity. Their track record, unfortunately, speaks for itself.
The beheadings of hostages, including American journalist James Foley, was one of the things that spurred the United States to step up its fight against ISIS.
Those were just some of the many atrocities blamed on the Sunni extremist group, committed during its quest to create a caliphate -- which it calls the Islamic State -- under its strict form of Sharia law. ISIS has tried to justify its raping and enslaving of women and children, not to mention mass killings of civilians, as part of its campaign to purge "nonbelievers."
The Jordanian military source cited by PETRA noted ISIS' past when talking about its capture of the F-16 pilot.
"It is well-known that this organization does not hide their terrorist schemes," the source said. "And they have carried out many criminal acts of destruction and killing of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims in Syria and Iraq."
Libertatem Prius!
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Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Guys, I felt like I had to come back and lay it on the line, say what I think is right. I will say some things some may not want to hear, some things you'll probably not agree with, and a few perhaps that you will.
Russia is not, or rather need not be, our enemy. I've been wrong about this myself, but it's become clear and undeniable to me now. However, we have people in Congress and in the White House who have every reason to make Russia our enemy. Why? Because they are supporters of ISLAMOFASCISM and actual NAZISM, in places like the Ukraine (I was fooled by this false 'Ukrainian Nationalism' too). This goes the same way with China. The Islamic militants close to the circles of power and their LIBERAL FASCIST enablers and fellow travellers want their enemies TO FIGHT EACH OTHER.
What is the real enemy of us all, that stands to triumph from this evil and this foolishness? The Islamic State Caliphate. They should not be underestimated, even now. They are the REAL TRANS-ASIAN AXIS. Please read this article;
Please don't find your fears of Russia and China unjustifiably push you psychologically into supporting Syrian al-Qaida rebels against Assad, for Ukrainian Nazis who are suppressing the freedom of Novorossiya and Crimea, Uighur Islamic militants against China, Chechen islamists against Russia. And you should know by now all these groups work together, Ukrainian Fascists with Wahhabai militants from Chechnya for example. Nazis and Muslims, as usual.
Are Russia and China on America's side? No, they are on the side of their own national interests. But America, run by leftists and islamophiles, isn't represented in it's own national interests-which interests actually happen to coincide with Russia and China if we could just see it.
And what about our friends in Israel? They know better! They have been very quiet and very neutral in all this, because they know what i've said is right about the Ukraine and the Islamic State, but they want to maintain as much a relationship with the present US Administration and Congress as they can, so they don't speak out much against the lunacy of an anti-china and anti-russia US and Europe. Yes, lunacy. We live in a changed and more dangerous world, but are blind to the real existential threat to civilization, which we all have helped enable. The Islamic State. I mean, my God! What would you do about the United States of America,if you were the President of Russia or China, and learned of Obama's philoislamic militant leanings before his election in 2008? You'd go on war footing too increasingly, even take advantage of Obama's insane anti-americanism when he offers to reduce nukes. You all know you would...
Please tell me what you think. I don't want to be part of anything anti-russian and anti-chinese conversation, but as we talk about things like the recent race riots, consider that militant Islam's appeal to the protestors, not a turn to Russia or China, is what is the scariest confluence of events i've seen in my lifetime.
Those like us on this forum are being used by Obama and his pro-islamic fellow travellers. We've been played, they'd rather we saw China and Russia and their allies as our enemies, not Islamofascism. But the REAL TRANS-ASIAN AXIS, the now-worldwide 'Islamic State' and their Fascist allies, is still a enemy which must be fought, must be identified as the real peril of our time.
In your hearts you know i'm right. Don't carry water, even intellectually, for these people, the same kind of people who mourned the Third Reich and who would love to see the defeaters of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan-America, Russia, and China-go at each other's throats and make a revival of their hateful ideologies possible.
I've said all I can say. I don't have the time and sophistication to show you what you should already at least suspect in your hearts and minds. You have to do the rest, or not.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Russia... the GOVERNMENT is Communist.
American... the Government is Socialists.
American PEOPLE are Capitalists.
The basic tenants of Socialism and by extension Communism are DIAMETRICALLY opposed to Capitalism.
Therefore, logically, American and Russian GOVERNMENTS are OUR enemies - the enemies of the People of the United States of America, by default. The governments of the two countries are fucked up beyond repair.
The Russian People go along with their government.
The idiots in America go along with theirs.
Therefore, we are, by default, enemies.
(Socialism and Communism can not exist together, either working together or apart. Furthermore Communism has failed over and over. Socialism has failed, over and over. It is only a matter of time before the Socialist structure that has been set up in this country by Obama and his minions self-destructs and takes our entire system with them at which point not even normal capitalism can return without major effort on the part of Americans.)
Russia....while on the surface purports to be a "Federation" - with a Constitution, the election of Putin as President, taking his place from being Prime Minister (and all the while running things in the background for Dmitry Medvedev) is nothing more than an extension of Communist Soviet Union. I'm sorry, but no matter how you try to spin this Putin is a KGB guy who got into power. He's nothing more than a KGB Colonel running the Soviet Government - and slowing winning his way back into the old Soviet Expansionist model.
Look at the bloody news every day how this or that country is coming back into Orbit as a satellite around Russia.
Plain and simple. The Russians are America's enemies. Not because the people want to be, but because Putin wants it that way.
Libertatem Prius!
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President Vladimir Putin has signed a new military doctrine that describes NATO's military buildup near the Russian borders as the top military threat amid Russia-West tensions over Ukraine.
The document released by the Kremlin on Friday maintains the provisions of the previous, 2010 edition of the military doctrine regarding the use of nuclear weapons. It says Russia could use nuclear weapons in retaliation to the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression involving conventional weapons that "threatens the very existence" of the Russian state.
For the first time, the new doctrine says that Russia could use precision weapons "as part of strategic deterrent measures." The document doesn't spell out conditions for their use.
NOT OUR ENEMY huh?
Originally Posted by Avvakum
Guys, I felt like I had to come back and lay it on the line, say what I think is right. I will say some things some may not want to hear, some things you'll probably not agree with, and a few perhaps that you will.
Russia is not, or rather need not be, our enemy. I've been wrong about this myself, but it's become clear and undeniable to me now. However, we have people in Congress and in the White House who have every reason to make Russia our enemy. Why? Because they are supporters of ISLAMOFASCISM and actual NAZISM, in places like the Ukraine (I was fooled by this false 'Ukrainian Nationalism' too). This goes the same way with China. The Islamic militants close to the circles of power and their LIBERAL FASCIST enablers and fellow travellers want their enemies TO FIGHT EACH OTHER.
What is the real enemy of us all, that stands to triumph from this evil and this foolishness? The Islamic State Caliphate. They should not be underestimated, even now. They are the REAL TRANS-ASIAN AXIS. Please read this article;
Please don't find your fears of Russia and China unjustifiably push you psychologically into supporting Syrian al-Qaida rebels against Assad, for Ukrainian Nazis who are suppressing the freedom of Novorossiya and Crimea, Uighur Islamic militants against China, Chechen islamists against Russia. And you should know by now all these groups work together, Ukrainian Fascists with Wahhabai militants from Chechnya for example. Nazis and Muslims, as usual.
Are Russia and China on America's side? No, they are on the side of their own national interests. But America, run by leftists and islamophiles, isn't represented in it's own national interests-which interests actually happen to coincide with Russia and China if we could just see it.
And what about our friends in Israel? They know better! They have been very quiet and very neutral in all this, because they know what i've said is right about the Ukraine and the Islamic State, but they want to maintain as much a relationship with the present US Administration and Congress as they can, so they don't speak out much against the lunacy of an anti-china and anti-russia US and Europe. Yes, lunacy. We live in a changed and more dangerous world, but are blind to the real existential threat to civilization, which we all have helped enable. The Islamic State. I mean, my God! What would you do about the United States of America,if you were the President of Russia or China, and learned of Obama's philoislamic militant leanings before his election in 2008? You'd go on war footing too increasingly, even take advantage of Obama's insane anti-americanism when he offers to reduce nukes. You all know you would...
Please tell me what you think. I don't want to be part of anything anti-russian and anti-chinese conversation, but as we talk about things like the recent race riots, consider that militant Islam's appeal to the protestors, not a turn to Russia or China, is what is the scariest confluence of events i've seen in my lifetime.
Those like us on this forum are being used by Obama and his pro-islamic fellow travellers. We've been played, they'd rather we saw China and Russia and their allies as our enemies, not Islamofascism. But the REAL TRANS-ASIAN AXIS, the now-worldwide 'Islamic State' and their Fascist allies, is still a enemy which must be fought, must be identified as the real peril of our time.
In your hearts you know i'm right. Don't carry water, even intellectually, for these people, the same kind of people who mourned the Third Reich and who would love to see the defeaters of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan-America, Russia, and China-go at each other's throats and make a revival of their hateful ideologies possible.
I've said all I can say. I don't have the time and sophistication to show you what you should already at least suspect in your hearts and minds. You have to do the rest, or not.
Libertatem Prius!
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Russian Defense Ministry announced the successful test of the RS-24 "Yars" ballistic missile on Friday.
"Test warheads hit their targets in the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka peninsula with pinpoint accuracy," said Col. Igor Yegorov a spokesman for the ministry. The missile was launched at 11:02 Moscow time on Friday, Yegorov said.
"The adoption of the RS-24 ICBM with multiple re-entry warheads has increased the combat capabilities of the Strategic Missile Forces assault group to overcome missile defense systems, thus strengthening the nuclear deterrent of Russian strategic nuclear forces," Col. Yegorov said. The RS-24 carries up to ten independently targetable warheads.
Russia's strategic nuclear forces are actively rearming with the new RS-24 "Yars" missile, which replaces two older models that have been in use for more than 50 years.
The ballistic missile uses solid fuel and has a range of 7,500 miles. It can be launched either from a silo or from a road-mobile launcher.
Libertatem Prius!
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Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Av,
The US is not the one declaring Russia or China to be the enemy. We barely acknowledge either as a potential threat. And it isn't even Obama or any of the rest of his administration doing it. It's only happening with the few remaining in the military and intelligence fields with some common sense that Obama hasn't managed to purge yet.
As AP pointed out in the article I posted Russia is the one calling us a threat. China is the one threatening to nuke our cities.
All the while we have a President that is more than willing to bow to them, promising more flexibility, bending over backwards to kiss their asses. We're busy gutting our military while Russia and China build theirs at breakneck pace. We're deindustrializing while they build their industry.
Personally, I'd love nothing more than to be allies with two of the other most powerful nations on the Earth. If we were all truly working together just imagine the great things in terms of science, technology, and space travel we could likely accomplish!
But that is not reality. At least not at present time with the leadership in either country and, with as entrenched as that leadership is, the foreseeable future.
It has been pointed out many, many times for the almost 10 years this site has existed that Russia never went through a de-Communization at the "end" of the Cold War as Germany had to de-Nazify at the end of WWII. Communists were not tried and jailed for their crimes against the Russian people and the world. They stayed free and are in many positions of power today. The same goes for the Chinese government. Their Communist leadership still proudly rules.
The cold hard truth is that the Islamic threat would not hardly exist except for the efforts of Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. Just read one of the oldest threads on this site, number 35 to be exact. In the first post there are links to no longer existent threads on the old Anomalies Network where many of us started compiling our information in earnest back around 2001-ish. And before that back on the old Art Bell message boards where most of us met, back when discussion of a threatening Russia and China were so fringe the only place fitting for such discussion was Art Bell's website.
The one thing that has rung true over the last 13+ years of research and documentation is that Russia has been up to its eyeballs in supporting the Islamists for decades going back to the very beginnings of the Cold War.
The threat we face from Islam today is in thanks to many years of active involvement by Russia and, if Russia is having problems with Islamic terrorism it is because they have lost control of the monster they created.
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Ryan, you said;
Av,
The US is not the one declaring Russia or China to be the enemy. We barely acknowledge either as a potential threat. And it isn't even Obama or any of the rest of his administration doing it. It's only happening with the few remaining in the military and intelligence fields with some common sense that Obama hasn't managed to purge yet.
Yes, I agree that it is common sense to acknowledge a nuclear power with the capacity to destroy your nation as a potential threat....Isn't that what Russia and China are doing themselves, with respect to a potential threat from the United States? Tell me, have you yourself had any sleepless nights thinking about what kind of person is President of the United States, lately, by any chance? He may be Un-American, but, he may also be anti-Russian and anti-Chinese too.
As AP pointed out in the article I posted Russia is the one calling us a threat.
We're in their backyard, Obama helping with the leftist George Soros crowd to overthrow the legally constituted government of Ukraine, which threatens to fall to actual Nazis. Obama takes the time to anger them during the Olympics and scold them on the laws restricting gay propaganda, and a number of other things... Under Obama, we are a threat to Russia.
China is the one threatening to nuke our cities.
Obama threatens China with his 'Pivot to Asia' foreign policy doctrine. The CCP is more like Chiang Kai-Shek's Authoritarian but Capitalist one-party State these days, and China is poised to become a Superpower. Are we to scold them for following OUR manual for success and following their national self-interest, for the most part? They threaten us with the sabre-rattling to try to get us to back off from interfering in their backyard, because they do not respect the Philo-Islamic Sissy-boy we elected in the White House.
All the while we have a President that is more than willing to bow to them, promising more flexibility, bending over backwards to kiss their asses.
Again, nobody respects this asshole Obama. Can we blame them for being more manly than him, for not being flexible, for not bending over to kiss our asses in return as our Narcissist-in-Chief expects them to somehow?
We're busy gutting our military while Russia and China build theirs at breakneck pace.
Wouldn't you build up your military, if you were a Russian or Chinese Nationalist, and had a love for Russia or China equal to ours (on this forum) for America? Think back to what many worried about the collapse of the Soviet Union; disintegration, loose nukes, wars between the successor states of a fallen empire.... I mean, my God, we've had a thread on here called; 'will America break up?' AP, Ryan, the rest, put yourselves in the shoes of the leaders of these other countries; don't they know the same set of facts, and more, which we post all the time on that thread?
Think about what we talk about here domestically, about the possibility of a collapse of America and a new Civil War. If I were Russia's President or China's leader, that would make me worried too, immensely.
We're deindustrializing while they build their industry.
Our stupidity for electing assholes who have cratered and sold off our Industry. Other nations don't have to be stupid also and de-industrialize. Do you see Russia or China worried about a crock of shit like 'Global Warming'? I'm not scared by other countries being strong as we seem to want to be weak. Somebody has to be strong, and I'd rather have that be Russia or China than ISIL, if we pick idiots like Pelosi, Reid, Obama and Clinton to run things here.
Wouldn't anybody on this forum, really? If they see us as imploding like the Soviet Union did, they are going to carry on as carefully but as boldly as possible to maintain Civilization, just as we did with Reagan and Bush at the helm when the Soviet Union fell. Btw, some people, like myself once, thought it bad that there was no 'de-Sovietization' similar to the 'de-Nazification' of Germany after 1945... Thank God for that! Germany and Europe and Japan now is so afraid of being Nationalistic these days, that they're incapable of defending themselves anymore. Truly good and humane Counter-revolution is not revolution in reverse, but the opposite of revolution. I'm glad they got the guys they did to run things, for their sakes. Just as i'd be reassured if a former ex-military man or ex-CIA man brought America back from the brink if we began to collapse.... Wouldn't you?
Personally, I'd love nothing more than to be allies with two of the other most powerful nations on the Earth. If we were all truly working together just imagine the great things in terms of science, technology, and space travel we could likely accomplish!
Exactly. And don't you know that the certain political players i've mentioned have a vested interest in seeing that it never happens either.
But that is not reality. At least not at present time with the leadership in either country and, with as entrenched as that leadership is, the foreseeable future.
We had leaders like Nixon and Reagan and Bush 41 who weren't afraid to make that attempt, to be grown-ups talking to their grown-ups, but who resembles Reagan and Nixon and Bush more these days, their guys or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? You all already know the answer.
It has been pointed out many, many times for the almost 10 years this site has existed that Russia never went through a de-Communization at the "end" of the Cold War as Germany had to de-Nazify at the end of WWII. Communists were not tried and jailed for their crimes against the Russian people and the world. They stayed free and are in many positions of power today. The same goes for the Chinese government. Their Communist leadership still proudly rules.
But not as Communists, actual Marxist-Leninists, i've debated too many actual Communists in recent years who piss and moan about the 'treason to humanity' the elites of the Soviet Union and China engaged in to think otherwise. They if anything are Eurasianists and State Capitalists and Corpratists now, and I can live with that. Eurasianism never killed anybody to my knowledge.
The cold hard truth is that the Islamic threat would not hardly exist except for the efforts of Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. Just read one of the oldest threads on this site, number 35 to be exact. In the first post there are links to no longer existent threads on the old Anomalies Network where many of us started compiling our information in earnest back around 2001-ish. And before that back on the old Art Bell message boards where most of us met, back when discussion of a threatening Russia and China were so fringe the only place fitting for such discussion was Art Bell's website.
The one thing that has rung true over the last 13+ years of research and documentation is that Russia has been up to its eyeballs in supporting the Islamists for decades going back to the very beginnings of the Cold War.
The threat we face from Islam today is in thanks to many years of active involvement by Russia and, if Russia is having problems with Islamic terrorism it is because they have lost control of the monster they created.
Ryan, both sides in the Cold War used Fascsists and Islamists and other scum to do their dirty work. Some thought of using Fascists and Nazis on both sides even prior to World War Two. 'Blowback' is a bitch for everybody.
At the very least, all i'm saying is that we need to be looking at the real threat of radical Sunni Islam worldwide, in the shape of players like ISIL, and not interpret all the moves by China and Russia as attempts to destroy us, but rather, maybe to survive our fall, our implosion at our own hands, and not see a group like ISIL take advantage of the power vacuum.
And, think about who we elect much more carefully. We are the most powerful country on earth, and if we elect a Swine or an Idiot into office, you and I aren't the only ones worried.... Because that idiot we elect has his finger on the nuclear trigger.
Last edited by Avvakum; December 28th, 2014 at 06:09.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
This video documentary shows the internal threat of radical Islam to America, the real threat of our times. It's called' 'The Third Jihad; radical Islam's vision for America';
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Sorry Av but I'm going to have to take exception to your entire premise. Look, I get you're a Russophile and that's fine, there are a lot of things to admire about their pre-1917 culture and they deserve respect as an adversary. But to think that there is some sort of equivalency between Russia of today and the US is folly bordering on preposterous. The only way they are like us is that our government has managed to become almost as all encompassing and oppressive as theirs, thanks mostly to their influence.
Tell me, have you yourself had any sleepless nights thinking about what kind of person is President of the United States, lately, by any chance? He may be Un-American, but, he may also be anti-Russian and anti-Chinese too.
To be completely honest, no. I already know he's a shitheel bent on "fundamentally transforming" us and no amount of restlessness on my part will change that. That's why I'm spending my efforts "digging in" instead of worrying.
Obama is most certainly NOT anti-Russian. His words and actions very clearly bear that out. Probably attributable to his strong Soviet roots. He might be slightly anti-Chinese, because he is letting our military do their Pacific pivot, but not much. Likely only because he prefers his Soviet upbringers to the Chinese.
We're in their backyard...
Since when are sovereign nations such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and others Russian property?
They have quite clearly demonstrated they don't want to fall under Russia's sphere of influence by voluntarily inviting NATO into their territories for protection. And who can blame them with their histories of oppression by Russia?
Not saying you are one but the "we're in their backyard" argument has been a tired rationalization of the Left that has been used to excuse Russian bellicosity for ages. Fact is Russia doesn't deserve a backyard. All Russia, since 1917 through today, deserves is to be relegated to the ash heap of history. They clean their slate, then we can talk.
The CCP is more like Chiang Kai-Shek's Authoritarian but Capitalist one-party State these days, and China is poised to become a Superpower. Are we to scold them for following OUR manual for success and following their national self-interest, for the most part? They threaten us with the sabre-rattling to try to get us to back off from interfering in their backyard, because they do not respect the Philo-Islamic Sissy-boy we elected in the White House.
China is most accurately fascist. They are in no way "following our manual" for success. I'd say they're closer to following the Nazi Germany manual for success. If they were following our playbook they would, at the very least, have a freely elected government. You are again drawing a non-existent equivalence believing that China is just like us. They're not.
Wouldn't you build up your military, if you were a Russian or Chinese Nationalist, and had a love for Russia or China equal to ours (on this forum) for America?
Again, false equivalency. Should the Islamists in Iran be allowed to have nukes? After all, they just really love Iran and Islam (arguably more than a lot of Americans love America) so why not?
I mean, my God, we've had a thread on here called; 'will America break up?'
The only reason that thread exists is because of seeds of influence Russia spent the entire Cold War sowing in our nation, cultivating these authoritarians into the positions of power they hold now. Power they are using to grow government and encroach on we free men. And when such encroachment becomes too much to bear the natural course is rebellion. How that shakes out is the topic of that thread.
I'm not scared by other countries being strong as we seem to want to be weak. Somebody has to be strong, and I'd rather have that be Russia or China than ISIL
I am because as I've said none of those countries deserve any position of strength or influence because of what they will do with it. Same reason Nazi Germany, despite their groundbreaking technological breakthroughs and how much Hitler loved the Fatherland, didn't deserve any. None of those above are beacons of freedom and liberty and as such don't deserve positions of power and influence on the world stage.
This is what you get with Russian world influence...
In fact, if I had to pick someone besides the US as a dominant world power, I'd rather see the British Empire. They'd be a much better choice than Russia or China if the US weren't in the picture. Despite their errors, they arguably brought a positive culture and influence where they ruled.
At the very least, all i'm saying is that we need to be looking at the real threat of radical Sunni Islam worldwide
Sorry, but while Islam is a threat, the fact is the best they can muster is flying a couple jets into buildings and possibly a very limited chemical or biological attack.
Russia and China both have the ability to remove entire cities of ours from the map simultaneously and are working around the clock to improve that ability.
Even if ISIL grows into something resembling an organized, massive Islamic State, and takes control of the nukes of Pakistan or, Iran successfully develops them, the fact remains objectively they still wouldn't pose the danger Russia or China does because of the crude an limited nature of their nuclear weapons. They can't reach us with any of their delivery systems and even if they managed to get one here, a single one of their weapons wouldn't be enough to completely destroy one of our cities. Severely damage? Sure. But not destroy.
They biggest danger they pose is to the international oil supply, which I am less and less concerned about so long as we maintain our oil industry, and Israel, which since they're a nuclear power I think they can pretty adequately hold their own; assisting them if the need arises.
We're busying ourselves swatting at gnats while the real threats grow unchecked.
Aleksei A. Navalny, second right, and his brother, Oleg, left, were convicted of criminal fraud charges on Tuesday in Moscow. The political opposition leader was spared jail time, but his younger brother, Oleg, was sentenced to three and a half years. Credit Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press
MOSCOW — In a case widely viewed as political retribution, a Moscow court on Tuesday convicted the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny of criminal fraud charges.
Then, in a twist that may have had Mr. Navalny wishing for a stiffer punishment, the court spared him jail time but ordered that his younger brother, Oleg, who was also charged, serve three and half years.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” Mr. Navalny cried out in dismay at the young judge, Yelena Korobchenko, as she read the verdict.
“Why are you jailing him?” Mr. Navalny shouted. “This is a dirty trick. To punish me more?”
The imprisonment of Oleg Navalny, who is generally viewed as a pawn in a larger battle, signaled that the Kremlin was adopting a more sophisticated, if crueler, strategy in seeking to suppress Aleksei Navalny’s political activities, by sidelining him but not making a political martyr of him.
The verdict came as critics of the government were hoping that the country’s mounting economic problems would begin to loosen President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power.
Bailiffs immediately placed Oleg Navalny, a former postal worker who was not politically active and had been virtually unknown in public before the trial, in a cell inside the courtroom. He wore a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt.
Aleksei Navalny’s own house arrest, imposed in February, was expected to end as soon as the suspended sentence was officially in place. If he has any plans to swiftly return to the political arena, however, his actions will now be shadowed by fear of harm befalling his brother in prison.
The police on Tuesday were bracing for a confrontation with thousands of supporters of Mr. Navalny who had pledged to protest the widely expected guilty verdict at an evening rally just outside the Kremlin’s walls.
While Mr. Navalny urged his backers to take to the streets, it was not immediately clear whether the jailing of his brother would be sufficient to sustain the anger of protesters planning to gather in the bitter cold.
In a recent interview published in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Oleg Navalny, who, like his brother, is married and has two young children, said he understood the risks of his brother’s political activism.
“We absolutely knew that sooner or later this all would touch us,” he said. “It is easy to influence a person through his family.”
The political opposition in Russia has been largely mute in recent months, as Mr. Putin’s popularity has soared following the invasion and annexation of Crimea in the spring. Patriotism has also swelled in response to an aggressive government information campaign, presenting events in Ukraine as a coup orchestrated by the United States and the West in a bid to reduce Russia’s sphere of influence.
Some close observers of the Russian political system said that jailing Oleg Navalny effectively turned him into a “hostage,” as a way of taking revenge against his brother.
“Kremlin liberalism,” Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Russian domestic politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in a post on Facebook that oozed sarcasm. “Let’s put him on a long leash. We can always shorten it. And the brother gets a real sentence. This means that we take a family member hostage! And we can make his life in prison unbearable.”
Outside the courtroom, several dozen supporters of Mr. Navalny said they believed that his brother’s sentence was meant to punish him.
“So they have taken him hostage,” said Vera Kashtanova, a 70-year-old retiree huddled in a heavy fur coat against the morning frost.
Ms. Kashtanova said that she had not joined in protests, either during the Soviet era or under Mr. Putin, until this year, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“I am a Sovok,” she said, using slang that means an old-fashioned Soviet person. “But I am an enlightened Sovok.”
After the sentence was read, a smattering of anti-Navalny protesters sauntered toward the subway, taunting the opposition leader’s supporters.
Some of the them wore orange-and-black St. George’s ribbons, a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany that more recently has signified support of the Kremlin’s hard-line policies in Ukraine.
“A thief should sit in prison!” one yelled.
Once again, as with the unexpected pardon last year of another Putin nemesis, the former oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the verdict seemed to underscore the all-encompassing power — and capriciousness — of the Russian leader and the system that he appears to command, often by oblique signals.
After nearly a year under house arrest, Mr. Navalny, a lawyer who led months of street protests that followed parliamentary elections tainted by accusations of fraud in December 2011, and who then ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Moscow in 2013, has said that he no longer has hope that Russia’s future can be determined at the ballot box.
“What are we going to go out on the streets for?” he asked in a recent interview with The New York Times. “There are no elections at all anymore. Talking about falsifications is absurd because none of us are allowed to run.”
In another interview, with The Guardian, he said, “In Russia, it will not be elections that provide a change of government.”
Far from cowering, Mr. Navalny has publicly and repeatedly accused Mr. Putin and his closest associates in and out of the government of theft and corruption on a vast scale. He accused them more recently of fomenting war in Ukraine for the sake of securing and expanding power.
He has also made no secret of his own presidential ambitions. And though he has lived for years on the brink of lengthy imprisonment, he has shown no willingness to leave Russia as other prominent critics of Mr. Putin have done in recent years.
Gennadi V. Gudkov, a former member of Parliament, compared the sentencing of the opposition leader’s brother to the policy of detaining relatives used in Chechnya by the Russian security services and a regional leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, against Islamic militants.
“It’s been made clear in today’s case against Navalny,” Mr. Gudkov wrote on Twitter, “Putin supports Kadyrov’s idea of punishing relatives.”
Mr. Navalny’s Twitter account, which has at times been managed by his wife or supporters after a court order prohibited him from using the Internet, featured a message after the ruling saying, “Of all possible sentences, today’s is the most vile.”
The fraud case against Mr. Navalny that was decided on Tuesday is just one of numerous criminal prosecutions that have been brought against him in recent years. All of them are generally regarded as a response by the authorities to his political activism. In July 2013, Mr. Navalny was convicted of embezzlement after being accused of stealing nearly $500,000 from a state-controlled timber company while working as an unpaid adviser to the governor of the Kirov region east of Moscow. In a dramatic scene, he was sentenced to five years in prison and led from the courtroom in handcuffs, only to be released the next day by a judge who agreed to hear an appeal in the case.
It was while free from prison in that case that Mr. Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow. He drew a surprisingly strong 27.2 percent of the vote despite facing overwhelming obstacles in standing against the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Sergei S. Sobyanin.
At the time, it was widely believed that Mr. Sobyanin supported the idea of allowing Mr. Navalny to run as a way of granting some legitimacy to the elections. Although Mr. Sobyanin still had two years left in his term, he had resigned abruptly to force snap elections that gave him a heavy advantage.
In Kirov, the charges were considered baseless by many legal experts and had been thrown out after a local investigation. The case was resurrected by federal officials in Moscow, and the Kremlin made little effort to mask the political motivation of the prosecution.
The fraud case was similarly thin.
It began in December 2012 when the federal Investigative Committee accused Mr. Navalny and his brother, who had worked for the Russian postal service, of defrauding a Russian subsidiary of a French cosmetics company, Yves Rocher, by overcharging for shipping services provided by a private company the brothers had created.
The subsidiary, Yves Rocher Vostok, which had never reported any problem during its years of working with the Navalny brothers’ company, even withdrew a legal complaint that apparently had been submitted at the authorities’ behest.
In some respects, the case seemed almost laughable.
Mr. Navalny’s brother, realizing that the cosmetics company had unmet shipping needs from a distribution center in Yaroslavl, reached a deal with a Moscow-area sausage manufacturer to fill its empty trucks with perfume and cosmetics for the return trip to the capital.
The Investigative Committee said the Navalny brothers had overcharged the perfume company by about $800,000 — an allegation that some critics of the prosecution said would hardly be a crime even if it were true.
When the charges were first announced, Mr. Navalny took to Twitter, one of his favorite platforms, and wrote, “Hey you in the Investigative Committee! Have you gone crazy?”
In another Twitter post, he wrote, “I did not steal your packages, you goats!”
Although Mr. Navalny is known for his sharp tongue and for his deft turns of phrase, no one was amused in the courtroom this month when prosecutors said they would seek a nine-year prison sentence and an additional year as penalty for previous crimes.
In a closing statement during that hearing, Mr. Navalny railed against the judges, prosecutors and other servants of the Putin government, accusing them of knowingly pursuing baseless prosecutions. He expressed particular outrage over the treatment of co-defendants in his cases, including a friend in Kirov, Pyotr Ofitserov, and his brother.
“How many times in his life can a person who has done nothing illegal pronounce his closing words?” Mr. Navalny asked. “In the last year and a half, this is my sixth or 10th closing statement. It’s as if the end of days are coming.”
Mr. Navalny has said that he does not believe opinion polls showing an increase in support for Mr. Putin since the annexation of Crimea. In fact, he has said, even supporters of Mr. Putin are prepared to betray him at the first sign of weakness.
“These people are waiting,” Mr. Navalny said. “The oligarchs, Putin’s ministers and all the others are waiting. They will betray Putin the second they feel like he has weakened. But for now he hasn’t. For now Putin has total authority over Russia.”
Libertatem Prius!
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Aleksei A. Navalny, second right, and his brother, Oleg, left, were convicted of criminal fraud charges on Tuesday in Moscow. The political opposition leader was spared jail time, but his younger brother, Oleg, was sentenced to three and a half years. Credit Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press
MOSCOW — In a case widely viewed as political retribution, a Moscow court on Tuesday convicted the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny of criminal fraud charges.
Then, in a twist that may have had Mr. Navalny wishing for a stiffer punishment, the court spared him jail time but ordered that his younger brother, Oleg, who was also charged, serve three and half years.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” Mr. Navalny cried out in dismay at the young judge, Yelena Korobchenko, as she read the verdict.
“Why are you jailing him?” Mr. Navalny shouted. “This is a dirty trick. To punish me more?”
The imprisonment of Oleg Navalny, who is generally viewed as a pawn in a larger battle, signaled that the Kremlin was adopting a more sophisticated, if crueler, strategy in seeking to suppress Aleksei Navalny’s political activities, by sidelining him but not making a political martyr of him.
The verdict came as critics of the government were hoping that the country’s mounting economic problems would begin to loosen President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power.
Bailiffs immediately placed Oleg Navalny, a former postal worker who was not politically active and had been virtually unknown in public before the trial, in a cell inside the courtroom. He wore a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt.
Aleksei Navalny’s own house arrest, imposed in February, was expected to end as soon as the suspended sentence was officially in place. If he has any plans to swiftly return to the political arena, however, his actions will now be shadowed by fear of harm befalling his brother in prison.
The police on Tuesday were bracing for a confrontation with thousands of supporters of Mr. Navalny who had pledged to protest the widely expected guilty verdict at an evening rally just outside the Kremlin’s walls.
While Mr. Navalny urged his backers to take to the streets, it was not immediately clear whether the jailing of his brother would be sufficient to sustain the anger of protesters planning to gather in the bitter cold.
In a recent interview published in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Oleg Navalny, who, like his brother, is married and has two young children, said he understood the risks of his brother’s political activism.
“We absolutely knew that sooner or later this all would touch us,” he said. “It is easy to influence a person through his family.”
The political opposition in Russia has been largely mute in recent months, as Mr. Putin’s popularity has soared following the invasion and annexation of Crimea in the spring. Patriotism has also swelled in response to an aggressive government information campaign, presenting events in Ukraine as a coup orchestrated by the United States and the West in a bid to reduce Russia’s sphere of influence.
Some close observers of the Russian political system said that jailing Oleg Navalny effectively turned him into a “hostage,” as a way of taking revenge against his brother.
“Kremlin liberalism,” Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Russian domestic politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in a post on Facebook that oozed sarcasm. “Let’s put him on a long leash. We can always shorten it. And the brother gets a real sentence. This means that we take a family member hostage! And we can make his life in prison unbearable.”
Outside the courtroom, several dozen supporters of Mr. Navalny said they believed that his brother’s sentence was meant to punish him.
“So they have taken him hostage,” said Vera Kashtanova, a 70-year-old retiree huddled in a heavy fur coat against the morning frost.
Ms. Kashtanova said that she had not joined in protests, either during the Soviet era or under Mr. Putin, until this year, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“I am a Sovok,” she said, using slang that means an old-fashioned Soviet person. “But I am an enlightened Sovok.”
After the sentence was read, a smattering of anti-Navalny protesters sauntered toward the subway, taunting the opposition leader’s supporters.
Some of the them wore orange-and-black St. George’s ribbons, a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany that more recently has signified support of the Kremlin’s hard-line policies in Ukraine.
“A thief should sit in prison!” one yelled.
Once again, as with the unexpected pardon last year of another Putin nemesis, the former oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the verdict seemed to underscore the all-encompassing power — and capriciousness — of the Russian leader and the system that he appears to command, often by oblique signals.
After nearly a year under house arrest, Mr. Navalny, a lawyer who led months of street protests that followed parliamentary elections tainted by accusations of fraud in December 2011, and who then ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Moscow in 2013, has said that he no longer has hope that Russia’s future can be determined at the ballot box.
“What are we going to go out on the streets for?” he asked in a recent interview with The New York Times. “There are no elections at all anymore. Talking about falsifications is absurd because none of us are allowed to run.”
In another interview, with The Guardian, he said, “In Russia, it will not be elections that provide a change of government.”
Far from cowering, Mr. Navalny has publicly and repeatedly accused Mr. Putin and his closest associates in and out of the government of theft and corruption on a vast scale. He accused them more recently of fomenting war in Ukraine for the sake of securing and expanding power.
He has also made no secret of his own presidential ambitions. And though he has lived for years on the brink of lengthy imprisonment, he has shown no willingness to leave Russia as other prominent critics of Mr. Putin have done in recent years.
Gennadi V. Gudkov, a former member of Parliament, compared the sentencing of the opposition leader’s brother to the policy of detaining relatives used in Chechnya by the Russian security services and a regional leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, against Islamic militants.
“It’s been made clear in today’s case against Navalny,” Mr. Gudkov wrote on Twitter, “Putin supports Kadyrov’s idea of punishing relatives.”
Mr. Navalny’s Twitter account, which has at times been managed by his wife or supporters after a court order prohibited him from using the Internet, featured a message after the ruling saying, “Of all possible sentences, today’s is the most vile.”
The fraud case against Mr. Navalny that was decided on Tuesday is just one of numerous criminal prosecutions that have been brought against him in recent years. All of them are generally regarded as a response by the authorities to his political activism. In July 2013, Mr. Navalny was convicted of embezzlement after being accused of stealing nearly $500,000 from a state-controlled timber company while working as an unpaid adviser to the governor of the Kirov region east of Moscow. In a dramatic scene, he was sentenced to five years in prison and led from the courtroom in handcuffs, only to be released the next day by a judge who agreed to hear an appeal in the case.
It was while free from prison in that case that Mr. Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow. He drew a surprisingly strong 27.2 percent of the vote despite facing overwhelming obstacles in standing against the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Sergei S. Sobyanin.
At the time, it was widely believed that Mr. Sobyanin supported the idea of allowing Mr. Navalny to run as a way of granting some legitimacy to the elections. Although Mr. Sobyanin still had two years left in his term, he had resigned abruptly to force snap elections that gave him a heavy advantage.
In Kirov, the charges were considered baseless by many legal experts and had been thrown out after a local investigation. The case was resurrected by federal officials in Moscow, and the Kremlin made little effort to mask the political motivation of the prosecution.
The fraud case was similarly thin.
It began in December 2012 when the federal Investigative Committee accused Mr. Navalny and his brother, who had worked for the Russian postal service, of defrauding a Russian subsidiary of a French cosmetics company, Yves Rocher, by overcharging for shipping services provided by a private company the brothers had created.
The subsidiary, Yves Rocher Vostok, which had never reported any problem during its years of working with the Navalny brothers’ company, even withdrew a legal complaint that apparently had been submitted at the authorities’ behest.
In some respects, the case seemed almost laughable.
Mr. Navalny’s brother, realizing that the cosmetics company had unmet shipping needs from a distribution center in Yaroslavl, reached a deal with a Moscow-area sausage manufacturer to fill its empty trucks with perfume and cosmetics for the return trip to the capital.
The Investigative Committee said the Navalny brothers had overcharged the perfume company by about $800,000 — an allegation that some critics of the prosecution said would hardly be a crime even if it were true.
When the charges were first announced, Mr. Navalny took to Twitter, one of his favorite platforms, and wrote, “Hey you in the Investigative Committee! Have you gone crazy?”
In another Twitter post, he wrote, “I did not steal your packages, you goats!”
Although Mr. Navalny is known for his sharp tongue and for his deft turns of phrase, no one was amused in the courtroom this month when prosecutors said they would seek a nine-year prison sentence and an additional year as penalty for previous crimes.
In a closing statement during that hearing, Mr. Navalny railed against the judges, prosecutors and other servants of the Putin government, accusing them of knowingly pursuing baseless prosecutions. He expressed particular outrage over the treatment of co-defendants in his cases, including a friend in Kirov, Pyotr Ofitserov, and his brother.
“How many times in his life can a person who has done nothing illegal pronounce his closing words?” Mr. Navalny asked. “In the last year and a half, this is my sixth or 10th closing statement. It’s as if the end of days are coming.”
Mr. Navalny has said that he does not believe opinion polls showing an increase in support for Mr. Putin since the annexation of Crimea. In fact, he has said, even supporters of Mr. Putin are prepared to betray him at the first sign of weakness.
“These people are waiting,” Mr. Navalny said. “The oligarchs, Putin’s ministers and all the others are waiting. They will betray Putin the second they feel like he has weakened. But for now he hasn’t. For now Putin has total authority over Russia.”
Navalny is a Fascist and White Supremacist, from what i've read about him. I say throw the book at him.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Dear Ryan, you replied;
Sorry Av but I'm going to have to take exception to your entire premise. Look, I get you're a Russophile
I share the same faith as many Russians, but as far as all that goes, I'm speaking as an American who believes OUR national interests lie in being allied with Russia and the BRICS countries in general, and that offer of being involved with them has been on the table from the beginning.
and that's fine, there are a lot of things to admire about their pre-1917 culture and they deserve respect as an adversary.
When it counted, they weren't adversaries, but allies. No need to make them adversaries now like Obama and company has been.
But to think that there is some sort of equivalency between Russia of today and the US is folly bordering on preposterous. The only way they are like us is that our government has managed to become almost as all encompassing and oppressive as theirs, thanks mostly to their influence.
Putin's administration being 'oppressive' is what keeps the Communists and the Fascists out of power, and allows a somewhat prosperous middle class to begin to develop, that and the development of property rights and steps towards the rule of law. Putin not too long ago said that the Bolsheviks were 'traitors to Russia' in 1917, at a time when half the population still looks back on those Soviet years favorably. He says and does many things favorable to capitalism and spirituality in Russia, but has faced an uphill battle from the beginning. Many people don't want to see a strong prosperous Russia. For the sake of world security, I do.
To be completely honest, no. I already know he's a shitheel bent on "fundamentally transforming" us and no amount of restlessness on my part will change that. That's why I'm spending my efforts "digging in" instead of worrying.
But my point, despite your response to Obama's actions, still remains.
Obama is most certainly NOT anti-Russian. His words and actions very clearly bear that out.
Obama's State Department and CIA helping to install a Crypto-Nazi regime in Kiev, that is favorable to Islamic militants, is profoundly 'anti-Russian'.
Probably attributable to his strong Soviet roots.
If he has strong Soviet roots, he'd have all the more reason to be angry at Putin. Help to Overthrow Putin, and maybe the Communists will take Russia back.
He might be slightly anti-Chinese, because he is letting our military do their Pacific pivot, but not much. Likely only because he prefers his Soviet upbringers to the Chinese.
See above.
Since when are sovereign nations such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and others Russian property?
'property', no. But just as we have a sphere of interest with our Central American neighbors, don't you think that Russia has a right to be interested in what is going on in Eastern Europe, from whence almost all invasions of Russia have come from historically?
They have quite clearly demonstrated they don't want to fall under Russia's sphere of influence by voluntarily inviting NATO into their territories for protection. And who can blame them with their histories of oppression by Russia?
'oppression' is a two way street in some neighborhoods. Poland invaded Russia twice, the first time almost conquered Russia, occupying the Kremlin even. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania honor SS killers and Nazi Collaborators as national heroes. Hungary has good relations with today's Russia, prompting Insane McCain to bully them. Times change and governments do too.
Not saying you are one but the "we're in their backyard" argument has been a tired rationalization of the Left that has been used to excuse Russian bellicosity for ages. Fact is Russia doesn't deserve a backyard. All Russia, since 1917 through today, deserves is to be relegated to the ash heap of history. They clean their slate, then we can talk.
People on the Right say 'we're in Russia's backyard' too. And some faux-rightists, 'neoconservatives' who were otherwise RINO's or Libertarians, used 'anticommunism' as a cover for their hatred of Russia-conflating the Soviet Occupier of Russia with Russia herself. A similar thing occurs today when certain people use the cover of being 'Anti-Zionist' to hide their 'Antisemitism'.
China is most accurately fascist. They are in no way "following our manual" for success. I'd say they're closer to following the Nazi Germany manual for success. If they were following our playbook they would, at the very least, have a freely elected government. You are again drawing a non-existent equivalence believing that China is just like us. They're not.
I said 'our playbook' to mean 'capitalism'. Surely you don't think Jeffersonian Democracy applies universally, it doesn't even seem to apply in America.
Again, false equivalency. Should the Islamists in Iran be allowed to have nukes? After all, they just really love Iran and Islam (arguably more than a lot of Americans love America) so why not?
Let me know if you think the regime of the Shah of Iran-who was developing nuclear power and who wanted nuclear weapons also, should have nukes if the Pahlavi dynasty was back in power today.
The only reason that thread exists is because of seeds of influence Russia spent the entire Cold War sowing in our nation, cultivating these authoritarians into the positions of power they hold now. Power they are using to grow government and encroach on we free men. And when such encroachment becomes too much to bear the natural course is rebellion. How that shakes out is the topic of that thread.
Not just the Soviets, but their Communist enemies the Trotskyites and other Marxist sects also. We ignore Trotsky's 'Fourth International' and the 'Cultural Marxists' from the Frankfort School, and I think their shenanigans have been worse than the clumsy and ham-fisted attempts of the Soviets at subversion.
I am because as I've said none of those countries deserve any position of strength or influence because of what they will do with it. Same reason Nazi Germany, despite their groundbreaking technological breakthroughs and how much Hitler loved the Fatherland, didn't deserve any. None of those above are beacons of freedom and liberty and as such don't deserve positions of power and influence on the world stage.
I agree, and Russia and China are moving towards liberty, in their own ways and in a manner that is responsible and doesn't unduly convulse post-communist societies. If we are moving away from liberty as they are moving towards it, is that their fault or ours?
This is what you get with Russian world influence...
You said 'Russian', I say 'Communist' and 'Soviet'. There's a difference, like that between a hostage and a hostage taker, you can understand if many hostages develop 'Stockholm Syndrome' in order to survive. With Russia, the 'Hostage Taker' is pretty much almost dead.
In fact, if I had to pick someone besides the US as a dominant world power, I'd rather see the British Empire. They'd be a much better choice than Russia or China if the US weren't in the picture. Despite their errors, they arguably brought a positive culture and influence where they ruled.
The British Empire will not return though, the Czars have a better chance of returning to rule Russia than the British Empire coming back.
Sorry, but while Islam is a threat, the fact is the best they can muster is flying a couple jets into buildings and possibly a very limited chemical or biological attack.
Their biggest weapons are cultural, ideological, and demographic ones, always have been. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, and has reached a critical tipping point in Western Europe. And as our socio-economic crises increase, so too will the numbers and strength of Muslim groups working to impose a world Caliphate and Sharia law on the planet; and they're doing this without much bloodshed.
Russia and China both have the ability to remove entire cities of ours from the map simultaneously and are working around the clock to improve that ability.
Doing what any responsible nuclear armed country would do, the nuclear weapon is a weapon used in certain possible scenarios and contingencies, after all. And we have much the same capacities as they do, even if we neglect ours. You and others continue to blame them for doing what you know we should be doing too, and you know it. They I recall, often got blamed for neglect of their nuclear arsenals after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Even if ISIL grows into something resembling an organized, massive Islamic State, and takes control of the nukes of Pakistan or, Iran successfully develops them, the fact remains objectively they still wouldn't pose the danger Russia or China does because of the crude an limited nature of their nuclear weapons. They can't reach us with any of their delivery systems and even if they managed to get one here, a single one of their weapons wouldn't be enough to completely destroy one of our cities. Severely damage? Sure. But not destroy.
Time changes a lot of things, you say they don't have the capacity now, perhaps they have other means and strategies in play against the civilized non-muslim world?
They biggest danger they pose is to the international oil supply, which I am less and less concerned about so long as we maintain our oil industry, and Israel, which since they're a nuclear power I think they can pretty adequately hold their own; assisting them if the need arises.
I worry about Israel long-term, considering their Muslim demographic time-bomb within Israel itself and in the West Bank and Gaza, combine that with more militant neighbors, and Israel could fall with a whimper like South Africa did. And unlike South Africa, I think Israel's nuclear arsenal wouldn't be taken apart before it became Islamic property.
We're busying ourselves swatting at gnats while the real threats grow unchecked.
This is where I disagree fundamentally, I think we're busying ourselves swatting at real threats like they were gnats, and creating real threats out of potential allies.
But in all charity, since we do have certain common interests, I'm of a mind to focus on the cultural subversion of Islam and the threat of groups like the Islamic State, and have no interest in further debate about Russia and China. It's like having a family of hard-headed opinionated people; we can argue and fight all day long, but when the common threat rears it's head, we're all in for each other.
But a prediction; I think that before it's all said and done, we'll be standing with Russian and Chinese troops as we fight Islamists together, someday not too far off.
Last edited by Avvakum; December 31st, 2014 at 02:55.
Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15
Originally Posted by Avvakum
Navalny is a Fascist and White Supremacist, from what i've read about him. I say throw the book at him.
Throw the book at him?
Regardless of his political affiliation (and he is a "Progressive" according to his own writings) he is being used as a pawn and his brother has been put in prison to CONTROL him, effectively a political prisoner now.
Does that strike you as a GOOD thing for a government to do?
Wouldn't arresting someone like Jesse Jackson and putting him and his kids in jail because he said something against George Bush (for example) be considered WRONG in this country?
Wouldn't arresting Rand Paul, or me, or YOU and putting US in jail for saying something against Obama be considered WRONG?
I think so.
So regardless of what Navalny SAID - what happens to free speech when these things happen? Suppression. IS that a GOOD thing then to you?
Libertatem Prius!
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Re: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS
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Originally Posted by American Patriot
Inside ISIS: Rare access to Islamic State 
Journalist: "ISIS were not kind to me" 
Al Qaeda "nothing" compared to ISIS 
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