Obama's Foreign Policy

[keepthefaith]

First of all, there's no way that runs without the Obama Administration's giving it to them, and telling them to run it.

 

Everything this administration does or does not do as relates to foreign policy is nothing more than posturing for the purposes of electoral politics and domestic political capital.

Nail hit on head right there.

[Deranged Rhino]

RT: NatWest 'freezes Russian channel's UK bank accounts'

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020

Russia Today's UK bank accounts closed down, says editor

Unclear whether UK government responsible for shutting down accounts of Moscow’s main instrument of propaganda in English-speaking world

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/russia-todays-uk-bank-accounts-frozen-says-editor

 

[GG]

RT: NatWest 'freezes Russian channel's UK bank accounts'

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020

Russia Today's UK bank accounts closed down, says editor

Unclear whether UK government responsible for shutting down accounts of Moscow’s main instrument of propaganda in English-speaking world

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/russia-todays-uk-bank-accounts-frozen-says-editor

 

 

 

Any reason this is in a Obama foreign policy thread?

 

Or is this another diversion tactic on how Google is NOT a media company?

 

James Corden, the host of "The Late Late Show" and the creator of the wildly popular Carpool Karaoke, doesn't care about his ratings. In fact, there's only one number he cares about: YouTube views.

 

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Any reason this is in a Obama foreign policy thread?

 

Or is this another diversion tactic on how Google is NOT a media company?

 

 

It's relevant to the subject.

 

Answer the question you've been running from for weeks then you can have the high ground on "diversion tactics".

 

The point about Google wasn't just that it's not a media company (it isn't), it's that I don't work for Google so you using them as an example of me being a hypocrite was Gatorman level dumb. But that's all you got on this topic. You've made it clear you don't wish to have a real conversation on this topic, so either stick to that or engage. Don't sit on the fence, you'll get your nuts crushed.

[GG]

 

It's relevant to the subject.

 

Answer the question you've been running from for weeks then you can have the high ground on "diversion tactics".

 

The point about Google wasn't just that it's not a media company (it isn't), it's that I don't work for Google so you using them as an example of me being a hypocrite was Gatorman level dumb. But that's all you got on this topic. You've made it clear you don't wish to have a real conversation on this topic, so either stick to that or engage. Don't sit on the fence, you'll get your nuts crushed.

 

In order for me to answer a question, you have to ask it first.

 

Kind of like asking, "How does US involvement in Syria directly benefit Chevron & Exxon?" For someone who's spent a bunch of posts arguing that point, the answer should be simple.

 

Google is a media company, and its domination of digital ad market and taking more ad dollars away from traditional media companies is forcing them to adapt, which includes finding new ways to monetize their customers' data. Which means they acquire and trade much more personal information about individuals than any government agency. And these highly profitable trades of personal information help the media companies subsidize the money losing sides of their businesses (which is often the movie making part)

 

Again, not a difficult concept to grasp.

[Deranged Rhino]

Russia says to halt Aleppo strikes for eight hours on Thursday

 

Russian and Syrian armed forces will pause attacks on the Syrian city of Aleppo for eight hours on Thursday to allow civilians and rebels to leave the city, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday.

But Moscow ruled out a lasting ceasefire, a step that Western governments have been demanding, saying that would only give Islamist rebels in the city an opportunity to regroup.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-pause-idUSKBN12H1TU?il=0

 

In order for me to answer a question, you have to ask it first.

 

 

!@#$ off, I've asked you a dozen times in this thread alone. And you run from it because you're not interested in having a real conversation. As evidence by the amount of lies you've thrown out just in this thread alone.

[GG]

Russia says to halt Aleppo strikes for eight hours on Thursday

 

Russian and Syrian armed forces will pause attacks on the Syrian city of Aleppo for eight hours on Thursday to allow civilians and rebels to leave the city, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday.

But Moscow ruled out a lasting ceasefire, a step that Western governments have been demanding, saying that would only give Islamist rebels in the city an opportunity to regroup.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-pause-idUSKBN12H1TU?il=0

 

!@#$ off, I've asked you a dozen times in this thread alone. And you run from it because you're not interested in having a real conversation. As evidence by the amount of lies you've thrown out just in this thread alone.

 

 

If you asked it, a simple link would suffice. Why are you running away? Your trolling game is slipping.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Google is a media company, and its domination of digital ad market and taking more ad dollars away from traditional media companies is forcing them to adapt, which includes finding new ways to monetize their customers' data. Which means they acquire and trade much more personal information about individuals than any government agency. And these highly profitable trades of personal information help the media companies subsidize the money losing sides of their businesses (which is often the movie making part)

 

 

Google has nothing to do with my business. Nothing.

 

The point you made was that it did. You were wrong. Like you're wrong about what I do for a living.

 

Please, keep doubling down on it. Want to go back and lie again and say I was the one who mentioned Google? That was fun.

 

Or, we can have a conversation.

 

If you asked it, a simple link would suffice. Why are you running away? Your trolling game is slipping.

 

The very fact you think I'm trolling shows how misinformed you are.

[GG]

Google has nothing to do with my business. Nothing.

Zero. Nada. Nothing at all.

 

Except for how movies are distributed and marketed.

 

• For the typical PG-13 action film during the time analyzed, shifting 10% of ad budgets from TV to online video could have increased marketing-driven sales by 16%.

Nice to live in a little bubble and not understand how your INDUSTRY functions. Not your little corner of the industry, but how your employers and their investors make their money.

 

 

The point you made was that it did. You were wrong. Like you're wrong about what I do for a living.

 

Please, keep doubling down on it. Want to go back and lie again and say I was the one who mentioned Google? That was fun.

 

Or, we can have a conversation.

 

 

The very fact you think I'm trolling shows how misinformed you are.

If you're not trolling, then you'll ask the questions.

[Deranged Rhino]

In Somalia, U.S. Escalates a Shadow War

 

The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American “boots on the ground” in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more.

Continue reading the main story

American officials said the White House had quietly broadened the president’s authority for the use of force in Somalia by allowing airstrikes to protect American and African troops as they combat fighters from theShabab, a Somali-based militant group that has proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/africa/obama-somalia-secret-war.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

 

Zero. Nada. Nothing at all.

 

Except for how movies are distributed and marketed.

 

Which has nothing, at all, to do with my career or job.

 

You'd know this if you knew what I did for a living, but you don't. You're going off some very wrong and very broad assumptions.

 

Despite not knowing me, not knowing what I do, you're still arrogant enough to think you can educate me about it.

 

That's Gatorman level stupidity. And you keep going back to it.

 

 

Nice to live in a little bubble and not understand how your INDUSTRY functions. Not your little corner of the industry, but how your employers and their investors make their money.

 

 

You've proven in multiple conversations about my business you don't know the first thing how my industry operates.

 

But, I mean, when all you have is bullshite to fall back on, you gotta use what you got.

 

If you're not trolling, then you'll ask the questions.

 

The question has been asked directly to you for several weeks. For several weeks you've ignored it. It's been linked, relinked, and directly ignored by you. Go back, it's all there. But you won't because you're not interested in having this conversation. You'd rather invent positions I've never held and argue against those because it makes you feel better about yourself than admitting that you've been backing a losing geopolitical philosophy.

 

Like I said, if you want to have a conversation we can. But you have to show at least a smidgen of honesty first. You've yet to do that this entire thread.

[GG]

The question has been asked directly to you for several weeks. For several weeks you've ignored it. It's been linked, relinked, and directly ignored by you. Go back, it's all there. But you won't because you're not interested in having this conversation. You'd rather invent positions I've never held and argue against those because it makes you feel better about yourself than admitting that you've been backing a losing geopolitical philosophy.

 

Like I said, if you want to have a conversation we can. But you have to show at least a smidgen of honesty first. You've yet to do that this entire thread.

 

 

Then it should be very simple of a man in your industry to repeat the question. Simple.

 

How do Chevron & Exxon directly benefit from US involvement in Syria?

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Then it should be very simple of a man in your industry to repeat the question.

 

 

I have. Half a dozen times now. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... shame on me. Fool me a half dozen times? !@#$ off, Sue and go back through the thread and see for yourself.

[GG]

 

I have. Half a dozen times now. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... shame on me. Fool me a half dozen times? !@#$ off, Sue and go back through the thread and see for yourself.

 

Then repeat the question. It's easy

 

"How do Chevron & Exxon directly benefit from US involvement in Syria?" I'll give you a hint, you can't pilfer the plot from Syriana as your answer.

 

Speaking of me not knowing what you do for a living and how are you are paid, who was the poster who said this?

 

I was just speaking from my own perspective as a writer in the (movie) industry.

 

 

And BTW, if you guys aren't paid by the industry selling consumer data, you are paid by embezzled government funds.

 

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing global investigators, that much of the financing for the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "Wolf of Wall Street" originated from 1MDB. The investigators said that the movie's $100 million budget came from a company called Red Granite Pictures, which is led by Riza Aziz, the step-son of Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, the WSJ reported.

 

[Deranged Rhino]

US Escalates War Role in Yemen

 

We are seeing today in Yemen a demonstration of how easily a supposedly limited U.S. involvement in an armed conflict becomes less limited, and how such involvement creates new enemies of the United States.

The deleterious entanglement of the United States in civil war in Yemen was already a major problem even before the events of the past week. The United States has associated itself with, and been providing indirect support to, the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. That intervention, especially through largely indiscriminate aerial bombardment, has been responsible for most of the severe civilian suffering in Yemen.

Since the Saudi air assault began last year, civilian casualties have been averaging 13 per day. Total civilian deaths in the war are approaching 4,000, with many more injured and still more homeless. The Saudi role in causing most of this damage and the U.S. role in facilitating it certainly undercut any criticism by those governments of Russia’s role in causing civilian suffering in Syria.

(snip)

The Houthis are allied with longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was America’s man in Sana before he stepped down in 2012, amid popular protests and an assassination attempt that left him severely injured. The most threatening anti-U.S. element in Yemen has been Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is on the Sunni side of the sectarian divide; the Houthis are among the staunchest opponents of AQAP.

In short, the United States did not previously — before getting involved in this war — have an enemy in the Houthis. Now, as a result of getting involved in the war, it does.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/15/us-escalates-war-role-in-yemen/

Edited October 17, 2016 by Deranged Rhino

[GG]

Do you post these things without doing any research on these groups? Houthies (Ansar Allah) are as allied with Saleh as the desert wind blows. Which shouldn't surprise anyone who's been following the Mid East for more than a month.

 

Ansar Allah’s erratic behavior reflects the dominance of its military strategy over its political strategy. After its long wars against the Saleh state in the 2000s, Ansar Allah appears determined to prevent any future Yemeni government from threatening it again.

 

....

 

The relative balance of power between Saleh and Ansar Allah is unclear. It is not apparent whether Saleh has achieved his goals and is now preparing to push Ansar Allah aside in his quest to return his son to power, or whether Ansar Allah used Saleh to consolidate its military dominance. In negotiations following the resignation of Hadi and the failure of Ansar Allah’s new parliamentary body, Saleh is insisting on following the current constitution, according to which parliament must accept or reject Hadi’s resignation and, in the case of acceptance, declare new elections within 60 days. Saleh’s General People’s Congress controls parliament, and today he can play the electoral game better than anyone. Ansar Allah does not feel confident in elections, particularly after the upwelling of hostility toward the group following its attack on the president and failed political initiative. If Ansar Allah begins a war in the east, it will encounter even greater opposition in the areas it already controls.

 

 

 

 

[Deranged Rhino]

NYT’s Absurd New Anti-Russian Propaganda

 

The U.S. government also has built extensive propaganda operations around the world that pump out all sorts of half-truths and disinformation to put U.S. adversaries on the defensive, with the American financial hand kept hidden so the public is more likely to trust the claims of supposedly independent voices.

 

Much of that disinformation is then promoted by the Times, which famously assisted in one major set of lies by publishing a false 2002 front-page story about Iraq reconstituting its nuclear weapons program as a key justification for the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Yet, the Russians are called out for activities far less egregious than what the U.S. government – aided and abetted by the Times – has done.

 

You could even view the Times’ article citing inflatable weapons as proof of Moscow’s perfidy as itself an example of another U.S. psychological operation along the lines of the Times’ article accusing Iraq of obtaining aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges, when the tubes were actually unsuited for that purpose. In this new case, however, the Times is heating up a war fever against Russia rather than Iraq.

Yet, as in 2002, this current psy-op is not primarily aimed at a foreign adversary as much as it is targeting the American people. The primary difference is that in 2002, the Times was helping instigate war against a relatively small and defenseless nation in Iraq. Now, the Times is whipping up an hysteria against nuclear-armed Russia with the prospect that this manufactured outrage could induce politicians into further steps that could lead to nuclear conflagration.

As German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote in a recent opinion piece, the current tensions between Washington and Moscow are “more dangerous” than during the Cold War.

“It’s a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War,” Steinmeier wrote. “The current times are different and more dangerous” because there were clear “red lines” during the Cold War where the rival nuclear powers knew not to tread.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/16/nyts-absurd-new-anti-russian-propaganda/

[Deranged Rhino]

Russia and the West: Where did it all go wrong?

 

There is an interesting debate going on among US think tank experts as to which camp is right. Should one focus on the initial strategic errors of the West in dealing with the new Russia, or look at Moscow's more recent assertive behaviour in Georgia, Syria or Ukraine?

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37658286

[B-Man]

David Burge ‏@iowahawkblog 4h4 hours ago

David Burge Retweeted ABC News

As I was coming down the stair I met a war that wasn't there

ABC NewsVerified account ‏@ABC 4h4 hours ago

JUST IN: 1 U.S. service member and 1 U.S. civilian died as a result of wounds sustained in attack near coalition base in Kabul, ISAF says.

[Deranged Rhino]

Russian alleged hacker arrested in Prague over cyber-attacks in US

 

“Russia repudiates Washington’s policy of imposing its extraterritorial jurisdiction on all countries. We insist that the detainee is handed over to Russia.”

A Czech justice ministry spokeswoman, Tereza Schejbalova, said no official request had been received from Russia in this case.

The US has accused Russia of coordinating the theft and disclosure of emails from the Democratic National Committee and other institutions and individuals in the US to influence the outcome of the election. Russia has vigorously denied that. There was no indication this case had anything to do with that accusation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/russian-alleged-hacker-us-cyber-attacks-arrested-prague

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

This could be something to watch, if for nothing else than a litmus test for how low Russian/US relations have fallen...

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

 

And then there's this... fallout continues from the US backed coup in Brazil:

 

Brazilian politician who led Rousseff impeachment arrested on corruption charges

Moro has been investigating Cunha for months but could only arrest him after he was expelled from the chamber of deputies last month, and lost his parliamentary immunity.

“[His freedom] posed a risk to the investigation of the case, to public order, as well as the concrete possibility of that he would flee due to the availability of hidden funds abroad, in addition to his dual nationality (Cunha is Italian and Brazilian),” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/eduardo-cunha-arrested-corruption-charges-brazil

...We'll see if it sticks.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Deranged Rhino

[B-Man]

THE WAGES OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Duterte aligns Philippines with China, says U.S. has lost.

 

 

 

 

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Duterte’s Flip-Flop Into Bed With China Is a Disaster for the United States.

 

Max Boot:

From the American viewpoint, Duterte’s flip-flop — assuming it leads to a lasting strategic shift — is a potential disaster. Aligned with the United States and its regional allies, the Philippines can provide a vital platform to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China and East China seas.

If the Philippines becomes a Chinese satrapy, by contrast, Washington will find itself hard-pressed to hold the “first island chain” in the Western Pacific that encompasses “the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and the Philippine archipelago.” Defending that line of island barriers has been a linchpin of U.S. strategy since the Cold War. It now could be undone because of the whims of one unhinged leader.

China could either neutralize this vital American ally or even potentially turn the Philippines into a PLA Navy base for menacing U.S. allies such as Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. At the very least, the U.S. Navy will find it much harder to protect the most important sea lanes in the world; each year $5.3 trillion in goods passes through the South China Sea, including $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade.

 

 

 

 

Boot notes that this “massive geopolitical shift is entirely Duterte’s doing,” and that “the Philippine people remain largely pro-American.” With any luck, Duterte’s rule will be short, and the Philippines will return to the fold before any lasting damage is done.