Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

DEFENCE COUNCIL MEETING. Putin's and Shoygu's statements. Putin: Russia in Syria for self defence; some "Free Syrian Army" fighters cooperating; Russian forces instructed to cooperate with the US coalition and with Israel; any threats to Russian operations to be "destroyed immediately". Shoygu describes improvements, changes and equipping of the Armed Forces. The take-away point: Russia is preparing for war either nuclear or conventional. Not that it wants war: 17 years later, we come to what George Kennan warned us about: "The Russians will gradually react quite adversely... I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else". We've made them our enemy and a far more capable one than was assumed when NATO was so casually expanded.

MUST READ. Results of many meetings and discussions with Russians. Long but informative on many levels. Unfortunately consumers of the WMSM's trash will never hear of it.

THE "CASPIAN SEA MONSTER". One of my favourite Soviet technologies is being revived: RT documentary. Google maps shows one still exists.

HAVE A LAUGH. RT amuses itself with a witty video exposing how it really works (if you believe Western officials, that is). Also laughs at the latest manifestation of Putin Derangement Syndrome.

ASSAD. Kerry has just said that Washington doesn't seek regime change; so is that the end of "Assad must go" and victory for Moscow? Or will it dissolve away in the ungoverned confusion of Washington?

UNGOVERNED CONFUSION? Consider what US officials say about oil smuggling. Some smuggling, but government not involved, "can't speak to credibility of Russian satellite images". Yes into Turkey, but not much. Well maybe the Russian photos are accurate, but haven't seen the Russian videos of trucks actually crossing the border. Assad buys the oil. Are they just making it up as they go?

"FREE SYRIAN ARMY". Is collapsing, reports the US Army paper. Read the comments: not many of them, but all see the FSA for the fake it was. The official story, endless blatted forth is not believed any more.

ATTACK ON SYRIAN BASE. Damascus says 4 aircraft from the US coalition attacked an army base in Deir ez-Zor province. The US spokesman denies. Russia did it says Mr Unnamed Official. Russians and Syrians stick to the assertion. Not necessarily US aircraft – see this from a rather excitable source. Anyone who believes US statements these days, hasn't been paying attention: vide the ever-changing accounts of the Kunduz hospital strike. (And changed again since that account). Stay tuned.

MH17. I told you the DSB report was a "limited hangout". As always, the hangout is falling apart. John Helmer reports: "The Australian Federal Police and Dutch police and prosecutors investigating the cause of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 believe the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) has failed to provide 'conclusive evidence' of what type of munition destroyed the aircraft". (Note, by the way, the evidence of tampering shown in the two photos). As always, they try to keep the deception going. Personally, I'm coming around to the idea it was shot down by an air-to-air missile – there simply aren't enough lethal fragments in the wreckage or bodies to be from any type of Buk warhead; they all have about 6000.

LIFE IN UKRAINE. The latest fights. (Saakashvili, by the way, has had his Georgian citizenship taken away from him). An account of the quotidian weirdness of Lviv. Stolen artwork for sale.

SOMEONE THE WMSM DOESN'T MENTION MUCH. General Michael Flynn, former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Interview here. More here: he leads a revolt in the US intelligence structure.

TURKEY. Early this month a Turkish battle group moved into Iraq. Baghdad protested; Erdoğan pretended it had been invited; Ayatollah Sistani instructed Baghdad to get them out; Baghdad went to the UNSC; UNSC (USA is the current president) in no hurry. But, it is reported that some or all have left. Meanwhile, the US F-15s are leaving. A Turkish MP says ISIS received Sarin (GB) from Turkey (remember Ghouta? Almost went to war on that one.)

QUESTION. The Varshavyanka class submarine, Rostov-on-Don, fired cruise missiles from the Med. It is now (back?) in the Black Sea. Do the Turks know it (twice?) passed through? As far as I can discover, it could get through the shallowest part of the Straits and the sub is famously silent. One may be certain that Russia has the subsurface route thoroughly mapped and rehearsed.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada Websites: ROPV, US-Russia, Russia Insider

Tennison & CCI on OpEdNews.com

Friends,  please put the URL below in your browser and read the latest blog article "High-Level French Delegation to Crimea Signals "The Power of Impossible Ideas"."

International journalist, Deena Stryker, interviewed me and attached her impressions to my 15 Perspectives on Russia written in June 2015. Blogs are the only way that other points of view on Russia can get out to mainstream Americans today.  Fortunately a stellar group of world recognized academics, ambassadors, top US businessmen and former Congress members are also depending on Internet and blogs to get similar messages regarding the US-Russia relationship out to the public. I am the least of these -- but nonetheless grateful to get our three decades of direct grassroots experience across Russia known to the American public.

If you or your friends are interested in traveling on a citizen diplomacy trip to Russia, please get in touch at [email protected].  Or if you or your friends would like to be on my email list, use the same e-address.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/High-Level-French-Delegati-by-Deena-Stryker-Allies_Breakdown_Corruption_Diplomacy-150725-872.html?a=193294&submit=Back

Sharon Tennison

View this photo

Russia, the Greatest Strategic Threat to America!

Friends, I assume you have registered the stampede to see which of Washington's top brass (NATO Chief Breedlove, Defense Secy.Ashton Carter, Commander of European Forces General Hodges, and of course Victoria Nuland piping up again along with McCain and others) can out-do each other's declaration "Russia being the greatest strategic threat to America!" 

Amazing, it sounds like the order from someone has gone out: "It's time to all repeat this slogan again and again until all of America gets it!"   Even Kerry seems disinterested.

Sharon

~~~~~~~~~~

The Nation

July 14, 2015

Is Russia Really 'the Greatest Threat' to US National Security?

Ashton Carter, Victoria Nuland, and Gen. Joseph Dunford want us to think so.

By James Carden 

James W. Carden is a contributing writer at The Nation and the executive editor for the American Committee for East-West Accord's EastWestAccord.com. 

The war party is growing restive.

Reports of a deadly shootout between neofascist Right Sector volunteers and Ukrainian police in government-controlled western Ukraine was quickly followed by news that the international community reached a historic deal with Iran over its nuclear program.

As news of these developments began to ricochet through the corridors of Capitol Hill, the frustration and alarm of some of the leading members of Washington's war party increased markedly.

With legions of allies in the Congress, in the administration, and in the military, the faction led by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove has, to date, successfully pushed the president towards taking a more hawkish line towards Russia, with NATO stationing, for the first time, tanks, troops and ordnance on Russia's western frontier. In addition, on Monday, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army forces in Europe, told reporters at the Pentagon that he is planning to train Ukrainian army troops beginning in November. This would come on the heels of the US Army's current program of training Ukrainian Interior Ministry forces.

The hysteria over Russia's alleged provocations in Ukraine has reached such a point that at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, President Obama's nominee to succeed Gen. Martin Dempsey as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, testified that he believed Russia posed "the greatest threat" to US national security. The hearing, chaired by none other than Senator John McCain, was less a confirmation hearing than a forum for the War Party to vent its copious frustrations with what it sees as President Obama's dangerously naive foreign policy.

NEOCONS setting policy for Obama

Friends, investigative journalist, Robert Parry,  who brought the Iran-Contra Scandal to light, is the chief U.S. journalist forcing truth in the public forum re the Washington/Ukraine/Crimea/Russia domain.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/10/obamas-deadly-cold-war-legacy/ 

Exclusive: President Obama is endangering his legacy by letting neoconservatives still set his foreign policy, including the creation of a new and costly Cold War with Russia that could have been easily avoided and that now risks spinning off into a nuclear showdown, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Whatever positive legacy that President Barack Obama might point to – the first African-American president, the Affordable Care Act, the changed social attitudes on gay rights, etc. – his ultimate legacy may be defined more by his reckless stewardship guiding the United States into a wholly unnecessary new Cold War.

The costs of this Cold War II will be vast, emptying out what’s left of the U.S. Treasury in a new arms race against Russia, assuming that the new East-West showdown doesn’t precipitate a nuclear war that could end all life on the planet. Already, the United States military has altered its national security policies to treat Russia as the principal foreign threat. 

President Barack Obama and President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine talk after statements to the press following their bilateral meeting at the Warsaw Marriott Hotel in Warsaw, Poland, June 4, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

“If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia,” said General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., at Senate hearings on his nomination to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “And if you look at their [the Russians’] behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”

The Dangers of a Declining Global Power

Friends, at last credible voices are speaking out about the primary cause behind Washington's incessant drive to take Russia down––or out.

Sadly,  our great America is in decline -- slowly but surely.  Russia (and China) definitely are on the incline.  Just having come from four different regions in Russia, it is clear that the latter  is a country whose momentum is upward and they are moving at a fast clip.  China, is even more so, I'm told.  So why is it that Russia is Washington's  #1 target? 

Perhaps it is that for some 130 years American administrations have been trying to out-compete Russia, including the 50 years of US-USSR confrontation during which we were in a duel to death with 50,000 nuclear missiles (on launch pads and ready to fire) between us.  We didn't have that personal history with China.  But with Russia and her ill-gotten Republics, it was a very personal vendetta.  And now in the 2000s to see Russia coming up in the world and ourselves in decline –– this must be a deafening blow to those elder white males whose power still runs America today. It becomes clear why the demonization of Russia and Putin have been so intense, so intractable––perhaps thinking that taking them out or down would solve our decline problems?

Russian citizens finally going sour on America?

Dear Friends, 

The following is probably a pretty accurate description of what has begun to happen all across Russia. But after all, how would we feel if Russia had sanctioned our country, forbade others to trade with us and reduced our dollar to half its value by depriving normal trade with other countries––and fomented a war in Mexico or Canada on our borders?

Our delegation of American citizens may be going into the country next week that is having second thoughts about their original glorification of all things American.   

The email below arrived today.  First we hear from a young Simon in Russia who comments very sensitively and intelligently on the article. Next comes the article published by RUSSIA INSIDER, the brainchild of Charles Bausman.  Charles' father was the UP Bureau Chief in the USSR when he was a child. He grew up in Moscow and developed a bi-cultural mindset while there. When American PR got so twisted regarding Russia a year ago, he determined to start a private news service. RUSSIA INSIDER is the result.  In the past six months Charles has launched and has breathed life and fire into getting out what he sees to be the real information about Russia.  

 Sharon

Comment from Simon in Russia: 

I second quite a lot of this article below. Being a 20-year expat in Russia myself I have never seen such a surge in patriotism (in Russia). Many of my Russian friends are what one would consider, young, savvy, educated. And in the past most, but not all, tended to be very down on their country, and Putin too, they would often talk about wanting a new life abroad in the West. I found it embarrassing, I was always far more positive about the opportunities in Russia and the greatness of this country than they were.

But this last year and a half - what a turn around. Quite simply the majority of the Russians I know are DISGUSTED with the West. And they are rejecting it on so many levels. Not just its miltarism but Its products, its brands, as a holiday destination, its liberal values, its version of democracy. They have rediscovered that for all these things there is and was 'Nasha' version - something that is ours (Russian, or even Soviet) and belongs here, but which was previously denounced as sub-standard.

AMERICA'S CITIZEN DIPLOMATS TO RUSSIA

Due to disintegrating  relations between Washington and Russia, the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) has restarted its "citizen diplomacy" work again. CCI began, as a near-hopeless cause, in 1983 during the peak of the nuclear arms race. We are a non-profit, non-governmental organization with no funding or ties to governments.

CCI's founder and President for 32 years,  Sharon Tennison, will bring a group of 22 Americans from 15 American states to Moscow, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg and StPetersburg May 31 to June 15.  The group is searching for ways to create relevant activities in 2015/16.  

Tennison says," It's critical for citizens of our two nations to work together again to offset ill stereotypes, to better understand the political realities of today, and to rebuild the goodwill bridges that existed from 1985 through most of the 2000s. 

"During those years over 6,000 young Russians from 71 Russian regions studied business development in American companies under CCI's programs.  Numerous other projects and  programs were carried out both in America and in Russia––each creating goodwill and understanding between the two countries.

"American host families and business owners still have great fondness for the Russians who came to them during those earlier decades. They respect Russians'  level of education and culture.  On the Russian side, a swath of warm relations toward Americans goes across Russia's 11 time zones.  Their gratitude to their American trainers and "Moms and Pops," (their home hosts), is unending.  Our 2016 programs will be different since conditions have changed, but there are many ways for citizens to open doors and reduce tensions, even today!" 

If the above is used in media, or passed on to other E lists, great -- interviews are possible if notified in advance.

Sharon Tennison

President and Founder

Center for Citizen Initiatives

 

Author:  The Power of Impossible Ideas

Site: www.ccisf.org (under revision)

Rotary Club of Palo Alto, CA.

Sharon Tennison Youtube Videos

Dear Friends,

Recently I was presented with the possibility to do two Youtubes by Mel Van Dusen, a videographer in Silicon Valley.  Mel was becoming  interested in the US-Russia relationship this year, particularly since both countries are involved in Ukraine, a war that could become ominous in the near future.

It was understood that we would just let the camera run, have spontaneous questions and answers, without rehearsing or edits.  We taped these two topics,  Citizen Diplomacy and Crisis in Ukraine, in mid-March.  Mel converted them to Youtubes.  

I was not at all pleased with my performance, realizing that I'm not as facile with words and recall as I once was.  So I've hesitated to let people know that these Youtubes exist.  Today I relooked at both of them, cringed in a few places, and finally decided that I'd send them to you in case you are interested.  They are truthful, they present an accurate mini-picture of my sense of Russia, Ukraine and the ethnic Russian people after three decades of work there.   

So I send them to you with the hope that you may find something of interest in them,

Sincerely,   Sharon

Present! - Sharon Tennison: Citizen Diplomacy ... - YouTube

▶ 30:21

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF-u_J9CDB0 

Present! - Sharon Tennison: Crisis in Ukraine - YouTube

▶ 27:21

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw3mD4VJvJM

Western Ukraine Fascist Groups Eligible for Official Commemoration

Friends, as more information seeps out regarding the ultra-nationalist groups who are ensconced in the Kiev's ruling party and their military, those who are deeply concerned are speaking out.  It's about time. And it's time for Washington to acknowledge what type of government and military they are supporting with our tax dollars.

Sharon

Ukrainian parliament recognizes militia that collaborated with Nazis

April 14, 2015

By Sam Sokol, The Jerusalem Post, April 13, 2015

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has condemned Ukraine’s recognition of the group as well as a second bill that equated communist and Nazi crimes. Seventy years after the end of the Holocaust, Ukraine’s parliament has extended official recognition to a nationalist militia that collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War.

According to a bill passed on Thursday [April 9], the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, an ultra-nationalist faction that sought to establish an independent Ukrainian state, would be eligible for official government commemoration, according to the Kiev Post.

While the group, an offshoot of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, engaged in warfare against both the Soviet Union and the Nazis, it also collaborated with Germany and took part in actions against local Jews.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned Ukraine’s recognition of the group as well as a second bill that equated Communist and Nazi crimes.

New US-Russia Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C.

Friends, this is truly heartening.  In the middle of Washington a stellar group of respected Americans with long histories in Russia, including Susan Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower's granddaughter,  former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, and others have created the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History at American University in Washington. D.C.  This new institution has been endowed by Susan Carmel Lehrman in order to "create robust programming in cultural diplomacy."  Dwight D. Eisenhower said at the Geneva Summit in 1955: 

            “War has failed. The only way to save the world now is through diplomacy.” 

New US-Russia Cultural Institute Aims for Better Understanding of WWII

This article originally appeared at Russia Beyond the Headlines 

The American University in Washington, D.C. recently hosted its 4th annual symposium, in collaboration with the newly-established Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History. Titled “The Strength of Cooperation: Lessons from the Grand Alliance, 1941-1945,” the April 11 event turned out to be something more than just an ordinary historical meeting.

The first large-scale event organized by the Carmel Institute, the symposium reminded its guests about the profound cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during WWII and stressed the importance of the role such unity could play in the future, as well as how this might be achieved given the current political situation.

Instead of stating formalities about the countries’ significant shared history and the need for future cooperation, symposium participants focused on intimate family stories that appeared to provide much stronger proof of the cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II.

Susan Eisenhower, for instance, told the audience about the personal, almost friendly relationship between her grandfather, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov. According to family history, once Zhukov even complained to Eisenhower about some American journalist who had written that Zhukov was shorter than his wife. The Red Army general was deeply offended by this article and asked Eisenhower to punish the reporter.

Looking to the past for inspiration 

John Beyrle, former American ambassador to Russia, told an incredible story about his father Joseph Beyrle, who is thought to be the only American soldier to have served with both the United States Army and the Red Army in World War II.

Beyrle senior entered the war as a paratrooper in the U.S. army, was captured by German soldiers, then spent seven months in seven different prisons. After two escapes ended in recapture and subsequent torture and beating, Beyrle  eventually succeeded in his third escape attempt, before coming into contact with the Soviet army.

The story goes that