Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category

I was right from the start about Georgia causing its war with Russia

November 14, 2008

When the Georgia-Russia War broke out more than 2 months ago, I immediately wrote that Georgia provoked it by invading South Ossetia, a breakaway country. After that, I wrote several more blogs, keeping my constant readers informed about what really was happening.

But the Bush administration, McCain, and Obama perpetrated the lie that Russia first invaded Georgia. The major media held that as well.

Now, the eyewitness accounts of impartial Western observes have proved that Georgia — or rather, its U.S.-backed government — began the war by invading South Ossetia and indiscriminately shooting up the place.

The Independent just ran a summary of the recent findings. The conclusion:

But surely it does matter, crucially, how this conflict began. It matters legally and morally. And it is bound, rightly so, to affect how we view the two countries concerned. Yet the general fuzziness of official US and British accounts left the impression that Russia was the guilty party, and Georgia a brave little democracy that big bad Russia wanted to snuff out. Not only did this version gain almost instantaneous acceptance, but it was almost impossible for Russia to contest, confirming as it did every existing negative stereotype.

What has now transpired, however, is that the US and Britain had no excuse for not knowing how the war began. They were briefed by the OSCE monitors at a very early stage, and those monitors included two highly experienced former British Army officers.

McCain Republican Convention speech: He wants to get us nuked by Russia

September 4, 2008

John McCain gave the speech of his life tonight. His old stiffness was gone.

Usually in his speeches, he’s like a Navy aviator at sea, which he was, bored playing games. But like such an aviator when he gets in his plane and takes off for the bombing run, he was ready for the big time.

In his case, tonight his speech was well-written, well-delivered, well received — and insane.

You have to look closely at what policians say. Here’s the key part:

Russia’s leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world’s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of reassembling the Russian empire. And the brave people of Georgia need our solidarity and our prayers. (Cheers, applause.)

As president, I’ll work to establish good relations with Russia so that we need not fear a return of the Cold War. But we can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.

What a pack of lies.  It was not Russia that was the aggressor, but Georgia. Here’s the proof. The War Nerd just posted some videos Georgia’s troops took as they invaded South Ossetia. Watch those videos. (I can’t post them here, so go to that link. The 2 videos only last a couple of minutes.)

They show the Georgian stormtroopers in their tanks and jeeps rampaging through South Ossetia, shooting up everything that moves. They show the buildings that were destroyed by earlier phases of the Georgian anschluss. All this happened before the Russians arrived and kicked out the Georgian invaders.

So, who was the aggressor? The Georgians, clearly.

As the War Nerd writes:

Those Georgians may try to come off the poor victims but I dunno, guys, there’s a lot of blownup [stuff] in every shot I’ve seen of Tskhinvali, and those “Yee-haws” from the gunner kinda make it sound like the Georgians were having themselves a real party, Quantrill style.

During the American Civil War, Quantrill, according to Wikipedia

directed much of his effort against Unionist civilians, attempting to drive them from of the territory where he operated….

Some of his activities, most notably the massacre of some 200 men and boys, as young as seven years old, in Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863, appalled the Confederate authorities. In the winter of 1862-63, when Quantrill led his men behind Confederate lines into Texas, their often lawless presence proved an embarrassment to the Confederate command. Yet the generals appreciated his effectiveness against Union forces, which never gained the upper hand over Quantrill.

McCain: Owned by Georgia

So, why did McCain say it was the Russians who were the aggressors? Because, as I wrote earlier, McCain’s top foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, is a paid foreign lobbyist for Georgia. That means McCain, too, is in Georgia’s pocket.

So much for the “Maverick.” What he really is, as I’ve also been saying, is nuts. He’s crazy, bonkers, nutso.

Russia isn’t some dippy little country that can be kicked around, like Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq or Somalia. They have about 10,000 nukes, about the same as us.

Hey, don’t think I’m some bleeding-heart liberal, because I’m not. I signed up for the U.S. Army in 1977, and served as a Russian linguist 1978-1982, because I hated communism. But I also served in West Germany and listened, as a 98G-RU Russian voice intercept operator, as the Soviets targeted us with nukes.

The way to deal with nuclear powers, especially the only equivalent one, Russia, is with common sense, not insanity. The only reason for conflict with Russia is if countries like Georgia buy our politicians, like McCain.

And Russia, let us remember, is no longer communist. Their top income tax rate is 13%, compared to 35% in the USA (plus state income taxes, such as the 10.3% top state rate in California). Nowadays, Russia is more capitalist than we are. As Karl Marx insisted, the mark of a communist country is a high progressive income tax.

Russia’s expanding wealth is only partly due to oil wealth, contrary to McCain’s jibes. Mainly it’s due to low taxes — which McCain says he favors. Doesn’t he do any thinking on his own?

The return of the Manichees

There’s no need for conflict. But McCain wants conflict. Like his Neocon advisers, he has a deep-lying Manichean impulse — us vs. them, absolute good vs. absolute evil, good god vs. bad god, good spirits vs. bad material earth — that leads to Armageddon.

Then we’ll all be dead.

McCain showed tonight why he should not be president.

nuclear explosion

Is Russia more capitalist than the USSA?

March 7, 2008

As America declines into the bog of socialist imperialism, Russia is rising as a major capitalist power. Just look at this graph of the value of the dollar declining against the ruble over the past 2 years:

ruble dollar

That’s what happens when your country is taken over by people who act more like Brezhnev and Andropov than Washington and Jefferson. And by that I mean Bush and Cheney are Brezhnev and Andropov with their imperial expansionism, domestic police state, and socialist policies.

brezhnevAs the nearby pictures show, Bush even kind of looks like like Lenny Brezhnev, don’t you think?

bush

Just a decade ago, the ruble was almost worthless. Now it’s the dollar that’s heading toward the value of toilet paper.

Russian wages grew so much in 2007 — 26.7% — that government officials are considering wage controls (which would be stupid). The Russian economy is growing at a torrid 8% rate. Meanwhile, America’s economy is crashing into a recession as wages stagnate and the mortgage crisis spreads.

Russia’s top income tax rate is just 13%. In “capitalist” America, it’s 35% for the federal tax (which Hillary and Obama want to increase to 38%). And most American states add another tax, which in California is 10.3% at the top rate. So the top rate in California, combined, is 45.3% — more than 3 times the Russian rate!

It was Karl Marx who mandated in “The Communist Manifesto” as one of his Ten Planks: “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” By Marx’s own definition, America is more than three times as Marxist as Russia.

And of course, America suffers under the burden of paying for Bush’s Iraq War, which is weighing down our economy much as Brezhnev’s Afghan War weighed down the Soviet economy in the 1980s. The latest calculation of its actual cost is in a new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. For that money, we could have canceled all federal taxes — every dollar and penny of them — for a whole year. Or we could have cut the national debt of $9 trillion by one third.

After almost 8 years of Bush-Cheney, America has become a pitiful, helpless, shrinking giant on its way to socialist penury. The USA is becoming the USSA: The Union of Soviet Socialist America.

Is Russia now freer than the US of A?

October 16, 2007

I’m an old Cold Warrior. I even signed up for a 4-year hitch in the U.S. Army and became a Russian linguist to do my part in thwarting the Soviet Union.

So it dismays me when Russia, formerly Commie Central, becomes freer in many ways that my own country. I’m happy for the Russkies, but lament my own lack of freedom.

Our clueless Secretary of State, Condi Rice, supposedly an expert on Russia, says:

In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists. “I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Dum.

True, the Russians have concentrated too much power in the Kremlin — but nowhere near as much as Americans have concentrated in the office of our own Kremlin, the White House. The Bush regime calls it the “unitary executive,” meaning he runs everything, Congress and the courts nothing.

Former Reagan administration top official Paul Craig Roberts writes:

The unitary executive theory is a way to turn the US president into Big Brother. Already Bush is replacing Congress as the arbiter of law and the judiciary as the arbiter of rights. The media enable his usurpation, and the people, distracted by war and “terrorism,” have their various forms of soma.

In Russia, at least, taxes are much lower than here. Putin has cut Russia’s top income tax rate to just 13%, producing a booming economy. By contrast, in Condi’s “free” America, the top federal tax rate is 35%. And if your are unfortunate enough to live in Taxifornia, like me, the top state rate tacks on an additional 10.3%, for a total of 45.3%. That’s more than 3 times the Russki rate.

Put another way, on income taxes, Russians are three times freer than Kalifornians.

And let’s not forget what top commie theorist Karl Marx wrote in “The Communist Manifesto.” In his 10 Planks of Communism, he insisted on:

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

So, who’s more commie now, Russia with a flat, 13% income tax? Or Taxifornia, with “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax” of 45.3%?

Condi Rice is a Californian. If she truly cares about freedom, she’ll resign her current post and lead a fight right here to Recall Arnold, abolish Kalifornia’s income tax entirely, and cut the top U.S. income tax rate to 13% or less.

(Keep up with my blog. Sign up for my RSS feed.)