SPECIAL EXTRA EDITORIAL: BRAVO!! The Republicans finally Stand up to Russia

EDITORIAL

BRAVO!! The Republicans finally Stand up to Russia

We are thrilled beyond words with the earth-shaking announcement from the new Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress that they will block ratification of the Obama nuclear arms treaty with Russia, a treaty which offers no meaningful cuts in weapons by the Russians, which undercuts American strategic power, a treaty which serves the propaganda interests of the Kremlin and seriously undermines democracy in the former USSR.

At long last, the Republicans have remembered the legacy of Ronald Reagan and moved forward decisively to pull the country back from the precipice of appeasement towards which the Obama regime has recklessly led it over the past two years.

At long last, the good-hearted people of Russia, those few who still care about their country’s future and are willing to defend it, can once again hope for some leadership and assistance from Americans as they struggle to defend basic American values of democracy and freedom from absolute extinction in their country.

And at long last, the demonic forces in control of the Russian Kremlin will be forced to confront the harsh, cold reality of American power.

EDITORIAL: An Idiotic, Lying Jackass is blogging at “A Good Treaty”

EDITORIAL

An Idiotic, Lying Jackass is blogging at “A Good Treaty“

A new Russia blog has appeared by the name of “A Good Treaty.” Its purpose is to offer one-sided propaganda in support of the notion that Barack Obama’s sham treaty on nuclear weapons with Russia is a good idea and should be ratified as the U.S. Senate considers the document.  Is the blogger on the Obama payroll? Or the Kremlin’s? Or both?  You be the judge.  Let us introduce you to it.

First of all, it’s beloved by the Russophile maggots, of course.  Interestingly, not one of them chooses to make the criticism of “A Good Treaty” that they level at us, namely that some of us are anonymous. It’s just fine with the Russophile scum that AGT is anonymous, because it’s only a bad thing to be anonymous if you criticize the Putin regime. If you work hard to justify it, and the Obama administration’s appeasement of it, then nothing else matters. Got that?

Second of all, the blogger who writes AGT is stunningly lazy, dishonest and stupid, even by Russophile standards.  In a post on the vast expansion of the KGB’s power to arrest and harass, the blogger claims the new law is no worse than America’s Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of 9/11.  It appears, based on this pseudo-scholarship, that the blogger got the degree he lauds on his blog (but that nobody, of course, can confirm) from a box of Cracker Jacks.

Needless to say, s/he ignores an avalanche of facts:

More on Obama’s Shocking Nuke Fraud

Dmitri Simes, writing in Time magazine:

President Obama has presented the new arms control treaty he signed in Prague on April 8 as a “historic accomplishment” in both nuclear security and U.S. relations with Russia. But there are disturbing signs that the Obama Administration is overselling its progress with Russia, raising unrealistic hopes that Moscow would genuinely help in addressing the danger from Iran, the most likely nuclear threat to America and its allies.

The administration, eager to show foreign policy successes, argues that the new treaty with Russia, which calls on both sides to reduce their nuclear forces to 1500 warheads, reflects a significantly improved relationship that will help to deliver Moscow’s support for strong sanctions against Tehran. But it is not clear that ties between the White House and the Kremlin have improved quite that much. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s performance in Argentina, right after the nuclear summit, demonstrates that ties between Washington and Moscow fall well short of partnership. “If somebody is bothered” in America by Moscow seeking a greater role in Latin America, he said, “we want to spit on that.” His statement led the news on Russian state television. Later in his “Spit Speech,” the Russian President made clear that his government does not favor “paralyzing, crippling sanctions” — the only sanctions that could deter an Iranian regime determined to have a nuclear weapons capability.

Despite this, Administration officials describe the arms control talks as a victory for Mr. Obama and a model for winning Russian support for sanctions. As the New York Times reported, they claimed that “Russia backed down” after the President made clear to Mr. Medvedev that the U.S. would not budge on Russia’s insistence to establish a link between offensive and defensive strategic systems. Off the record, Administration officials told reporters in Washington that the successor to the START treaty was so advantageous to the U.S. that the Russian media was hesitant to praise it.

The facts are quite different, however, and the Administration’s handling of the agreement evokes strong echoes of history.

Obama’s Fraudulent Nuclear Gambit with Russia

Defense policy expert Alexander Golts, writing in the Moscow Times:

As they say in Italy, a little fish is better than a big cockroach. This also applies to the New START agreement that Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed Thursday. Despite all the hyped-up rhetoric that the treaty is “historic,” in the end the nuclear arsenals of both sides will be reduced by only 100 to 200 deployed warheads.

Unlike other treaties between the two countries that were truly historic — such as the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in which an entire category of weapons was destroyed — the only warheads that will be destroyed under the New START are those that will be decommissioned and were scheduled to be destroyed anyway. All other warheads exceeding the 1,550 limit imposed by the treaty will be stored in military warehouses.

Obama and his Noxious Nuclear Nonsense

Michael Bohm, writing in the Moscow Times:

Josef Stalin once said, “It’s not important how the people vote, but who is counting the votes.” This could also apply to counting the warheads in the New START agreement. Despite all the hyped-up talk about “30 percent reductions” in nuclear weapons in what U.S. President Barack Obama has called “the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades,” the real reductions in the nuclear arsenals of both sides are modest at best.

As Peter Baker reported in The New York Times, Russia and the United States have agreed to apply “creative accounting” to pad the reductions on both sides to get to the much-desired 30 percent figure -— at least on paper. For example, one trick was to count the 20 warheads on B-52 bombers as only one. At the end of the day, the real net cuts, according to Hans Kristenson of the Federation of American Scientists, will be only 100 U.S. deployed warheads and 190 Russian ones.

Based on Kristenson’s figures of deployed warheads currently on the U.S. side (2,100) and the Russian side (2,600), the arsenal of deployed warheads will be reduced by only 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Thus, creative accounting has produced creative disarmament.

But this was not the only nuclear sleight of hand.

EDITORIAL: The Missiles of February

EDITORIAL

The Missiles of February

Last week yet another nation in Eastern Europe made an emphatic statement of how it feels about Russia:  Romania agreed to host an American ballistic missile defense system starting in 2015.

Russia’s representative to NATO Dmitri Rogozin, a crazed nationalist whose nomination itself speaks volumes about whether Russia wants normal relations with the West, sputtered and fumed and demanded “exhaustive explanations” from the USA.

But what Rogozin didn’t do was ask why Romanians hate Russians so much that they would wish to take an action that would so infuriate the Kremlin.  Nor did he ask why the Obama administration, whose craven cowardice in regard to Russia is well known, suddenly started getting tough.

More on Russia and the Iranian Bomb

Ariel Cohen, writing for the National Review:

Last weekend, Israel leaked to the Sunday Times of London that Russian scientists are developing nuclear warheads for Iran. According to the leakers, that’s why Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow for a “secret” visit September 7.

If true, this information may accelerate sanctions against Iran, or even precipitate military action to destroy the Iranian nuclear-weapons program. It may also blow President Obama’s Russia “reset” policy to smithereens.

Russia and the Iranian Bomb

The Times of London reports:

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.

Netanyahu flew to the Russian capital with Uzi Arad, his national security adviser, last month in a private jet.  His office claimed he was in Israel, visiting a secret military establishment at the time. It later emerged that he was holding talks with Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and President Dmitry Medvedev.  “We have heard that Netanyahu came with a list and concrete evidence showing that Russians are helping the Iranians to develop a bomb,” said a source close to the Russian defence minister last week.

“That is why it was kept secret. The point is not to embarrass Moscow, rather to spur it into action.”

Medvedev’s “Ludicrous” Nuclear Deal with Obama

Alexander Golts, writing in the Moscow Times:

Wishing to indulge its tough negotiating partner, Washington picked a heavily militarized agenda for the Moscow summit — nuclear arms reduction, missile defense and control over nuclear materials. These are areas in which Russia believes it can negotiate with the United States on equal grounds — that is, as equal superpowers.

EDITORIAL: Russia between a Rock and a Hardened Silo

EDITORIAL

Russia between a Rock and a Hardened Silo

Where its military policy is concerned these days, Russia finds itself between a rock and a hardened nuclear missile silo.

On the one hand, Russia would like to rely more on nuclear weapons than conventional armies.  The former are much less expensive and much easier to control.  Ballistic missiles don’t humiliate you by cutting of each other’s genitals and such, and they don’t have to be fed three times a day.  The Russian economy is in abject freefall, and the Kremlin is simply running out of funds to pay the massive overhead of the neo-Red Army.  It’s already been forced to cut thousands of officers from the payroll, as if it were engaged in nothing more than corporate downsizing.

But to rely on nuclear weapons means getting involved in a technology race, an innovation race, a creative thinking and productivity race, with the United States of America.  Russia would have a huge amount of trouble winning those kinds of races with the United States of Armenia, much less with the most vibrant and progressive industrial society on the planet. It’s a daunting prospect, to say the least.  Whereas, although you’re supposed to feed your soldiers, if you don’t really want to to you don’t actually have to. The Soviet Union sure didn’t, for instance, and it managed to go on for decades like that.  If you don’t improve your nuclear missiles, however, they become obsolete, especially if you can’t overcome inferior technology with sheer numbers.

OP-ED: Russian Nuclear Arms Hypocrisy

Exposing Russia’s Nuclear-Arms Hypocrisy

by “Dominic X”

Original to La Russophobe

Although the Russian media put out anti-western propaganda and disinformation on a regular basis, I thought that a particular article from RIA Novosti deserved some special analysis. The article  is dated 6th of May and is still to my knowledge a leading article and unfortunately has been linked to by USA Today and others. Wikipedia describes RIA Novosti as “one of the most authoritative and professional sources of information in Russia”, which does not say much for the rest of them.

The article is by one Yevgeny Kozhokhin, who turns out to be director of Moscow’s “Strategic Studies Institute.”  Perhaps I am cynical, but I think it is a safe bet that that institute is an arm of government, unlike its western counterparts. Incidentally, when I googled him I found the quote “in the modern world Russia’s objective of ensuring a conflict-free environment can often only be achieved by offensive means” – obviously trying to out-do the American neocons.

The article follows in ordinary print,with my comments in boldface.

How Vladimir Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Pavel Felgenhauer, writing on the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, explains why Russia will never give up its nuclear arsenal as Barack Obama seems to hope:

On April 5 President Barack Obama in his speech in Prague, outlined his vision of a nuclear-free world: “This goal will not be reached quickly -perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change.” Obama argued that if nuclear nations eliminated their arsenals, others would not move to acquire such weapons. He implied that the process of nuclear reduction began in London after a summit with President Dmitry Medvedev when it was agreed to prepare “by the end of this year a legally binding and sufficiently bold” new arms reduction treaty. This treaty, according to Obama “will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.” He added, “As long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies” (AP, April 5).

In the Cold War Russian Communist leaders often used the theme of the elimination of nuclear weapons as a propaganda weapon to prod Western adversaries. Nuclear disarmament per se was never truly considered by the Russian military, but even if the West publicly took up the nuclear disarmament offer at face value, it was considered a safe option: during the Cold War Russia had a clear conventional troop superiority in Europe and an elimination of the nuclear deterrent would have shifted the balance in its favor.

Now the situation is radically different: Russia’s conventional forces are weak and outdated, while Western militaries are in the midst of a military-technical revolution, acquiring new capabilities of precision warfare that the Russians can only dream about. Russia’s nuclear deterrent is seen as practically the only item left that still keeps the country in the league of military superpowers. Safeguarding a credible nuclear deterrent is the main strategic goal of Russian military chiefs, diplomats and political leaders. Obama’s nuclear-free world vision was publicly ignored by the officialdom in Moscow (www.newsru.com, April 7).

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Madmen

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Madmen

It grows more and more possible to believe that the men who govern Russia are actually, medically, insane.

We reported last week on a high-ranking official in the diplomatic corps — an educator, yet — who argues that America is just about to collapse, breaking up into a number of smaller, weaker regional states.  Russia of course, in his view, is doing just fine.

That idea is crazy enough on its own, but it gets worse — because the Kremlin is not only paranoid, it’s schizophrenic in its paranoia.

To illustrate, refer to the ravings of the commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Force, Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov which we report in full in today’s issue. As the Washington Times states:  “In a stream of press releases and appearances the general described what he called ‘the U.S. concept of an uncontested nuclear first strike’ to destroy all Russian strategic missiles and prevent a counterstrike. ”

Breathtaking, isn’t it? And not just because of the stupidity and ignorance of the individual stories. Indeed, not even mostly because of that.

No, the worst thing is the hypocrisy and the inconsistency.

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Nuclear Shell Game

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Nuclear Shell Game

A week ago Tuesday, Russia once again tried to fire a Bulava nuclear missile from a submarine, this one located  in the White Sea.  For the fifth time in ten tries, the missile veered wildly off course and had to be destroyed immediately after leaving the launching pad, ending the effort in total failure and humiliation.

Annals of Iranian Quagmire

The blogger at TakeYourCross points us to a report from JihadWatch that indicates more gross incompetence on the part of the Bush administration, which maybe allowing U.S. funds to pay for Russian nuclear experts giving advice to Iran. Yikes! At least there may be some hope in this:  Paul Goble reports that some Russians are starting to realize that their brinksmanship in Iran isn’t working out as planned:

Moscow’s efforts in recent months to play “the Iran card” against the West reflect a dangerous misapplication of the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and are leaving the Kremlin with few good options, according to a leading Russian specialist on foreign policy in southwest Asia.
In an interview in “Moskovsky Komsomolets” Ivan Danilin, a senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), argues that the Russian government has fallen into the trap of considering Iran largely in terms of Moscow’s relationship with the United States.

Putin’s Insane Kaliningrad Gambit

Defense expert Alexander Golts, writing in the Moscow Times:

Imagine the following scenario: After the standoff between the United States and Russia has reached boiling point, the U.S. president decides to launch a nuclear first strike. Russian radar and spy satellites identify a launch of U.S. missiles directed at Russia. The Russian president gives the command for a nuclear counterstrike and simultaneously orders the destruction of U.S. missile-defense installations in Central Europe. To neutralize U.S. radar systems in the Czech Republic and missile-defense batteries in Poland, Russia launches Iskander missiles from Kaliningrad — the ones that President Dmitry Medvedev mentioned in his state-of-the-nation address on Wednesday.

Is this the script of the latest cheap Armageddon novel? Not at all. I just carried the statements and hints made by Kremlin leaders to their logical conclusion. It all started when then-President Vladimir Putin, and now Medvedev, invented the myth that the United States is attempting to create a global missile-defense system to establish military superiority over Russia. This myth is based on the notion that the United States or NATO could launch a first strike against Russia and its missile-defense system would be able to fully intercept a counterstrike of Russian missiles, thus guaranteeing complete military superiority over Russia.

Americans Significantly Less Warlike than Russians

A recent public opinion survey by World Public Opinion found that on the issue of nuclear weapons Americans are considerably less warlike than Russians, contrary to the standard propaganda line spouted by the Kremlin. In every response, a significantly higher percentage of American respondents favors restraint with nukes compared to Russians. Note too the gigantic gap in the Russian answers indicating that huge numbers of Russians, lemmings that they are, could not answer the questions — because they didn’t have anyone to tell them what to think.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Crazed Russia Once Again Menaces UK with Nuclear Attack

The BBC reports that Russia has once again menaced it with nuclear attack in the manner of a crude thug, a rogue nation like Iran:

Two new RAF Typhoon jets shadowed a Russian bomber heading for Britain, the Ministry of Defence has said. The jets were scrambled on Friday 17 August to identify the Russian aircraft, which turned back before it reached UK skies. The MoD said: “RAF Typhoons from Numbers 3(F) and XI Squadrons launched to shadow a Russian Bear-H aircraft over the North Atlantic Ocean.” The BBC’s Gordon Corera said the incident was not a security threat. He said a similar incident occurred in July, but that this represented a new, more provocative Russian foreign policy. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has recently resumed the Soviet-era practice of sending bomber aircraft on long-range flights.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russia Considers Unilateral Repudiation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty

As if the crazed, frenzied diatribe of Vladimir Putin in Munich was not enough, now a neo-Soviet general is talking unilateral repudiation of strategic arms treaties. Welcome to Cold War II, the one Russia provoked and can’t possibly survive. The Associated Press reports:

A top Russian general said Thursday that Moscow may unilaterally opt out of a Soviet-era arms reduction treaty with the United States, Russian news agencies reported.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, was quoted by ITAR-Tass and Interfax as saying that Russia could pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He said the decision would depend on the United States’ actions with its proposed missile defense system, parts of which Washington is seeking to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic. The treaty eliminated an entire class of medium-range missiles that had been based in Europe. Baluyevsky’s comments come after President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that the INF treaty no longer serves Russia’s interests.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Rooski Who Cried "Wolf!"

Last week, La Russophobe reported on the fact that, as the LA Times reported on Sunday, “Russian national Oleg Khintsagov was arrested Feb. 1, 2006, after he smuggled about 3.5 ounces of weapons-grade uranium into Georgia from his homeland, expecting to receive $1 million for it, Shota Utiashvili, chief of the analytical department of the Georgian Interior Ministry, said Friday in a telephone interview from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. Khintsagov, who thought he was dealing with “an extremely wealthy customer” wanting to buy nuclear bomb-making material, claimed that he would be able to provide up to 6.6 pounds at the price of $1 million for each 3.5 ounces, Utiashvili said.” The Times stated: “Utiashvili charged that Russia had not cooperated in the investigation of the incident, which was first made public this week by Georgian and U.S. officials. These officials said the CIA, the FBI and the Energy Department had assisted in the case. Utiashvili said Georgia had requested help from the FSB, or Russian Federal Security Service, immediately after the arrests were made, but that the agency never responded. ‘We think it is extremely dangerous that such material can get into the hands of terrorists,’ Utiashvili said. ‘We think it is in everybody’s interests, and especially in the interests of Russia, to get to the bottom of it and assist us in this investigation.'”

Not only has Russia “failed to cooperate,” but according to the Times Russia has characterized concern over the issue as an “overblown propaganda ploy,” a conspiracy of Russia’s foreign enemies. The Times reported: “‘It appears obvious that Georgian ‘hawks’ were consciously trying to deal a painful blow to the prestige of Russia in the international arena,’ the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper declared in an unsigned commentary. Georgia’s actions in the case were “a planned information provocation,” said Andrei Cherkasenko, board chairman of Atompromresursy, a manufacturer of nuclear power industry equipment, according to RIA Novosti, the state-run Russian news agency.”

Now where have we heard this &#^!@% before? LR is getting oh so very tired of listening to Russians talk about their foreign enemies each and every time Russia’s hand is caught in the cookie jar. First hardened Kremlin foe Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned with Russian polonium, and Russia says he was killed just to make the Kremlin look bad, and now Russian nukes are passing into Georgia and the story is the same. Over and over again, we’re being told that we’re the ones who have the problem, not Russia — yet, when an issue like the NATO action against Serbia comes up, Russia explodes in frenzy against the West which it claims is fully justified.

Welcome to the neo-Soviet Union.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Has Russia Lost Control of its Nukes . . . or is it just plain evil?

Captain’s Quarters reports that either Russia has lost control of its nuclear weaponry or else it has decided to release it upon the world in an endless series of assaults. The Captain can’t decide which scenario is the more ominous and, quite frankly, neither can La Russophobe. One thing’s for sure, though: If the world had listened to us russophobes earlier, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Here’s the Captain’s description:

Georgian officials, with the cooperation of American investigators, managed to snare a man selling weapons-grade uranium last summer, a victory against black-market proliferation. The victory has been fleeting, however, as the combined task force has not been able to trace the source of the material to determine the origin of the uranium. Just as in another, more splashy case of rogue nuclear material, the problem results from Russian intransigence:

“Given the serious consequences of the detonation of an improvised nuclear explosive device, even small numbers of incidents involving HEU (highly enriched uranium) or plutonium are of very high concern,” said Melissa Fleming of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

Details of the investigation, which also involved the FBI and Energy Department, were provided to The Associated Press by U.S. officials and Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili.

Authorities say they do not know how the man acquired the nuclear material or if his claims of access to much larger quantities were true. He and three Georgian accomplices are in Georgian custody and not cooperating with investigators.

Merabishvili said Georgian attempts to trace the nuclear material since the arrest and confirm whether the man indeed had access to larger quantities have foundered from a lack of cooperation from Russia.

Merabishvili said he was revealing the story out of frustration with Russia’s response and the need to illustrate the dangers of a breakdown in security cooperation in the region.

Russia has not covered itself in glory in recent months, even apart from the increasingly autocratic domestic policies of the Vladimir Putin administration. One of its former agents wound up dead through poisoning by polonium after he started criticizing Putin. Now a sample of HEU winds up on the black market, and Russia won’t cooperate.

A couple of scenarios could be in play. The first is that Putin has decided to gain hard cash by putting fissile material on the black market, which is not only insane but counterproductive. After all, Putin has his own insurgencies in the Caucasus, and the material could just as easily find its way there rather that against Putin’s enemies. The second possibility is even more frightening — which is that Russia has lost control over its nuclear materials and wants to keep the West from discovering it.

In any event, the lack of cooperation on such a danger speaks volumes about security arrangements in the former Soviet republics. It’s no secret that Georgia has angered Russia in its efforts to spin out of Putin’s orbit, and if this intransigence is Putin’s idea of retribution, then we can pretty much kiss nuclear security in that region good-bye. Apparently, rogue proliferation matters less to Putin than petty squabbles and influence peddling. Such a ruler is no partner for peace and economic stability, and Putin seems intent on proving that in other areas as well, such as energy transport and arms dealings with Iran.

We used to excuse the exceptions to good relations from Russia and Putin. It’s difficult to see anything else these days.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !