Thread: Donald Trump winning over Russians, Moscow-run media in U.S. presidential race

In this Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016, file photo, a woman wears a shirt reading ‘Trump Putin ‘16’ while waiting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to speak at a campaign event at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H. (AP Photo/David ...

By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Sunday, August 14, 2016

Donald Trump says he wants a better U.S. relationship with Russia, and the state-controlled media in Russia are rooting for him, too.

Although most Russians aren’t paying close attention to the U.S. presidential election, the majority of those who are following the campaign favor Mr. Trump, with their views shaped by positive portrayals in Russian media. As a result, they view Mr. Trump as a maverick, and they don’t like Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who’s cast as a warmonger.

A poll this month by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion found 34 percent of respondents in Russia expect relations between Moscow and Washington to improve if Mr. Trump wins in November, while only 6 percent said they would improve if Mrs. Clinton is elected president.

The survey found that 53 percent of Russians believe relations would worsen if Mrs. Clinton becomes president; only 12 percent felt that way about a Trump presidency.

Russians’ perceptions of the U.S. presidential candidates are shaped by the state-controlled media, said Lev Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, a nongovernmental research and polling organization in Moscow. He said Russians favor Mr. Trump by about 3-to-1 over Mrs. Clinton.

The Russian media, under the ultimate control of President Vladimir Putin, are pushing the expectation that Mr. Trump won’t make an issue of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

“Russian mass media takes every opportunity to stress and emphasize Trump’s sympathy to Putin in Trump’s speeches, and his readiness in the case of electoral victory to accept the Crimea annexation,” Mr. Gudkov said in an email. “At the same time, Clinton’s position is illuminated as an extremely negative one, and in a tendentious manner. Or they don’t say anything about Clinton’s position at all.”

Mr. Gudkov said Mrs. Clinton attracts “Russian liberals and critics of President Putin’s regime,” while Mr. Trump is favored by “Russian nationalists, bureaucracy, and Putin’s followers.”

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, draws a distinction between the attitudes of ordinary Russians and the political elite, saying the latter are divided because some view Mr. Trump as too “erratic and unpredictable.”

In an interview in late July, Mr. Trump suggested he would be willing to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The Republican nominee also drew criticism for saying Mr. Putin is “not going to go into Ukraine,” after Russian-backed forces have been fighting for two years in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Trump later tried to clarify his comments, saying, “With all of the Obama tough talk on Russia and the Ukraine, they have already taken Crimea and continue to push.”

Russia said Friday it has deployed an advanced air defense missile system to Crimea, following Mr. Putin’s promise to respond to clashes between Russian forces and what he called Ukrainian “saboteurs” in northern Crimea.

President Obama has called Moscow’s annexation of Crimea illegal. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Moscow, which have had no apparent impact on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Mr. Obama also has rejected calls to supply Ukraine with offensive weapons to fight the separatists.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican, said Mr. Putin has “paid no price” for his incursion in Ukraine. Obama administration officials say the sanctions have hurt Russia’s economy drastically, and that Mr. Obama has taken steps to beef up NATO on the alliance’s members’ eastern borders with Russia.

The accusations by Democrats of Mr. Trump’s Russia sympathizing go beyond his position on Ukraine. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Putin “a good leader” — also meant as a dig at Mr. Obama.

At a Trump campaign rally last week in Kissimmee, Florida, a protester was removed after shouting at Mr. Trump, “You love Russia. You’re Putin’s b——.”

Mr. Trump said later, “I get a lot of heat over Russia. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia?”

Mrs. Clinton already has had one chance to forge a more constructive relationship with Mr. Putin, and it didn’t go well.

As secretary of state under Mr. Obama’s early policy of seeking a “reset” with Russia, she made a famous gaffe in March 2009 by presenting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red button with the Russian word “peregruzka” printed on it. Mrs. Clinton thought it meant “reset” in Russian, but Mr. Lavrov informed her with a smile that the word actually meant “overcharged.”

The relationship went downhill from there, with Mr. Putin accusing Mrs. Clinton of “giving a signal” to Russian protesters accusing the government of rigged elections in 2011.

“They heard this signal and with the support of the US State Department began their active work,” Mr. Putin said at the time, referring to protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg that led to hundreds of arrests.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said in a New York Times op-ed last week that Russia’s state-controlled media “portrayed Russian protesters as traitors, puppets of the United States, who took money and orders from Washington.”

Kremlin TV also has blamed Mrs. Clinton for the overthrow of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, a longtime ally of Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin’s feelings for Mrs. Clinton apparently have not improved since 2011. During a call-in show in April, a Russian asked Mr. Putin, “Who is worse for Russia: Clinton or Trump?”

After giving a lengthy criticism of U.S. foreign policy and American “imperial ambitions,” Mr. Putin cited a Russian proverb to describe Mrs. Clinton’s desire to follow her husband as president.

“As we say, husband and wife are the same Satan,” Mr. Putin said, laughing.

Mr. Gudkov said Russians are subjected to “an extremely negative tone of the information about the U.S. in Russian mass media, and aggressive anti-American demagoguery.”

“As a result of that, the figure of Trump presented mainly on the Russian TV federal channels is disposed in a somewhat more positive, amiable and benevolent manner than the figure of Clinton,” he said.

He said the coverage in the Russian media highlights Mr. Trump’s “sharply critical” rhetoric of Mr. Obama’s policies and, by extension, Mrs. Clinton’s proposals.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian Senate’s International Affairs Committee, told the government news agency TASS that having the Republican presidential nominee call for improving relations with Russia means that “similar sentiment is becoming more and more popular in the U.S., and it can bring political points.”

But he added, “Only time will tell whether Trump is ready or, which is no less important, capable of implementing this.

It is definitely too early to celebrate.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...s-presidentia/

Already making friends with Russia! The Russian people love Americans, they always have. Their circumstances and history have been much different than ours, resulting in different types of government and laws, but they remember WWII. They remember. They know who the Real Americans are, and all the world remembers. It's time we started acting like the Americans who achieved that affection and admiration.

And Donald Trump is as close to that as we're going to get in our lifetimes.

Look at what Donald Trump has already accomplished through his "tone" and "rhetoric".

1. NATO is developing a Counter-Terrorism Unit and agreeing they need to enforce collection of agreed upon obligations by the member countries. This is only happening because of Donald Trump.

2. Clinton dropped her support for TPP. We don't believe her, we believe she'll sign it anyway with some insignificant changes, but her official position is now anti-TPP.

3. Americans are excited about being friends with Russia and Russians are excited about being friends with Americans.

4. Muslim community is saying we need to fix our religion and key leaders and organizations in the US and around the world are facing up to this fact.

5. Most Americans want the wall, strong border security, illegal aliens deported humanely families intact, and an end to illegal immigration.

And these are just a few of the attitudes that he's changing here and around the world as a candidate, imagine all the positive changes he can make in our country and around the world if he is President of the United States. The STUPID CORRUPT MEDIA and really bad, bad Republicans claim they are afraid of Trump being in charge of the nuclear codes ... that is so ridiculous, because Donald Trump wants to get rid of nuclear weapons. His question "why have nuclear weapons if you're never going to use them" was not a threat to use them, it was a question of why have them at all? Why spend on something you're never going to use? Why have them when it encourages other countries to have them to keep up, defend themselves and gain stature in a "Nuclear Club" if no one is ever going to use them?

After all, the best revenge is living well, not blowing up the planet we all need to survive.

U.S. believes Russia purposefully bombed secret U.S. base in Syria to ...

www.washingtontimes.com/.../us-believes-russia-purposefully-...

The Washington Times

Jul 23, 2016 - U.S. military officials believe Russia aircraft, operating out of Syria in June, purposefully bombed a secret U.S. facility in Syrian territory near the Jordanian border. The Wall Street Journal reports that Russia took the action against the base, that sometimes housed secret ...

Just get out of Syria and let Russia handle it. We can't solve the ISIS problem in Syria while backing "rebels". Russia knows what they're doing, we don't. Just get all the CIA secret crap out of Syria, that includes money and weapons, get our troops out, and let Russia handle it. Russia has a strategic national interest in Syria, we don't. In fact, we have no reason at all to be there or to have been there.

NOW GET OUT OF SYRIA AND LET RUSSIA HANDLE IT.

Trump calls for ground troops in Iraq, Syria

By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM
03/10/16 10:20 PM EST

Donald Trump would deploy up to 30,000 American soldiers in the Middle East to defeat the Islamic State, he said at Thursday night’s debate.

Trump was answering a question about comments from General Lloyd Austin III, the head of U.S. Central Command who said more troops on the ground would be needed to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

“We really have no choice, we have to knock out ISIS,” Trump said. “I would listen to the generals, but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000-30,000.”

Trump typically rails against American military involvement around the world, but he was not alone in calling for ground troops in Iraq and Syria at the debate.

“We need to do whatever is necessary to utterly defeat ISIS,” Senator Ted Cruz said. “We need to put whatever ground power is needed.”

“You have to be in the air and you have to be on the ground,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-g...#ixzz4HLmXlveS

No troops to Syria. Let Russia handle it. We need to pull everything out and get out of their way.

Don't send our military - no more deaths, casualties for this middle east muslim crap. Contain them there, kill all that is necessary - no passports, no refugees to USA, EU - keep them where they want to be and they will kill each other. Send them supplies for their families but no traveling @ the globe. Read somewhere there is thought of putting them on an island. they are not capable of being human so zoo them.

Bomb the hell out of them - don't give them a 45 min warning like obama does - "leave your trucks, we are going to bomb this area, this is a warning".

Trump needs to narrow down his bottom line strategies with a few trusted, intelligent generals. No more war profiteering. We certainly have had enough of that with gw/cheyney. It costs the taxpayers but profits the companies making uniforms, tanks, guns, ammunition like cheyney's haliburton. Then the mercenary soldiers of Blackwater are highly paid - all on the taxpayer, while our backdoor drafted military get peanuts .

Judy, you probably don't agree, but I think the US did wrong in the rush to 'westernize' the Russian federation, after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. I have a book by Matt Brezinski (yes, Zbigniew's son) titled "Casino Moscow" about how many soviets did not know how to handle a departure from state control, and lost money (i.e. savings) to unscrupulous capitalists or ill conceived investment strategies.

Gorbachev was unique in that he came from a highly religious family, and so truly sought what was in the best interests of his people. But the rapid changes humiliated the soviets, as they saw their influence crumbling. That is why they got rid of the best liasion we have had with their culture, Gorbachev. But it's been a drastic pendulum swing. But the upshot was that the influence of the Russian Orthodox church grew rapidly. And since the Russians had struggled for centuries with restive Muslim populations they could find some refuge in their religious traditions.

Reagan and Gorbachev demonstrated that two very different peoples could find some common ground. I think the US under GHW Bush in particular stepped up to the plate, as the dissolution of Soviet control led to a lot of weapons risk; we never knew what former soviet military officials were going to resort to in keeping their salaries---a lot of dangerous, shady deals.

East European countries, including Romania, sell weapons to Syria

28 Jul 2016
by Romania Insider

Three cargo ships with at least 4,700 tons of guns and weaponry have left the ports of Constanta, Romania, and Burgas, Bulgaria to Middle East’s war zones in the last eight months, shows an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Some of the arms have been sent to Syria.

The investigation reveals how thousands of assault rifles, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and heavy machine guns, worth USD 1.2 billion, originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia, poured into conflict areas in the Middle East, such as Syria or Yemen.

Romania has earned about EUR 81 million from its contribution to the weaponry pipeline since 2012, according to the investigation.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) responded that Romania complies with the highest control standards when it comes to weaponry exports.

“All the military products exported by Romania are presented in the quarterly and annual reports presented on www.ancex.ro,” according to a MAE press release.

These reports are then sent to EU, UN, and OSCE.
Rifles used in Paris terrorist attacks could have come from Romania

Romania exports EUR 131 million weaponry to US, Netherlands, Morocco

http://www.romania-insider.com/east-...weapons-syria/

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