By Ted Belman
When I told a leftist friend of mine that I supported Putin, she was shocked that I was defending a man who was ruthlessly bombing Syria without regard for innocent civilians. I send her a letter in reply.
The US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been waging war to defeat Assad for 4 years. The latest death toll is 450,000 and double the number in injured and 20 times the number in refugees.
Had Obama been as ruthless as Putin, Assad would have been defeated quickly and those grisly numbers would have been greatly reduced perhaps by 80%.
The narrative peddled by the US and its allies is that that there was a rebellion by some of the people and a ruthless suppression of that rebellion by Assad. True enough.
Had the US and its allies not supported the rebellion then the rebels would have been defeated quickly and perhaps 20,000 people would have been killed by Assad just as this number was killed by his father in Hama.
But Obama preferred to overthrow Assad with half measures. The result was a prolonged war with numerous casualties and injured as above set out.
In the last few months Putin decided to enter the fray with his air force and S-400 radar. The result is the making of a ceasefire and resolution in which Assad gets to keep part of Syria.
Obama is the aggressor just as he was in Libya. Assad was just defending himself and his regime and his loyalists. Obama was out to destroy him.
Russia is not the aggressor, the West is. After the fall of the USSR, the US/NATO bombed Serbia, Russia’s ally and divided the country. The US extended NATO to the Baltics and made other moves to force Russia to retreat. Why? Why could they not simply allow Russia to have its sphere of influence in its neighbourhood. A strong majority of people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine are Russian and want to be part of Russia. So why shouldn’t they? What business is it of the US.
Obama overthrew Gadaffi when there was no need to and kicked Russia out. Why? Thus Russia lost their port in Libya. That made keeping their port in Syria all the more important.
If Obama can pave the way for Iran to get the bomb and to back more terrorism, why can’t Putin ally with Iran in defense of Assad.
Of course, wars need to be avoided if they can be. But Obama wanted victory in Syria. Putin the “aggressor” will settle for a small part of it.
Yes, Turkey is worse with its islamo nazi dictator and latent islamo nazi populace.
Yes, I am worried about what it all means to Israel and the weapons supply to Iran is scary.
But what do you think of Turkey’s role in all this. Between Russia and Turkey, I think Russia is the better actor. But I should also say that I am anti-NATO and I think the US should get out of NATO.
And there’s this:
http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/s-300-missiles-will-be-in-iran-already-tomorrow-19241
But keep defending Russia.
Laura Said:
Nobody here, me included, have expressed any admiration for Putin. But, suddenly, it doesn’t matter to you whether Putin is a communist or not. He’s just an enemy of America. But in Syria, he’s doing what we should have been doing there. And the Russian Federation has an old interest in Syria.
Like Crimea, Russia has history in the region that predates the Soviet Union. If we are to respect Russian desire to shed itself of communism, we need to respect its desire to pursue its historical and geographic insterests.
The RF is not the only country making material contributions to Iran’s nuclear industry. And remember that Iran’s real threat now is its export of terrorism. The US has done more to enable that than any country in the world, the RF included.
@ ppksky:
I’m certainly not defending communist China. They are our enemy too.
Putin may or may not be a communist, but it doesn’t matter, he is a thug and enemy of America.
Russia is directly aiding iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons through providing actual materials and technology, so I don’t understand the admiration of Putin by supporters of Israel.
Laura Said:
Is Putin a communist? There are still communists in the RF. It still exists as a political party. Is he a member? I am skeptical of Putin and the power he holds there, but he is no communist. Communism is dead in the Russian Federation.
In China, the Communist Party still runs things. Nobody cares. But let the Russians stand up and the next thing you know everyone is running around screaming “Commies! Commies!”
Russia is no more to blame for Iran’s nuclear weapons program than anyone in the EU, or the US, for that matter. Russia may make nice with the Iranians, but Russia doesn’t have any more in common with Iran than we do.
I am greatly relieved to see Russia in Syria bombing the crap out of anyone picking up arms trying to seize power there. After what happened from the departure of Mubarak, Khadaffy and Saddam Hussein, it is easy to see that getting rid of Assad in Syria is no solution. The “rebels” there are the same mujaheddin that gave us Benghazi in Lybia.
Laura Said:
Syria invited him in.
And what business does Russia have in Syria, oldjerry? How many Cambodians were slaughtered in the killing fields by Pol Pot after America left? How many Iraqis killed by Saddam and now isis? You sound just like the left.
Putin is a commie thug who has been aiding Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. I’m disturbed by the support Putin has on this site, along with the anti-Americanism by commenters.
This country has never hesitate in killing civilians when it suited our purpose. We killed thousands of innocent Canbodians during the Vet Nam war, thousands of Serbs during the Kosova war,thousands in Iraq. All in hostilities that we had no business being in.
The price of having leftist friends is having to endure tidal waves of irrationality. That is why I consort exclusively with right wing nuts. It is less aggravating.
I agree, except I question the legitimacy of the “rebels”. The rebel Sunnis in Syria are deliberately engineered demographic construction fabricated and funded by the Saudis and their allies. By a pathological reproductive rate, the Sunnis were supposed to command enough of the population to justify “better representation” in the Assad/Alawite government.
The economic collapse of these regions is what precipitated the war there and the “migrants” from the heavily populated Sunni regions are the fallout of this degenerate social engineering.
We witnessed a similar device that enabled the Shi’i to take over Iraq from the south.
True enough.
US foreign policy has always been idiotic, and US has always lost wars and allies. Americans just never listen, and never learn.