Oh Gimme Strength!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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He’s only gone and done it again!

First Obama got his nose stuck in Russia’s affairs, and now he’s pointing a nostril at China’s.

What is wrong with US politicians these days? They know nothing about foreign policy or foreign regimes come to that, yet they continue to try to dictate how everyone else should be behaving themselves.

These things aren’t any of our business and American Presidents, Secretaries of State and the rest are not doing themselves, or their country, any favors by getting involved in foreign disputes that don’t concern them.

You could understand it if they knew what they were talking about, but the long list of failed initiatives and interventions shows clearly they don’t. No one respects their opinion any more and economically and militarily strong nations, like Russia and China, certainly aren’t going to lie down and buckle under because of any outside interference.

 

So far US meddling in other people’s affairs has caused a catastrophe in the Middle East, ill will in Europe, sanctions against Russia that don’t work, and now interfering in what is happening in Hong Kong has done nothing but irritate the Chinese government. They’ve actually told America to butt out and mind their own business.

What they actually said was “Hong Kong affairs fall entirely within China’s internal affairs. We hope that some countries and people can be prudent in their words and deeds, refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong in any way, do not support the illegal activities such as the ‘Occupy Central,’ and do not send any wrong signals.”

Like I said – butt out!

The Chinese government will do what they are going to do, no matter what criticism it draws from the rest of the world. China is not a democracy so it is pointless to try to impose democratic ideals on it and its people. You can be sure that those in charge in China will eventually put down the current protests, violently if necessary. All that will be achieved by egging the protesters on will be a disaster like the Tiananmen Square massacre. How many lives is it worth to embarrass China on the media for a few days?

Apart from the un-informed who only parrot what they hear on heavily skewed TV newscasts, most of the rest of us are fed up with people dying in order to make the world safe for democracy.

America has a cart load of problems, economic, social and the rest, without taking on the ills of the rest of the world as well, especially when it hasn’t a clue how to solve them.

Time for a rethink, assuming that any thought was put into what they are currently doing.

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Vlad The Bad?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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“It was the Russians, they’re the ones to blame.”

“It was Putin. He’s the baddie. We can’t let him get way with it!”

 

So go the cries in the US in the aftermath of the shooting down of Air Malaysia Flight MH17 over the Ukraine.

And that was long before any of the facts had been collected and it was known who shot down a plane on a different continent, or why. 

Russia wants (virtual) control of the Ukraine. There isn’t really any doubt about that. For them it is a strategic imperative. Russia’s history has taught it that it needs to be able to control a vast amount of territory, if only to use as a buffer zone against invasion.

The situation is not helped by various US Presidents and Secretaries of State giving Russia assurances that they would not attempt to involve the peripheral former Soviet states in things like NATO – and then trying to do the exact opposite.

It is now widely accepted that the underlying reason for the unrest in the Ukraine and Russia’s reaction is because of US interference in that country, which included helping to overthrow its democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and replace him with someone who was a virtual puppet of the West.

That was just asking for trouble. And they should have known it.

And they will get trouble, probably much more than they bargained for.

Unfortunately that will impact on ordinary people, like us.

 

Just as the US has its beady eyes on bringing the Ukraine and other former Soviet states into pro-Western organizations like NATO, it is equally certain that Putin will have his beady eyes on not only bringing the former Soviet states back firmly under Russian control, but in perhaps expanding his relationships with other parts of Europe.

Putin has the energy reserves to do it. Whilst there is very little in the way of direct trade between the US and Russia, particularly in regard to energy supplies, (Russia is just the United States’ 20th largest trading partner), Europe is largely dependent on Russian gas to keep it going. Over 30 percent of the European Union’s energy supplies come from Russia and the EU is Russia’s largest trading partner.

Russia’s counter strategy, therefore, will obviously be to use its considerable economic influence as leverage to try to break up the NATO alliance and to separate the European power house, Germany, from its Anglo-American alliance.

Putin is being helped by the arrogance of America’s government spooks who thought they could spy on their friends and allies, even going so far as tapping the phone of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, without there being consequences.  

Prompted by leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the fallout from America’s spying debacle continues, people have been arrested, and the German government has even ordered the local CIA station chief to pack his bags and leave the country.

Germany may still place some value on its relationship with the US, but not nearly so much as previously, thanks solely to America’s lack of respect for them.

Putin and his advisors know this, even if Obama and Kerry don’t. They see Germany as ready for change. And they may well be right. The German people are angry at the contempt America has shown for them  – just as Americans would rightly have been if the Germans had done the same to them and their President  –  and they are increasingly frustrated at the burden the European Union has become economically.

If the US doesn’t catch itself on and behave differently and with respect towards its foreign friends, it may find that there will be changes it did not expect and certainly did not want.

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