The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

On president elect Barak Obama.

The American sheeple better wake up and realize that when it comes to vital/core political issues there are no real differences between Republicans and Democrats. The US has been for a long time a nation with one political party with two factions. As much as I feared and hated the Bush administration (including McCain) I am truly getting sick over all this Barak Obama worship. Politically speaking, Obama will prove to be just as bad if not worst than Bush's administration. What the sheeple worldwide need to realize here is that Obama was not "elected" by the people, he was "chosen" by the US political elite four years ago as one that can potentially replace the failed and discredited representatives of Neoconservatism in Washington. In short, it now seems obvious that the globalist agenda of the US empire needed a fresh new face to move forward, a face that could again appeal to the disillusioned masses. Obama is that new face. President elect Obama has not yet moved into Washington DC, yet look at the kind of people that are already standing behind him: foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski who is an American imperialist and an ardent Russophobe and Rohm Emanuel, a fervent Zionist. In my opinion, Obama's election has actually been a massive propaganda coup d’état for policy makers in Washington, giving them a means to silence or even win over their domestic opponents. Nevertheless, the Obama presidency will essentially be the continuation of the American empire's global agenda by 'other' means... and due to blind Obama worship, it may even prove to be more disastrous.

Armenian

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Obama's Council on Foreign Relations Crew

The men behind Barack Obama part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k

The men behind Barack Obama part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KJC...eature=related

Foreign Policy Debate - Relations with Russia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukR4U27aoig

Ralph Nader: Obama will be like Bush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8H92fcSOdY

Alex Jones speaks out on Obama's team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19esfWGZIys

Obama endorses American imperialism - anti-war activist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StDdCPZUNTE

Obama's Chief of Staff a son of terrorist?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l2W8vTD494

Meet some of president elect Obama’s leading foreign and domestic policy advisors and likely administration members, every one of them a prominent member of the Council On Foreign Relations. Will these people bring about "change" or will they continue to hold up the same entrenched system forged by the corporate elite for decades?

Susan E. Rice - Council on Foreign Relations, The Brookings Institution - Served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Clinton from 1997 to 2001. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright is a longtime mentor and family friend to Rice. Critics charge that she is is ill disposed towards Europe, has little understanding of the Middle East and would essentially follow the same policies of Condoleeza Rice if appointed the next Secretary of State or the National Security Adviser.

Anthony Lake - CFR, PNAC - Bill Clinton’s first national security adviser, who was criticized for the administration’s failure to confront the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and now acknowledges the inaction as a major mistake.

Zbigniew Brzezinski - CFR, Trilateral Commission - Brzezinski is widely seen as the man who created Al Qaeda, and was involved in the Carter Administration plan to give arms, funding and training to the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Richard Clarke - CFR - Former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council under Bush. Notoriously turned against the Bush administration after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Also advised Madeleine Albright during the Genocide in Rwanda.

Ivo Daalder - CFR, Brookings, PNAC - Co-authored a Washington Post op-ed with neocon Robert Kagan arguing that interventionism is a bipartisan affair that should be undertaken with the approval of our democratic allies.

Dennis Ross - CFR, Trilateral Commission, PNAC - Served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush and special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton. A noted supporter of the Iraq war, Ross is also a Foreign Affairs Analyst for the Fox News Channel.

Lawrence Korb - CFR, Brookings - Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Has criticized manor of the invasion of Iraq but has detailed plans to increase the manpower of the United States Army to fight the war on terror and to "spread liberal democratic values throughout the Middle East".

Bruce Reidel - CFR, Brookings - Former CIA analyst who wishes to expand the war on terror to fight Al Qaeda across the globe. Considered to be the reason behind Barack Obama’s Hawkish views on Pakistan and his Pro India leanings on Kashmir.

Stephen Flynn - CFR - Has been attributed with the idea for Obama’s much vaunted "Civilian Security Force". Flynn has written: "The United States should roughly replicate the Federal Reserve model by creating a Federal Security Reserve System (FSRS) with a national board of governors, 10 regional Homeland Security Districts, and 92 local branches called Metropolitan Anti-Terrorism Committees. The objective of this system would be to develop self-funding mechanisms to more fully engage a broad cross-section of American society to protect the country’s critical foundations from the widespread disruption that would arise from a terrorist attack."

Madeline Albright - CFR, Brookings - Currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors. Secretary of State and US Ambassador to the United Nations under Clinton. Did not take action against the genocide in Rwanda. Defended the sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein. When asked by CBS’s 60 Minutes about the effects of sanctions: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Of course, had John McCain become president, being a member of the CFR himself, his administration would have been replete with CFR representatives also. Max Boot, Lawrence Eagleburger and Henry Kissinger, to name but a few, are all CFR members and were all advisors to the McCain campaign. Please do your own research and add more names in the comments section of this report. It is important to document how these people are a part of the engine of global elitism and do not represent change. Only with this understanding will others wake up to the false left-right paradigm and be able to create the environment for real political change.

Source: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10867

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

"Obama will have to act in interests of the American establishment. If he does not, he will not be the president”

Yuli Kvitsinsky

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Round table in REGNUM press center: We must not indulge into illusions about Obama’s election

The new president of the USA, Barack Obama will have to follow current interests of the American establishment, Deputy Chairman of Russian State Duma Committee for International Affairs, Yuli Kvitsinsky has said during a round-table discussion at the REGNUM press centre. According to him, the election of Barack Obama as US president produced positive expectations both in Europe and in other parts of the world. “There is some euphoria, besides it is sometimes unnatural”, Kvitsinsky believes. “We should listen to what Obama will say, and see what team he chooses. We should not indulge in illusions, he is only the next president of the United States, which foreign policy and national interests are constant. There are the American establishment and the American position as a nation chosen by the God, a nation that directs orders all over the world. Obama will have to act in interests of the American establishment. If he does not, he will not be the president,” Yuli Kvitsinsky summarized. It is worth mentioning, the round table “The USA in the post-Soviet space. The new policy” is taking place at the REGNUM press centre today, on November 24.

Source: http://www.regnum.ru/english/1088354.html

In related news:

Barack Obama accused of selling out on Iraq by picking hawks to run his foreign policy

Mr Obama has moved quickly in the last 48 hours to get his cabinet team in place, unveiling a raft of heavyweight appointments, in addition to Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. But his preference for General James Jones, a former Nato commander who backed John McCain, as his National Security Adviser and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a supporter of the war, to run the Homeland Security department has dismayed many of his earliest supporters. The likelihood that Mr Obama will retain George W Bush's Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has reinforced the notion that he will not aggressively pursue the radical withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq over the next 16 months and engagement with rogue states that he has pledged. Chris Bowers of the influential OpenLeft.com blog complained: "That is, over all, a centre-right foreign policy team. I feel incredibly frustrated. Progressives are being entirely left out of Obama's major appointments so far." Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos site, the in-house talking shop for the anti-war Left, warned that Democrats risk sounding "tone deaf" to the views of "the American electorate that voted in overwhelming numbers for change from the discredited Bush policies."

A spokesman for the President-elect was forced to confirm that Mr Obama holds to his previous views. "His position on Iraq has not changed and will not change." But the growing disillusionment underlines the fine line Mr Obama must walk between appearing to reach out to former opponents and keeping his grassroot supporters happy. Mr Obama seems conscious of the need to move fast, to reassure a watching world that he will be ready to hit the ground running on foreign and economic policy. He will wait until Friday before formally announcing his national security team, but he will on Monday formally unveil his economic team, with New York Federal Reserve bank chairman Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and the New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, in the Commerce portfolio. On Friday night, Mr Obama and his wife Michelle revealed that they will send their two daughters Malia and Sasha to the private Sidwell Friends school in Washington, once attended by Chelsea Clinton. That announcement ended two weeks of speculation in the capital, where excitement is growing over the arrival of the Obama family in time for the inauguration on Jan 20. City officials now expect four million people to turn out to see history made. Hotels are sold out, house rental prices for the week are rising into five figures and others are buying space for their tents on people's lawns. If every visitor descended simultaneously on the National Mall, each would have just one square foot of space.

But the huge enthusiasm of Obama supporters might dissipate if they believe he is crafting a government more likely to pursue "politics as usual", rather than his often-promised "change we need". There is growing concern among a new generation of anti-war foreign policy analysts in Washington, many of whom stuck their necks out to support Mr Obama early in the White House race, that they will be frozen out of his administration. Mrs Clinton is expected to appoint her own top team at the State Department, drawn from more conservative thinkers. A Democratic foreign policy expert told one Washington website: "They were the ones courageous enough to stand up early against Iraq, which is why many supported Obama in the first place." Their fear, he added, is that they will not now secure the mid-level posts which will enable them to reach the top of the Washington career ladder in future. Suspicion of Mr Obama's moves has been compounded, for some liberals, by the revelation that Mr Obama has for several months been taking advice from Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush.

His return to prominence in Washington represents a resurgence of the old school conservative realists, who were largely eclipsed during this Bush administration by the neoconservatives. They place US national interests above the quest to defend human rights or to spread democracy. Progressives and liberals see Mr Scowcroft's hand in the move to retain Mr Gates, an old friend, at the Pentagon and also in the expected elevation of Gen. Jones. Others are troubled by an announcement on Friday night that Mr Obama will retain the White House political office, an institution recently associated with George Bush's adviser Karl Rove, who has been blamed for running government as a permanent and highly partisan election campaign. During the campaign, Mr Obama pledged to end "politics as usual" and the "perpetual campaign". But a spokesman for the Transition team said: "An Obama White House will be focused on meeting the next challenge, not winning the next election."

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...gn-policy.html

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

A very candid interview by the outspoken Russian representative to NATO.

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Dmitry Rogozin



US could target Moscow from Poland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FWE1GgLqVc

American missiles to be deployed in Poland are capable of hitting Moscow in just four minutes, which makes them totally provocative weapons, says Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin. Dmitry Rogozin: I was a State Duma deputy for 11 years. I know very well the work of parliamentarians in the West. In the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I was the leader of a political group. What is going on in the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO is something quite uncommon and not customary for western parliamentarianism. Usually, they try to invite both sides to discussions, even if it’s just for the sake of appearances. They might have concealed some aspects while emphasizing others, but flatly declining the presence of an official Russian representative at a discussion with Saakashvili on a matter they call the “Russian-Georgian conflict” is just plain wrong. This is why I considered it impossible to accept the invitation to attend the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Valencia. In turn, I invited leaders of national delegations to the Assembly to our mission in Brussels. We’ll talk there. Sometimes I get the impression that we and they live on different planets. At first, even before the dust had settled after the bombing of Tskhinval, we heard “It does not matter who attacked whom”. I wish they had tried to tell the same to the U.S. after 9/11.

A while later, when human rights activists such as Human Rights Watch started reporting military crimes, our Western counterparts slowly began to change their point of view. But even that is admitted only in their internal discussions, while they keep telling us that Russia’s intrusion in Georgia is unacceptable, as is Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It’s a Biblical situation: they are looking at a splinter in our eye while refusing to notice the log in theirs. Frankly, I don’t believe it. We’ve discussed it repeatedly with many influential European politicians, and the picture looks as follows: Europe is a neighbor of Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. Imagine that you live in an apartment next to a Ukrainian flat, where a girl called Yulia is running back and forth, yelling and shouting, between two men named Viktor. It’s a Brazilian soap opera, the several-hundredth episode of it. In another apartment, an insane maniac is running around with a knife, threatening to stab everyone he sees. That’s the Georgian apartment. Hearing all this racket from behind a wall is one thing; breaking down the wall between apartments and inviting everyone to your place is quite different. There are different people in Europe, but they are not crazy, especially the politicians. I doubt they will take any such steps.

It is clear that neither Albania, nor Croatia, nor Macedonia, nor Bosnia and Herzegovina, nor Ukraine, nor Georgia can be considered powers in a military sense. Their military potential is zero. It’s even lower than that, I would say. So it’s not about acquiring valuable military allies, it’s purely a political matter. As the westerners themselves admit, it’s a matter of a new political identity for the newly admitted countries. And this is the anti-Russian thing. This is why, when anybody in the Ukraine tries to change identity, to change Ukraine’s historical choice, or, to put it simply, to tear Ukraine away from Russia, we are anxious. How else should we feel when there are so many ties with Russia? 40% of Russian families have immediate relatives in Ukraine, and 80% of Ukrainian families have relatives in Russia. This connection is impossible to break up. This is why such plans should be viewed as breakaway and aimed against Russia. The same is true about Georgia. You see, guys like Saakashvili come and go, but there is still a history of relationships between our two countries, and it is far richer than what has happened over the last few years. Again, this breaking away from Russia is a strange attempt to legalise Georgia’s territorial gains in the form of Abkhazia and Ossetia, which were never part of the state of Georgia. I think that all this is just an attempt to isolate the Russian bear, to force it into its lair. There is one problem, though, and every hunter knows that. You can hunt a bear down, you can badger it, but it’s dangerous to come close to it. Therefore, NATO closing in on Russia is dangerous: any hunter can tell you that.

The chances are pretty low so far. It’s due to the inertia of the Cold War mentality. In general, what Russia is suggesting is very good. We suggest principles that are really hard to object to. Who is going to deny that security should be equal, indispensable and indivisible for all? Who could be against demilitarizing the entire centre of the European continent using military force solely to defend our common borders in the Pacific area? Who could be against ruling out military planning, especially nuclear planning, against each other? These things are totally reasonable; it’s a new world outlook. It’s a new vision of collective security for everyone. Therefore, what Medvedev is offering is hardly questionable. The problem is a different matter altogether. The problem is that employees of all international organizations think, “What’s going to happen to me personally?” I refer to employees of the NATO Secretariat, employees of the European Commission, and employees of the OSCE headquarters in Vienna - they all think this. “Will I keep getting my several-thousand-euro paycheck if that Medvedev guy realizes his concept?” They are afraid that a moment will come when people will simply sweep those lardy European bureaucrats out of their cozy seats. It’s that selfish, small-minded, paltry psychology of Euro-Atlantic bureaucrats that can ruin such a great initiative. Well, I still believe this concept will win through sooner or later.

For example, what they are discussing now is the unacceptability of Russia’s plan to deploy its Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad Region. As for the fact that the U.S. has already began deploying its launch systems in Poland and is about to press the Czechs into approving the deployment of a radar station there, nobody in Europe seems to care about that. Everybody would rather believe the fairy-tales of bad Iranian guys or some Bin Laden having snatched a missile somewhere and running around with it, preparing to fire it at the civilized European world. This is rubbish. Nobody can steal a strategic missile. No Bin Laden can do that. But nevertheless, since this myth is being touted by America, Europe prefers to stay silent. That flaccid, spineless reaction of Europe to America’s actions and to Russia’s responses to them only proves one thing: Europe still doesn’t have its own political face. It’s wealthy, but politically spineless. It’s like a big, thick, but very flexible, pencil.

Let’s just hope Russia’s deployment of Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad will influence Europe’s attitude towards America’s missile defence plans. For us, it is important to have the military means to counterbalance those plans, which indeed threaten our security. You see, the thing is that the American missiles to be deployed in Poland can be used in several ways. They can not only shoot down descending ballistic missiles, but they can also engage surface targets. That is, they can be fired at Moscow from Poland, and they are so quick and accurate that a missile can get to Moscow in just four minutes and fly into Russian Prime Minister’s office through the window! I am not joking! This is a destabilising, misbalancing, and totally provocative weapon. How can we stand for that? Of course, we will find an adequate military response. That is, unless we find a political response first. Well, we so hope that they are sensible enough to realise that we are not like we used to be. If we are offended, we can hit back, and do it more than once.

Until things get really tough, they are going to keep pretending that Russia is their opponent. I think that in the XXI century, the real threat is posed by a certain bunch of people who think that you and I are second-class people. Those close-minded people simply don’t recognize our right to live. They don’t care who they are dealing with - Russians, xxxs, Tatars, French, or British, or whoever, - they are all the same to them. To them, we are just a worthless civilization that must be destroyed. Let’s hope our Western counterparts realise that those guys threaten us all in equal measure and that this plague advancing on the European continent will engulf us while we are all arguing. Today, we talk about existing threats such as terrorism, extremism (political or religious), drug trafficking, and piracy. As for piracy, there are pirates rampant in Somalia, and tomorrow, I think, the entire African coast will be swarming with pirates, and there will not be enough warships to keep them at bay. There is an enormous distance between Europe and the Third World. There is a new civilization emerging in the Third World that thinks that the white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall at its feet now. This is very serious

If the northern civilization wants to protect itself, it must be united: America, the European Union, and Russia. If they are not together, they will be defeated one by one. Of course, the resumption of the work of the Russia-NATO council is possible. It will surely happen, because there are too many bureaucrats in NATO who are responsible for contact with Russia. They are afraid of losing their jobs after the freezing of the Russia-NATO council, so they are among the most zealous lobbyists for resuming our good relationship. Well, kidding aside, the scope of strategic matters that unites us is so vast that we can pretend as long as we want that we don’t communicate, but we can’t help communicating. In Brussels, I have regular meetings with the leaders of the NATO secretariat, political leaders, ambassadors, and so on. It’s just that they are afraid of meeting with me in what is called the Russia-NATO council. It will happen this December at the earliest, or next March at the latest. This is my forecast, and you will see that I am right.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FWE1GgLqVc

[Federate]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Ladies and gentlemen, another proud day for the Armenian nation today. We just won GOLD at World Chess Olympiad. This is our 2nd consecutive gold at the Olympiads and definitely won't be our last.

Շնորհաւոր մեր հայ մարզիկներուն որ ցոյց կու տան թէ ինչու հայ ազգը ամենէն խելահաս ազգերէն է աշխարհին մէջ։

In case you did not hear, among the teams we beat were the top-ranked teams of China, Russia (considered their best ever team assembled) and the fake republic "Azerbaijan". Our only tie came against Ukraine and our only loss came against Israel.

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The golden victory of the golden team: Armenia keeps chess champion's title

25.11.2008 17:58

Once again the Armenian team became the winner of the Chess Olympiad. The Armenian “golden” team defended its champion’s title at the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden.

In the last eleventh round Levon Aronyan and Vladimir Hakobyan drew the games versus Vang Yue and Xiangzi respectively. Gabriel Sargsyan played a draw with Ni Hua. Tigran Petrosyan defeated Li Chao B.

Thus The Armenian team beat china 2.5-1.5, thus becoming the Champion of the 38th Chess Olympiad.

The main competitor of the Armenian team before the last round was Ukraine, which lost to the US.

http://www.armradio.am/news/?part=sport&id=13931

[KarotheGreat]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 21, 2008
Filed at 4:43 a.m. ET
MOSCOW (AP) -- The lower house of Russia's parliament has given its final approval to a bill extending the presidential term from four to six years.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed the bill seen by many as a step toward Vladimir Putin's return to power.
The Kremlin-controlled State Duma voted 392-57 Friday to approve the bill at its third and final reading. It now goes to the upper house for an expected swift approval.
The widely popular Putin, now prime minister, was constitutionally barred from seeking a third straight term as president in elections this year.
Putin has said the change was not tailored for him. But many observers predict that Medvedev could step down early to let Putin reclaim the presidential seat.

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Good debate, cohen raped burns. Interesting and nice to see an american joo who is not a russophobe.

From the streets of Wall Street to the halls of Congress, everything wrong with this once great land is represented by disgusting vermin like this Burns character.

Yes, Mr. Cohen of NYU was very impressive indeed. The first time I saw him speak was on the Charlie Rose show couple of years ago, and I just found it on the internet.

The segment on Russia begins at 30:45 http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...91433457056364

And here is a debate on the same show between Cohen and the world champion chessplayer turned clown Gary Kasparov: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxInlv9kNPo

Below are some interviews featuring Obama's foreign policy adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. These interviews are in essence a candid look inside the Obama administration's upcoming foreign policy formulations which are in certain respects more dangerous than the Neocon's. All interested parties here should make time and see firsthand one of the foreign policy 'constants' in American politics, the other being Henry Kissinger. For over thirty years and several presidential administrations these men have worked behind the scenes in Washington DC shaping American foreign policy.

Despite what the masses here think the American empire today is run by individuals like these and the special interests they represent.

Frost over the World - Zbigniew Brzezinski - 10 Oct 08: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmLk...eature=related

Zbigniew Brzezinski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtNi5qIL1u8

Zbigniew Brzezinski interview: Russia - Georgia war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuBrwbUSdH0

GENERAL ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: *A SECOND CHANCE*: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WG9YuayQOA

Brzezinski on CFR, Bilderberg, and Trilateral Commission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOk6E...eature=related

And here is Micheal Ruppert's speech on Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard soon after the events of September 11, 2001 -

The Grand Chessboard Pt.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-XIe...eature=related

The Grand Chessboard Pt.2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQTu...eature=related

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

The New American Cold War

By Stephen F. Cohen June 21, 2006

Contrary to established opinion, the gravest threats to America's national security are still in Russia. They derive from an unprecedented development that most US policy-makers have recklessly disregarded, as evidenced by the undeclared cold war Washington has waged, under both parties, against post-Communist Russia during the past fifteen years. As a result of the Soviet breakup in 1991, Russia, a state bearing every nuclear and other device of mass destruction, virtually collapsed. During the 1990s its essential infrastructures--political, economic and social--disintegrated. Moscow's hold on its vast territories was weakened by separatism, official corruption and Mafia-like crime. The worst peacetime depression in modern history brought economic losses more than twice those suffered in World War II. GDP plummeted by nearly half and capital investment by 80 percent. Most Russians were thrown into poverty. Death rates soared and the population shrank. And in August 1998, the financial system imploded.

No one in authority anywhere had ever foreseen that one of the twentieth century's two superpowers would plunge, along with its arsenals of destruction, into such catastrophic circumstances. Even today, we cannot be sure what Russia's collapse might mean for the rest of the world. Outwardly, the nation may now seem to have recovered. Its economy has grown on average by 6 to 7 percent annually since 1999, its stock-market index increased last year by 83 percent and its gold and foreign currency reserves are the world's fifth largest. Moscow is booming with new construction, frenzied consumption of Western luxury goods and fifty-six large casinos. Some of this wealth has trickled down to the provinces and middle and lower classes, whose income has been rising. But these advances, loudly touted by the Russian government and Western investment-fund promoters, are due largely to high world prices for the country's oil and gas and stand out only in comparison with the wasteland of 1998.

More fundamental realities indicate that Russia remains in an unprecedented state of peacetime demodernization and depopulation. Investment in the economy and other basic infrastructures remains barely a third of the 1990 level. Some two-thirds of Russians still live below or very near the poverty line, including 80 percent of families with two or more children, 60 percent of rural citizens and large segments of the educated and professional classes, among them teachers, doctors and military officers. The gap between the poor and the rich, Russian experts tell us, is becoming "explosive." Most tragic and telling, the nation continues to suffer wartime death and birth rates, its population declining by 700,000 or more every year. Male life expectancy is barely 59 years and, at the other end of the life cycle, 2 to 3 million children are homeless. Old and new diseases, from tuberculosis to HIV infections, have grown into epidemics. Nationalists may exaggerate in charging that "the Motherland is dying," but even the head of Moscow's most pro-Western university warns that Russia remains in "extremely deep crisis."

The stability of the political regime atop this bleak post-Soviet landscape rests heavily, if not entirely, on the personal popularity and authority of one man, President Vladimir Putin, who admits the state "is not yet completely stable." While Putin's ratings are an extraordinary 70 to 75 percent positive, political institutions and would-be leaders below him have almost no public support. The top business and administrative elites, having rapaciously "privatized" the Soviet state's richest assets in the 1990s, are particularly despised. Indeed, their possession of that property, because it lacks popular legitimacy, remains a time bomb embedded in the political and economic system. The huge military is equally unstable, its ranks torn by a lack of funds, abuses of authority and discontent. No wonder serious analysts worry that one or more sudden developments--a sharp fall in world oil prices, more major episodes of ethnic violence or terrorism, or Putin's disappearance--might plunge Russia into an even worse crisis. Pointing to the disorder spreading from Chechnya through the country's southern rim, for example, the eminent scholar Peter Reddaway even asks "whether Russia is stable enough to hold together."

As long as catastrophic possibilities exist in that nation, so do the unprecedented threats to US and international security. Experts differ as to which danger is the gravest--proliferation of Russia's enormous stockpile of nuclear, chemical and biological materials; ill-maintained nuclear reactors on land and on decommissioned submarines; an impaired early-warning system controlling missiles on hair-trigger alert; or the first-ever civil war in a shattered superpower, the terror-ridden Chechen conflict. But no one should doubt that together they constitute a much greater constant threat than any the United States faced during the Soviet era. Nor is a catastrophe involving weapons of mass destruction the only danger in what remains the world's largest territorial country. Nearly a quarter of the planet's people live on Russia's borders, among them conflicting ethnic and religious groups. Any instability in Russia could easily spread to a crucial and exceedingly volatile part of the world.

There is another, perhaps more likely, possibility. Petrodollars may bring Russia long-term stability, but on the basis of growing authoritarianism and xenophobic nationalism. Those ominous factors derive primarily not from Russia's lost superpower status (or Putin's KGB background), as the US press regularly misinforms readers, but from so many lost and damaged lives at home since 1991. Often called the "Weimar scenario," this outcome probably would not be truly fascist, but it would be a Russia possessing weapons of mass destruction and large proportions of the world's oil and natural gas, even more hostile to the West than was its Soviet predecessor. How has the US government responded to these unprecedented perils? It doesn't require a degree in international relations or media punditry to understand that the first principle of policy toward post-Communist Russia must follow the Hippocratic injunction: Do no harm! Do nothing to undermine its fragile stability, nothing to dissuade the Kremlin from giving first priority to repairing the nation's crumbling infrastructures, nothing to cause it to rely more heavily on its stockpiles of superpower weapons instead of reducing them, nothing to make Moscow uncooperative with the West in those joint pursuits. Everything else in that savaged country is of far less consequence.

Since the early 1990s Washington has simultaneously conducted, under Democrats and Republicans, two fundamentally different policies toward post-Soviet Russia--one decorative and outwardly reassuring, the other real and exceedingly reckless. The decorative policy, which has been taken at face value in the United States, at least until recently, professes to have replaced America's previous cold war intentions with a generous relationship of "strategic partnership and friendship." The public image of this approach has featured happy-talk meetings between American and Russian presidents, first "Bill and Boris" (Clinton and Yeltsin), then "George and Vladimir." The real US policy has been very different--a relentless, winner-take-all exploitation of Russia's post-1991 weakness. Accompanied by broken American promises, condescending lectures and demands for unilateral concessions, it has been even more aggressive and uncompromising than was Washington's approach to Soviet Communist Russia. Consider its defining elements as they have unfolded--with fulsome support in both American political parties, influential newspapers and policy think tanks--since the early 1990s:

§  A growing military encirclement of Russia, on and near its borders, by US and NATO bases, which are already ensconced or being planned in at least half the fourteen other former Soviet republics, from the Baltics and Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan and the new states of Central Asia. The result is a US-built reverse iron curtain and the remilitarization of American-Russian relations.

§ A tacit (and closely related) US denial that Russia has any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. How else to explain, to take a bellwether example, the thinking of Richard Holbrooke, Democratic would-be Secretary of State? While roundly condemning the Kremlin for promoting a pro-Moscow government in neighboring Ukraine, where Russia has centuries of shared linguistic, marital, religious, economic and security ties, Holbrooke declares that far-away Slav nation part of "our core zone of security."

§  Even more, a presumption that Russia does not have full sovereignty within its own borders, as expressed by constant US interventions in Moscow's internal affairs since 1992. They have included an on-site crusade by swarms of American "advisers," particularly during the 1990s, to direct Russia's "transition" from Communism; endless missionary sermons from afar, often couched in threats, on how that nation should and should not organize its political and economic systems; and active support for Russian anti-Kremlin groups, some associated with hated Yeltsin-era oligarchs. That interventionary impulse has now grown even into suggestions that Putin be overthrown by the kind of US-backed "color revolutions" carried out since 2003 in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, and attempted this year in Belarus. Thus, while mainstream editorial pages increasingly call the Russian president "thug," "fascist" and "Saddam Hussein," one of the Carnegie Endowment's several Washington crusaders assures us of "Putin's weakness" and vulnerability to "regime change." (Do proponents of "democratic regime change" in Russia care that it might mean destabilizing a nuclear state?)

§  Underpinning these components of the real US policy are familiar cold war double standards condemning Moscow for doing what Washington does--such as seeking allies and military bases in former Soviet republics, using its assets (oil and gas in Russia's case) as aid to friendly governments and regulating foreign money in its political life. More broadly, when NATO expands to Russia's front and back doorsteps, gobbling up former Soviet-bloc members and republics, it is "fighting terrorism" and "protecting new states"; when Moscow protests, it is engaging in "cold war thinking." When Washington meddles in the politics of Georgia and Ukraine, it is "promoting democracy"; when the Kremlin does so, it is "neoimperialism." And not to forget the historical background: When in the 1990s the US-supported Yeltsin overthrew Russia's elected Parliament and Constitutional Court by force, gave its national wealth and television networks to Kremlin insiders, imposed a constitution without real constraints on executive power and rigged elections, it was "democratic reform"; when Putin continues that process, it is "authoritarianism."

§  Finally, the United States is attempting, by exploiting Russia's weakness, to acquire the nuclear superiority it could not achieve during the Soviet era. That is the essential meaning of two major steps taken by the Bush Administration in 2002, both against Moscow's strong wishes. One was the Administration's unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, freeing it to try to create a system capable of destroying incoming missiles and thereby the capacity to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation. The other was pressuring the Kremlin to sign an ultimately empty nuclear weapons reduction agreement requiring no actual destruction of weapons and indeed allowing development of new ones; providing for no verification; and permitting unilateral withdrawal before the specified reductions are required.

The extraordinarily anti-Russian nature of these policies casts serious doubt on two American official and media axioms: that the recent "chill" in US-Russian relations has been caused by Putin's behavior at home and abroad, and that the cold war ended fifteen years ago. The first axiom is false, the second only half true: The cold war ended in Moscow, but not in Washington, as is clear from a brief look back. The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power in 1985 with heretical "New Thinking" that proposed not merely to ease but to actually abolish the decades-long cold war. His proposals triggered a fateful struggle in Washington (and Moscow) between policy-makers who wanted to seize the historic opportunity and those who did not. President Ronald Reagan decided to meet Gorbachev at least part of the way, as did his successor, the first President George Bush. As a result, in December 1989, at a historic summit meeting at Malta, Gorbachev and Bush declared the cold war over. (That extraordinary agreement evidently has been forgotten; thus we have the New York Times recently asserting that the US-Russian relationship today "is far better than it was 15 years ago.")

Declarations alone, however, could not terminate decades of warfare attitudes. Even when Bush was agreeing to end the cold war in 1989-91, many of his top advisers, like many members of the US political elite and media, strongly resisted. (I witnessed that rift on the eve of Malta, when I was asked to debate the issue in front of Bush and his divided foreign policy team.) Proof came with the Soviet breakup in December 1991: US officials and the media immediately presented the purported "end of the cold war" not as a mutual Soviet-American decision, which it certainly was, but as a great American victory and Russian defeat. That (now standard) triumphalist narrative is the primary reason the cold war was quickly revived--not in Moscow a decade later by Putin but in Washington in the early 1990s, when the Clinton Administration made two epically unwise decisions. One was to treat post-Communist Russia as a defeated nation that was expected to replicate America's domestic practices and bow to its foreign policies. It required, behind the facade of the Clinton-Yeltsin "partnership and friendship" (as Clinton's top "Russia hand," Strobe Talbott, later confirmed), telling Yeltsin "here's some more xxxx for your face" and Moscow's "submissiveness."

[...]

Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/cohen/print

[Hye_Psycho]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

On president elect Barak Obama.

The American sheeple better wake up and realize that when it comes to vital/core political issues there are no real differences between Republicans and Democrats. The US has been for a long time a nation with one political party with two factions. As much as I feared and hated the Bush administration (including McCain) I am truly getting sick over all this Barak Obama worship. Politically speaking, Obama will prove to be just as bad if not worst than Bush's administration. What the sheeple worldwide need to realize here is that Obama was not "elected" by the people, he was "chosen" by the US political elite four years ago as one that can potentially replace the failed and discredited representatives of Neoconservatism in Washington. In short, it now seems obvious that the globalist agenda of the US empire needed a fresh new face to move forward, a face that could again appeal to the disillusioned masses. Obama is that new face. President elect Obama has not yet moved into Washington DC, yet look at the kind of people that are already standing behind him: foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski who is an American imperialist and an ardent Russophobe and Rohm Emanuel, a fervent Zionist. In my opinion, Obama's election has actually been a massive propaganda coup d’état for policy makers in Washington, giving them a means to silence or even win over their domestic opponents. Nevertheless, the Obama presidency will essentially be the continuation of the American empire's global agenda by 'other' means... and due to blind Obama worship, it may even prove to be more disastrous.

Armenian

*************************

Fully appreciate and agree with your commentary here. And unfortunatly that worship is not just isolated In America, but its global. I guess thats testimony to the well oiled complex running America. If they can produce a political creature like Obama, then American Hegemony might not be as diluted as some pundits think

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts. Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse." The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events. When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said:

"It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator." When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles." He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions." He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong. He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: "In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let's say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked." When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20081124/118512713.html

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Ex-Diplomat Says Georgia Started War With Russia

A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament. A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia. He would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives. American officials have consistently said that they had warned Mr. Saakashvili against taking action in the two enclaves, where Russian peacekeepers were stationed. Mr. Kitsmarishvili’s testimony in front of a parliamentary commission, shown live on Georgian television, met with forceful and immediate denials. One commission member, Givi Targamadze, threw a pen and then lunged toward Mr. Kitsmarishvili, but was restrained by his colleagues. The chairman of the commission, Paata Davitaia, said he would initiate a criminal case against Mr. Kitsmarishvili for “professional negligence.” Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria, who appeared on short notice to comment on Mr. Kitsmarishvili’s testimony, called the allegations “irresponsible and shameless fabrication,” and said they were “either the result of a lack of information or the personal resentment of a man who has lost his job and wants to get involved in politics.” Mr. Kitsmarishvili was fired in September by the president. Mr. Kitsmarishvili walked out amid the furor on Tuesday. “They don’t want to listen to the truth,” he told reporters. Russia and Georgia have each painted the other as the aggressor in the five-day war. Georgia said it launched an attack on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, because a Russian invasion was under way. Russia says it sent combat troops into the enclave to protect civilians and peacekeepers after Georgia’s offensive had begun. Russian forces drove deep into central Georgia, and remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow has formally recognized as independent nations. The hearings are part of an official Georgian inquiry, the full name of which is the Temporary Commission to Study Russia’s Military Aggression and Other Actions Undertaken With the Aim to Infringe Georgia’s Territorial Integrity. Many senior officials have already testified, and the president is scheduled to appear Friday. Mr. Kitsmarishvili had petitioned to appear, saying a refusal to hear him would show that the inquiry was hollow. In his comments, the former diplomat said that Mr. Saakashvili was responding to Russian provocation, but that he had long been planning to take control of the enclaves, which won de facto independence from Georgia in fighting in the early 1990s. Mr. Kitsmarishvili said the president aimed to start an offensive in 2004, but met with resistance from Western and other Georgian officials. Among the catalysts for the offensive, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said, was the belief that United States officials had given their approval. When he tried to verify that information with the American diplomats in Tbilisi, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said, he was told no such approval had been given.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/wo...html?ref=world

In other news:

U.S. Presses NATO on Georgia and Ukraine

The United States has started an unexpected diplomatic initiative in Europe, urging NATO allies to offer Georgia and Ukraine membership in the alliance without going through a lengthy process and fulfilling a long list of requirements, NATO diplomats said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had long telephone conversations with French, German and other senior European envoys, asking them to agree to bypass the formal application process, the diplomats said. The proposal faces significant hurdles. At a NATO meeting in Bucharest, Romania, in April, the United States failed to persuade NATO to offer the usual application process, known as a membership action plan, to Ukraine and Georgia. Instead, NATO leaders agreed that one day each country would join, without committing to a timetable. Some NATO members have indicated an unwillingness to waive the formal process, which includes requirements that applicants reform their armed forces, separate civilian and military authority and create full transparency over command structures. France, Germany, Norway, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy and as many as four other countries opposed the idea at a meeting on Tuesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO foreign ministers are scheduled to meet next week. “The allies are discussing, literally right now, how to take forward NATO’s relationship with these two countries,” said James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman. The war between Russia and Georgia in August, with the collapse of the Ukraine government and deep divisions in Ukraine over joining NATO, had left many diplomats assuming that neither country would be offered membership via the action plan next week. Ms. Rice’s proposal has surprised diplomats. When NATO members, at their meeting in April, debated whether to bring Georgia and Ukraine closer to NATO, and how, they struggled to reach a compromise. Germany argued that it was not the right time to offer either country a membership action plan, because Russia vehemently opposed it. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said neither country was ready, and France, Italy, Spain and other members also opposed proceeding. Poland, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic and other members supported the United States’ position. As part of the Bucharest compromise, the members agreed to review the matter at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels in December. That history was among the reasons the latest American effort was met with surprise. “This is a real turnaround of the U.S. position,” said a senior NATO diplomat who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “We reached a compromise in Bucharest after much haggling. Now, we are being asked to cancel it and effectively discard the MAP program. This is putting the unity and credibility of the alliance at stake.” In Washington on Tuesday, Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, said the debate “took on a life of its own.” Mr. Fried said that the MAP process “was never an end in itself,” and that NATO ministers could discuss allowing Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance through other means.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/wo...html?ref=world

Ukraine to build up defenses on Russian border - paper

Ukraine is planning to deploy more troops on its border with Russia in light of the recent military conflict in the Caucasus, a Ukrainian business daily said on Wednesday. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August after Tbilisi launched an attack on breakaway South Ossetia in a bid to bring it back under central control. Russia says that Ukraine supplied Tbilisi with weaponry during the conflict, and also sided with the West in support of Georgia. "The events in the Caucasus have forced every country in this region to think about security. It turns out that not everything is so calm, that even Europe may experience military conflicts," Ukrainian Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov was quoted as saying by Delo, a Russian-language business newspaper. Yekhanurov said the plans for a redeployment of troops could be ready by the end of this week, but they should be first approved by the government and President Viktor Yushchenko. The minister has reportedly singled out raising the combat readiness of air defense units and increasing security around strategically important facilities as priority tasks for 2009. According to the Delo, Ukraine could initially increase the number of air defense units near the Russian border by redeploying them from its western regions. The modernization of the existing S-300, Buk-M1, Osa and Tunguska air defense systems is also on the agenda. The redeployment and modernization plans could be hampered, however, by a lack of financing exacerbated by the global financial crisis, the paper added.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20081126/118551322.html

Russia test-fires intercontinental missile

Russia on Wednesday test-fired for the third time its new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at overcoming air defence systems, the military said. "The test-firing of the RS-24 was carried out on Wednesday from the Plesetsk cosmodrome" in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia, the Interfax news agency reported. Military spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin told the agency that "the missile... was launched from a mobile launcher. This is the third test firing of the RS-24 in the last two years." Russia in May 2007 first test-fired the RS-24, which the military has said is designed to overcome air-defence systems such as the controversial US missile shield planned for deployment in eastern Europe.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...CaJ9yEx69eVtnw

U.S. Armored Troop Carrier Crashed Motorcade of Russia’s Diplomats

A motorcade of Russia’s diplomats had a traffic accident in Iraq through the fault of U.S. military, spokesmen of the RF Foreign Ministry told RBC news agency. Three armored cars of the RF embassy were heading for the international airport when a column of five armored troop carriers of the United States set to overtaking them. “All of a sudden, the lead armored carrier maneuvered violently, overtook two of three cars of Russia’s motorcade, came abreast of the leading car and hit it to push away from the road. The embassy’s car was heavily damaged, lost control, moved by 180 degree, nearly turning over,” representatives of the RF Foreign Ministry said. Without any agitation, the U.S. armored carriers proceeded in the previous direction, aiming guns at the diplomats, said representatives of the RF Foreign Ministry. According to diplomats, Russia emphasizes the intended nature of the accident and demands to probe into it and punish the guilty. The RF embassies in Bagdad and Washington made the respective statements already.

Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p-13642/Ir...lomat_Russia_/