Trump gives Putin an 'A' on leadership

http://news.yahoo.com/trump-gives-pu...election.html#

Trump gives Putin an 'A' on leadership
Associated Press By JILL COLVIN
55 minutes ago

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — One day after President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin made little headway in their standoff over Syria at their first formal meeting in more than two years, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is agreeing with Putin on his backing of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Speaking on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" Tuesday evening, the billionaire businessman and presidential front-runner praised Russia's recent military buildup in Syria and expressed little concern for Putin's support for his longtime Syrian ally.

"If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS," Trump said in an interview taped at his Trump Tower skyscraper in Manhattan.

"I say there's very little downside with Putin fighting ISIS," he added.

The U.S. has long insisted that Syria's future cannot include Assad. But Putin has cast Assad's government as the best defense against Islamic State militants, a group the U.S. is also working to defeat.

Trump also suggested that Assad, who has used barrel bombs and chemical weapons against civilians, was preferable to other potential options.

"Personally, I've been looking at the different players and I've been watching Assad, Trump said, " ... and I'm looking at Assad and saying maybe he's better than the kind of people that we're supposed to be backing because we don't even know who we're backing. We have no idea."

Obama and Putin have a tense relationship that was on full display as the pair met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Trump has long predicted that he would get along well with Putin and declared Monday that, "Putin is a nicer person than I am." He repeated his criticism that Putin is the better leader when compared with Obama.

"I will tell you that, in terms of leadership, he's getting an 'A' and our president is not doing so well," he said. "They did not look good together."

It was Trump's first appearance on Fox since he announced last week that he'd be boycotting the network for "the foreseeable future" because of what he deemed unfair treatment.

The boycott lasted less than a week.

A re-run of this interview with Trump will be on O'Reilly at 11 pm EST tonight. I missed the earlier one and I'm going to watch it, some of you may want to also.

YES!! Let the Russians handle Syria. They know how to restore order in this vile area of the world. It's their hemisphere. They have a vested national interest in how this ends. Their goals are the same as ours, Peace in the Middle East.

Trump (and us) would be better served if he quit hyping Putin up as the potential savior of the Middle East. He also shouldn't be voicing support for a ruthless dictator like Bashar-al-Assad.

Syria’s brutal dictator calls for rebels to back him against IS



SEPTEMBER 21, 20151:09PM


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Bashar al-Assad: Is Syria’s president a brutal dictator or lesser of two evils? Picture: EPA/SANA


LAUREN McMAHnews.com.au

• 
  

HE IS the evil genius dictator who stands to benefit from Australia’s involvement in Syria.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has stubbornly clung to power despite four years of bloody civil war that began with calls for his resignation.
But it appears fortunes could turn for Assad, who is now calling on those very insurgents who rose up against him — as well as Australia — to join his side against a common enemy: Islamic State.

Assad seems to have positioned himself as the lesser of evils in Syria — more legitimate and stable than the tangled web of rebel fighters, and the rational choice over hard-line Islamic jihadists.

But Assad is clearly no good guy. His oppressive, 15-year rule over Syria has been marked by appalling human rights violations and a chillingly pragmatic approach to silencing dissent.

So let’s revisit the man at the centre of Syria’s devastating conflict, which has resulted in deaths and displacement of millions of Syrian people.

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Bashar al-Assad inherited Syria’s presidential office from this father, former president Hafez al-Assar. Picture: AFP/HO/SANASource:AFP



A RELUCTANT LEADER

Bashar al-Assad wasn’t always meant to be Syria’s most powerful man.
He was an eye doctor, schooled at London’s Western Eye Hospital and the medical school of Damascus University, and seemingly happy to remain in the shadows of his famous and powerful political family.

It was his older brother Bassel, a darling of the Syrian public, who was groomed to be the next president. Their father was former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, a man known as a brutal and shrewd political tactician. But when Bassel was killed in a car crash in 1994, Bashar became heir apparent and eventually became president upon Hafez’s death in June 2010, at the age of 35.

It had been noted that Assad had none of his brother’s charm and charisma, nor his father’s characteristic ruthlessness — at least at the start of his presidency.

“Growing up, Bashar was overshadowed by Bassel,” former Assad adviser Ayman Abdelnour told the Financial Times.
“That seemed to be a complex — he didn’t have the charisma of Bassel, who was sporty, was liked by girls and was the head of the Syrian Computer Society.

“[Bashar was] shy; he used to speak softly, with a low voice. He never asked about institutions or government affairs.”

Assad’s wife, who he married in 2001 (they now have three children), seemed to improve his public image in those early years.
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Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad in 2008. Picture: AFP/Gerard CerlesSource:Supplied



Asma Al Akhras is a London-raised former investment banker from an elite Sunni family. As Syria’s First Lady, she fast became regarded as a style icon and received early praise for her progressive position on women’s rights and education. Her Sunni Muslim faith was also crucial — the Assad family is Alawite, a relatively liberal branch of Islam, and Syria is overwhelmingly Sunni.

Together, the couple seemed to promise a brighter new Syria in the wake of Hazef’s hard-line rule.
“[Assad] wasn’t Bassel, who was the more thuggish, stronger brother,” Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser for the Middle East program at the Stimson Center, told the New Republic.

“He had this beautiful wife. They struck this picture of what people hoped Syria would become.”
But Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,said Assad was “a master of deception”.

“I think that the regime — the package of Bashar and his wife Asma, it’s very seductive,” he told CNN.
“And it draws you — how could someone who seems so reasonable command such a horrific regimen?”

FROM SPRING TO WINTER OF DISCONTENT

Assad stepped into power with a view of modernising Syria, which many commentators suggest was influenced by his appreciation for Western life while in London. His maiden speech was peppered with promises of “creative thinking”, “transparency” and “democracy”.

“Bashar’s inaugural speech provided a space for hope following the totalitarian years of President [Hafez] Assad,” one Syrian activist said, according to Human Rights Watch.

“It was as if a nightmare was removed.”

One of Assad’s first orders of business was ushering in the Damascus Spring, a period of free expression, the release of political prisoners and sweeping economic reforms that seemed to fit to Assad’s vision of an open, modern society.
But the hopeful new era met a quick end by 2001, when the government withdrew reforms and cracked down on the political forums that had been thriving.
Perhaps steered by members of his father’s old guard, Assad retreated to older styles of repression and relied on the secret security police to enforce his demands.

This, coupled with an exaggeration of the rich-poor divide caused by Assad’s new neoliberal economic policies, planted the seeds of rebellion that would flourish in the Arab Spring of 2011.

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Assad still had plenty of supporters after things really turned ugly in 2011.Source:AP


“Whether President al-Assad wanted to be a reformer but was hampered by an entrenched old guard or has been just another Arab ruler unwilling to listen to criticism, the outcome for Syria’s people is the same: no freedom, no rights,” Human Rights Watch director Sarah Leah Whitson said.
“Whatever hopes Syrians might have had for a new era of political openness under al-Assad’s rule have been dashed.”

What followed was a decade of repression and human rights abuses in Syria, with Assad increasingly viewed as a brutal dictator.
Human rights groups say the Alawite-dominated mukhabarat — Syria’s secret police — unfairly detained, tortured and killed political opponents during Assad’s first 10 years in power.

The media was state-controlled, the internet was censored and Syria remained a de facto single-party state with only Assad’s Ba’ath Party holding effective power.

Assad has also been criticised for his treatment of Syria’s Kurdish minority, who were denied basic human rights, including the right to learn Kurdish in schools and cultural freedom.

THE UPRISING AND THE WAR

The current conflict in Syria can be traced back to the Arab Spring of 2011, when anti-government fervour spread through Middle East and North Africa and people rose up against their rulers. Syrians were among them.

But as leaders toppled in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, Assad held strong and lashed back with mighty force. Government forces cracked down violently on protesters and the anti-government mood strengthened with news of the deaths in detention of children who had spray-painted a popular catchcry of the Arab Spring: “The people want the fall of the regime”.

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Syrian anti-government protesters hold a bloodied national flag during a funeral procession for slain activists in Izraa, Syria, in April 2011. Picture: APSource:AP


Aggrieved Syrians took up arms, both for their own defence and then increasingly to oust Assad loyalists from neighbourhoods. Fighting intensified and rebel groups launched offensives in the major cities of Aleppo and Damascus, also claiming areas in the country’s north and east. By 2013, Assad’s regime was fighting to regain ground.

In the midst of the chaos, Islamic State fighters complicated matters further by trying to enforce its caliphate on Syrian territory.

Throughout the war, Assad’s regime has been accused of a large number of war crimes, including the detainment, torture and killing of tens of thousands of suspected dissidents.

In May, following a three-year operation to smuggle official documents out of Syria, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability said it had produced enough evidence to indict Assad and 24 senior members of his regime.

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Smoke billows from the Syrian rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, after a reported air strike by government forces on Wednesday. Picture: AFP/Abd DoumanySource:AFP


The stories of Assad’s alleged war crimes are many. Last year, horrific photographs smuggled out of the country bore evidence of the “systematic killing” of 11,000 Syrians detainees.

The Assad regime has also been accused of the vast majority of attacks on Syrian hospitals and medical staff, and of using barrel bombs to kill civilians and destroy infrastructure, although Assad flatly denies this.
Assad is still suspected of green-lighting the sarin gas attack that killed more than 1400 civilians in 2013. His chemical weapons stockpiles were destroyed last year.

The FBI says that at least 10 European citizens have been tortured by the Assad regime while detained during the Syrian conflict.

So severe are Assad’s war crimes, they are the worst the world has seen since Nazi Germany, Stephen Rapp, the United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, has said. Rapp added the case against Assad was “much better” than those against former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic or Libya’s Charles Taylor.

This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin said he would continue his longstanding support for the Assad regime. Assad has also been backed by big players like China and Iran.

Some Western countries have supported some rebel groups fighting Assad’s regime.

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A Syrian woman kisses a poster of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a pro-Syrian government protest in 2012. Picture: AP/Muzaffar SalmanSource:AP



WORSE THAN ISLAMIC STATE?

This week Assad appeared to cleverly leverage the threat of IS and its feared brand of terrorism to dilute opposition from both within his country and governments in the West.

Appearing on Russian state television, Assad made the unusual move of calling on Syrian rebel forces to join him in the battle against IS, adding that only after IS was defeated could a political solution to the war be found.

“The political parties, the government and the armed groups that fought against the government, we must all unite in the name of combating terrorism,” he said.

While he previously branded armed insurgents in Syria “terrorists”, Assad said he would offer amnesty if they switched sides and joined his.
“This has actually happened,” Assad said about rebels switching sides.

“There are forces fighting terrorism now alongside the Syrian state, which had previously fought against the Syrian state,” he said.
“We have made progress in this regard, but I would like to take this opportunity to call on all forces to unite against terrorism.”

He also blamed the West for his country’s refugee crisis and accused it of double standards for “crying” for the refugees on the one hand and “supporting terrorists since the beginning of the crisis” on the other.

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Assad (far right) being interviewed on Russian state television this week. Picture: AFP/HO/SANASource:AFP


Meanwhile, one of Assad’s top advisers told ABC’s Lateline on Thursday that Western countries like Australia should also be supporting the Syrian government against IS. It came days after Australia launched its first air strikes on IS-held territory within Syria as part of the US-led coalition.
“My message to the Australian Government is that there should be a real intention to fighting terrorism,” said Bouthaina Shaaban, who is close to the Assad family.

“And the real intention should come through a real coalition and cooperation with Russia, Iran, China, the government of Syria, and all countries and governments who truly are interested in fighting terrorism.”

But will the Assad regime’s new good guy-bad guy narrative wash with the West or with the rebels?
Leading think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies doesn’t think so, going so far as to say this week Assad was a bigger threat than even IS, reports The Guardian.

“The West is still running away from the hard truth … Assad is a much greater threat [than IS],” said Emile Hokayem, the institute’s senior fellow for Middle East security.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/...-1227536584178

Putin is probably rushing to the aid of the Syrian Orthodox Church. It'll be a quagmire, just like it has been for everybody else. Maybe this is better than having career Russian military peddling weapons on the informal markets, though.:o

It's all upside for Russia to handle this. We stay out of it, as we should. Russia will handle it however which will be better than US being involved in countries we don't understand and have no national interest stake in to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Judy

It's all upside for Russia to handle this. We stay out of it, as we should. Russia will handle it however which will be better than US being involved in countries we don't understand and have no national interest stake in to begin with.

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I have no problem with that. However, I also think it's probably a good thing for Trump to do the best he can to stay out of it too, especially when it comes to singing the praises of folks like Putin and Assad. Up until a few weeks ago Trump probably didn't even know who Assad was and I seriously doubt he is well versed on the Syrian conflict. I don't hold that against him because he's not a politician. I honestly don't believe Trump has to speak in-depth on every issue to maintain his position in the polls. Although, I do think he could lose support by going into depth on issues he is not solidly knowledgeable about. Just saying ......

No he doesn't have to speak in depth on every issue. But he at least needs to pick good people to advise him. I think someone of his personality can probably captivate a lot of the people he would have to deal with internationally. He's just as much of a cock on the rock as Prince Charles. I'm not really thrilled about New York, but it's better than the dunderheads from Texas, for sure; and Trump would also probably be effective at the UN, since they are, for all intents and purposes, New Yorkers, as well.:p

Well, I don't know how well-versed he is, all I know is he's more well-versed than the morons who got US into this mess to begin with, and so far he's doing a great job getting US out of it, before he's even won a primary.

GO TRUMP!!

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Originally Posted by Judy

Well, I don't know how well-versed he is, all I know is he's more well-versed than the morons who got US into this mess to begin with, and so far he's doing a great job getting US out of it, before he's even won a primary.

GO TRUMP!!

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What exactly has he gotten us out of? I'll admit that bringing immigration into the conversation is a good thing, but that's about all the credit he is due at this point. We'll see what the future holds.

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What exactly has he gotten us out of?

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The Middle East.

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Originally Posted by Judy

The Middle East.

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Huh???? What in the world are you talking about? Sorry dear, Trump doesn't wield that kind of power. Maybe he will someday, but that day isn't here yet.

Yeah, he actually does. A few weeks ago at the Second Debate, Trump was asked what he thought of Putin, and he answered he thought he and Putin would get along well. Then a few days after that he was asked about Russia going into Syria, and Trump said, let Russia handle Syria.

Then, Putin comes to the US and goes to the UN and makes his speech about Russia going into Syria to support Assad to fight ISIS.

On Sixty Minutes, Scott Pelley asks Trump about Russia and Syria, and Trumps say, let Russia handle it. Pelley says but that would put the Russians in Syria and Trump says "what the hell do we care?".

Tonight, O'Reilly asks Trump about Russia and Syria and Trump says, let Russia handle Syria. And O'Reilly says but that would put Russia in charge of Syria, and Trump says that fine. And O'Reilly says how is that fine and Trump asks O'Reilly, do you want to own Syria, do you want to run Syria? And O'Reilly says "oh no", and Trump says well then, it's fine, let Russia handle Syria. Then O'Reilly says but Russia is an ally of Iran and Trump says, yeah, and O'Reilly says well what about that and Trump says what about it, you know Iran and Iraq are going to merge, they're already working on it and O'Reilly says then Russia will control all the oil in the Middle East and Trump says, yeah, so, that's fine.

What most Americans apparently don't know is that Russia was always our friend, our ally, until they became afraid of US. They were never interested in having US as their enemy, they always wanted to be our friend and ally. But, they saw our missile build up pointed at them, and so they built up to protect against US. The reason they wanted missile bases on Cuba was so if we ever did anything to them they could fight US from Cuba instead of on their soil.

We've had stupid people in charge of our government for a very long time. It's time to start electing smart people who before we commit trillions of dollars and thousands of lives and limbs to war, who ask "why in the hell do we care"?

And there's only 1 candidate in the race for President who has asked that question, that all important question which put another way is "what is the national security interest of the United States", is Donald J Trump.

Russia is the country with the national security interest in the Middle East, so close to their borders, in their hemisphere, on their continent. It's there problem to solve and they know how to solve it. It's not our problem and we can't solve it, or we would have.

Putin turned to Obama in his speech at the United Nations and said "look what you have done". And it's true. We've created total chaos in the Middle East for no valid reason at all.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/...ttle-downside/

CLICK ON LINK FOR VIDEO

Trump on Putin Controlling Syria: ‘OK, Fine,’ Him Fighting ISIS ‘Wonderful Thing,’ ‘Very Little Downside’

by Ian Hanchett29 Sep 2015

On Tuesday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that it’s “a wonderful thing” Russia’s Vladimir Putin is fighting ISIS and responded “Alright, okay, fine” after host Bill O’Reilly stated Putin would “never get out” of Syria.

Trump said [relevant exchange begins around 3:55] of “in terms of leadership, he’s getting an A, and our president is not doing so well.”

When asked what he thinks Putin is doing in the Middle East, Trump stated, “Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.”

Trump added that there’s “very little downside with Putin fighting ISIS, and Putin wants to keep ISIS out of Russia and, therefore, he’s become very active with respect to ISIS, and I think that’s to our benefit.”

O’Reilly stated, “Once Putin gets in and fights ISIS on behalf of Assad, Putin runs Syria. He owns it. He’ll never get out, never.” Trump said, “Alright, okay, fine. I mean, you know, we can be in Syria. Do you want to run Syria? Do you want to own Syria? I want to rebuild our country.”

Trump concluded, by agreeing with O’Reilly that Putin wants to run the Middle East, adding “you have huge oil reserves. You have huge — you have tremendous wealth in the Middle East that people don’t even know about. And by the way, forget about Putin. You have Iran is going to take over Iraq. I called that many years ago, on your show. I said we should have never gone into Iraq, which I should be given a little credit for vision, because I’m the only one running that said that, but we should have never, because you totally destabilize the Middle East. But the fact is that Putin now — well, that’s what happened. you destabilized, and by the way. Iran is going to be be taking over Iraq, including their vast oil reserves, and the leftovers are taken over by ISIS. So, what have we done with our incompetent leadership?”

After O’Reilly stated, “We have given the Middle East primarily to Putin and Iran, and they will run it for the foreseeable future.” Trump responded, “I believe that’s true.”

Click on link above for video of this segment of the interview.

Why the west should listen to Putin on Syria

Simon Jenkins
Tuesday 29 September 2015 05.18 EDT
Last modified on Tuesday 29 September 2015 13.14 EDT

The result of American and British grandstanding at the UN this week – seeing who can be ruder about Assad – is that Vladimir Putin has gathered ever more cards to his pack.

Putin is right. Everyone knows Putin is right, that the only way forward in Syria, if not to eternal slaughter, is via the established government of Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese and Iranian allies.

That is the realpolitik. That is what pragmatism dictates. In the secure west, foreign policy has long been a branch of domestic politics, with added sermonising. “What to do”, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, even Ukraine, has been dictated not by what might work but what looks good. The megaphone is mightier than the brain.

The result of American and British grandstanding at the UN this week – seeing who can be ruder about Assad – is that Vladimir Putin has gathered ever more cards to his pack. Putin has already performed the two primary duties of a Russian leader, bringing stability and pride. He now faces turbulent Russian minorities across his European frontier and a serious menace from Muslim states to his south. He is perforce becoming a player on a wider stage. He has read Iran, India and Syria correctly. He is no fool.

On a visit to London last June, the veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger pleaded with his audience to see Russia as an ally, not an enemy, against Muslim fundamentalism. Russia and the west shared a civilisation and long-term interests, he said. They had to work as one. It is easy for western democracies, centuries in the making, to sneer at Russia’s imperfections and at Putin’s cynical antics in Ukraine. But the idea that economic sanctions were going to change Moscow’s mind or weaken its kleptocracy was idiotic.

Syria is experiencing the most ghastly anarchy anywhere on earth. If ever there were a case for humanitarian “troops on the ground” it must be here. Those who seek this end cannot pick and choose their merchants of atrocity. All sides in war kill innocent people, including western addicts of air bombing (such as Hilary Benn at the Labour party conference yesterday). Russia has accepted that the forcible toppling of Assad – which Britain has predicted since 2011 – is not a realistic path to peace. If he is to go, it will be after his enemies have been driven back, not before.

The true nature of the west’s commitment in Syria was revealed in Barack Obama’s remark to the UN that “because alternatives are surely worse” is no reason to support tyrants. In other words, American feelgood is more important than Syrian lives. That cosy maxim has guided western policy in the region for over a decade. It has been a disaster. If we have nothing more intelligent to say on Syria, we should listen to Putin. He has.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...syria-us-assad

Judy wrote:

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What most Americans apparently don't know is that Russia was always our friend, our ally, until they became afraid of US. They were never interested in having US as their enemy, they always wanted to be our friend and ally. But, they saw our missile build up pointed at them, and so they built up to protect against US. The reason they wanted missile bases on Cuba was so if we ever did anything to them they could fight US from Cuba instead of on their soil.

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For lack of a better word, HOGWASH!

The Russian's put missiles in Cuba for two primary reasons: (1) to boost their power, threatening the U.S. with nuclear attack from the Caribbean and (2) to increase their bargaining position in its attempts to force West Berlin to join East Germany. Additional reasons included defending Cuba from American invasion and bolstering Soviet prestige.

There may have been times during the 90's when a large portion of the Russian population viewed the United States in a positive light, but I don't think the Russian government shared those views. From what I gather we are now considered Russia's #1 global enemy.

No, it isn't hogwash. It's fact. We are not and have never been an enemy of Russia, except in the minds of people who were uneducated on the facts, which I have to admit include a great deal of Americans. In order to support the spending on the nuclear missile program, our government needed to depict them as an enemy to justify the funding.

Well, Russian's obviously doesn't share your sentiment.

From the Moscow Times

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Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism

• By Michael Bohm
• Jan. 24 2014 00:00
• Last edited 18:12

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Kremlin propagandists have good reason to be happy with the results of a recently released annual Win/Gallup International poll in which more than 67,000 residents in 65 countries were asked, “Who is the greatest threat to world peace?” Given Russia’s results, it is clear that the Kremlin’s anti-U.S. propaganda campaign is paying off handsomely.
The survey indicated that 24 percent of respondents worldwide consider the U.S. the largest threat in the world, which is not a surprise and has been consistent with results over the past decade, but a much larger 54 percent of Russians felt the same way. This means that Russia exceeded the global average by more than two times.
The Kremlin can rejoice as it reaps the dividends from its massive anti-U.S. campaign that has relied heavily on state-controlled television.


Surprisingly, the Russians handily outdid the Iranians, of whom only 16 percent see the U.S. as the top threat — even though “Death to America!” remains a popular political slogan, rivaled only by “Death to Israel!”
Even more surprising, twice as many Russians than Iraqis and Afghans see the U.S. as a threat, despite the fact that the U.S. led the invasions of both of these countries in the past decade. Thus, while one could argue that the U.S. threat to Iraq and Afghanistan is real, the U.S. threat to Russia remains largely Kremlin-manufactured.
To be sure, anti-Americanism has always been high in post-Soviet Russia, given the lingering legacy of the Cold War. But it has never been this high.
Kremlin propagandists can rejoice as they reap the dividends from their anti-U.S. campaign that has relied heavily on state-controlled television. In *recent years, Russian viewers have been bombarded with agitprop news reports and primitive pseudo-*documentaries with titles like “Who Rules the World?” and “Who Wants to Carve Up Russia?”
Here are some of the more ridiculous viewpoints promoted by these broadcasts:
• The U.S. financially supports Russian’s homegrown fascist and ultranationalist groups to help them gain control of the Kremlin. This will then give the U.S. a pretext to send troops into Russia, overthrow the fascists in the name of global peace, and install a pro-U.S. puppet government.
• The U.S. is using military transport planes to send tons of heroin into Russia from Afghanistan to increase the number of Russian drug users and *increase the spread of HIV through infected intravenous needles.
• The U.S. actively supports terrorist groups from the North Caucasus with the ultimate goal of breaking up Russia into several parts.
• U.S. pharmaceutical companies, working on the CIA’s behalf, have sent deadly vaccines and other medicines to cripple and kill Russians. Hundreds of Russians have already fallen victim to this plot.
• The U.S. is propagandizing and spreading *homosexuality in Russia to destroy the country’s traditional, Orthodox foundation, to turn a large percentage of the country’s heterosexuals into homosexuals, and to increase the level of HIV infection among Russians.
• The U.S. is undermining Russian’s strategic nuclear deterrence by deploying its Europe-based missile defense system.
• The U.S. is funding opposition groups and leaders to implement an “Orange”-style revolution in Russia. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was recruited by the CIA in 2010 when he participated in Yale University’s World Fellows Program. He agreed to work as a secret U.S. agent and to head the opposition movement to carry out a U.S. government plot to unseat Putin and install a pro-U.S. government.
• U.S. bankers, financiers, industrialists, politicians and media moguls dominate the elite Bilderberg Club, a favorite target of Russia’s conspiracy theorists. According to a recent program on REN-TV, the club “rules the world by appointing U.S. presidents, determining the price of oil and controlling the amount of dollars that are released in the global economy.” One of the Bilderberg Club’s chief goals is to turn oil-rich Russia into the West’s subservient vassal.
• The U.S. is responsible for most of Russia’s misfortunes, including: the Chernobyl accident in 1986; the Soviet collapse in 1991; the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000; Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003; Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 and the current protests in Kiev; the Krymsk flood in 2012; the crash of a SuperJet demonstration flight in Indonesia in 2012; and the meteorite “sent by NASA” that fell near Chelyabinsk last year.
Under normal circumstances, these conspiracy theories would evoke laughter from outsiders. But when it results in Russia leading the world in terms of anti-Americanism, it shows how dangerously effective the Kremlin has become at manipulating public opinion.
And this is not the only example. A December 2012 poll by the Kremlin-friendly Public Opinion Foundation found that 56 percent of Russians supported a ban on all U.S. child adoptions. The poll followed a massive Kremlin propaganda campaign that told Russians that the overwhelming majority of U.S. parents interested in adopting Russian children are pedophiles, sadists and child abusers.
To be sure, anti-Americanism is a worldwide phenomenon. France and Germany, for example, have their share of anti-Americanism. But in these countries, crude anti-U.S. conspiracy theories are limited to fringe elements on Internet forums. In Russia, however, they have become largely mainstream thanks to state-controlled television.
On the flip side, only 2 percent of Americans in the Gallup poll think Russia is a threat to global peace, which is consistent with the global average.
Russian analysts are split over whether this 2 percent rating is good or bad. Some think that the figure confirms Russia’s positive role as a peacemaker, such as when the Kremlin brokered peace plans in Syria and Iran last year.
But others say Russia’s low result, which is on the same “fear level” as Australia, is disheartening, if not degrading. They support the Soviet-era *notion that “If you are feared, you are respected,” and recall nostalgically how the U.S. and other countries feared the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
A “better year” for Russia was 2008, after the Kremlin sent troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the Russia-Georgia war. That year, a more respectable 6 percent of those polled considered Russia a global threat.
This explains why so many conservative Russians were delighted to hear U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney call Russia the United States’ “No. 1 foe” during his 2011 campaign. (Unfortunately for them, Romney quickly realized his mistake and clarified his remarks within days, saying Iran was a much larger threat than Russia.)
The WIN/Gallup International poll asked another question: “If there were no barriers to living in any country of the world, which country would you like to live in?” While the U.S. was the most-desired destination among all respondents polled, Russian respondents placed the U.S. in the fourth spot tied with Canada – between Germany in the third spot and Britain in the fifth.
Once again, Russia went against the global grain. But at least you can give it credit for being consistent in its anti-Americanism.

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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinio...sm/493260.html

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Originally Posted by MW

Well, Russian's obviously doesn't share your sentiment.

From the Moscow Times

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinio...sm/493260.html

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How so? We are the greatest threat to the world. Just because they see US as a threat to the world, doesn't make US their enemy, it just means they think we're stupid and reckless. We've created total chaos in the Middle East and South Asia, so they're right.

Sadam & Kadafi were tyrants but it was their territory to rule and that they did - their methods were what the people of those countries knew and understood. They cannot fight for their own democracy or country, they do not have it in them. They are too worried @ losing their male dominance over women. EU is in for a big, big problems
and Merkel needs to be removed for her unrealistic and damaging concepts and their consequences.

We were in those countries, sacrificed our soldiers, our monies and came away with NOTHING - no oil, no stabilization of the region but a much WORSE area now.

The Russians will be Russians - we tolerate worse and without any benefits either.

Hopefully oil is on the way out with clean renewable energy sources TRYING to expand if greedy, reckless, cancer causing big gas & oil would step aside or join this 21st century's quest for new technologies and leave the damaging effects to our health in the 20th century where it belongs.