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Is Obama afraid of Putin?

Is Obama afraid of Putin?


  • Total voters
    30
I haven't seen President Obama supporting what ASSAD has done to his own people.
Mr. Obama has not created a Ukraine or Chechnya of his provinces/states.
Mr. Obama doesn't put the ***** Riot type bands in jail, let alone the Ted Nugents of the world.
Imagine what Putin would do to his "NUGENT" .
 
Ya but you're talking about his record as President, which means when we bring up several good examples of Putin getting his way over Bush that it directly and factually contradicts what you saying. Do you not understand that reality is not just what you choose it to be?

EXCERPT

The Seduction of George W. Bush
How the president of good and evil bromanced Vladimir Putin. And how a warm friendship turned to ice.

>"n the summer of 2006, President George W. Bush was relaxing at Camp David with the visiting prime minister of Denmark when the conversation turned to Vladimir Putin. It had been five years since Bush memorably peered into the Russian leader's soul. But now hope had been replaced by exasperation.

Bush regaled his guest with stories of aggravating private dealings with Putin that underscored their growing rift. Bush was astonished that Putin had tried to influence him by offering to hire a close friend of the president's and he found Putin's understanding of the world disconnected from reality. "He's not well informed," Bush groused. "It's like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong."

Putin was on his mind because Russia was about to host the annual summit of the G-8 powers for the first time and Bush feared that the session would be dominated by questions about why an undemocratic nation was hosting a gathering of democratic nations. Bush had been trying to get Putin to relax his authoritarian rule to no avail. "I think Putin is not a democrat anymore," Bush lamented a few weeks later to another visitor, the prime minister of Slovenia. "He's a tsar. I think we've lost him."

Whether Bush or anyone else ever actually "had" Putin in the first place is debatable at best. But the story of Bush's eight-year pas de deux with the master of the Kremlin, reconstructed through interviews with key players and secret notes and memos, offers lessons for President Obama as he struggles to define his own approach to Putin and shape the future of the two nuclear powers. The last few months have become another dramatic juncture in the volatile Russian-American relationship, with Moscow defying Washington by offering shelter to national security leaker Edward Snowden, Obama becoming the first president to cancel a Russian-American meeting in more than 50 years and then, suddenly, improbably, the Kremlin throwing the American leader a lifeline when his confrontation with Syria took a wrong turn.

Looked at in the context of time, Obama's own dashed aspirations to build a new partnership with Moscow seem to echo his predecessor's experience. Bush thought he could forge more meaningful ties with Russia in his early years, particularly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and for a time seemed to make significant headway with a nuclear arms treaty and cooperation on Afghanistan, only to become frustrated as the two countries diverged, eventually coming into overt diplomatic conflict during the Georgia war of 2008. Obama likewise came into office intent on pushing the "reset" button and similarly saw early progress with a nuclear arms treaty and cooperation on Afghanistan, only to find his efforts increasingly thwarted by the same Putinist revanchism. Whether the recent Russian-American collaboration to disarm Syria's chemical stocks will turn out to be a more enduring foundation for change remains to be seen.

If Obama were to look back at his predecessor's experience, though, he might recognize how easy it is to misjudge Moscow's intentions by superimposing American ideas of what Russian interests should be rather than understanding how Putin and his circle of KGB veterans and zero-sum-gamers actually see those interests. Again and again, Bush and Obama have assessed Russia through an American prism and come away disappointed that the view from the Kremlin looks different than they thought it ought to.

* * *

Bush came to office wary of Putin -- "one cold dude," he called him privately -- but he was interested in forging a working relationship if only because at the time he saw the real threat to the United States elsewhere. When he met with Russia scholars before his first encounter with Putin in 2001, Michael McFaul, then a Stanford University professor and later Obama's ambassador to Moscow, told him that keeping Russia "inside our tent" was the best course.

Bush agreed. "You're absolutely right," he said, "because someday we're all going to be dealing with the Chinese." ..."<

Continue -> The Seduction of George W. Bush
 
Well last August during the Putin-Obama staredown over Syria, Obama blinked.

Putin has little respect for Obama. Obama is a pantywaist when it comes to foreign affairs.

Putin held G.W. Bush in awe. But I'm sure Condoleezza Rice gave Bush some pointers how to deal with KGB thugs.

Rice was nothing but a mouthpiece kept around to tell Bush's lies. She will forever be the "mushroom cloud" girl to me.
 
Good article, Apacherat.

However, Putin wasn't the president of Russia during most of Obama's first term in office, Dmitry Medvedevf was and they were both on very good terms. So Obama never really had to deal with Putin until 2012. Unfortunately, there was an embarrassing incident for Obama involving Mediedvf during the run up to his 2012 campaign that set the tone for Obama-Putin relations when Putin resumed the presidency.

Trivia question: What was the embarrassing incident?
 
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Next to Hillary Kerry is probably one of the worse Sec of State we ever had..........That is the scary part.

I read the Russian newspapers. The Kremlin looks at Kerry as a traitor to his own country. They don't respect him.

Yes, Kerry was on their side, the communist side during the 1970's but they still look at Kerry being no better than Jane (Hanoi) Fonda. How can anyone respect anyone who backstabs their own troops while they are still on the battlefield ?
 
Good article, Apacherat.

However, Putin wasn't the president of Russia during most of Obama's first term in office, Dmitry Medvedevf was and they were both on very good terms. So Obama never really had to deal with Putin until 2012. Unfortunately, there was an embarrassing incident for Obama involving Mediedvf during the run up to his 2012 campaign that set the tone for Obama-Putin relations when Putin resumed the presidency.

Trivia question: What was the embarrassing incident?

Was it when the microphone was still on and Obama told Dmitry Medvedev that once he's reelected he can have more "flexibility" of appeasing Russia ?
 
Rice was nothing but a mouthpiece kept around to tell Bush's lies. She will forever be the "mushroom cloud" girl to me.

If I were a bleeding heart liberal, I would play the race card.

But I personally like Condolizza Rice. Not her politics, she's a neoconservative but she's extremely intelligent and is an expert on Russia.
 
Obama doesn't bomb Syria, then he blinked in the face of Putin
If Obama had bombed Syria, he'd be a warmonger

For the record I think the "red line" comment was stupid, it was a bad move to make what was clearly a threat to use military force at some point in the future when we didn't know what the situation would be like at that point in the future. But credit where credit is due he managed to get something out of it in the end by arranging this deal to dismantle Syria's chemically weapons without the US having to engage in military action, something which is of course far cheaper for us and less dangerous to our military.

And really at the end of the day did we not achieve the best outcome to that crisis? Mistakes were made on the way there for sure but ultimately we got to a point where we arranged a diplomatic deal that allowed us to help oversee the peaceful destruction of a nation's WMD stockpiles. What other outcome would have been better?

I'll agree that the "Red line" comment was stupid ... it creates a false sense of bravado that didn't need to be created.

However, the end result is the best we could have hoped for. Al-Assad is like a worse version of Mubarak, and I think Obama learned his lesson from Egypt. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.
 
More Obama White House revisionism.

You know, you're not allowed to take facts that are inconvenient for you and claim "revisionism" and expect to be taken seriously.
 
Was it when the microphone was still on and Obama told Dmitry Medvedev that once he's reelected he can have more "flexibility" of appeasing Russia ?

Which, of course, isn't what was meant by that comment, but far be it from you to engage in "revisionism." :lamo

You have a Cold War mentality.
 
EXCERPT

The Seduction of George W. Bush
How the president of good and evil bromanced Vladimir Putin. And how a warm friendship turned to ice.

>"n the summer of 2006, President George W. Bush was relaxing at Camp David with the visiting prime minister of Denmark when the conversation turned to Vladimir Putin. It had been five years since Bush memorably peered into the Russian leader's soul. But now hope had been replaced by exasperation.

Bush regaled his guest with stories of aggravating private dealings with Putin that underscored their growing rift. Bush was astonished that Putin had tried to influence him by offering to hire a close friend of the president's and he found Putin's understanding of the world disconnected from reality. "He's not well informed," Bush groused. "It's like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong."

Putin was on his mind because Russia was about to host the annual summit of the G-8 powers for the first time and Bush feared that the session would be dominated by questions about why an undemocratic nation was hosting a gathering of democratic nations. Bush had been trying to get Putin to relax his authoritarian rule to no avail. "I think Putin is not a democrat anymore," Bush lamented a few weeks later to another visitor, the prime minister of Slovenia. "He's a tsar. I think we've lost him."

Whether Bush or anyone else ever actually "had" Putin in the first place is debatable at best. But the story of Bush's eight-year pas de deux with the master of the Kremlin, reconstructed through interviews with key players and secret notes and memos, offers lessons for President Obama as he struggles to define his own approach to Putin and shape the future of the two nuclear powers. The last few months have become another dramatic juncture in the volatile Russian-American relationship, with Moscow defying Washington by offering shelter to national security leaker Edward Snowden, Obama becoming the first president to cancel a Russian-American meeting in more than 50 years and then, suddenly, improbably, the Kremlin throwing the American leader a lifeline when his confrontation with Syria took a wrong turn.

Looked at in the context of time, Obama's own dashed aspirations to build a new partnership with Moscow seem to echo his predecessor's experience. Bush thought he could forge more meaningful ties with Russia in his early years, particularly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and for a time seemed to make significant headway with a nuclear arms treaty and cooperation on Afghanistan, only to become frustrated as the two countries diverged, eventually coming into overt diplomatic conflict during the Georgia war of 2008. Obama likewise came into office intent on pushing the "reset" button and similarly saw early progress with a nuclear arms treaty and cooperation on Afghanistan, only to find his efforts increasingly thwarted by the same Putinist revanchism. Whether the recent Russian-American collaboration to disarm Syria's chemical stocks will turn out to be a more enduring foundation for change remains to be seen.

If Obama were to look back at his predecessor's experience, though, he might recognize how easy it is to misjudge Moscow's intentions by superimposing American ideas of what Russian interests should be rather than understanding how Putin and his circle of KGB veterans and zero-sum-gamers actually see those interests. Again and again, Bush and Obama have assessed Russia through an American prism and come away disappointed that the view from the Kremlin looks different than they thought it ought to.

* * *

Bush came to office wary of Putin -- "one cold dude," he called him privately -- but he was interested in forging a working relationship if only because at the time he saw the real threat to the United States elsewhere. When he met with Russia scholars before his first encounter with Putin in 2001, Michael McFaul, then a Stanford University professor and later Obama's ambassador to Moscow, told him that keeping Russia "inside our tent" was the best course.

Bush agreed. "You're absolutely right," he said, "because someday we're all going to be dealing with the Chinese." ..."<

Continue -> The Seduction of George W. Bush

"The Seduction Of George W. Bush" sounds like a very bad porno movie.
 
I read the Russian newspapers. The Kremlin looks at Kerry as a traitor to his own country. They don't respect him.

Yes, Kerry was on their side, the communist side during the 1970's but they still look at Kerry being no better than Jane (Hanoi) Fonda. How can anyone respect anyone who backstabs their own troops while they are still on the battlefield ?

Apparently all of international diplomacy, to you, comes down to street cred.

Vietnam was a travesty and John Kerry was one of the few people with the balls to say it, and he spilled blood on that battleground. Good for him. He's an American hero.
 
Was it when the microphone was still on and Obama told Dmitry Medvedev that once he's reelected he can have more "flexibility" of appeasing Russia ?

Yes, very good. :clap: It's odd that your article never mentioned Dmitry.

The US appeased Russia by not putting nuclear missle defense systems in their backyard pointing toward Moscow...and...Russia appeased the US by not building more nuclear missles aimed at America.

I think non-proliferation treaties are a good thing.

Obama successfully negotiated and signed the New START treaty in 2011. START 1 had been in effect since 1994 and expired in 2009.
 
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Sadly I believe he is and Putin knows it. I don't believe it would pull this crap if GWB was still president........Say what you want about President Bush. He had the respect of the European nations........Obama does not have that respect and unless things change we could be in another Cod War situation.

LOL....no he didn't. Most of Europe laughed at GW "Bring it on" Bush. Did you travel to Europe much NP? Most people I met in Europe were slapping their foreheads saying "WTF were you American's thinking".

You might LOVE Bush Navy....but to say that he had the respect of Europe is downright laughable.
 
Obama got Syria to dismantle its chemical weapons without firing a shot. Your little narrative simply doesn't square up with reality.

That's not what I heard. I heard they still have chem weapons. Where's the proof they dismantled everything. It can't be proved, not even by the UN.
 
Everyone should be afraid of Putin....or at the least what he is capable of.
 
And your boy Johnson had 58,000 in Nam.......Your point is???:confused:
One only has to look at a current map to know that N Vietnam was a threat.

Saddam in 2002? Not so much. We already had him pinned.
 
Sadly I believe he is and Putin knows it. I don't believe it would pull this crap if GWB was still president........Say what you want about President Bush. He had the respect of the European nations........Obama does not have that respect and unless things change we could be in another Cod War situation.

It does appear that -O-is not aware of his lack of esteem in the eyes of the rest of the world. He should be concerned over Putin and any other world leader. The U.S foreign policy has become a national embarrassment; much akin to a small girl shaking her "no-no" finger at an adult.

"There will be consequences". ( obama )

"heh, heh, heh, Oh yeah? What would those be, sonny ?" (world )

So it went.

Thom Paine
 
Putin has been humiliated in Ukraine. I'd be more afraid of how he reacts to that humiliation, probably the biggest fail he's ever experienced.
 
Sadly I believe he is and Putin knows it. I don't believe it would pull this crap if GWB was still president........Say what you want about President Bush. He had the respect of the European nations........Obama does not have that respect and unless things change we could be in another Cod War situation.

I don't think GW Bush (the first torturer) had any respect at all. They knew he was such a rockhead that he might do anything and treated him like any other inmate from an asylum and that seemed to include Putin/Medvedev as well.
 
Which, of course, isn't what was meant by that comment, but far be it from you to engage in "revisionism." :lamo

You have a Cold War mentality.

The Cold War, those were the days. A vibrant middle class, a common enemy, always a new invention coming out. The store shelves were full of high quality merchandise made in the USA and we had a lot of personal freedoms that no longer exist today. Even the person behind the counter at McDonald's spoke English and always got the order right.
 
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