I think it very significant that the White House spokesman used both the word "military" and the word "economic." (But not, I think, automatically meaning, "embargo" and so forth.)

There is "an economic element" in any organization like ISIS: they require a lot of money(!) to run, and they must sell the premise that "blowing other people up is for the good of our country or our people."

Therefore, there are alternatives, besides bombs and embargoes, to bring such an organization to heel. People don't go down the primrose-path of terrorism because they're anxious to kill or to be killed. Fundamentally, they do so because they're desperate and are persuaded that they have no other choice. (Really, it's just a variation on "gangs.")

Mr. Obama never thought outside the box. Perhaps Mr. Trump is more resourceful. We shall see.™

This is a good thing - and these groups are the result of chaos from W and Obama. If even Turkey has switched sides now and are working with the Russians bombing ISIS targets - if the US does the same this will definitely turn the tables - again though it the the fault of previous US administrations that there is such a mess in the first place.

There will be no regime change - much to the chagrin of the neo-cons/neo-liberals in the US. They are not invited to Astana for the current Syrian peace talks.

To my way of thinking, at least, "there is no 'new Cold War.™'"

There is no more "USSR." That former-Union has been dissolved, leaving "Russia" as a large but separate State. It continues to hold the assets – nuclear (alas ...) and otherwise – of the original Union, but it is not the same.

And ... "the Cold War" is dead.

However, "regime building" is probably also dead. Every time the United States ... the other nation on Earth which used/uses the term, "superpower" ... tried to exercise "this perceived super-prerogative," let the record show that the effort has blown up in their face. Peace talks are now underway, and let the record quite plainly show that the USA has been excluded, quite probably because the actions of the USA are recognized to be a significant cause.

We need to start "thinking differently." We're an interconnected world now. We need to break down the formerly-sacrosanct perceptions from the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's once and for all.

Obviously, we cannot be naive. Human nature is still as ugly as ever it was. However, things like "World Wars," "Cold Wars," "Regime Change" and "Nation Building" are also failed geo-political concepts that we all need to flush down the nearest convenient toilet. And, slam the lid shut.

---
As far as the immediate video is concerned, I would myself fairly-quickly dismiss it out of hand, as a fairly poorly-prepared bit of propaganda, and this is why: because it bears no distinction whatsoever between "the USSR of the 1950s" and today. Likewise, it dwells too much upon the pointless efforts of an American President who was less than one week from the end of his term, and who just couldn't quite get over the fact that "the Democrat lost." Putin simply ... smiled, and did nothing at all. As he quite should have.

Nobody from Moscow "hacked the election." "Hillary lost," fair and square. (And, no, it didn't come down to "two or three counties," either.) Maybe she should take a message from one of her oh-so presumptuous Madame President coffee cups and: "Deal With It.™" (And, oh by the way, "quit bothering or accusing the Russians!")

Correct, and I deeply hope that nation building/regime change policy is on it's way out. If at least from an economical point of view for the US government, it is not feasible - since they don't care how many people die, then maybe the economic argument might sway other wise.

Again, if you solely follow the west, particularly the media in the UK and US - Russia is the aggressor - and as I posted earlier the treaties and details that the west primarily US hopes nobody comes across, in order to continue this narrative. From a Russian point of view they rightfully so feel that they are being encroached upon, and I have to give credit where it is due, the Russians have been rather tolerant of quite a lot.

This is no different than the Cuban Missile Crisis - if you even look at any school history textbooks in the US - it is solely states the cause was because Russia was belligerent by stationing nuclear missiles so close to the US - never mind WHY - what was the cause? The US and NATO at the time had FIRST stationed missiles in Turkey, the Russians merely responded in turn. I don't know if textbooks today address this fact, but in my middle school and high school texts clearly only stated the former and did not address what caused the escalation.

If you were to argue also that say if Mexico today were to allow the Russian Federation to station some forces in their country - I do wonder how the US would react? And that is what the point I am trying to get at - its ok because its the US and nobody should ever challenge what they do - well that only goes so far, and quite frankly that same attitude is still left over - so in essence for the US - the cold war was never really over - it was just a pause and are desperate for the 'old days' - to keep on feeding the military industrial complex.

As far as Putin is concerned - I don't know him, I do not live in Russia - I don't hate him, nor do I actually like him - but from a certain perspective (sadly perhaps) - I see him as the sane one here - because all you have to do is look at the actions of the west (particularly the US) - post USSR.

On a point of style: it's becoming common in these threads for someone to make a large post and then someone else quotes it in its entirety before making his own. That's unnecessary and it makes the thread difficult for the rest of us to read.

If you are answering a specific point (and if you are not, why are you quoting at all?), it would help us all if you edit down the quote to the point or points in question, then add your answers.

Good point, Hazel. Although you might "quote a reply," it really doesn't link the two posts together into any sort of a hierarchy (as some forum software does), so you can simply "add your next two bits."

In the 1950's and 1960's especially, information was much harder to come by: it came from official sources. "Uncle Walter" said, "that's the way it is," and, by gawd, "it is!" No one knew what the USSR was doing in Turkey unless US newspapers reported it, and of course they didn't. Pravda didn't either. The only way you could have access to any other source of information was if you had a shortwave radio – and/or you were a "Ham." Today, you can watch a Russian television program or read a Russian newspaper at your convenience. (CrossTalk happens to be a very good English-language program, IMHO.)

Today, we can talk like this! (It's all quite unprecedented, you know ... humans have never before been able to do such a thing.)

We can now see, around the world, that despite our national differences and cultures we have a lot of common ground. We need to exploit that fact, and use it to change the way that our nations are governed – without giving up the fact that they are "nations" and that "'nations' are still important." (We can't govern "the world," nor even a significant section of it. We've tried.)

"Nation building," "regime change," "the war on terrorism," and so forth are merely thin disguises for the other, ugly, aspect of our human nature. "War" is always about "the spoils of War," and to get them for yourself you have to be able to control a powerful government or to coat-tail directly off of it. An American oil company wants to build a pipeline to bypass Russia in reaching the oil fields of the Caspian Sea. It wants to build through Afghanistan. Other companies want to seize two plentiful resources: lithium (needed for those oh-so explosive batteries), and of course, opium. (P.S. that's the real reason why kids who squirm in school "have attention-deficit disorder" and are drugged into zombie-land. If you're gonna steal opium, you've gotta have a place to sell it: it becomes "a prescribed pharmaceutical for a duly diagnosed 'medical disorder'" ... being a kid.

(Just as was the case in Vietnam and Korea, the opium is shipped back in dead soldier's coffins and body bags – or simply in a couple extra coffins which don't contain a dead body at all. Gruesome though this thought might be, it is verifiable. "Money always talks," even though the dead do not.)

These companies had the political position, power, and money influence to put a hook in America's nose and drag it off to a never-acknowledged battlefield, and to keep them there for the last 15 years and counting. As far as they're concerned, the United States Military is going to continue to fight to "build that damned pipeline," so that the private companies (Haliburton and so on ...) can thereafter own it and profit from it. They don't really care how many American soldiers (or, Afghan people) are killed or maimed in the process. And, they never have. "C'est la guerre."

Look around: I'm quite sure that your government is doing the same thing, too, somewhere ... 19th century Pax Brittania was financed by little squares of opium, each bearing Queen Victoria's royal seal, which were sold to Chinese addicts.

Some aspects of the conventional American media are still "old school." Never mind that it was insanely stupid to begin with to create any election system that could not be "laboriously audited, by hand if need be." If "the right party" somehow lost, it must have been "a hack." And only one country could have been plausible to have "the hackers": The USSR Russia. Putin knew that within one week it would not matter anymore. He calmly resisted the urge to fight fire with fire, knowing that no move was needed at all. (And I daresay the Russian diplomats just took their suitcases with them, knowing they'd be right back.) The Obama government reacted, anyway, while the "yes (wo)men" nodded dutifully and vigorously, or wore their very best "somber faces." But they had very simply run out of time and power.

The bottom line is simple: in the last American election, the political establishment was handed a crushing rejection of their policies of the last fifty years – many of them signed by "husband Bill." The Electors then made it even worse for the party that was "supposed to" win. They don't like it. They are afraid of what might be next. (And, quite frankly, so am I ...)

Glenn Greenwald also hits it on the head - and how the dems. are just so obsessed with Russia and not questioning Trump's policies. It will backfire again.

*Facepalm*




If she runs in 2020, you can be sure Trump will be a two-term president. Again, the democrats are just waaaaaay out of touch.

-edit

I wonder if she will blame the Chinese this time, when she loses again.

-edit2

Nah, it will probably be Russia still. Poor guys, I feel sorry for them now - being unfairly demonised.

Hillary Clinton has plenty of political-power chips that she has accumulated over the years on the expectation that she would become President and then cash them in. But the simple reality is that her political career is finished.

She bounced through the Senate (in a powerful State that she only nominally resided in), hopped through a stint as Secretary of State, and then obviously fully-expected to wind up in the Oval Office based on a continuation of everything that she and her husband had done two decades before.

The biggest problem with the Democratic Party, Inc. – and really, also the Republican Party, Inc. – is that they don't know who their voter actually is. Nor do they particularly care. Trump's not really a Republican: he simply told the red party that if they didn't take him as their candidate, he'd beat their candidate as an Independent.

But, "the times, they are a'changin'," folks. This much can't be denied. They're not going to "add TPP on top of NAFTA." They're going to withdraw from NAFTA. (China already was the first to withdraw from TPP.) They're going to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act. And revert a whole lot of other things that the Clintons (and their immediate successors) were very influential in putting in place. (Or, as the case may be, taking out.)

And, if you're a tech worker in the United States on a non-immigrant visa, you'd better be applying for citizenship double-quick. (That is, if the body-broker that you now work for allows you to have a car.)

Even though Mr. Trump won't be able to do everything that he wants – no Chief Executive ever can – I suspect that you will be seeing very substantial changes now happening very rapidly.

Her career may be over, however sadly we have not seen the last of the Clinton brand. Chelsea is to be groomed as the successor of the Clinton Dynasty. It is interesting to note after she lost, how all of the sudden the CGI(Clinton Global Initiative) suddenly collapsed of donors. Sorry, if it is a charity as it claimed to be, then losing a presidential race should in no way have impacted that organization.

I disagree here, the Democrats and Republicans are aware of who the voters are - but are subjugated by lobbyists - neocons and neoliberals, and the average voter are always given lip-service from both sides. Money speaks louder than votes.

I was not aware that the PRC would be withdrawing from TPP - I'll have to look that up. As for Glass-Steagall I doubt it will be reinstated or if it is, it will be severely crippled by the Goldman Sachs guy that is in Trump's cabinet. So in that sense it will be business as usual.

Well Republicans are in control of everything now - even so Trump has already issued Executive Orders - so I do not see why he would not be playing that card - after all Obama I think broke the record on that - I do not see why Trump would not do the same if he feels that he needs to.