Why Russia is standing by Syria's Assad

BBC News ^ | 15 June 2012

[MinorityRepublican]

As the United Nations warns that Syria has descended into civil war, Russia continues to back President Bashar al-Assad in the face of growing international condemnation.

Konstantin von Eggert, political commentator for Kommersant FM radio in Moscow, looks at why the Kremlin is steadfastly supporting the beleaguered Syrian government.

Foreign policy analysts usually tend to explain Moscow's inflexible stance on Syria by evoking arms sales to Damascus (Bashar al-Assad's regime is said to have placed orders for Russian hardware to the tune of $3.5bn) and the Russian naval station in the Syrian port of Tartous.

But this alone does not account for Russia's seeming indifference to the adverse effect that its international advocacy of the Assad government has on its relations with the United States, the European Union and the majority of the Arab states.

The explanation has a lot to do with Russia's domestic policies and the obsessions of the Russian political class.

By standing up for Damascus, the Kremlin is telling the world that neither the UN, nor any other body or group of countries has the right to decide who should or should not govern a sovereign state.

If one looks at the Syrian crisis from this angle, many of Moscow's previously inexplicable actions take on a new, clearer meaning.

[ETL]

Obama To Betray Missile Defense Secrets To Moscow
Investor's Business Daily ^ | January 9, 2012 | IBD staff

Appeasement: From ObamaCare to recess appointments, honoring the Constitution has not been an administration hallmark. But when it comes to betraying secrets to mollify the Russians, it becomes a document the president hides behind.

It was bad enough that the 2012 defense authorization bill signed by President Obama set America on a downward spiral of military mediocrity.

He also issued a signing statement, something he once opposed, saying that language in the bill aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on the U.S. Standard Missile-3 — linchpin of our missile defense — might impinge on his constitutional foreign-policy authority.

Section 1227 of the defense law prohibits spending any funds that would be used to give Russian officials access to sensitive missile-defense technology as part of a cooperation agreement without first sending Congress a report identifying the specific secrets, how they'd be used and steps to protect the data from compromise.

The president is required to certify that any technology shared will not be passed on to third parties such as China, North Korea or Iran, that the Russians will not use transferred secrets to develop countermeasures and that the Russians are reciprocating in sharing missile-defense technology.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...

[ETL]

Putin praises Cold War moles for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets
Reuters ^ | Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:04pm EST | Steve Gutterman

Vladimir Putin praised Cold War-era scientists on Thursday for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that United States would not be the world's sole atomic power, in comments reflecting his vision of Russia as a counterweight to U.S. power.

Spies with suitcases full of data helped the Soviet Union build its atomic bomb, he told military commanders.

"You know, when the States already had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels," Putin said, according to state-run Itar-Tass.

"The were carrying the information away not on microfilm but literally in suitcases. Suitcases!"

Putin's remarks referred to the dawn of the Cold War more than half a century ago, but they echoed a message he has made loud and clear more recently: that the United States needs to be restrained, and Russia is the country to do it. …

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...

[Cronos]

I agree — Assad isn’t a saint, but he’s the lesser of two evils...

[Cronos]

you said it...

[SunkenCiv]

Assad is our enemy, Russia is our enemy, Iran (which also has thousands of boots on the ground in Syria, and thousands of proxies in Lebanon) is our enemy. This little beat-down they have planned will go a lot like Afghanistan, perhaps right down to the eventual US occupation — though that would take years.

[PapaBear3625]

Maybe because Putin remembers an adage from the cold war. I do not remember the author but it went something like; “He may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.” This is something the United States has forgotten.

Russian military hardware is crappy. Their economy sucks. What have they got left to have the world take them seriously?

Resolve. Reliability. That's all they have left. Their allies being able to have confidence that the Russians will not abandon them when some news article comes out condemning them. If the Russians lose that, then they are done on the world stage, and they know it.

[FreedomPoster]

You seem to be missing the point that the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood are also our enemies.

We want all the involved parties to “win”.

[Tupelo]

Thanks. I was thinking it came later.

[ETL]

Assad is our enemy, Russia is our enemy, Iran (which also has thousands of boots on the ground in Syria, and thousands of proxies in Lebanon) is our enemy.

Incredibly, there are Putin supporters here at FR. I can't understand how they are allowed to stay. Russia has undermined the US in every military encounter the US has ever had. They're building up their military forces while Obama is crippling ours. They're been staging joint war games with the ChiComs in preparation for war against us.

[ETL]

the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood are also our enemies. We want all the involved parties to "win".

Now that at least makes some sense. But that isn't the view of some others here who actually like and trust Putin.

[null and void]

I’m not exactly what anyone would call a Putin supporter, but I’d trade Obama for him in a heartbeat.

[ETL]

I’d trade Obama for him in a heartbeat.

Both are dangerous, lying, phony, anti-US, totalitarian scumbags. Both have consistently sided with our enemies. Both crave a "new world order" with a substantially weaker US. Putin has reportedly ordered the murder of more than a few of his political opponents. He is alleged to be behind the poisoning deaths of several journalists, and the attempted assassination/disfigurement of a former president of the Ukraine. He well may have been behind the downed Polish airliner in which nearly the entire Polish government were wiped out. It occurred on an important historical anniversary. I can't recall at the moment which.

[ETL]

From Heritage.org, November 27, 2006:

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
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"Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he [Alexander Litvinenko] has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6163502.stm

[ETL]

Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006

The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia’s retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is heading.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=BDBFAEF5-5295-400F-807B-83D20FFA285C
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'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.annapolitkovskaya.com/

[ETL]

List of journalists killed in Russia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

[null and void]

Putin has reportedly ordered the murder of more than a few of his political opponents.

Well, that's a huge contrast to Obama, isn't it?

I'm not saying anyone we know would murder their own grandmother for sympathy votes, but...

Besides, Putin, for all his innumerable flaws, loves his country. If he were suddenly thrust into America, perhaps he could learn to love it.

Obama certainly didn't.

[ETL]

I’d trade Obama for him in a heartbeat.

Putin, being far more intelligent, 'experienced' and bold than Obama would be even more dangerous as our president. Obama, fortunately, is largely an empty suit novice and a boob. He gets his orders from elsewhere. While the boob is on the golf course, his strategists are scheming new ways to destroy us from within.

[null and void]

Putin we’d watch. Obama? Not so much.

[ETL]

Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia
September 29, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429441,00.html
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Venezuela's Chavez welcomes Russian warships
Nov 25, 2008
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships arrived off Venezuela's coast Tuesday in a show of strength aimed at the United States as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America. The deployment is the first of its kind in the Caribbean since the Cold War and was timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Venezuela%27s+Chavez+welcomes+Russian+warships%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2

More Yahoo search results for Russia and Venezuela connections:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu_X30pZJCJEAfCtXNyoA?p=Russia+Venezuela+bombers+tanks+arms&y=Search&fr=404_news
_____________________________________________________

From National Public Radio (NPR):
August 29, 2006
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764

[ETL]

Russian nuclear bombers in Cuba?
July 23, 2008

The media has been abuzz today at the prospect of Russian nuclear bombers being stationed in Cuba if the US goes ahead with plans for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.

The story has riled the US enough that a US general has been wheeled out to tell the world’s press that any Russian attempt to build another nuclear base in Cuba would cross US “red line”.

The story broke earlier this week, when Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted an un-named source from within the Russian military. He told the Russian daily:

“While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba.”

The quote hasn’t been independently confirmed, but the Russian Defense Ministry added fuel to the fire when they refused to comment on the story.

The prospect of Russian nuclear forces being stationed in Cuba - which is, after all, only 90 miles from the US coast - would bring back some rather unpleasant memories for the US of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev launched an audacious and foolhardy bid to station nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island.

http://www.siberianlight.net/2008/07/23/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
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Russia to help Cuba modernize weaponry, train military

September 18, 2009

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday. Gen. Nikolai Makarov arrived on a working visit to Cuba on Monday, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the country's military leadership, and visited a number of military installations.

"During the Soviet era we delivered a large number of military equipment to Cuba, and after all these years most of this weaponry has become obsolete and needs repairs," Makarov said.

"We inspected the condition of this equipment, and outlined the measures to be taken to maintain the defense capability of this country...I think a lot of work needs to be done in this respect, and I hope we will be able to accomplish this task," the general said.

Makarov said the Cuban request for assistance with training of military personnel will also be fully satisfied.

Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of resuming military cooperation with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving following the visit of Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to Cuba in July last year.

A group of Russian warships, led by the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer visited Cuba in December last year during a Caribbean tour.

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20090918/156170428.html