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Obama’s Russia Policies Are Based On Ignorance, Illusions
Obama's Russia policies are based on ignorance and driven by illusions:
President Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a nation that "doesn't make anything" and said in an interview with the Economist magazine that the West needs to be "pretty firm" with China as Beijing pushes to expand its role in the world economy.
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"Immigrants aren't rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking," he said.
Fact: Russia is making and exporting not only raw materials but also lots of industrial goods, machinery (65% increase over 5 years) and weapons:
Russia has cemented its place as the world's second largest suppliers of arms. In 2012, the country shipped $15.13 billion worth of weapons, up $2 billion from the year before.
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Although Russian arms manufacturers still sell only a third of what their American counterparts achieve, the yearly rate of growth in exports and the over-fulfillment of annual plans cannot fail to please the authorities and defense industry chiefs.
Fact: Russia has strong, net positive migration:
Russia experiences a constant flow of immigration. On average, close to 300,000 legal immigrants enter the country every year; about half are ethnic Russians from the other republics of the former Soviet Union. There is a significant inflow of ethnic Armenians, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Tajiks into big Russian cities, something that is viewed unfavorably by some citizens. In addition, there are an estimated 4 million illegal immigrants from the ex-Soviet states in Russia.
Fact: Over the last decade life expectancy in Russia has significantly increased:
Russia – Life expectancy at birth
| Date |
Life expectancy |
Life expectancy – Men |
Life expectancy – Women |
| 2012 |
70.46 |
64.90 |
76.30 |
| 2011 |
69.66 |
64.00 |
75.60 |
| 2010 |
68.86 |
63.10 |
74.90 |
| 2009 |
68.70 |
62.80 |
74.70 |
| 2008 |
67.90 |
61.80 |
74.20 |
| 2007 |
67.50 |
61.40 |
73.90 |
| 2006 |
66.60 |
60.40 |
73.20 |
| 2005 |
65.47 |
58.87 |
72.40 |
| 2004 |
65.42 |
58.87 |
72.30 |
| 2003 |
65.01 |
58.51 |
71.83 |
| 2002 |
65.09 |
58.50 |
72.00 |
| 2001 |
65.49 |
59.00 |
72.30 |
| 2000 |
65.34 |
59.00 |
72.00 |
Fact: Russia has genuine population growth:
[L]last year [..] Russia recorded its first year of natural population growth since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, with the number of births exceeding the number of deaths by 24,013. The trend continued through the beginning of this year, according to data released by the State Statistics Service at the end of May.
All four claims Obama made in the Economist interview quoted above are demonstrably false. They are mere illusions. How qualified then is he to decide on policy issues with regard to Russia?
I have finally found an article in the Western press (CSMonitor) that doesn’t turn truth entirely on its head (perhaps just on its ear…).
There are many problems with it: it remains full of some of the worst anti-Russian tropes and relies on some pro-Ukrainian “experts” who have the gall to repeat the “Putin is irrational” trope. Moreover, it tries to spin the political collapse of the bankrupt, CIA-sponsored junta war as “weariness” amongst a “pro-war” population. Utter garbage, unless the author is referring to the handful of Nazis encamped in Kiev, and some of the more eager (and ignorant) ultra-nationalists in the West who will soon be left in economic no-mans land: under the IMF, but outside of the EU.
But plenty of irrefutable truth shines through and makes it clear that the rebels are winning and will continue to win – at least to the degree that they can hold their own, and maintain their position against an extremely shaky Ukrainian government that has neither legitimacy nor support among the people it claims to represent.
Some of the more honest sections:
…nerves may indeed be fraying in Ukraine, which has seen increasing signs of war-weariness – including a reported defection of 400 Ukrainian troops over the weekend…the flight of more than 400 Ukrainian troops and border guards to Russia Sunday night, after running out of food and ammunition, to suggest that morale is crumbling among ill-trained and poorly supplied Ukrainian forces…
The increasingly desperate situation of the 79th brigade led some of the soldiers’ wives and mothers in the unit’s home town of Mykolaiv to protest against Kiev’s failure…
…growing antiwar and anti-conscription sentiment around Ukraine. They have also claimed that some Ukrainian military units, which have not been paid for weeks, have refused to fight.
…a certain battle fatigue is becoming evident in Ukrainian society…”The first wave of military euphoria is dying down. The military solution doesn’t seem to be appearing,” he says. “We do not have a strong leadership that can guarantee extended mobilization… The economy is not geared for war, the state is near bankruptcy, and people are confused about how it’s all going to end.”
…the optimism expressed in Kiev that the war will end soon with the liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk is probably unfounded…
“The Ukrainian operation is rapidly starting to look like a classic counterinsurgency war, where the rebels can blend in with the civilian population and strike from behind,” he says. “Such wars usually turn out to be unwinnable, and the rebels prevail just by continuing to exist. Think of Vietnam, our Afghanistan, your Afghanistan, or Iraq. Even the most modern, well-prepared armies find it difficult to sustain operations all the way to victory. And Ukraine’s Army is far from the most capable one to try it.”
It appears that the Ukrainian state is quickly collapsing. Upcoming “elections” – under much duress, no doubt, and with the East excluded – are set to still leave the country politically fractured, disunited, and unable to make any moves in any direction. The Maidan is not turning out to be – obviously – the
“rebirth” of the so-called Ukrainian nation, nor can it even be called a turning point (either positive or negative) in any sense. It seems instead to have been just another giant tumble down the cliff of the crippled nation, a fall triggered by the invasion of Western political and economic carpet-baggers post-1991. At this point, the Ukraine is now the only post-Soviet Republic unable to free itself from the social and political decay brought on in the 1990s. And it shows no sign of doing so. As it is, Maidan has exacebated all of the country’s problems: it has traded CIA-front groups for the CIA itself. It has turned its oligarchs from the tyrants of industry to the tyrants of everything. The East/West split has developed into full-fledged civil war. Its criminals and fascists are no longer sidelined, but have taken to center field. Its parliament is as split as ever, and its economic prospects have gone from extremely poor to non-existent. This is the “freedom” the Maidan, courtesy of the CIA and Western oligarchs like Omidyar, has brought.
But then, this is plan B (or is it plan A?) of the post-Cold War plans for the region. Turing the two most populous Soviet Republics against each other is an enormous geo-political victory for the United States and the UK. If it succeeds, of course. A more likely course is that it will backfire, and backfire big time. For whatever the Atlanticists have succeeded in doing in the Ukraine (which is not much, and quickly becoming less and less) it cannot counter-balance the acceleration of BRICs ties, the Sino-Russian condominium, the Western defeat in Syria and the strengthening of the Resistance Axis (sure to be further strengthened by the idiotic and barbaric Israeli campaign in Gaza).
Meanwhile, the US has nothing more to point to for national success except an imaginary number climbing ever higher…
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In other news – Crust E. WhoreHole shows his perfect hypocrisy… and the sun came up in the morning.
Posted by: guest77 | Aug 4 2014 23:40 utc | 48
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