Obama Lets Putin Get Away With Anything Except Attacking Democrats

It remains to be seen whether Obama, Clinton, and their followers will make an exception in this case and take measures that cause Putin and his Kremlin gang real pain? I have a long list: Obama’s treasury can leak the details of Putin’s hidden wealth and that of his inner circle. Obama can use the Congressional approval he already has in his pocket to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine. He can propose increases in defense spending and the bucking up of NATO. How about rejuvenating Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty to counter his propaganda to the Russian people?


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Barack Obama Extols Cuba's Slave-Labor Medical Care

That Bernie Sanders is making a serious run for president should raise serious alarm. As an avowed socialist, he is pushing socialist and communist programs like Cuba’s socialized medicine without understanding, like Obama, that they are based on slave labor. Our most prestigious campuses do not teach that communism has failed in all cases or that textbooks cannot cite one real-world example of Sanders’s vaunted democratic socialism. 


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Ten Reasons Why Putin Wins Big In Syria While The U.S. Gets Nothing

Putin’s payoff from his Syrian “peace keeping” could be enormous; namely, a breakup of NATO and the European Union and a sell out by the West of Ukraine on the grounds that it is not fulfilling the conditions of the Minsk 2 agreement (as if Russia is). If this happens, Putin has achieved his main goal–the end of Ukraine as a unitary state to demonstrate the risks of attempting to break free from Russia’s “sphere of influence.” The ultimate disgrace is that the West welcomed Putin as a partner in Syria on the basis of his promise to fight ISIS. Instead, Putin bombed the opponents of Assad, inflicting massive civilian casualties on them and contributing to the migration flow into Europe. ISIS did not seem to appear on his target list. For those who know Putin, this was no surprise.

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Turkey's Downing of the Russian Fighter: Expect Nuclear Saber Rattling and Threats to NATO's Existence

The world is in for a tense time of possible nuclear brinksmanship. If the United States and the other NATO countries blink, NATO is no more, and Putin has achieved his major goal. We must worry whether the Western world is led by leaders up to the task. There should be some sleepless nights in Berlin, London, Paris and Washington D.C. Putin is rightly described as a bully—and the standard procedure against bullies is to fight back. Turkey’s Erdogan has done just that. Will Turkey’s military allies back him up or cave once more? This test, if it comes, will have profound consequences.

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Putin Blames Enemies of the State For Nemtsov's Murder; Obama Demands Kremlin Investigate Itself

Vladimir Putin describes the Russian state as a power vertical, in which power is exercised at the very top. All authority descends from Putin himself and those below carry out his orders. According to this self description, nothing of importance can happen without the approval of the person atop the vertical. Under this logic, the contract killing of a major opposition figure falls under the direct responsibility of Putin. Calls by Merkel and Obama for justice are therefore really demands that the Kremlin investigate and bring itself to justice. Another case of Alice in Wonderland.

Boris Nemtsov, a leading opposition figure, age 55, was shot dead Friday night as he walked across a bridge connecting the Kremlin with the embankment district of central Moscow. The youthful and handsome Nemtsov was accompanied by his 23-year-old girlfriend, a Ukrainian model. According to initial BBC reports, he was shot four times by several men emerging from a white car and then speeding away. Nemtsov’s death was confirmed at the site by an aide, who reported that Nemtsov’s corpse lay in front of him on the street, surrounded by police. Contacts in Moscow reported that the murder scene was mobbed by mourners bringing flowers. Nemtsov’s female companion was taken away to be interrogated at police headquarters. (See video) Let’s see how long she’ll remain in custody.

Nemtsov served as Deputy Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin. He was also mayor of Nizhny Novgorod before joining the liberal opposition to Putin. During his tenure under Yeltsin, Nemtsov was considered a possible successor, but handicapped by the fact that he was Jewish.

Nemtsov had expressed fears of being murdered shortly before his death. His last tweet to the people of Moscow read:

"If you support stopping Russia's war with Ukraine, if you support stopping Putin's aggression, come to the Spring March in Maryino on 1 March."

Nemtsov’s murder has the typical features of a Russian contract killing, similar to the still unsolved murder of investigative journalist Anna Politovskaya. The killing of a prominent opposition figure in central Moscow cannot be passed off as a random act of violence. Even the Kremlin identified the murder as a contract killing.

A possible motive, other than being a thorn in the Kremlin’s side: Opposition figure (and Putin’s God daughter), Ksenia Sobchak, said that Nemtsov was preparing a report on Russian troops in Ukraine at the time of his death – a subject that is strict taboo under Putin.

The Putin propaganda machine immediately began its spin. A Kremlin spokesman stated shortly after the murder that Putin regards “this cruel murder (as having) every sign of being a contract killing, which has a solely provocative nature.”  In a condolence telegram to Nemtsov's 86-year-old mother, Putin vowed to do “everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this vile and cynical crime and those who stand behind them are properly punished." Putin’s notorious star-chamber Investigative Committee spoke of Nemtsov as a "sacrificial victim” of those who oppose the state and echoed Putin’s murder as a “provocation" against the state. Kremlin-friendly media darkly identified his companion as a Ukrainian model 30 years his junior, as if suggesting Kiev had something to do with the murder. The Investigative Committee, noted for its indictments of dissidents on trumped-up charges, also revealed it was looking for a Ukrainian or even Islamic extremist connection.

The Kremlin’s obvious strategy: Kick up the dust of confusion. Surely, they say, the “provocation” was instigated by Putin’s enemies (Take your pick: Ukraine, NATO, the CIA, "hohol" Nazis, ISIS, etc.). Putin, at least had the sense not to dismiss Nemtsov, like he did Politovskaya, as an insignificant person. Instead Putin damned Nemtsov with faint praise as someone “who occupied significant posts in a difficult time of transition.”

The unfortunate predictable reactions of Western leaders only contribute to the Putin narrative of sinister forces out to get the Kremlin. Angela Merkel called on President Putin “to ensure that the murder is cleared up and the perpetrators brought to justice.” Barack Obama echoed Merkel in “calling upon the Russian government to conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation into the circumstances of his murder and ensure that those responsible for this vicious killing are brought to justice.” Do not Merkel and Obama realize they are conceding Putin’s defense. By declaring Putin’s Kremlin responsible for finding the murderers, they are ruling out the possibility that the Kremlin itself ordered the hit.

Western leaders are reluctant to recognize what Putin and his regime are capable of. Scholars John Dunlop and Karen Dawisha have chronicled the strong evidence that Putin was behind the 1999 apartment bombings that killed almost 400 Russians that brought him to power. Ordering the killing of one irritating opposition figure pales in comparison to this and other acts of violence.

In my own view, there are two possible explanations of Nemtsov’s murder: One is that the murder was ordered by the Kremlin itself to signal a new phase of clamp down on opposition figures. To date, figures like Nemtsov, Gary Kasparov, and Mikhail Kasyanov have been roughed up and jailed but none murdered.

My second explanation would be a rogue element within the Kremlin, perhaps an overzealous oligarch, but an act of violence of this import would be an unlikely move for subordinates operating within Putin’s fabled vertical of power. I do not know how such things are arranged, but they are done most likely through a wink and a nod with no paper trail.

Note that a murder, basically on Kremlin grounds on a street traveled by Putin’s motorcade rigged with security cameras and security police, requires a degree of official cooperation or looking the other way. The professional murderers chose the Bolshoi Moskvrechky Bridge leading from the Kremlin, a landmark that allows better escape from the crime scene. The assassins in the white car, however, would have had to risk getting caught in Moscow’s notorious 24 hour traffic jams in their escape attempt. Without such safeguards, Russia’s notorious contract killers would not have done the deed. In any other metropolis, the murderers would have been apprehended within minutes or would have been identified through leaks, eye witnesses and security cameras within a short period of time.

There will be no justice for Nemtsov. An expert on Russian contract killings explains that they are rarely solved “because of the interwoven nature of criminality and Russian officialdom.” In the best case, some lower-level gangsters will confess and will quickly disappear within the Russian penal system. They and their families will likely be well paid.

If my suspicions are correct (and we will likely never know the truth), the murder of a major opposition figure on the eve of a major rally shows the supreme level of confidence Vladimir Putin has in his hold on power. He has annexed Crimea, has de facto taken much of eastern Ukraine, and has stared down the intimidated West. What's one murdered opposition figure, more or less?

We will see how the people of Moscow react to this vicious murder. Will they conclude that Putin is behind it? After all, his message to the Russian people is that he is responsible for all that is good. If so, would he also not answer for this cowardly act of murder by contract?

Kerry Delivers Hot Air Speech To Ukraine While Putin Supplies Tanks, Missiles And Troops

Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks in Kiev yesterday must have boosted spirits in the Kremlin. Ukraine expected to hear that the United States is stepping up to the plate to provide defensive weapons against the Russian-led offensive. Instead of meaningful reassurance, they got the standard Obama-administration platitude: “I am here specifically to bring you the support and friendship and goodwill of the President of the United States, of the Administration, but most importantly the American people.” There’s not much there that Kiev can take to the bank.

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Why The Republican Mid-Term Victory Can Change The Balance In The Russian-Ukraine War

Barack Obama can scarcely veto a bi-partisan pro-Ukraine bill. He can no longer refuse to supply weapons to Ukraine because of his “long-standing concern that arming Ukraine would provoke Moscow into a further escalation that could drag Washington into a proxy war.”  The Kremlin has nothing more to escalate other than an outright attack on Kiev or a NATO country.

An Obama rejection of Ukraine military aid puts him at odds with powerful Congressional foreign policy voices (Ben Nelson, Sander Levin, Jim Gerlach, Gerland Connoly, Robert Menendez, John McCain, Bob Corker, to name just a few), with American foreign-policy (Mike McFaul, Strobe Talbot, to name just two) and military (Generals Martin Dempsey, Philip Breedlove et al.) military establishment figures. A growing consensus agree with former CIA chief and defense secretary, Leon  Panetta, that we must give Ukraine “the means to defend itself.” Likely presidential candidate and former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, also sees the anti-Putin writing on the political wall. She has described Putin as “a mortal threat to sovereign European countries and U.S. interests,” to whom we “have to stand up” and “encircle” and choke off his ability to be so aggressive.”

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The Letter That Obama Should Write To Putin On Ukraine--But Won't

President Obama’s failed reset and his weak response to Putin’s War Against Ukraine stuck him with a reputation of indecisiveness and naïveté, reinforced by cumulating foreign policy failures. Obama, unlike Angela Merkel, members of Congress of both parties, and, lately, Hillary Clinton, still appears to be late to understand Putin’s global threat and his goal to destroy NATO. With one intense bill-of-particulars against Putin, Obama coukd outline his plan to stop Putin’s expansionism before it is too late. Such a move could save the last two years of Obama’s presidency. Here is what Obama should say.

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Obama Takes On ISIS With Brave Words, Pinprick Strikes, And Phantom Allies

Obama’s war time strategies in Iraq and Syria and Ukraine have certain similarities. In both cases, it is others who are to do the heavy lifting. In Ukraine, the young Ukrainian forces must fight on their own with no real assistance from Europe and the United States, both of whom might have to sacrifice a tenth of one percent of their GDPs from their sanctions support. In Iraq and now Syria, at least there are a few Americans on the ground and there is American air power, but it is others who are to die – presumably in large numbers.

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Times Report Casts Shame on Obama's Handling of Ukraine Crisis

The New York Times is noted for its access to the inner sanctums of the Obama administration. Four of its top reporters collaborated on its Pentagon Plan Would Help Ukraine Target Rebel Missiles, which elaborates the administration’s thinking on Ukraine. To the shame of many Americans, the Times report confirms that Vladimir Putin has sized up Barack Obama correctly. He does not understand Putin. He responds to strength with weakness.

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As Russia Tramples Red Lines, Obama Clings To Fig Leaf

The United States and the European Union grasp for legalistic fig leaves to avoid enacting further sanctions. After all, we lack conclusive proof. Putin has plausible deniability. We should not jump to conclusions. It would be rude not to take the word of a head of state like Mr. Putin. Let’s threaten tough sanctions to make ourselves look good but let’s be sure not to use them. We are in sad shape indeed when it is up to Prince Charles (in his off-the-cuff characterization of Putin as Hitler) to blurt out the truth.

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Why Hold Elections That Everyone Knows Are Sham: Ask Putin

Vladimir Putin must be following the sham referendum in east Ukraine with satisfaction and delight. He has outfoxed Barack Obama, John Kerry, Angela Merkel, and the European Union once again. Not only has he escaped sanctions with his “wink and a nod” instructions to the separatist rebels to postpone (not give up) the May 11 election. Putin’s “peace initiative” of May 7 gave his stock market and the rouble a little boost and his plea to the rebels received sympathetic play with the major news services (See, for example Reuters account). On the day of the election, CNN’sreporting went so far as to characterize the rebel’s decision to go ahead with the referendum as “defiance” of Putin.

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Russian Regular Forces To Invade "NewRussia" Between May 4 And 9? (Guest Columnist)

Guest columnist, prominent member of Ukrainian civil society, explains why Putin with invade with regular troops end of first week of May and the long term consequences.

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Crisis Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Geneva Today: Beware Russian Bear Bearing Compromises

The foreign ministers of Europe and the United States are clinging desperately to the fig leaf that Russia has not invaded Ukraine (which requires them to ramp up sanctions that may be economically costly). To avoid taking meaningful action, they will bully their Ukrainian colleague into accepting a “compromise” which, either immediately or after Russian machinations, spells the end of Ukraine as a unified state. They can return home waving a piece of paper that promises “peace in our time.” If so, Munich rather than Geneva would have been a better setting.

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Putin’s Brazen Demand In Return For Him NOT Invading Ukraine

Russia’s immediate target is Ukraine’s May 25 presidential election. If it proceeds smoothly and its results are as expected, Putin would loose his one rationale for armed and covert intervention: His claim that Ukraine’s illegitimate government, brought to power by an  extremist-neo-Nazis Putsch, orchestrated by the United States, leaves him no choice but to intervene on behalf of Ukraine’s beleaguered ethnic Russians. 

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New Sanctions No Joke: Putin Risks Regime For Ukraine Invasion

The first reaction to the first round of U.S. and European sanctions against the Russian ruling elite was laughter. Declared one of those singled out: Whoever put these sanctions together is a “joker.”  Indeed, the first set of U.S. sanctions was weak and the European sanctions weaker. This is no longer the case. The Western sanctions bite where they hurt.

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Germany Co-opts Putin's Anti-Ukraine Propaganda To Support International Observers and Joining the EU (At Last, A Sign Of Life)

In his press conference today, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Franz Walter Steinmayer,   co-opted this Putin narrative to justify the pending European Association Agreement with Ukraine to be signed this Friday. Steinmayer pointed out that, by the logic of Putin’s own propaganda, Russia’s and the world’s interests are served by Ukraine taking the first step to membership in the EU.

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Putin’s Destabilization of Ukraine Overshadows Today’s Crimean Vote

Russia’s invasion of Crimea and today’s rigged Anschluss referendum are sideshows to the main event – Putin’s ongoing destabilization of Ukraine. International diplomacy can deal with armed interventions and the violation of international treaties, but it is helpless in the face of the coordinated covert disinformatsia, maskirovania, and destabilatsia at which Putin’s KGB (now called the FSB) excels. Putin can respond to charges of economic and political sabotage against Ukraine with an expression of innocence and surprise: “Who me? 

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The West’s Dangerous Misreading of Putin In Ukraine

Western diplomats and media interpret Putin’s press conference as a welcome step back from confrontation. His goals accomplished – the securing of Russian forces in the Crimea and protecting Russian speakers from ethnic violence – Putin has declared that he is walking back the military option, although he reserves the right to protect the interests of ethnic Russians as well as Russia’s own interests in Ukraine. Alarmingly, Western diplomats and media laud Putin’s support of elections. Putin is going to allow the Ukrainian people to decide their own fate. Let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief.

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Alarm: Putin Will Not Stop With Crimea. Paper-Tiger Obama Will Do Nothing

Ukraine represents the Holy Grail of Putin’s restoration policy. If Ukraine is lost, his policy has failed, and Putin cannot accept defeat unless the costs of fighting the battle are in the stratosphere. He has already calculated that the costs, if any, will be modest and the returns exceptional.


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