Trump meets Putin

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, July 16th, 2018 - 116 comments
Categories: afghanistan, China, colonialism, defence, Donald Trump, Europe, Globalisation, immigration, International, Iran, iraq, Korea, Palestine, Russia, Syria, us politics - Tags:

Things that President Trump won’t do as when meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki:

  • Demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine and renounce its illegal claim to Crimea.  President Truman did similar, successfully.

  • Actually push for stronger human rights across the world, as President Ford did successfully with Russia and many other countries – in Helsinki.

  • Push Russia to stop supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The previous U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis had the guts to do so. No sign of the President pushing this now.
  • Halt provocative military actions on NATO’s periphery and harassment of United States personnel in Moscow. Many U.S. Presidents have done this successfully, none more boldly than Truman throughout the Berlin airlift and its consequences.

And President Obama was also quite happy to stand and defend.

  • Limit nuclear and ballistic arms through binding treaty. President Nixon did sterling work here with Khruschev.

And indeed with Brezhnev.

  • Gain full cooperation to pressure Kim Jong-Un to denuclearise completely. Since Obama could successfully negotiate with Russia to denuclearise Iran, there must be something useful Trump can do.

… or face actual consequences. Because that is the kind of real agenda that U.S. Presidents have delivered for quite some time, with significant and positive results.

Instead, we will get another grip-and-grin.

116 comments on “Trump meets Putin”

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  1. esoteric pineapples 1
    16 July 2018 at 9:08 am

    I always enjoy listening to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov give the Russian point of view. He is like the voice of sanity compared to what is going on from the US side.

    • xanthe 1.1
      16 July 2018 at 11:08 am

      Thank you ep for that link, a very good watch and yes a breath of common sense and honesty in the morass of crap in which we are drowning.

      Advantage …. does whataboutism not work both ways?

      [lprent: He is as entitled to put up a viewpoint as you are. Just be careful about what you say about our authors as opposed to what they wrote about. I have a particular viewpoint on that and I’m seldom shy about delivering it. ]

  2. esoteric pineapples 2
    16 July 2018 at 9:11 am

    It’s important to note that the Ukraine armed forces are riven with ulta-right wing neo Nazis – supplied with arms from Israel which is acting on behalf of the US

  3. esoteric pineapples 3
    16 July 2018 at 9:22 am

    One final point. Putin reminded everyone in his 2018 Victory Day speech that it was Russia that defeated the Nazis (80 percent of German losses were on the Eastern Front) at great cost to itself, and never capitulated or collaborated. This gives it the moral high ground when it comes to talking about preserving freedom around the world.

    • Sabine 3.1
      16 July 2018 at 11:03 am

      with a big helping form General Paulus who refused to retreat when he still had time and thus offered the 6th Army to the gods of warfare and his Fuehrer as a sacrifice. Little spineless obedient fuck, like so many of the Germans at the time.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Paulus

      Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German general during World War II who commanded the 6th Army. He attained the rank of field marshal two hours before the surrender of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle ended in disaster for Nazi Germany when Soviet forces encircled and defeated about 265,000 personnel of the Wehrmacht, their Axis allies and collaborators.

      Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943,[Note 1] the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Adolf Hitler.

      Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide,[2] repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal ever being captured alive. While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He moved to East Germany in 1953.”

      • xanthe 3.1.1
        16 July 2018 at 11:11 am

        Sabine your quote from wikipedia contridicts your assertion … as i understood it

        • Sabine 3.1.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 11:30 am

          he should have retreated in 1942 and march back his soldiers, he waited until it was to late and surrended. At the time the war in russia was lost, and anyone and their dog knew it. In fact, someone should have made a point of not invading Russia in Summer and believing their own bullshit to have conquered the country by winters fall.

          He was a spineless fuck that could not stand the idea of retreating, loosing his honor and reaping the wrath of his fuehrer and thus he killed his Army.
          Every single on of them.

          There is an old saying in Europe, it kind of dates back to Napoleon.
          You don’t win against General Frost. Winter was/is the Russians biggest asset, combined with the fact that they fought for their ‘Vaterland’, while the Germans were the invaders who were woefully under equipped to fight in Winter.

          Please show me where my quote from wikipedia contradicts my assertion.

          As for the sixth Army, they were marched to siberia. Those who survived came back in 1955. Even there the spineless fuck was better treated.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Army_(Wehrmacht)

          Battle of Stalingrad
          Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Uranus

          The Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad
          German front, 19 November
          German front, 12 December
          German front, 24 December
          Soviet advance, 19–28 November
          On 28 June 1942, Army Group South began Operation Blau, the German Army’s summer offensive into southern Russia.[6] The goals of the operation were to secure both the oil fields at Baku, Azerbaijan, and the city of Stalingrad on the river Volga to protect the forces advancing into the Caucasus.[7] After two months, the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad on 23 August.[8] On the same day, over 1,000 aircraft of the Luftflotte 4 bombed the city, killing many civilians.

          Stalingrad was defended by the Soviet 62nd Army under the command of General Vasily Chuikov.[9] Despite German air superiority over Stalingrad, and with more artillery pieces than the Red Army, progress was reduced to no more than several meters a day. Eventually, by mid November, the 62nd Army had been pushed to the banks of the Volga, but the 6th Army was unable to eliminate the remaining Soviet troops.[10]

          On 19 November the Stavka launched Operation Uranus, a major offensive by Soviet forces on the flanks of the German army.[11] The first pincer attacked far to the west of the Don, with the second thrust beginning a day later attacking far to the south of Stalingrad.[12] The 6th Army’s flanks were protected by Romanian troops, who were quickly routed, and on 23 November, the pincers met at Kalach-na-Donu, thereby encircling 6th Army.[13] A relief attempt was launched on 12 December, codenamed Operation Winter Storm, but this failed.[14] The army surrendered between 31 January and 2 February 1943.[15] German casualties are 147,200 killed and wounded and over 91,000 captured, the latter including 24 generals and 2,500 officers of lesser rank.[15] Only 5,000 would return to Germany after the war.[1]

          I don’t want anyone be mistaken into believing that i support what my country man – my grandfathers, my great uncles, did in Russia and elsewhere. Nothing about it is forgivable. But the fact remains that the ‘obedient’ little fucks that were the Generals and officers of the Sixth Army literally killed their soldiers and could not have done a better job at it then the Russian Army. The russian Army just had to shoot them of and then march them to Siberia.

          You don’t invade Russia. You don’t win against General Frost. And you don’t fuck around with the Russian Bear.

          But Russia alone did not win he war against Germany. There were the English and their stubbornness to be British and drink tea even in the most dire situation and never surrendered even when their country got bombed night after night. . There were the French resistance. There was General Tito in what became Yuguslavia after the war. There were those ‘workslaves’ that died for sabotaging the ‘war effort’ by essentially building duds. The resistance in Holland, Belgium, Italy and so on and so on.

          The Germans lost because they thought they could not loose, they lost because the high ranking officers put misplaced ‘honor’ above country. They lost because to many Germans had absolutely no issue killing the ‘others’ in order to be ‘racially pure’ and ‘be made great again’. The Germans lost because they were blinded by their own hubris. They lost because their idea of ‘greatness’ depending on killing everyone else. And eventually they lost because their largest army, the sixth army soldiers died in ditches, froze to death in Stalingrad by not being equipped for winter warfare and then on the way to the Prisoners of war camps in Siberia

      • Nick J 3.1.2
        16 July 2018 at 1:18 pm

        You might wish to watch (on YouTube) Glantz, a West Point military historian on Barbarossa who makes a compelling case that despite great tactical victories, two months into the invasion that strategic victory was beyond German capabilities. Stalingrad and Kursk merely bookmark a war the Russians fought by attrition from the first.

    • Gosman 3.2
      16 July 2018 at 11:12 am

      You are joking right?

      Do you not know that the Soviet Union joined in the invasion (The cause of Britain and France declaring War on Germany) and dismemberment of Poland in 1939?

      Do you not know the Soviet Union provided Nazi Germany vital raw material right up until the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?

      Do you not remember the Soviet Union suppressing independent dissent in Eastern Europe from 1945 till 1989?

      • esoteric pineapples 3.2.1
        16 July 2018 at 4:01 pm

        Sure, I am very aware of the history of the Second World War, and the other sides of this argument. There were contradictions in nearly every theatre of the war. France had a Vichy government, Italians fought against the Nazis as much as for them through the Italian resistance movement, the United States would have been happy to let Germany win the war until Japan attacked it. The Russian soldiers acted appalling in Germany etc.

        But I think the Russian perspective IS important at the moment. Russia is being painted as the aggressor by the United States which claims to represent freedom and democracy.
        But it is the United States that is acting aggressively. For example, people may not be aware that the US/NATO and the Swedish government are trying to scare the Swedish people into joining NATO with pamphlets going into EVERY household saying that Sweden is in danger of attack – the first time since the middle of WWII.

        Putin is reminding everyone that it was Russia that crushed Nazi fascism at the cost of millions of Russian lives, so the United States can not claim moral superiority.

        I would love to see Russia become a real democracy but while it is surrounded by aggressive forces that are interfering out of self interest in the political affairs of its closest neighbours, such as the Ukraine whose armed forces include Neo-Nazis, lead by a country that is steadily eroding the rights of its own citizens, there is zero chance of the Russian democratic movement flourishing. All the Russian people have at the moment is a leader who for all his enormous faults at least sticks up for them against the United States.

        See link below on Sweden:

    • Stuart Munro 3.3
      16 July 2018 at 11:14 am

      Well it would if not for Molotov Ribbentrop.

      Some of the causes of Russia’s high casualty rate are less than admirable too.

    • Gabby 3.4
      16 July 2018 at 11:57 am

      Preserving freedom. You funny guy piney.

    • joe90 3.5
      16 July 2018 at 1:47 pm

      or collaborated.

      Except for that time when they were collaborating with their Nazi besties to invade and occupy Poland.

      • Ed 3.5.1
        16 July 2018 at 1:50 pm

        You are hardly impartial on the subject…..

        [lprent: Tell me have you ever read about the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. There are a lot of Poles who weren’t exactly impartial about that unprovoked aggression by both of those very similar empires. Both at the time were so similar. For instance they were world leaders in concentration camps and mass murder.

        Meaningless flame war starters just annoy me. If I get annoyed enough I like to enhance the debate as I target the arsehole who tries to trigger it. ]

        • corodale 3.5.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 8:42 pm

          Churchill also a concentration camp speciallist from his time in the Boer Wars…
          It can be interesting to read books from both sides, not just from the winner.

    • corodale 3.6
      16 July 2018 at 8:31 pm

      So the Jesuit priest defeated the Catholic choir boy, preserving the freedom of the capitalism, hmmmm.

  4. Sabine 4
    16 July 2018 at 10:13 am

    no one knows what either one of these guys will do as this is a ‘private’ meeting.

    • xanthe 4.1
      16 July 2018 at 11:12 am

      agree and think that “speculation” is counterproductive and often just thinly disguised shilling

    • Macro 4.2
      16 July 2018 at 7:06 pm

      no one knows what either one of these guys will do as this is a ‘private’ meeting.
      Exactly – only two translators will be with them. So no record of what they discuss. Maybe how to “fix” the mid terms?
      But “No Collusion” Yeah Right!
      Whatever – this can only end badly.

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    16 July 2018 at 11:13 am

    Demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine and renounce its illegal claim to Crimea.

    People have the right to self-determination as guaranteed by the UDHR. The people of Crimea chose to secede from the Ukraine and rejoin Russia.

    I see nothing illegal in them choosing to do so.

    Actually push for stronger human rights across the world, as President Ford did successfully with Russia and many other countries

    That’d be nice but even the US doesn’t really support human rights:

    The UDHR has three components, which are of equal status: civil-political, socioeconomic and cultural rights. The US formally accepts the first of the three, though it has often violated its provisions. The US pretty much disregards the third. And to the point here, the US has officially and strongly condemned the second component, socioeconomic rights, including Article 25.

    Would be somewhat hypocritical for them to demand stronger human rights from anyone really.

    Push Russia to stop supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

    Is Russia supporting the Taliban?

    Representatives from Russia and the Taliban “laughed” at US claims that Moscow has been arming the group, according to Russia’s envoy to Afghanistan.

    Zamir Kabulov said on Thursday that in their talks with the Taliban, the group’s representatives said they buy all their weapons illegally from the Afghan government and police, and asked for financial support for that.

    In that request, the Russian representatives replied, “Sorry, we have no money”, Kabulov told a press conference in Moscow.

    Not according to Russia or the Taliban.

    Halt provocative military actions on NATO’s periphery and harassment of United States personnel in Moscow.

    Yes, the US should stop doing military actions on NATOs borders:

    More than 18,000 troops from 19 nations, including the UK, have taken part in US-led war games in countries bordering Russia.

    The American army said the drills were “a demonstration of the commitment and solidarity” of Nato forces at a time of heightened tensions with Moscow.

    But it stressed the exercises, carried out in the days before the World Cup begins in Russia, were “not a provocation”.

    Seems provocative to me.

    • Gosman 5.1
      16 July 2018 at 11:30 am

      Are you claiming that a group of people can just decide to physically separate themselves from a central authority via force of arms at any time of their choosing?

    • Gosman 5.2
      16 July 2018 at 11:31 am

      Why are defensive military exercises provocative?

      • Draco T Bastard 5.2.1
        16 July 2018 at 12:44 pm

        NATO are doing military exercises on the borders of Russia. Russia would have good reason to think that such exercises are a prelude to invasion. It is, after all, what Germany did to them in WWII.

    • Stuart Munro 5.3
      16 July 2018 at 11:36 am

      There’s a reason provocation is no longer a legal defense in NZ.

      Nato may provoke – Russia invades.

      • Morrissey 5.3.1
        16 July 2018 at 11:37 am

        Nato invades. Have you heard of Iraq and Afghanistan?

        • Stuart Munro 5.3.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 11:42 am

          Funny – I thought that was the US.

          • Morrissey 5.3.1.1.1
            16 July 2018 at 1:49 pm

            And its U.K. lapdog.

            • Ed 5.3.1.1.1.1
              16 July 2018 at 1:51 pm

              Considering Russia saved the UK in World War 2, you would think they would show more appreciation.

              • Gosman …
                16 July 2018 at 2:28 pm

                They didn’t save the UK. By June 1941 the UK was not under any imminent threat of invasion.

                • In Vino …
                  16 July 2018 at 4:25 pm

                  That is very naïve, Gosman. Hitler merely shifted his attention to Russia. Fortunately, he failed there, and, like Napoleon, lost 80% of his military power. If he had succeeded in knocking Russia out of the war in one or two years, Britain would have been toast. If he had knocked Russia out in time, we would not even have won at El Alamein. And whether you like it or not, it was indeed Russia that did the hard yards – not Britain and the USA.

                  • corodale …
                    16 July 2018 at 8:51 pm

                    Dunkirk? The Germans let the English go. You never seen the photo of the Queen as a child doing the Nazi hand salue? A classic!

                    • In Vino …
                      16 July 2018 at 10:11 pm

                      So we come back to why Stalin could not get an agreement with Britain, France and Poland to stand with him against Germany?
                      Britain and France thought Communism worse than Nazism (Queen’s photo as child is part of that) and Poland refused permission for Russian soldiers to go through Polish territory to fight with France and Britain against Germany. All unworkable. Stalin’s only way out was the Ribbentrop agreement with Hitler, dividing up Poland. It was pretty well forced upon him, partly by the very right-wing Poles themselves. For Stalin, it triggered the war breaking out in the West against Britain and France, instead of in the East against his country. Not one country in the West had a leader with any vision at the time. And Stalin got a little extra time to prepare. Not that he had much vision – he later refused to believe that Hitler was about to launch Barbarossa..

              • Phil …
                16 July 2018 at 6:22 pm

                Considering Russia saved the UK in World War 2, you would think they would show more appreciation.

                BAHAHAHA

                The lend-lease program from the ‘western’ allies to Russia was critical to the Russian’s ability to mobilise.

                Approximately one third of all heavy armour in the Russian arsenal during the summer of ’41/’42 summer was of UK origin. By the end of the war, about 30% of Russian aircraft were lend-lease sourced.

                More importantly trucks, train locomotives and stock (more than 90% of all rolling stock!), rations, clothing, and munitions were heavily supplemented by lend-lease from ’41 to ’45. Without the program, the Russian army would simply not have been able to move. Let alone fight.

                The simple fact is that neither the western, nor eastern, allies could have won on their own. To claim otherwise is utterly nonsensical.

                • In Vino …
                  16 July 2018 at 7:08 pm

                  Bollocks. The UK heavy armour was rubbish at that time: lumbering oxen with pea-shooters attached. Even the British tank brigades recognised that they were fighting with inferior equipment. Russia moved its entire Military production east of the Urals, and built its own supply of fast, mobile and powerful war-winning T-34 tanks. Summer of 41-2 was before they achieved full production. The aircraft Britain sent were outmoded Hurricane fighters. The Russians later produced their own, far superior fighters..
                  The Russians were helped to a small degree by trucks, Jeeps etc during summer of 41-42, but they were still largely in retreat. And don’t forget that after a disastrous convoy to Murmansk, the British stopped delivering.
                  The Germans had no idea of what the Russians were building. They had no idea that two new, well-equipped armies would cut them off at Stalingrad, then vastly outnumber their Panzers at Kursk.
                  The trucks and rolling stock helped to a degree, but to pretend that Russia survived only because of the limited supplies delivered from the West is foolish. The Russians did it themselves, and arguably still would have done so without the limited help they got from the West.
                  And where did this vast supply of lend-lease railway rolling stock come from after the British convoys stopped? I think you will find that the Russians did it largely by themselves.

              • Macro …
                16 July 2018 at 7:18 pm

                lol Really Ed!
                Ever heard of the PQ convoys?

                When Adolf Hitler launched his surprise Blitzkrieg – codenamed Barbarossa – on the Soviet Union in June 1941, bringing Russia into the war against Nazi Germany, Britain no longer stood alone against the fascist threat. Putting aside his lifelong antipathy to Bolshevism, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill authorised urgent naval convoys of vital war material to Russia. Shipped across some of the most dangerous waters in the world, the Arctic Convoys between 1941 and 1945 delivered tanks, fighter planes, fuel, ammunition, raw materials and food to the Soviet Union’s northern ports.

                Churchill’s genuine, if pragmatic, change of heart was announced the very day of the Nazi assault on the Soviet people. In a radio broadcast, Britain’s wartime leader said: “… we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end.”

                Known as the ‘Russian’ and ‘Polar’ convoys – or by the sailors who risked their lives to bring the supplies to Russia, the ‘Murmansk Run’ – the Arctic Convoys were part of the Lend Lease programme under which the United States supplied France, Great Britain, China, the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and material between 1941 and 1945. The programme started in March 1941 and ended in September 1945. Supplies to the Soviet Union also came overland via the Persian Corridor and to Russia’s Far East by the Pacific Route.

                https://www.rbth.com/longreads/arctic_convoys/
                More than four million tons of vital military supplies were shipped.

                • In Vino …
                  16 July 2018 at 7:37 pm

                  Figures and details true, but even here in the West many see it as one-sided to claim that the Russians could not have won without us.
                  The more I read about it, the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.

                  • McFlock …
                    16 July 2018 at 7:57 pm

                    Well, yes and no.
                    The soviets might have lasted long enough to win without western aid, just as they might have persisted after Moscow got taken because the Siberian divisions were kept in the far east because Stalin never got the word that the Japanese weren’t going to attack.

                    But the longer the war, the more likely that there’s a collapse similar to ww1.

                  • Macro …
                    16 July 2018 at 7:58 pm

                    the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.
                    If what you think had been the case, and Europe was left to the Soviets, the outcome would have been horrific – you might like to ask Angela Merkel about what it was like to live in Eastern Europe under the soviets.

                    My wife visited in 1966 driving through East Germany and Poland and Leningrad to Moscow. The depravations and lack of freedoms were extreme. The soviet system was an abject failure.
                    But of course the D-Day landings and Allied advance on Berlin, the annihilation of German infrastructure and manufacturing by allied bombing, and the cutting of all shipped oil supplies by the RN had nothing to do with it.

                    • In Vino …
                      16 July 2018 at 8:28 pm

                      Macro, I drove through East Germany myself in 1980, and agree with you. Nowhere did I say that I admire Stalin, or the USSR system. I just get tired of people believing our own one-sided version of the story.
                      By the way, it is just possible that the Allies did the Normandy landing etc because they suddenly realised what would happen if they did not. The Russians felt it was far too late.
                      And while allied bombing was devastating to the civilian population, you may be overestimating its effect upon German war production, which peaked in 1944. That is strangely late in the war, is it not? Huge bombing had been done before then, but the Germans adapted. Only in Autumn of that year (less than a year to VE Day) did bombing really start to hurt German supplies.
                      By that time the Russians had the Germans in full retreat anyway.

                    • Macro …
                      16 July 2018 at 8:54 pm

                      Initially allied bombing was directed at towns as a tit for tat reply to the bombing of civilian targets in England. When the allies got smart and then directed their targets to infrastructure (late 1943 – early 1944) the volume of war material began to fall dramatically.
                      https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c17284ec4e3500b23e46556985170a84

                    • Ed …
                      16 July 2018 at 9:18 pm

                      In Vino you speak so well.

                    • In Vino …
                      16 July 2018 at 9:47 pm

                      Agreed, Macro, but even by that time Russia had Germany on the ropes. If D-Day had not happened, the Red Army would have been on the other side of the English Channel.
                      Improvement in night-bombing targeting by the RAF helped, but basically the Russians had the upper hand by then. Have you looked at Russia’s production compared to Germany’s? Putin is not wrong about Russia being the main winner over Germany, however little people here may like the Russian style of government, or Putin himself. And however ignorant they remain about how much effort Russia put in to winning WW2.
                      Russia suffered losses that we can comprehend only by trying to remember the terrible butchery of WW1.
                      I am not saying that Stalin was an angel, or that Putin is one.
                      I am saying that Putin is right on this point, and that we have far too many who think that The USA and Britain defeated Hitler. They did not. Russia did.

            • Stuart Munro 5.3.1.1.1.2
              16 July 2018 at 3:33 pm

              So not Nato invading then.

              Maybe provocation ain’t so bad – unless you try to lever it into a casus belli.

        • Gosman 5.3.1.2
          16 July 2018 at 12:26 pm

          Both Iraq and Afghanistan were not NATO operations during the initial invasion. NATO has been involved post invasion though.

        • Wayne 5.3.1.3
          16 July 2018 at 8:44 pm

          Russia knows NATO is not going to invade it. But they would be very unhappy if any more former Soviet republics became part of NATO. The Russians would feel they are being bottled up, and not have primacy in their immediate area. Their support of the eastern Ukrainians is all about that, plus the wartime memory of the war in the Donbass, the very threshold of Volgograd. Think the Battle of Stalingrad for the significance of that.
          As for the meeting, I reckon Putin will want the west to recognise the reality of Crimea. In return they will give up on east Ukraine, or least only insist on it being a semiautonomous region within Ukraine. That would mean the end of sanctions and a reset of the US Russia relationship. Other stuff like a deal on nuclear weapons could also be done.

    • Tricledrown 5.4
      16 July 2018 at 12:58 pm

      DTB so Manafort siding with Putin taking 10’s of millions in Consultancy fees and another $10 million loan from Putins henchman oligarch.
      Money laundering etc etc.
      Neither side has my support but Trump /Kucshner have received extensive funding from other Putins Russian Mafia linked oligarchs.
      Like “Wise” (guy/mafia fixer Manafort)
      Trump has proven ties to the US mafia.
      Both side’s are equally corrupt.
      Fox news and RT(Russian equivalent of Fox).

      • Draco T Bastard 5.4.1
        16 July 2018 at 1:28 pm

        Both side’s are equally corrupt.

        Yes.

        • Phil 5.4.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 6:28 pm

          Both side’s are equally corrupt.

          Yes.

          Under what circumstances does the definition of ‘equally corrupt’ cover both of, say:
          1: Robert Mueller’s detailed indictments, and
          2: the fever dream nonsense of ‘Benghazi’ or ‘Uranium One’?

        • Stuart Munro 5.4.1.2
          16 July 2018 at 7:25 pm

          Not quite.

          In the US the murder of political opponents is not yet routine.

          • corodale 5.4.1.2.1
            16 July 2018 at 8:55 pm

            What political opponent? Bernie Sanders?

            • Stuart Munro 5.4.1.2.1.1
              16 July 2018 at 9:20 pm

              He’s not a bad parallel for Nemtsov – neither were about to be elected, but only one was assassinated. The Russian one, of course.

  6. Morrissey 6
    16 July 2018 at 11:30 am

    Things that President Putin won’t do when meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki:

    Demand that the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and renounce its illegal blockade of Cuba.

    Demand that Trump cease backing the murderous Netanyahu regime in Israel and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Palestinians.

    Actually push for stronger human rights across the world.

    Demand the U.S. stop supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.

    Push the U.S. to stop supporting the outlaw Israeli government in the Occupied Territories, as well as the oppressive and anti-democratic regimes in Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras.

    Get the U.S. to halt provocative military actions on North Korea’s periphery and similar provocations in vassal states like Poland.

    Gain full cooperation to pressure Binyamin Netanyahu to denuclearise completely.

    Force the U.S. to cease its destructive cyberoperations and drone assassinations all over the world, but especially in Yemen and Afghanistan. Obama unfortunately encouraged it.

    • Ed 6.2
      16 July 2018 at 12:28 pm

      The perfect riposte to the neocon drivel that this post delivers.
      Anyone who has seen Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States would know Truman was a terrible U.S President, captured by the military industrial state.

      • Morrissey 6.2.1
        16 July 2018 at 1:37 pm

        Advantage’s post is preposterous from beginning to end. Are the administrators of this site going to turn it over to Whaleoil for a guest post now? He couldn’t be any more biased or untruthful than this bloke “Advantage”.

        [lprent: If you are looking for a long vacation, then please just ask for one. Otherwise stop whining like a spring chicken. Authors write what they choose to write, that is why we have them here. The authors will argue amongst themselves. Which acts as background. Mike and I tend to just look at the good of the site. If we think that something is getting in the way of the objectives of the site then we will deal with it.

        You don’t get any say in that. As you know, this is pretty clearly stated in the policy. Including the fuckup off if you don’t like it consequences of whining about it. ]

        • Ed 6.2.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 1:42 pm

          Couldn’t agree more.
          This post belongs on a neocon site.

          • lprent 6.2.1.1.1
            16 July 2018 at 2:55 pm

            And you should really find a nutbar site if you think that Russia is all goodness and lightness.

            • Morrissey 6.2.1.1.1.1
              16 July 2018 at 4:24 pm

              Russia is a brutal, undemocratic state. It’s very bad indeed. But compared to the United States and Britain, it is indeed “all goodness and lightness.” That’s a fact that the likes of the person who wrote this fantastic “Trump Meets Putin” article seems unwilling to acknowledge.

            • Bewildered 6.2.1.1.1.2
              16 July 2018 at 5:31 pm

              Is there a site at Eds level of nuttiness, ?

              • Ed …
                16 July 2018 at 5:34 pm

                My views mirror those of Morrissey, Brigid, Maui on the Key issue of this thread .

              • Ed …
                16 July 2018 at 5:38 pm

                Please note that my views on America and Russia are very similar to those of Morrissey, Maui, Brigid, Draco and Esoteric.
                My views are hardly out there on this.
                The world sees the US and Israel as rogue states.

                • lprent …
                  16 July 2018 at 7:58 pm

                  I just see the US as being lumbered with a self-contradictory and very inflexible constitution that was designed for a different time and a radically different demography.

                  They haven’t managed to make a useful amendment to it since 1967, 50 years ago. The right to vote shouldn’t been in any reasonable constitution, so voting at age 18 shouldn’t have been in there in 1971. And the 1992 one to prevent the members of congress voting themselves pay rises… Well what can one say…

                  Effectively the whole society is slowly cracking under the constitutional strain as the institutions struggle to adjust. For instance look at the Economist editorial this week.

                  https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/07/12/american-democracys-built-in-bias-towards-rural-republicans

                  There are a couple of other articles looking at the structural issues.

                • Macro …
                  16 July 2018 at 8:42 pm

                  Ed – Hardly anyone here is saying that the US, as it is at the moment, is a beacon of democracy. The repugnants are in desperate need of growing a spine and impeaching the radge orange bampot. As Lprent says the constitution is in desperate need of revamp, and the country – like NZ is heavily biased in favour of the conservative rural vote. Overlaying all of this is an economic system which bestows greater freedoms to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. This is much the case in all capitalist economies, to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, the US, up until the advent of Trump had, in many cases, attempted to be a good global citizen, even if, not all of its activities met your approval.
                  Over the past 540 days, however I grant that the US has become more and more, an unstable and unreliable global citizen – particularly in the sphere of human rights and environmental protections, to say nothing about its friends and alliances. One can only hope that this phase is temporary, and the damage done is not so bad that it cannot be restored.
                  The fact that many see Russia as a rogue state is more to the point. The blatant interference in other nations politics and elections is but one example.

        • Brigid 6.2.1.2
          16 July 2018 at 1:42 pm

          Indeed

      • Stuart Munro 6.2.2
        16 July 2018 at 3:35 pm

        Truman was the guy who clipped MacArthur’s wings. Ask a few Asians what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.

      • Wayne 6.2.3
        16 July 2018 at 8:48 pm

        Only if you buy into Stone’s version of history.

    • Gosman 6.3
      16 July 2018 at 2:39 pm

      It is not a blockade of Cuba. It is restricting US trade with them. any country can do that. It is no different to NZ deciding not to allow GMO products in to the country.

      • lprent 6.3.1
        16 July 2018 at 4:01 pm

        We should be kind to Morrissey. He clearly just has a temporal fugue or possibly that he is an illiterate speaker of Spanish unaware of the word embargar from which the English usage of embargo derives or it could simply mean that he is a idiot who prefers to make up his fantasy history.

        The US blockade of Cuba started on the 22nd of October 1962 and ended on the 28th of the same month.

        There have been an embargoes by the US of various types of trade with Cuba since they were first imposed on the Barista regime in 1958 (preventing arms sales). These were extended by the US after the uncompensated nationalisation of various US owned assets in Cuba in 1962, well before the Cuban missile crisis later that year.

        The embargo should have been negotiated away long ago. However crass political motives by grandstanding unfeeling fuckwits on both sides has preferred to maintain the embargo rather than dealing with the harm that it causes.

        It doesn’t matter if you look at the daft names of the US domestic acts or stupidity extending the embargo or the name that the Cubans prefer to use, it all just reeks of dickheads waving their stupidity around.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba

        Despite the Spanish-language term bloqueo (blockade), there has been no physical, naval blockade of the country by the United States after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.[4] The United States does not block Cuba’s trade with third parties: other countries are not under the jurisdiction of U.S. domestic laws, such as the Cuban Democracy Act (although, in theory, foreign countries that trade with Cuba could be penalised by the U.S., which has been condemned as an “extraterritorial” measure that contravenes “the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention in their internal affairs and freedom of trade and navigation as paramount to the conduct of international affairs.”[5]). Cuba can, and does, conduct international trade with many third-party countries;[6] Cuba has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 1995.[7]

        Beyond criticisms of human rights in Cuba, the United States holds $6 billion worth of financial claims against the Cuban government.[8] The pro-embargo position is that the U.S. embargo is, in part, an appropriate response to these unaddressed claims.[9] The Latin America Working Group argues that pro-embargo Cuban-American exiles, whose votes are crucial in Florida, have swayed many politicians to also adopt similar views.[10] The Cuban-American views have been opposed by some business leaders who argue that trading freely would be good for Cuba and the United States.[11]

        At present, the embargo, which limits American businesses from conducting business with Cuban interests, is still in effect and is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. Despite the existence of the embargo, the United States is the fifth largest exporter to Cuba (6.6% of Cuba’s imports are from the US).[12] Cuba must, however, pay cash for all imports, as credit is not allowed.[13]

    • Gosman 6.4
      16 July 2018 at 2:42 pm

      The Ukrainian government can in no way be labelled Neo-Nazi. The PM is from a Jewish background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Groysman

      • One Two 6.4.1
        16 July 2018 at 3:48 pm

        How did you join those two dots together and come up with that perspective, Gosman?

        • In Vino 6.4.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 4:30 pm

          And it seems to me that the most extreme right-wing Zionists are also of Jewish background… What are you implying, Gosman?

      • Morrissey 6.4.2
        16 July 2018 at 4:30 pm

        The scofflaw state of Israel labels itself “the Jewish state.” That has not stopped it treating the Palestinians in a manner that even its own cabinet ministers, like the hardline Tommy Lapid, have compared to the actions of the Nazis.

        https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Their-fathers-sons

        • Gosman 6.4.2.1
          16 July 2018 at 4:37 pm

          They are nowhere near the level of the Nazis. They aren’t treated equally that is for sure but they are not treated as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.

          • lprent 6.4.2.1.1
            16 July 2018 at 4:50 pm

            Actually I’d say that the way that the Israelis operate their concentration camp in Gaza is very similar to the treatment of political prisoners including Jews in Nazi Germany in 1933 to 1939.

            After all the really efficient death camps were placed outside Germany after 1939 in case they disturbed the German population.

            In Germany up to 1939, the German camps concentrated on simply slowly starving people to death and denying them access to medical care. Order was primarily maintained by armed guards with shoot to kill orders against unarmed civilians.

            Personally I can’t see much difference between that and the current behaviour of the gutless Israeli barbarians deliberately shooting clearly defined medics from the fortified boundaries of their camp.

            Bearing in mind the public statements of some of the Israeli populations, especially some of the ulta orthodox and ‘settler’ groups, it makes me wonder how long before they follow the Nazi solutions.

          • Morrissey 6.4.2.1.2
            16 July 2018 at 4:52 pm

            Your views are not shared by the likes of Tommy Lapid or other honest Israeli politicians such as Moshe Dayan. Perhaps instead of sitting on your arse watching Fox News last December 3rd, you should have gone to the Mt Eden Memorial Hall to see one of the great Israeli journalists talking….

            Israel has three regimes. First, there is the “liberal democracy” which is the privilege of its Jewish citizens, but there are many threats to this. The second regime is aimed at the Palestinians—the “Israeli Arabs” who comprise 20 per cent of the population, and who have formal civil rights; they are deeply discriminated against in every way. The third regime is very different from any “liberal” posturing—this is Israel’s dark heart, the regime in the Occupied Territories. This is one of the most brutal tyrannies on Earth today, no less than that.

            —GIDEON LEVY, speaking in Mt Eden, Dec. 3, 2017

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-16-12-2017/#comment-1426789

          • McFlock 6.4.2.1.3
            16 July 2018 at 4:55 pm

            Maybe not 1944 Nazi Germany, but not far off 1937 maybe.

            Shooting kids, delaying and denying access to basic life needs, segregationist controls on ghettoes, advanced propaganda machine to paint the victims as parasitic invaders intent on extermination…

      • corodale 6.4.3
        16 July 2018 at 9:27 pm

        Yeah, Jewish is really interesting, and once you actually start to live it… I’m sure my family will eventually understand why we converted.

  7. joe90 7
    16 July 2018 at 2:42 pm

    Tyrant fighter knows his tyrants.

    Not since Munich 1938 have we had a world leader willing to surrender everything thing for nothing to a tyrant. #TrumpPutinSummit— Harry Leslie Smith (@Harryslaststand) July 15, 2018

  8. mauī 8
    16 July 2018 at 2:45 pm

    “Cease backing the murderous Assad regime in Syria and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Syrians. “

    Syria was a relatively safe and secure place before Obama and the west took an interest in it and said there was a problem. Coincidence much?

    • Gosman 8.1
      16 July 2018 at 2:47 pm

      Relatively safe for who in particular? If you members of the Assad regime you would be correct. If you mean anyone perceived to be a threat to the Assad regime you would be wrong.

      • Brigid 8.1.1
        16 July 2018 at 4:49 pm

        Gosman I really don’t think you know very much about Syria, that could be because you rely only on information provided by CNN, BBC, Guardian et al since 2011.
        Have you ever actually talked to any Syrian about their country?

        • Gosman 8.1.1.1
          16 July 2018 at 5:26 pm

          Lots. Why?

        • Wayne 8.1.1.2
          16 July 2018 at 8:58 pm

          Brigid
          Are you completely unaware of the massacres of protestors by the Assad regime in 2011 ( the sort of thing his father did)? That is what started the civil war.

          Yes Syria was at “peace” prior to 2011, just like Iraq was under
          Suddein. The sort of peace that Stalin would have been proud of.

          However Assad will win the civil war, with the probable exception of the Kurds. Will Russia and the US give them a guarantee of autonomy. Maybe that might be sorted tomorrow!

          • mauī 8.1.1.2.1
            16 July 2018 at 11:17 pm

            According to Tim Anderson the so called “protestors” were armed by islamist extremists. I guess that would make them not protestors, but closer to fighters or militants.

            Also Syria has a reputation as a safe haven for minorities in a volatile and unsafe region. Your portrayal of Syria as some sort of Stalinist hellhole is very misleading imo.

            • Gosman 8.1.1.2.1.1
              17 July 2018 at 9:09 am

              Do you honestly think that Assad was running some sort of liberal pluralistic government that did not target perceived opponents of the regime?

              • mauī …
                17 July 2018 at 9:30 am

                I think you’re guessing at how their Government functions and behaves. So am I too, but from all appearances minorities were safe in Syria and as spikey says the Government was generally well liked and supported by it’s citizens. Those are two strong points that are hard to disprove I think and don’t mesh with your portrayal of a brutal regime.

          • spikeyboy 8.1.1.2.2
            16 July 2018 at 11:44 pm

            Comparisons to Stalin or to Hitler or to whatever other evil figure you can think of may serve the purpose of denigrating whoever to the level of non human but does little to reveal anything of actual circumstances.

            Western media sources in early 2011 were pretty universal in their realisation that Assad was popular and unlikely to be deposed. Even after the initial violence in Daraa. Life in Syria at that time may not have been attractive to you Wayne but I guess thats why you didn’t live there.

            If you would care for a little more detail on the origins of the war in Syria, you could start here…

            https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt/

          • Brigid 8.1.1.2.3
            17 July 2018 at 12:44 am

            Jeez Wayne.
            This rhetoric has well been discounted. Do keep up.

      • mauī 8.1.2
        16 July 2018 at 9:09 pm

        Almost 90% of the country voted in Assad, so that’s a reasonable starting point for a safe country. Plus there wasn’t a war going on or millions of residents fleeing the country.

        I don’t trust the portrayal of middle eastern leaders by corporate news sources either. So I find it incredibly difficult to gauge how good or bad the leaders of say Syria, Iraq or Libya were.

    • Sabine 8.2
      16 July 2018 at 3:06 pm

      you might like this

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil

      Bolton: “Beyond the Axis of Evil”

      John R. Bolton
      On May 6, 2002, then-Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton gave a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”. In it he added three more nations to be grouped with the already mentioned rogue states: Cuba, Libya, and Syria. The criteria for inclusion in this grouping were: “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations.”[5]

      or this

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm

      A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the “Clean Break” report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel.[1] The report explained a new approach to solving Israel’s security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on “Western values.” It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting its possession of “weapons of mass destruction”. Certain parts of the policies set forth in the paper were rejected by Netanyahu.[2][3]

      or this from 1984
      https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/magazine/syria-s-assad-his-power-and-his-plan.html

      or this

      https://www.globalresearch.ca/1983-cia-document-reveals-plan-to-destroy-syria-foreshadows-current-crisis-2/5584486

      so no Obama did not really start anything, he just continued.

  9. R.P Mcmurphy 9
    16 July 2018 at 2:49 pm

    cut to the chase. Syria is over populated and the owners are population cleansing and the Russians want a port in the med. qed.

  10. SPC 10
    16 July 2018 at 6:50 pm

    Trump is conflicted, he needs the NATO confrontation with Russia over Ukraine/Crimea to realise the 2014 promise of 2% GDP defence spending by 2024. Especially given he is being ridiculous about bumping that up to 4% and demanding Germans take American gas rather than make use the new pipeline arrangment with Russia.

    Thus he has nothing to offer Putin in return for “global” co-operation.

    And given his pretence that completing Obama era plan for nuclear weapons upgrade investment will be his own achievement, he will look away from bi-lateral nuclear arms reduction issues.

    He has achieved nothing with North Korea, but will do the same here so he can pretend he made a difference (when the USA is actually co-existing with a nuclear armed and ICBM capable N Korea) – all so he can posture as GOP strongman on Iran to please the Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbies.

    I suppose he could sacrifice Kurds in Syria for a Russian “promise” not to do to the US what the US did to Russia in Afghanistan, but only if he has Likud permission …

  11. corodale 11
    16 July 2018 at 9:18 pm

    Crimea never voted to leave the Russian Federation, but they did vote to rejoin it. And there where lots of attacts on Russian ethinics in the East of Ukraine to justify action.

    Assad is a democratic leader, and one of the few in the region who isn’t a puppet for the world’s Zionist empire.

    A talk about a reduction on nuclear weapons would be good. Expect they will have one, indirectly. But reducing the power of the Industrial Military Complex is to happen slowly to avoid crazy folk hitting the panic buttons.

    It’s a provocitive post for The Standard. This demonising of Trump is so truely non-productive.

  12. adam 12
    16 July 2018 at 10:09 pm

    Ad, you third point the real problem is that trump has been attacking human rights and civil rights. So there is no way this is going to happen, I fear the next few years are going to continue the trend that civil rights and human rights are going backwards.

    A couple I would have liked you to add, was that he speak up for LGBTI rights, and help stop sex trafficking.

    But alas we ain’t going to see that either. We are not going to see anything, but more of trump the distractor whilst the US empire keeps killing the world with it’s over consumption.

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