Russia Says it Will Attack U.S. Military if Trump Strikes Syria Again

I had colleagues in LA a the time that were definitely challenged in that way in no uncertain terms, and I certainly heard that kind of language from the conservatives in my family.

I'm happy to apologize you, Decker, because I was one of them, and I own it.

I do read history -- I'm a lifetime member of Phi Alpha Theta and am shocked at how little liberal arts grad students I interact with, outside of history or classic departments, have much of a grasp of it as a narrative that informs pretty much every other liberal arts discipline.

Living in the Middle East for a decade, grad school, experiencing three wars first-hand, and working as a journalist for some of that time probably helped, to be fair.. What alarms me now is how so many journalists who were against the war (Phil Donahue from MSNBC, Chris Hedges from the NYTimes, off the top of my head) were fired or "resigned," booed when they spoke in public, and are no longer appearing in mainstream papers or network TV. To turn on cable news or read a major newspaper now, those voices are conspicuously absent.

Now, we don't even blink when we hear this sort of thing.

 

"Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US...."
falling passports from the sky was not enough to Taliban,
teachpeacefoundation.org/911hijackersalive.htm

 

Notice how I discussed Russia and then you flipped it all around to attack the United States again? You're flat out a Russian apologist. It's shocking. Are you a paid Russian stooge? You've become just like the Republican propagandists.

To your points, deflections that they are, I don't support this perpetual state of war. I'm fine with pulling back from that region, stopping arms sales, and aid. I've routinely called the Saudis and Israelis a bunch of scumbags that we should not be supporting in any way. I'd be fine with letting Iran and Saudi Arabia have their proxy wars without our involvement if Russia would stay out of it as well but we all know they're not. They've invaded Ukraine, stolen Crimea, murdered journalists, murdered ex-spies, funneled technology to North Korea, and propped up Assad's murder of hundreds of thousands, even supported the use of chemical weapons. I'd like nothing more than to have the US wipe its hands of the whole region but complex realities in the region make that impossible. Choosing between the dictator and the crazies isn't exactly an easy decision when you're trying to keep the peace but respect the will of a people. The invasion of Iraq was a cluster**** and as far as I'm concerned, Bush and all his lackeys are war criminals that started a war under false pretenses. Don't ever paint me as supporting that BS or some American "adventurism".

 

Good posts, guys.

I was 100% wrong about Iraq. We should have just paid him off and bribed him to be our means to the end. But then what would you do with his psychopathic sons? Kick the can down the road?

 

Saddam made 2 mistakes:
invading Kuwait
& hosting Khumini as a refugee

his opinion toward Assad regime was right on the money

 

I'm sorry if my efforts to invite you to look at the bigger picture are shocking to you, but I would rather you ask me questions than accuse me of espionage. It doesn't really give me much to reply to. I hope you aren't serious, but I can assure you the only government I would ever work for is the one that already employs me: the State of Texas.

If you are sincere about everything you say about not wanting to be involved in pointless wars, I suggest you permit yourself to engage in enough cognitive empathy to understand what motivates people to do the things they do. The vast majority of people in this world are generally decent, but starting putting them in groups, whether they are religions, nations, SEC football fans, tribes, political parties, and they can get sociopathic very quickly when forced to deal with a change in the status quo.

That very fear is the "fear itself" that FDR warned of, is more often than not more dangerous than the thing being feared. It's what causes extremism and wars. When the KGB open its files after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a file on the Kennedy assassination, and it was clear that the KGB had no idea who was responsible, thought they suspected it was an internal coup -- because that's what the Soviets feared would happen to their own regime, which considering their history, is reasonable. What concerned them the most was that the assassination would be used to incite anti-communist paranoia within the US and incite a rogue US general to launch a missile.

What they didn't anticipate, was that the paranoia and conspiracy theories that resulted did more to undermine the faith that Americans had in their government than any mission the KGB could ever dream of.

In my opinion, if Putin truly was the mastermind of a grand scheme to destabilize the US, it wouldn't be something as risky as depending on Donald Trump or members of his simian entourage to carry it out. Encouraging the seeds of doubt and distrust in Americans for each other and their own leaders to grow requires way less risk and far more deniable accountability. In the last decade of documented cheating, institutional abuse, and domestic spying, civic unrest, racial tension, hyper-partisanship, the denial of our decline as a nation, and the existential fear that comes from those things, the work is mostly done for him. And it's way more his style.

 

Or that was the purpose of releasing info. Let me ask you if they had something to do with the assassination of JFK why the hell would they release the info? Wouldn't it be better to release false info to undermine the institutions of the United States. That is their MO. "Sorry if my efforts to invite you to look at the bigger picture"

 

The archive was released because the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 and became 15 republics and the KGB was dissolved.

 

Yes so? Russia was the main benefactor and the legacy of the KGB and the KGB became the Russian secret service. Again think about the big picture. As you say to other posters.

 

No, supporting statehood in that region hasn't really worked out that well. Look no farther than Israel.

If we are going to stay out of it, then we need to stay out of it.

If we are not going to stay out of it, then we need to just set up permanent military bases there are be honest about it.

Russia is a joke, their economy is garbage.

 

Yeah.

I am married to an Iraqi and from day 1 she said overthrowing Saddam Hussein was a very short sighted idea. The culture in the middle east is vastly different than the West. Saddam kept the balance and now, there is none. There needs to be a strong, stable and centralized leader in Iraq. There is a reason that the USA was far more successful in Germany after WWII than in the Middle East or Asia. The cultures are different.

 

What remains of the Communist Party in Russia is in actuality one of the only legitimate political parties in Russia that actually opposes Putin. Putin's inner circle includes former military officers and security services people, but so do most of the big companies like Lukoil and Alrosa. The Soviet Union is deader than a Saturday night in Utah -- and all 15 of the former republics that composed it have their own political agendas and alliances. IMHO, making associations with Putin and the hammer and sickle are mostly done by Americans that want to scare old people with Cold War memories -- and I think it keeps people from understanding who he and what his regime really represents.

What actually frames the politics of Russia is Vladislav Surkov. He's the man behind the throne and whether anyone likes it or not, we live in his world. His boys are mostly nerds, scifi fans of the writings of Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky, and are prolific user of and early adopters of the Internet. Surkov himself has a background in theater. This is a guy that wrote a novel and gave himself a bad review under a pseudonym. He invented and mastered disinformation on the Internet and views it as a kind of performance art.

There's even a word for what he invented -- it's called "Managed Democracy" which is to blur the lines of reality to such an extent that no one really knows what's going on. It's authoritarianism with a deliberately democratic skin. Supposedly, he organized anti-facist youth groups in Russia, and neo-Nazi ones as well. That's the point -- supposedly even anti-Putin groups are managed by Putin's people, and even Surkov admits it, which only adds to the confusion.

The only real connection the regime has to the Soviet Union's legacy is an understanding of what UC Berkley anthropologist Alexei Yurchak described as "hypernormalization" -- which is the condition that he used to describe the last 20 years of the Soviet Union before it collapsed, when everyone knew that the system was falling apart but no one could imagine an alternative -- so they went through the motions of pretending everything was working.

BBC documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis made the case that the West is experiencing a variation of the same thing now, and that Putin (via Surkov) is exploiting that to his advantage. If you watch his documentary about it, which came out a month before the 2016 election, it's a good starting spot to understand this. He addresses Syria, Donald Trump, Yurchak, corrupt corporatism in the US, Bush, Obama, ISIS -- pretty much everything we are talking about now and puts it into perspective in his uniquely Adam Curtis kind of way. It's imperfect I think, but some of the best understanding of current events in English.

It also has a great soundtrack.

 

That's why I think there is a limit to their threat, other than the legacy nuclear arsenal. Their economy would be maybe #4 or #5 (depending on whose numbers you want to trust) within the EU. Their military budget likewise in the ballpark or slightly less than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's. And their economy relies almost entirely on natural resources -- but supplying Europe with natural gas keeps things interdependent in a way that makes real sanctions difficult to enforce.

I make a case for the Kurds because they actually have a vision for a democracy, but it's a very 1936 Spain kind of one rather than a Anglo-American neo-liberal one, which is why I think (besides the issues with NATO ally Turkey's hatred for them) the support from the west is tepid -- they wouldn't play along with the neocon plan of making the Middle East in their image.

But yeah -- I'd prefer the US military was used to protect the US and that US taxpayers supported building infrastructure in the US and not in countries we bombed the crap out of.

 

I am talking about the KGB. Not the political arm of the government aka the communist party. Again not addressing my point. The KGB which was essentially became the Federal Counterintelligence Services FSK then renamed Federal Security Services FSB.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/spies-spooks-hitmen-kgb-never-went-away-russia-putin

Also look at most of the directors of the FSK and FSB and you will see where the KGB had their foot prints after the fall of the Soviet Union. They never went away they become the Russian spy agency. I don't know why you replied with the info above over than trying to misled. Intellectual dishonesty at best.

 

Who's Military budget? Russia's? I am curious where you get that info? Also the idea that Russia has is out dated equipment and old nuclear weapons is a myth and wrong. Russia in the last decade has increased their spending and modernization of their military. Creating advance weapons that are a threat to national security to think otherwise is folly. Their threats are not limited and should not be taken lightly at all.

 

wikipedia
US News and World Report
Forbes

 

If you don't mind me asking, and without getting too personal, what's your background? I've been enjoying your posts, you certainly seem knowledgeable. Deji's good people too, glad he's posting again.

This bbs is my 1-stop information source for sports and culture and current events, who needs Facebook?

 

The reason I brought up the question is the reliability of the info as Russia hide some their military spending in other departments. And as a side note the difference is all of the Sadis budget and some of China's is from acquirement of arms from other countries whereas most if not all of the U.S. Russia are developed in house most other countries buy existing tech. Russia, US and now China are spending money on future and advance tech.

 

Just a regular citizen like the rest of us on here. I have no ill will towards Deji I enjoy the discord. I like bbs and I agree Facebook is the last place I would go to.

 

From your username I was wondering if you were from or had family over that way.