Indeed, and exactly like the German Defense Minister, who recently (The forum didn’t like the link to a translation) wanted Trump to stay away from Russia, it looks like UK officials are following a similar tactic to convince him that Russia and Syria are the bad guys.

Except I don’t think that will work, and for one reason; these people – unlike Putin or Assad – have consistently and publicly considered Trump to be a joke, showed him no respect, and never thought that he would become the next president. They are simply in a panic now, and that their anti-Putin and “Assad must go!” narrative will soon unravel.

Speaking of which (and yes it’s a little OT): –

I wonder who is next?

Speaking of which (and yes it’s a little OT): –

I see, so what you’re saying is it’s easier to get ride of western leaders than the one barrel bombing his own people!

No, I’m talking about the illegal attempts to remove the democratically elected leader of Syria, with those calling for that gradually having been removed from power democratically and legally.

Have some irony cheesecake, it’s **** delicious.

And ah yes, barrel bombs. Those crude improvised devices supposedly dropped from helicopters are far worse than the rocket-propelled bombs delivered from afar by jet planes or drones as done by the U.S. government and its “allies.”

Or the hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs on Iraq alone in the last ten years.

Or the U.S. bombs that involve depleted uranium, napalm, phosphorous and cluster munitions.

Or the U.S. assisted and directed slaughter of civilians in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and Libya.

Maybe too the half million dead children in Iraq due to US sanctions? Well, *shrug* it’s worth it.

Such is the power of propaganda. Use a phrase like “barrel bomb” over and over again as if it is a uniquely evil weapon when, in fact, it is far less lethal and destructive than the ordnance that the United States routinely deploys or hands out to its “allies” like candy on Halloween.

Nah, lets all talk about the Syrian government’s use of “barrel bombs”.

if you believe roger scruton (ok, more like get his drift) Russian is poised to invade Sweden, Ukraine, the whole Western frontier. Troops along the border.

Nah, lets all talk about the Syrian government’s use of “barrel bombs”.

Who said you should do that? I certainly didn’t.

Such is the power of propaganda. Use a phrase like “barrel bomb” over and over again as if it is a uniquely evil weapon when, in fact, it is far less lethal and destructive than the ordnance that the United States routinely deploys or hands out to its “allies” like candy on Halloween.

Got it. Barrel bombs are the nicest bombs.

Ok, so nothing besides smart arse comments.

Besides, it’s the American bombs which are the nicest and it’s the Syrian and Russians bombs which are the worse-est. I’m not joking either (will need translating too): –

The most popular and successful sentence of state-run propaganda is “There are no good or evil bombs.”

What that means is that the bombs of the US-led coalition … are no better than the Russian bombs …

This … sentence is dumb, wrong, cynical and dangerous.

And this is effectively repeated whenever the media reports on any bombing. US = Good, Syria / Russia = Bad.

I happen to think all bombs are bad.

Schnor you are a bit heavyweight around Russia vs West. I’m lost for words about your style, … a bit heavy-handed. Didn’t you know Mr P is the right bastid?

Granted he outsmarted many elite world politicians but boy he is no saint.

Rumours surfacing again that Vlad might be ill, stepping down next year?

Will he want to go out in a blaze of (nuclear) glory, or just settle for whiling away the days with a nice (Black) Sea view?

I can’t help thinking schnor has been here before under a different guise.
Why on earth would anyone try to defend despots like Putin and Assad? Might as well try to support Robert Mugabe as well, he was democratically elected, but he’s destroying his own country and enriching himself and his cronies in the process.

Seeing as some of you still aren’t getting my point (deliberately or not, I don’t know) I will put it simply.

I am calling out hypocrisy and selective outrage – both here and examples in the corporate media. Let’s summarise the thread as I see it: –

Poster. Accusation are made connecting Putin to the possible invasion of Ukraine
Me. Corrects errors in the OP, asks poster to clarify accusation.
Poster. Ignores my points and makes slight variant on original accusation (the possible invasion of somewhere else)
Me. Corrects errors in second post, points out the hypocrisy and provides counter examples (the US being responsible for half a million dead iraqi children)
Poster 2. Ignores my points and makes smart arse trite comment
Me. Calls poster 2 out on trite comment and makes additional points
Poster 3. Ignores my points and calls me a Putin-bot (and a Mugabe-bot too 🙄 )

If pointing out that the US has carried out atrocities and wars of aggression which are by an order of magnitude worse than Russia makes me a Putin-bot then so be it.

Why aren’t people taking about the US spreading death and disaster wherever they go? Why the obsession with Putin? Or do some people genuinely not see this hypocrisy?

The flip side to this is if some people get butt-hurt when I call them out on their comments, BS or selective outrage then that’s too bad.

Now, that being said popstar made very well a good point about my tone, so I’ll do my best to take it down a notch or ten; the last thing I want is to put people off from posting on the thread.

The bear limbering up for the inauguration of President Chump?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/21/putin-moves-nuclear-capable-missiles-closer-europe-claims-nato/amp/

Or (to keep schnor happy) proportionate response to NATO missile defence shield deployment in eastern europe

I think we are well aware that out involvements in the middle East have been bad for everyone going back to the crusades and and latterly the devil’s bargain we made for Saudi oil, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think Putin’s Russia is dangerous, they are after all repeating our own mistakes becoming involved in Syria.

they are after all repeating our own mistakes becoming involved in Syria.

They seem to have picked a side that can win and have a strategy that’s working for them. They appear to have avoided our mistakes.

They seem to have picked a side that can win and have a strategy that’s working for them. They appear to have avoided our mistakes.

Im sure we declared victory in Iraq, Libya etc etc several times
Im also not sure that picking a side in the brutal sunni/shia sectarian war in the middle east is a wise idea

meanwhile in budapest

https://www.ft.com/content/66d3993a-b0b8-11e6-9c37-5787335499a0

While Russian support for far-right groups in Europe has been widely rumoured, the recent events in Hungary have brought to light new evidence of Moscow’s long-running attempts to cultivate far-right extremists.
Most significantly, Hungary’s national security committee has since confirmed that the MNA’s members openly trained with Russian diplomats and men dressed in Russian military intelligence uniforms.

Re: Barrel bombs. From my understanding it is not that there are good bombs and bad bomb but the problem that barrel bombs are not very accurate and cause more unintended casualties.

Oops, I didn’t notice the few earlier posts.

Re. the telegraph link, the Russian DoD said predominantly the missiles are ‘defensive’, similar to the NATO ‘defensive’ missiles all lining up pointing at Russia.

But I completely accept your point; now isn’t the time to be ratcheting up the missiles – ‘defensive’ or otherwise – even if they are within Russia’s borders (or rather its exclave). I certainly think Putin is getting ahead of himself in anticipation of, and thinking he can get away with things, before Trumps inauguration in the assumption Trump will support him.

Re. Budapest (I’m not an FT member so can’t see the full link). Looking into this further it looks like the oldest source of this story is classic heresay, citing the famous and oft-present “anonymous security sources”, then repeated word for word on some Ukrainian websites, then the FT. I think fake news is for another thread though 😉

Anyway, if true playing around with airsoft guns with far-right freaks is bad, but no more unacceptable than the CIA training and supplying Syrian rebels Al-Qaeda affiliates.

Or the CIA supplying Libyan ’Rebels’. Someone once said words to the effect of “Libya is the cork from which ISIS will erupt out of Africa”. Thanks Hillary 😐

Or funding neo-nazi’s in Ukraine.

And I could list a whole more list of US-funded screw-ups, which as I mentioned above are orders of magnitude worse than anything Russia does, but you get the idea 🙂

[edit] oops – exclave, not enclave.

Picture of a barrel bomb (well, 5)

Just 4 quick examples of US-weapons used in Syria: –

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-air-force-drops-record-amount-bombs-against-islamic-state-iraq-syria-1777616
http://time.com/3422702/isil-isis-syria-obama/
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/06/americas/u-s-military-isis-mediterranean/index.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2013/08/29/Syria-conflict:-The-hardware-the-military-will-use-to-strike.html

A list of deaths linked to barrel bombs. A rough questimate would be 12 per attack, with say 4 bombs per hit, a VERY rough guess would be 3 per barrel bomb. Compare this to ~400, 000 ?? dead in the conflict.

[edit]

An interesting article on the western-supply of arms to various terrorist groups. I’d have added it to my first post but was too late.

Im aware theres a missinformation war going on between the west and russia at the mo
and that in backing saudi weve been funding for decades the spread of the version of Islam at the core of ISIS

I wonder if the obama administration are trying to block damage the Trump-Putin relationship before he takes office

on Friday they officially announced that the Russian state was behind the hack of the clinton emails
which is kind of amusing because RT have been banging on for a while about how the american elections were rigged

I am calling out hypocrisy and selective outrage – both here and examples in the corporate media. Let’s summarise the thread as I see it: –

Poster. Accusation are made connecting Putin to the possible invasion of Ukraine
Me. Corrects errors in the OP, asks poster to clarify accusation.
Poster. Ignores my points and makes slight variant on original accusation (the possible invasion of somewhere else)
Me. Corrects errors in second post, points out the hypocrisy and provides counter examples (the US being responsible for half a million dead iraqi children)
Poster 2. Ignores my points and makes smart arse trite comment
Me. Calls poster 2 out on trite comment and makes additional points
Poster 3. Ignores my points and calls me a Putin-bot (and a Mugabe-bot too )

Clearly this thread is all about you! 😉

Personally, I think that I called propaganda on the first page with fewer words to justify my opinion 😀

Having said that, your contributions have been enlightening, thank you.

sorry heres a link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-government-officially-accuses-russia-of-hacking-campaign-to-influence-elections/2016/10/07/4e0b9654-8cbf-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html

Im also well aware that ours & america’s involvement in the middle east has led to nothing but violence for the last few hundred years

I still believe that Putin will take advantage of any possible avenue to expand Russia’s politcal and military influence in eastern europe and beyond!

Trumps presidency looks to be the perfect opportunity Flynn has toured russia speaking and appears on RT as a (paid?) comenatator

Group hugs with slackalice and kimbers!

Re. the russian election hack, in fairness even Obama changed tack recently.

Teh Prez: –
“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they’re so decentralised and the number of votes involved”

I’ve no idea what happened between early October – when everyone was insisting on blaming Putin – and mid-late October when it all went very quiet after Obamas beat-down. Maybe he realised people weren’t buying it anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to admit the election could be hacked? *shrug*

Even the Russian ‘fake news’ hysteria from last week died down after 3-4 days, presumably most people didn’t buy that either.

A quick google finds that Flynn appeared on RT several times in his capacity as a security analyst, between his military and political jobs. People don’t get paid to be interviewed on TV but are on a list to get invited on if they’re considered relevant to a certain topic, like train disaster investigator people getting interviewed when there’s a train disaster, etc

Western politicians have been trying to use Putin / Russia to discredit domestic opponents. The US must be about the most anti-Russia nation on earth and the accusations of “Trump / Putin links” didn’t help Clinton. They try the same in France saying Putin supports Front Nationale but as Le Pen pointed out the French banks won’t lend to FN but Russians will, she’d be delighted to deal with the French banks.

If Europe wants to be strong against Putin it needs to get it’s act together.

If Europe wants to be strong against Putin it needs to get it’s act together.

And that’s the rub isn’t it?! It can’t and it won’t, despite its shared values and bits of paper. Too many individual interests.

If Europe wants to be strong against Putin it needs to get it’s act together.
And that’s the rub isn’t it?! It can’t and it won’t, despite its shared values and bits of paper. Too many individual interests.

the sanctions agreed by the EU have had a large impact on their economy- along with the oil crash, forcing them into recession, that is expected to continue into 2017, unless they miraculously sign up to the Minsk agreement.

Is the American secret service lying?

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

Here’s thought provoking for you!

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ25RMezeLU[/video]

I’ve also read the consortium news story about the investigation into the MH117 shooting.
It’s main assertion seems to be that there no confirmation that a Russian BUK was in the area .
The analysis here puts a very good argument that the photos of the Buk there are the same as the one seen crossing from Russia the day b4 and returned minus 1 missile.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2016/09/30/revelations-confirmations-mh17-jit-press-conference/

As I said before I’ve no doubt that there is a misinformation war being fought by both sides

Don’t worry, C4 News says were sending 150 squaddies to Poland. Putin must be terrified.

Id just like to say that I got it totally wrong

Putin wasnt in Ukraine by Xmas

but he will be in the Whitehouse in a few days 😉

what happens after that though….

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-kremlin-idUSKBN15F0XI

and this

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-czech-cybercrime-idUSKBN15F1OS

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/31/russian-cybersecurity-experts-face-treason-charges-cia

and now this

http://uk.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-igor-sechin-dossier-2017-1

He is loving the chaos Trump and Brexit are bringing. 🙁

I wonder if we’ll now suddenly see an outbreak of European nations suddenly beginning to fulfil their 2/20 NATO spending commitments?

😈

Indeed. Germany can find €20bn pa for refugees at short notice or €100bn for Greece but somehow the extra €30pa to raise NATO spending from 1% to the required 2% will “take some time” according to Merkl

I wonder if we’ll now suddenly see an outbreak of European nations suddenly beginning to fulfil their 2/20 NATO spending commitments?

Yeah of course it’s all to do with the military might squaring off against each other there. Guns, bombs and troops are not what is needed over there it’s a better way to deal with Putin. There is enough collective strength in Europe to deal with him but foolishly the EU (Incluiding the UK) has let themselves become depenant on the Natural Gas flowing from over there.
Part of this stems form an energy security problem on the part of Europe which makes dealing with Russia difficult. But yeah rail on the NATO spending – remind me again what the EU should have done with the refugees? I seem to remember hugely evasive answers last time mostly around not that, something different, other stuff.

Almost a year on and my OP seems very naive.

Turns out that Putins doesn’t need tanks and bombs, just bots and bank loans.

Austria
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/europe-s-far-right-enjoys-backing-russia-s-putin-n718926

AFD
http://time.com/4955503/germany-elections-2017-far-right-russia-angela-merkel/

Brexit https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/a-suspected-network-of-13000-twitter-bots-pumped-out-pro?utm_term=.vcamr47lRE#.fm6pa1XbgW

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/19/mp-calls-for-inquiry-into-arron-banks-and-dark-money-in-eu-referendum

Trump
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868

Le Penn
https://www.ft.com/content/010eec62-30b5-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

There’s only winner from all of this

It’s not even Adam Curtis’s non- linear war, it’s seeming quite linear tbh

The Brexit campaign was also given a (literally!) record breaking amount of money from a very suspicious source, suspected to be the ruskies

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/19/mp-calls-for-inquiry-into-arron-banks-and-dark-money-in-eu-referendum