McCain Tries to Best Putin – Ends Up Looking Like An American Yahoo Idiot

Here’s a cautionary note to any would be ‘Murican word warriors hoping to get even with Vladimir Putin for his recent NY Times Op-ed or any other “uppity furriners” in the future - i.e. those who may appear in American media : Look before you leap, or rather, think long and hard before you withdraw your word sabers from your scabbards to attack somebody – without first protecting your flanks. It seems Johnno McCain never learned that lesson.

Recall that on September 11th, in The New York Times, there appeared an op –ed by Vladimir Putin entitled “A Plea for Caution From Russia”. This concerned the matter of Syria and American claims to “exceptionalism” that warranted barging in there and starting a war by firing cruise missiles - likely killing many innocents ("collateral damage") along with bystander Russian technicians. Contrary to the American Neo-liberal pro-war for capital crowd, Putin delivered a sober and rational plea for caution to the sole remaining superpower to think before acting again like a rogue. Yesterday, John McCain responded with an Op Ed of his own today in the Russian Publication PRAVDA, entitled “Russians deserve better than Putin”, which appeared on the Pravda.ru website.

Whereas Putin sought to objectively address the Syrian conflict and the potential dangers that it holds, McCain simply resorted to typical American ad hominem, making the subject of his forlorn piece Putin himself, with disastrous results. According to a number of observers, McCain’s pathetic effort to get even “probably constitutes one of the most embarrassing statements made by an American politician to be published internationally in the last 25 years. "

One need only read some of the comments in the wake of his “rebuttal” to see how much influence Johnny Madman had in influencing his intended audience.

Quote:

Timothy John Bancroft-Hinchey в 11:52 19 сентября

“Never in my 30-plus years in journalism have I seen such a blatant display of arrogance, ignorance and insolence, What a difference between President Putin's polite message in the NYT and this... words fail me... What a difference between President Putin and Senator McCain. Well, one was democratically elected as President more than once and the other didn't have what it takes. So, Senator McCain is not big enough to live up to his failure as a human being and as a politician.”

Robert Rosser в 14:58 19 сентября

Thank you, Mr. Bancroft-Hinchey. You have captured my response to McCain's letter in very few words. So I'll endorse your post instead of posting my own 400-word rant. I simply note, in addition, that if "US Leadership" were substituted for "Russia/Putin" in McCain's letter, it would have considerable truth and merit. Words do not fail you, sir. "Arrogance, ignorance and insolence" are right on target. Thank you.

Olga Voroshilova в 14:56 19 сентября

Speaking about the "regime which misrules" Russians today. Does Mr. McCain have any proof that Russian President and Government weren't elected lawfully? No? I suspect he has the same "proof" Obama has got for Assad's usage of chemical weapons in Syria.

adani kalombi в 13:27 19 сентября

america is ruled by the law of big corporate ,,, lobbying+campaign = bribery, corruptions... john mcCain is jealous the success A to Z of russia , it's all about the american greed god bless Russia

Altyn Sultan в 15:26 19 сентября

Putin runs for the US Office, McCain runs for the one in Russia. who get's what - wanna guess?

Yury Panikov в 15:23 19 сентября

To American commentators: Thank you for your support, we in Russia do understand that McCain (as many current American politicians) is frankly speaking like an idiot. The only problem we see, that he is empowered idiot.

Andrew Kirikov в 11:15 19 сентября

if old anti-russian McCain criticises Putin and our government then Putin and the government are moving in the correct direction

Ruchkin Vladimir в 16:49 19 сентября

Thank you, Senator McCain, for your article! You dispelled the last doubts about the viability of the American establishment. The mood has improved.

Milo Hoffman в 11:38 19 сентября

I'm russian. And I can assure you he's saying complete bullshit. He's saying about an absence of freedom of word in Russia and neverthless he writes anti-russian propaganda in *russian* media.

Costantino Ceoldo в 12:35 19 сентября

Of course, Senator McCain is firmly convinced that 9/11 was made by someone in a Afghan cavern... We know that in US everything goes fine: law, job, food... There, people help each other and every day some little cute cats meow to you in the morning. No mafia in US, nor banksters corruption. If someone dies, it's because he puts himself in the line of a free fire, permitted by some constitutional amendment. American cops are gentlemen who shoot only one cartridge per time in the body of a suspect and never, never!, they beat a prisoner. Well... I wake up... it's coffee time!

Out of the mouths of “furriners”. Oh wait, they aren’t! They’re writing in the banner publication of their own country in reply to a certifiable American nutcase, who doesn’t know when to quit when he’s ahead. Maybe it's past time McCain, along with many of his current GOP peers - trying to shut down the government again- read the Constitution. It seems to me that it's their over exaggeration of THEIR rights that is in large measure responsible for turning this nation into some parody of its former self - when words like "liberty", "justice", and the "general welfare" really had meaning. Maybe he and his fellow pols need to process that before they launch into jeremiads of how other countries ought to conduct their affairs!

Guest Blog: The American People Have Spoken: No More War Abroad, More Jobs at Home

By Bernie Sanders

At a time of great political division in our country President Obama has found a remarkable way to unite Americans of all political persuasions -- conservatives, progressives and moderates. With a loud and clear voice, the overwhelming majority of the American people, across the political spectrum, are saying NO to another war in the Middle East -- Syria’s bloody and complicated civil war.

There are two major reasons why the people in this country are adamantly opposed to the U.S.’s military intervention in Syria.

First, of course, is the much discussed “war weariness.” The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for 12 years, and the war in Iraq dragged on for nearly nine years. The cost of these wars has been horrendous: more than 6,700 American deaths; hundreds of thousands suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder; and a financial cost of between $4 trillion to $6 trillion by the time the last war veteran receives needed care. Further, as a result of the ineptitude and dishonesty of foreign policy decisions made in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the American people worry deeply about the unintended consequences of another military venture.

But there’s another reason why Americans are reluctant to get involved in a third Middle East war in 12 years. And that relates to the fact that Congress today has a 14 percent favorability rating and millions of Americans have absolutely no confidence that the U.S. House or Senate is even remotely concerned about their needs or views.

Here’s the truth. The middle class in this country is collapsing. The number of Americans living in poverty is nearly the highest on record and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. And very few people in Washington give a damn.

Year after year the American people have begged the Congress and the president to move aggressively to protect the middle class from total collapse. And, so far, their leaders have failed to act. Today, the American people are demanding action to create jobs for their kids and retirement security for their parents.

They are deeply worried about the state of the economy, and they have every reason to worry. Here’s what’s going on:

• Real unemployment: Counting those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part-time when they need a full time job, the real unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, not 7.3 percent.

 

• Average wages: Non-supervisory workers have seen their wages go down by eight cents an hour since the beginning of the so-called recovery and are now a paltry $8.77 an hour.

 

• Income and wealth inequality: From 2009-2012, the richest 1 percent of Americans captured 95 percent of all new income, while the typical middle class family has seen their income go down by more than2,100. The Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart, are worth more than $100 billion and own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

 

• College unaffordability: Over the past 30 years, the cost of a college education has gone up by more than 250 percent. The average American graduating from college this year is drowning in debt of more than35,000. Even worse, hundreds of thousands of high school graduates are unable to go to college each and every year not because they are unqualified, but because they can’t afford it.

 

• Childhood poverty: We live in the richest country in the world, yet one out of five children in the U.S. is stuck in poverty. And the reality is that children living in poverty in America today are more likely to stay in poverty when they grow up than in any other advanced country on earth.

The lesson to be learned from the widespread opposition to the war is that the American people standing together can make a difference. Building on that momentum, now is the time to demand that Congress create millions of decent-paying jobs repairing our crumbling roads, bridges, dams, culverts, schools and housing.

We need to end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels that are threatening the planet and move toward energy efficiency and renewable energy. We must increase the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour and lift millions of Americans out of poverty. We must fundamentally rewrite our trade policy so that American products, not American jobs, are our No. 1 export. We must stand up to the greed on Wall Street by breaking up too-big-to-fail banks that have done so much damage to the economy. And, we must make college affordable so that every qualified American can get the education they need to reclaim the American dream.

None of this will be easy. But the American people have proven that if they speak out, if they flood Capitol Hill with phone calls and emails, they can stop a war. Now is the time to use that same energy and passion to save the middle class.
------

With Russian Warships Headed for Syria - There's NOTHING Obama Can Say to Convince Us To Start A War!

The Russian warship 'Moskva' in a Ukrainian Black Sea port, already headed for Syria.

According to The Christian Science Monitor (Sept. 6) at least three Russian warships are  headed for Syrian waters, and more might be on the way, including a frigate and another landing ship. The ships are coming from the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol, according to CBS News

Why so much sea power? ?

The Kremlin’s chief of staff says it’s to evacuate Russians from Syria if a looming US air attack makes that necessary. But don't be so sure. While not yapping any threats, it is clear to experienced Russian observers they are more than ready for a fight, and a final face down against a super power which has thrown its weight around way too long.   The Monitor cites the Institute for the Study of War, on its Syria blog, that the Russian spy ship - the Priazovye - carries both active (radar) and passive (sonar) sensors that would enable it to possibly determine the location of the US ships. This alone would allow them to transmit locations to the Iranians in order to more accurately fire their own missiles at the ships - in retaliation. So the Russians can become involved, even if not directly.

Is there much to fret over? You better believe it, despite dweezil John Miller - former spook and now useless spook and pro-NSA mouthpiece - blabbering this morning on CBS' Early Show that there really shouldn't be any Syrian "retaliation" because the U.S. is only administering a limited "punishment" blow and why would Assad risk more retaliation if his proxies or himself launches counter attacks?

Well, uh, you dumb fucking dildo, because we are launching an unlawful act of war - an aggressive action against a state that has not threatened our interests at all!  Not killed one American!  You think after  lobbing over 150 Tomahawks, and dropping hundreds of tons of bombs using B1 and B52  bombers- likely killing hundreds,  the Syrians, Iranians, Russians will go quietly into that good night and suck it up? What are you, stupid?  They will unleash everything, as Assad asserted this morning in an interview with Charlie Rose  - and that could range from Iranian missile attacks on U.S. ships, to Syrian missile attacks on Israel, to terror attacks by Hezbollah and more blowback for us - as if we needed more terrorists to hamper our civil liberties.

But the worst fear is some accidental hit on Russian ships provoking an initial massive conventional response, which in turn could escalate to a limited nuclear war with tactical nukes - then to a full scale nuclear war.  Having lived through the Cuban Missile crisis back in October, 1962, I see the same perils - with U.S. and Russian ships perilously close to each other, and the chance of any misfire or miscalculation leading to worse consequences. Fortunately, nuclear war didn't erupt then because cooler heads prevailed - including John Kennedy facing down two Joint Chiefs: Lyman Lemnitzer and Curtis Lemay, who wanted him to go full bore bombing and invading Cuba. Had he been stupid enough to do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation - the planet would still be a pile of smoldering ruins and ash.

But it appears Obama and his bunch, including "Lurch" Kerry, haven't learned from past history. And so Obama wants to make a "case" tomorrow night for striking Syria.....and maybe launching WWIII. The man of "hope and change" finally can be seen for what he really is, a warmonger, no different from Bush I or Bush II.  As Prof. Hillary Mann Leverett, professor at American University, put it: "I want my money back!" 

Look, with the potential for global disaster now the highest it's been since perhaps October, 1962, there is really nothing Obama can say, no amount of rhetoric, and no amount of pseudo-evidence to convince us to start a war we likely can't control and won't be able to stop once it starts. We have been mired in two "wars" (actually occupations) the past 12 years, and it is now THIS nation that needs rebuilding and desperately! Besides, there is a debt ceiling limit soon to arrive within weeks. Do we really have the funds, resources to wage another prolonged battle against Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia? I think not.

The buzz this morning is that Obama won't even wait until the House vote (with the real people's representatives) but will act after the Senate vote passes a fig leaf "resolution"  - which it likely will. Who can forget The Treason of the Senate by David Graham Phillips? And it's as true today as it was back in 1906, given the Senate represents millionaires who have little in common with the people. It is really  the House of Representatives that are the true people's reps - so if Obama just ignores them, he's flouting the Constitution.


Obama seems not to be aware of the potential to destroy whatever legacy he still has left, by an irrational act designed merely to: a) teach a lesson to Iran (which might be next) and b) make sure everyone knows he ain't foolin' when he invokes  "red lines"!

What I want to know is what happened to the guy that received the Nobel Peace Prize? Maybe he ought to think of giving it back.

As for me, I will be sure to watch some movies on the tube when Obama is making his spiel. There is nothing he can say which will convince me to change my mind - and I believe that holds for millions of other citizens too. More hot air and propaganda we don't need!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/51536/white-house-lies-to-launch-the-next-illegal-war-there-is-no-justification-for-obama-s-war-on-syria

Think Romney Wouldn't Have Planned Syria Attack? Think AGAIN!

"Today we start a war in the Persian Gulf if the right thumb comes up. But if the left thumb comes up then we bomb Syria! Both come up and we do both! Heh, heh, heh!"





It's passing unbelievable but some necrophilous, Right wing bloggers actually believe Obama is unique in planning an attack on Syria. While calling him "O'Bummer" they assert - I kid you  not- that they'd actually like to see a nuclear war unfold on the scale depicted in the 1983 Brit film 'Threads' and then they could see all of us who voted for Obama last November "running and screaming like pussies with our skin burning off."


Hmmmmm......typical necrophilous bombast and bluster, but they miss the point. Had the Mittster been elected he'd be planning a similar assault, if not worse. It's not the MAN, Reich wing dumbos, it's the Neoliberal war -for -capital Washington consensus! And that means when you're the man in power, okay let me rephrase that....when you're the guy that gets elected, you toe the line of the Capitalist Neoliberal War State. That easy enough for you?

Since most of these Reich wing necrotics have the attention span of gnats and the memories of amoebae, it pays to refresh their minds as to what Mitt actually said in one of his debates, the Monday, October 22nd, foreign policy debate. As I noted in my blog of the next day, recapping the debate:

"On every issue, from Libya, to Syria, to use of drones, to leaving Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Egypt and deposing Mubarak, Romney sided with Obama. It was more like being in an 'echo chamber' than watching a debate! "

I also noted earlier how Romney at an APAC confab, admitted he'd  "send battle ships into the Persian Gulf and fire missiles on Tehran if need be."

If need be? Or if the capitalist warmonger state and its shadow oligarchs dictated it? More likely the latter. And, of course, if he felt no hesitation about lobbing Tomahawks into Iran, he'd have fewer lobbing them into Syria ......or anyplace else the war hawks demanded. Because see, since JFK's assassination, THEY are the ones running the country and its military- national security policy. This is the point to which we've arrived and presidents (with some minor latitude on timing of attacks) are merely 'yes' men.

This is hard for the  Right's nuts to grasp, only because they deliberately eschew conventional conspiracies in favor of the truly whacked out ones, like: FEMA and the UN setting up concentration camps - after they seize the guns, or Obama really being a Muslim and having some pact with them, or his Affordable Care Act being a device to sneak socialism into the country. Hey, dunderheads, the ACA was originally a Republican plan, actually conceived by Nixon in his era! Oh, btw, Romney implemented a smaller scale version of it at the state level in Massachusetts. It was called "Romney care". 

See also: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/05/10_weirdest_right_wing_christian_conspiracy_theories_partner/

But the intricacies of state power and its connections -networks is not a strong suite of the Right. They simply can't fathom that a hidden cabal of high profile  militarists, oligarchs (such as belong to the Bilderberg group) could possess such power as to really call the shots behind the scenes - as opposed to a single president. Hence, without this insight, they look at each escapade as one man's folly or decision as opposed to the dictates of the hidden Puppeteers. This means, of course, they will never able be able to grasp politics at the deep level....or what we call deep politics.

The bare truth is that even if Romney had been elected back in November, we'd be going through pretty well the same shit right now - maybe even worse. With Romney "in charge"- and a horde of neocons like William Krystal to back him, you'd not just see a two day strike but full regime change a la Saddam in Iraq, with all that implies.

The sad aspect is that the necrophilous righties will never get that....but remain convinced it's all Obama's doing right now, and we who voted for him deserve to be burned alive in a nuclear holocaust. Oh, as for them? They say they don't mind burning up in a nuclear war too so long as they see us "O'Bummer voters" getting it in the end!

Written like true necrophilous psychopaths!