Is Russia our enemy?

The Democratic Party convention and the media are full of the assumption that Russia is the enemy of the United States.  What is the basis for that assumption?

• Russian support for the Russian ethnic minority in eastern Ukraine?  How does that threaten the United States?
• Russian annexation of the Crimea?  Khrushchev arbitrarily transferred that part of Russia to Ukraine during his time as head of the USSR.  Khrushchev was a Ukrainian.  Russia never accepted the arbitrary  transfer of a territory that had been theirs since the 18th Century.  How does this annexation threaten the United States?
• Russia does not want to see Syria crushed by the jihadis and acts accordingly?  How does that threaten the United States?
• Russia threatens the NATO states in eastern Europe?  Tell me how they actually do that.  Is it by stationing their forces on their side of the border with these countries?  Have the Russians made threatening statements about the NATO states?
• Russia has made threatening and hostile statements directed at the United States?  When and where was that?
• Russia does not accept the principle of state sovereignty?  Really?  The United States is on shaky ground citing that principle.  Remember Iraq?
• Russian intelligence may have intercepted and collected the DNC's communications (hacked) as well as HC's stash of illegal e-mails?  Possibly true but every country on earth that has the capability does the same kind of thing every single day.  That would include the United States.

The Obama Administration is apparently committed to a pre-emptive assertion that Russia is a world class committed enemy of the United States.  The Borgist media fully support that.

We should all sober up.  pl

Comments

[Jonathan House MD]

Thanks for the straight-forward, clear, brief, convincing summary. I have posted it to my Facebook page and will forward it around as I can.

I would add that, with the exception of Trump (at least at the moment), the Republican party including congressmen and senators etc. is singing the same song.

[kooshy]

Colonel, Bravo, couldn't be said better someone should say this to idiot Morning Joe

[Valissa]

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Not to mention the financial advantages to the Military-Industrial-Thinktank complex (I'm including NATO in this) and all the politicians that benefit from the lobbying monies from that complex.

Plus there's the psychological advantage of having some country/countries to blame for the lack of US success, or to distract attention away from US problems that need it.

[Dave Schuler]

Russia's primary offense is that it has dared to have its own national interests.

[Bill H]

You left out that Putin has a burning desire to rebuild the Soviet Empire under the Russian Federation banner, doing so by invading and occupying all of the nations that have recently been added to NATO. We know this because he invaded and occupied Crimea and is attemting the same in Ukraine with thousands of heavily armed troops, including armor and heavy artillery.

The Ukraine invasion is completely invisible to our satellites which, far from suggesting that it might not be happening, proves that Russian stealth technology is far ahead of ours, which is cause for even more fear and terror on the Russian front.

I know you are isolated from modern American news, sir, but try to keep up.

[NotTimothyGeithner]

Moscow is large enough to be a mommy figure for a small country with an interest in dealing with China which doesn't want to be swamped by Beijing's sheer size. Moscow is a threat to U.S. financial and military domination without firing a shot, engaging in a trade war, or leading a diplomatic revolt.

The average American doesn't care about a loss of hegemony. We naturally want cooperation and hippie peace, love, dope. The Western industries with effective monopolies abroad would see immense profits under threat because the Chinese and Russian competitors would drive prices down in finance, defense, pharmaceuticals, tech, and so forth. So they are turning to the Goering play book to keep the Russians out of the world stage. The professional Risk players in the neoconservatives would see their plans fall apart if the Erdogan-Putin meeting is a positive one.

Also, Putin embarrassed Obama over Syria in 2013 and then was magnanimous. Obama hasn't forgotten that perceived slight.

[Valissa]

We've always been at war with Eastasia http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/02/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia.html
Consider the example in the book 1984 regarding the ongoing war between the three superstates of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia (representing English, Russian, and Chinese empires respectively).

At the start of the book, Oceania is at war with Eurasia. They have always been at war with Eurasia. That's the political consensus, and all historic documents agree. However, Winston Smith (the protagonist) remembers a time five years ago when Oceania was instead at war with Eastasia. Winston Smith struggles with philosophical idea of "truth". Which is more true, what everyone knows and what's in the newspapers, or the memories within his head?

Then Ocean's allegiance switched back again. On the sixth day of Hate Week, as crowds gathered to denounce Eurasia, the Party switched enemies to Eastasia. In a particularly rousing speech against their enemy, the speaker was handed a slip of paper, and in mid-sentence, without pause, without change in content or tone, he changed the name of the enemy he was speaking against to Eastasia. Eurasia was now their dearest friends. Those holding banners denouncing their enemy were suddenly embarrassed to discover they had unaccountably written the wrong name, and quickly trampled and destroyed them.
------------

[turcopolier]

Bill H
"I know you are isolated from modern American news, sir, but try to keep up." It seems to me that you are overly affected by "modern American news." Does it bother you that not everyone has been conditioned by neocon memetics?
Tell me how you KNOW that it is Putin's intention to "rebuild the Soviet Empire? How do you KNOW that? How do you KNOW that it is his intention to invade and occupy all the nations added to NATO? How do you KNOW that? There is no evidence that Russian forces are committed in eastern Ukraine. None. You admit that to be true and cite it as evidence of Russian aggression. I remind you that I do not tolerate ad hominem attacks. pl

[Tyler]

Bill H,

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or you really believe this, but I'll err on the side of caution and believe it is the former.

If so, its very well done.

[SmoothieX12]

"You left out that Putin has a burning desire to rebuild the Soviet Empire under the Russian Federation banner, doing so by invading and occupying all of the nations that have recently been added to NATO"

The worst Russian nightmare is to have those freeloaders back into Russian fold. USSR? Thanks, but no thanks. I know damn well the mood on Russian streets--it is to be left alone, especially by non-Russian entities. Preferably having a very tall fence literally and figuratively. As per "recently added to NATO". You mean de-populating and economically third world Baltics, or, God forbids, seeing Poland in Russian fold. Sir, you are, obviously, smoking some potent sh.t. Learn the facts on the ground.

[Farmer Don]

Replace "Russia" in the above sentence with "Trump".

They are both not in the Davos set.

[Trey N]

Umm, you've been played, Pat.

Bill H is practicing a sardonic irony popular on a lot of sites' comments sections nowadays. "Million Dollar Bonus" over at zerohedge.com is a master of the art.

The giveaway is Bill's second paragraph, mocking the lying media presstitutes who claim Russia is "invading Ukraine with hordes of tanks" etc and have never been able to verify their ridiculous claims with even one shred of proof.

With the best of these types of commenters, it's often hard to tell whether they are really serious or just spoofing. Either way, they generally elicit a lot of heated responses....

[David Habakkuk]

Tyler,

I think that on reflection you are right to err on the side of caution. It was indeed well-done -- just perhaps need a small 'tweak' at the end to eliminate the ambiguity.

[turcopolier]

Trey N

Sarcasm? Trolling? I don't have time for that. I suppose I will have to ban it. Sigh... pl

[sillybill]

Bill H,
Now look what you've done!
I suggest you use a snark tag - /s - at the end next time.

[Cee]

Col. Lang,

I read before that Obama was pushing back against this lunacy. Now the HRC-NEOCON camp are in full attack mode. I honestly think I'll be voting for Trump because I feel he can't do all of the things that I would hate for him to do. I KNOW that Hillary would get away with murder. I'm quite serious.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/27/hillary-the-hawk-a-history-clinton-2016-military-intervention-libya-iraq-syria/

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think there is a late - certainly a reservoir - of Kool Aide somewhere in America which US leaders and commentators are imbibing en mass.

[Cee]

Valises,

Well put. I was also reading about NATO members gearing up to attack Russia.

[SmoothieX12]

Moscow is large enough to be

A medium-size European country herself. It is also a very peculiar economic entity. I do, however, have a question on what do you mean by a "mommy for a small country"? No matter how small the country is, in my understanding, it still will have a fair degree of freedom when building trade relations with any entity, even of such mammoth size as China.

[FB Ali]

I don't think it was "sarcasm" (or trolling) directed against your post. He was actually agreeing, but chose to express it in this guise.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I agree; if Russia had jettisoned the Central Asian Republics, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia, she could have avoided the trauma of 1991.

All those places were a net drain on the European parts of USSR.

Of course, now that the USSR is gone and the subsidies are gone with it, many of those places are slowly sinking into the 19-th century era poverty from which the Russian Empire had rescued them earlier.

[Erik]

The American talking point about the Crimea is a laughable piece of High School Debating Team rhetoric.The people in charge know full well the truth about Ukraine's claim to the Crimea. The thing that hurts is that the whole point of the
"Nuland Putsch" ,and the rise of a western aligned govt., was to provide the crown jewel in Nato's (read America) crown: Eliminating Russia's naval base at Sevastopol completing the encirclement of Russia in the west (except for the always vulnerable Kaliningrad).
All the rest about Russia's alleged expansionism is similar debating team poppycock.

Looking at the history of empire building and aggressive wars, one is well served to think in terms of the 3 legged stool of criminology (for aggressive wars are simply, as Jackson said at Nurnberg, the supreme international crime) and consider means, opportunity, and motive.
We have motive, the Russians do not. The motive in this case is theft, plain and simple. Russia with its small population and vast real estate holdings is already provided with more resources than she knows what to do with. We, on the other hand are not, and have not been since at least the seventies. Russia has its work cut out for it to develop what it owns already and why would they want to conquer populous resource poor neighbor states?

Not only has Putin snatched away the score of the century by re-asserting Russian control over Crimea, but he had since 2000 or so been forestalling the western feeding frenzy on the carcass of the Soviet Union that had Americans creaming their jeans. Re assertion of Russian true sovereignty was his real offense.

What's so poignant is the long standing western ambition to be able to steal what Russia has. 2 centuries of western aggression against Russia, and all dedicated to theft. Same now, and the drumbeat of warmongering rhetoric now directed at Russia is hilarious in a dangerous way. We really are using the Goering argument to drag our unwilling population towards war.

[turcopolier]

FB Ali

Thanks. pl

[ked]

We live in times where "if it weren't for over-reaction, there'd be no reaction at all."
Should be any less concerned about Russian intel / cyber ops / influence (open & otherwise) in our politics than we are of any other nation?

[elev8]

But that is the same reaction that the Democrats currently engage in. Trump's "Putin does a better job" is sarcasm and trollery. Apparently he wants to compete with SNL. Good showing so far, but may cost him the job he purportedly also covets.