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OT: American Politics

oh, and thanks again, hopeychange, for that "reset" with russia. so far it's gotten us:

-continued cover for NK
-another rigged russian election
-continued cover and overt support for syria
-cover and obstructionism over libya
-massive cover and overt support for iran

and now, just to put the cherry on top of russian goodwill flowing from hopeychange's "reset", they are now talking about pre-emptive strikes on NATO missile defences:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/nato-russia-talk-pre-emptive-strike-unjustified-144612895.html
 
Uhhh...do we really need to bring up the "I looked into his eyes and saw his soul" incident? Or South Ossetia?

Russia was a problem before Obama, and will be a problem after Obama. The problem of course is that Russia has money again, due to high oil prices. I could bring up a graph of oil prices over the last 12 years and point out the correlation in a ridiculous right turn in US foreign policy with Russian chicanery...but you wouldn't want to believe it, so there's little point.
 
ME, it is 100% clear now that this administration's "if i bend over and let you f*ck me really, really hard up the ass, will you treat me nice?" approach to russia has been a complete fiasco. there hasn't been an american president since carter who has so badly mishandled the west's relationship with russia than hopeychange. they are openly talking about ATTACKING the west. they are actively working against us in our most crucial foreign policy files right now. i'm not sure what's worse- how he's handled the economy or how he's handled russia.
 
He threatened to point nuclear weapons at Europe in 2006....and that's just the first thing that popped into my head reading your rebuttal

Again, you seem to be entirely blind towards the 2000-2008 time period when making these statements. Say it with me: The russians were a problem before Obama, and they'll be a problem after Obama.

Now that you've irked me, I'll say it. If Bush doesn't attack Iraq and give the market a reason to be fearful about future oil supply (not to mention take Iraq's supply off line for many years) oil prices never shoot up to a point that speculators get to drive it into the triple digits. If that doesn't happen, Russia is still sitting on it's hands trying to avoid financial collapse.

oilprice1947.gif
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

Silly child and his hyperbole. I said that it was a death threat (which is true) and that it was worse than what Kanye said.

Nugent's was an empty threat as well. A threat though, still.
 
puhlease. this $hit going down with iran right now, which would have gone on with or without iraq, would have been enough in itself to spike oil prices.

the fact remains, and it is inescapable, that hopeychange's very first foreign policy act was to completely turn his back on our newfound allies in eastern europe to try to placate russia, and it got us NOTHING. in fact, it has badly weakened us. russia is flexing its muscles and thumbing its nose at every opportunity, and is making our lives very difficult in critical places in the world right now. it was a colossal FP blunder.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

no. it wouldnt have been a story if some douchebag star reporter didnt decide to skulk around the mayor's property taking pictures in an attempt to write another "gotcha" piece for his rag of a newspaper.
 
Without GWB's policies, Russia doesn't have the financial ability to project strength of any kind to thumb their noses at anything. They'd be too busy trying to counter increasing Chinese energy plays in the Caspian to worry about pissing Nato off....they wouldn't be threatening to turn off Europe's natgas during winters...none of it.

Again, you continually attempt to act as if recorded history started at Obama's inauguration. Russia will thumb it's nose at Nato and the US now, because they can...wtf are US/Nato going to do? Obama was handed a crumbling empire at the same time Russian finances were booming. We're past the era where the US can say boo and the world jumps.
 
sticking right with the program, eh ME? everything inevitably is W's fault. the economy is still his fault, and now russia is his fault too. BS.

forget pre-2009. name one positive development in the US-russia relationship that has occurred due to hopeychange's handling of it. you can't. it has been an unmitigated disaster. he gave away a major strategic bargaining chip and alienated a whole swathe of allied nations for exactly NOTHING in return.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

In fairness, it's not a big story (or shouldn't be)...but if public park property hasn't been sold into private ownership in 20 years (I think another poster mentioned that) and in this case it was approved for Rob Ford, it would have been a big story (or should have been, if for no other reason than to make sure the process in which the decision was made is made transparent, to make sure he wasn;'t using his office for personal gain)

That he applied to purchase the property though, I agree, much of a story. The fact that he's a serial dick with little to no people/media handling skills created the story.
 
Russia can't do anything with their population problem getting more dire each year.

There's no way a country of inferior technology and 60-70 percent less population than the United States can be a credible competitor.
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
sticking right with the program, eh ME?
Click to expand...

If by the program, you mean "providing necessary context"...sure, why not.

everything inevitably is W's fault.
Click to expand...

Not everything. But an 8 year cluster**** of that magnitude leaves a significant amount of turmoil and bullshit in it's wake.

the economy is still his fault
Click to expand...

The economy ****ing tanked under his watch. This is fact. If you wanted to blame Obama for not fixing his **** up fast enough, have at it. That's at least an argument worth having. Making that argument, while arguing that we should return to the same conditions that existed prior to the collapse...or worse, adopt failed European policies...isn't.

and now russia is his fault too.
Click to expand...

Russia is Russia, they're nobody's "fault". They're going to act Russian at all time. Enabling them by providing the environment in which they're more than a paper tiger though, yes, I hang at least partially on Bush and his team. If Bush doesn't invade Iraq, oil prices rise naturally over the last 10 years, but don't spike massively like we've seen imo. Russia has seen production uncreases from roughly 8 million barrels a day in 2002 to 10.33 million barrels per day today.

Simple math...that's 1.167 Billion in total oil revenue a day, much of which is controlled directly by the Russian government through the state ownership of most of the big players producing domestically.

Cut that number in half and Russia isn't nearly so brazen, and probably much more interested in co operation and integration with the west.


forget pre-2009. name one positive development in the US-russia relationship that has occurred due to hopeychange's handling of it. you can't. it has been an unmitigated disaster. he gave away a major strategic bargaining chip and alienated a whole swathe of allied nations for exactly NOTHING in return.
Click to expand...

He didn't give away a "strategic bargaining chip". He halted a policy that was nothing more than stupid BushCo aggression. Sure...they were putting missiles in Poland to protect against non existent missile technology coming from North Korea or Iran....riiiiight. Bush did nothing but rattle his sabre in the Russian's direction for little to no purpose. This isn't 1972 anymore.
 
blah blah blah. you still can't identify a single positive thing that has come out of hopeychange's russia policy. and YES, missile defence in eastern europe was a very big strategic bargaining chip, as evidenced by the years-long hissy fit that russia threw over it in the first place. it bothered them big time, just like star wars bothered them, because they recognized it as a possible game changer in the strategic balance of nuclear power. and this system was even better than star wars, because it is actually deployable, or close to being deployable, and it brought several of russia's main strategic allies/colonies firmly into the orbit of the US- which star wars had no hope of doing.

giving up missile defence and abandoning our new allies in eastern europe was a strategic mistake of the highest magnitude, and he did that for precisely nothing. and not only that, he made america's word in the world mean nothing. what did the czechs and poles get for taking a huge risk to totally embrace the US and pull themselves out of the orbit of russia? an eventual a$$raping by the US as they abandoned them. what country in the world would be quick to trust the word of the US or accept american guarantees after seeing what they did on missile defence?

you can throw up as much of a smokescreen as you want by blaming W- just like hopeychange has to throw up a class warfare smokescreen around the economy to get re-elected. it doesnt change the fact that he his russia policy has been a total catastrophe.
 
actually, i think i am being overly generous in calling his russia policy an actual "policy". his "policy" has consisted of crawling over to russia in the first days of his presidency, giving them a big photo-op with a ridiculous red "reset button" to announce an inexcusable strategic retreat, and then whispering promises to medvedev about how he will bend over even further for them after november.
 
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