Obama In Russia - Way Over His HeadBy Joel Skousen
Editor - World Affairs Brief 7-10-9
Before moving on to the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, where the US and other major powers made only token and unattainable commitments to lower the earth's temperature-in obeisance to the man-made global warming hoax-Obama made his first foray into Russia, a nation schooled in centuries of political intrigue and foreign policy deceptions. Even though Obama was reared in a far-Leftist culture with fellow travelers and communists he was clearly out of his league in Russia where the art of luring the West into further disarmament treaties is their number one priority. I suppose Obama is smart enough to know when he's out of his league, but having surrounded himself with CFR globalist advisors only ensures that the message he peddles will only further the globalist agendas of more intervention and conflict.
Russia's major objectives vis a vis the United States and Europe are: 1) weaken the US nuclear stockpile by locking in deeper disarmament agreements with the US on nuclear weapons while concealing its own secret manufacturing facilities. 2) Encourage US continued intervention in Afghanistan and Iran in order to exhaust US military capabilities. 3) Facilitate EU dependence on Russia for strategic minerals and fuels. 4) Play the anti-NATO card so as to exacerbate tensions between Russia and NATO/US over the former Soviet states where the presence of Russian immigrants will increasingly provide the rationale for future war. 5) Resist any attempt by the US to install anti-ballistic missiles and radar near Russia. 6) Milk the West for any financial, trade, or technology advantage it can by feigning being an ally.
As we analyze how Obama and his CFR team did in Russia, we must always keep in mind that there are secret deals made behind the scenes that are never revealed to the American public, just as there were in all the WWII meetings between Roosevelt and Stalin in Tehran and Yalta. Roosevelt, like Obama was guided by a coterie of globalist advisors like Alger Hiss. So, while at first glance, it may appear as if the US really got some free concessions from Russia, the under-the-table portions of the agreements, giving Russia more access to US technology, will accrue to Russia's favor.
The Obama CFR team secured Russian approval for transshipment of military hardware to Afghanistan through various Southern Russian enclaves. While this appeared to be a tactical victory for the Obama administration, it was really a strategic victory for Russia under goal #2, hoping to wear out the US military in foreign wars much like it did to the Soviets in Afghanistan.
This "concession" by Russia, hover, came only after the United States secured supply arrangements with a number of Central Asian states that Moscow controls, including whatever unsaid promises the US made to Russia. Russia never makes concessions out of good will. They are ruthless about getting equal or greater value out of any deal. The Russians engineered the expulsion of the US from the large Air Force logistics base at Manas airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and was only able to get it back by paying a huge bribe, both to Kyrgyzstan and Russia. In 2005 the US lost the use of the Karshi-Khanabad base in Uzbekistan which made the base at Manas all the more important. The US is clearly running up against the limits of its ability to project power into Central Asia. It's a vast area and even its huge basing structure in Iraq is not enough to provide logistical support further north.
Russia also got the renewal of past disarmament agreements in furtherance of goal #1, with virtually no commitments to bring their portion of these past agreements back into compliance. The reason the US didn't press for compliance is because Obama's CFR advisors are only interested in US disarmament and not in exposing Russia's secret arms programs in underground cities at Yamantau and Kosvinsky mountains.
The Obama team went out of its way to avoid a Senate ratification battle over Russian non-compliance by not seeking a new treaty but only "renewing" the old one, as ABC news explains: "With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate's constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a 'provisional basis' until the Senate ratifies the treaty.
"White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore... said administration lawyers are exploring the 'different options that are available. One option is that both sides could agree to continue the inspections by executive agreement; that would work on our side. On the Russian side, as I understand it, that would require Duma approval.' The fact that the administration is preparing for such an extraordinary measure shows just how much pressure the two administrations are under to arrive at an agreement before the 18-year-old treaty expires."
The pressure, in fact, is self generated because further disarmament is necessary for the Russians, on the one hand, to feel comfortable launching their pre-emptive nuclear strike on the West, and that same disarmament is equally necessary from the globalist's viewpoint who have been trying to engender another world war for years, but can't seem to be able to induce the Russian strike even after years of concessions and secret gifts of technology.
"Both the US and Russia have agreed in principle to reduce the number of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles from the current level of 1,600 each, as was negotiated under START, and to reduce the number of nuclear warheads each nation has in its arsenal from 2,200 each, as agreed upon during the 2002 Moscow Treaty."
But Russia has never complied and US inspection teams are only allowed to see old Soviet nuclear stockpiles. They have never been allowed into Yamantau or Kosvinsky sites located in the Beloretsk area of the southern Urals. As I wrote clear back in 2004, "In 1998, US Strategic Commander (STRATCOM) General Eugene Habiger, the same naive commander who took part in the NPR propaganda documentary Missiliers, called Yamantau 'a very large complex -- we estimate that it has millions of square feet available for underground facilities.
We don't have a clue as to what they're doing there.' No clue, general? Not even one clue? People this stupid obviously get to be generals because they are predictable yes-men in a military determined to purge out any future George Pattons or Douglas MacArthurs. I noticed in Missiliers that Habiger never mentioned the Russian military's refusal to answer questions about Yamantau Mountain as he waxed eloquent about the deep camaraderie and trust he felt with his Russian military counterparts. If this is the best general we can find to head STRATCOM, the US is in mortal danger."
The Yamantau Mountain complex is not far from Russia's main nuclear weapons lab facility, Chelyabinsk-70. Honest military analysts suspect that Yamantau's huge 400-square-mile underground complex houses nuclear warhead and missile storage sites, launch control, and several full-blown nuclear weapons factories--all designed to continue production after a nuclear war begins. The US has no equivalent to such extensive protected production facilities--except perhaps deep within the bowels of Area 51 in Nevada. According to Ken Timmerman, the Russian government has provided no fewer than 12 separate and contradictory explanations for the site, none of which are believed to be credible.
Russia also has a massive national command and control system dispersed among three different hardened underground locations. Besides Yamantau Mountain, there is the Kosvinsky Mountain underground complex and the Sherapovo bunker site, south of Moscow. Sherapovo is the primary command center for Russia's "civilian" leaders. The Kremlin is connected to Sherapovo and other bunkers by a secret subway line. Once at Sherapovo, they can conduct the war effort using a highly redundant communications system "allowing the leadership to send orders and receive reports through the wartime management structure," according to a 1988 Pentagon report.
GlobalSecurity.org reports that "Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals [850 miles east of Moscow] is the site of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces alternate command post. This deep underground command post for the general staff was built to compensate for the vulnerability of older command posts in the Moscow region. In early 1996 it was reported that Russia had finished the new underground command and control center at Kosvinsky Mountain. Said to be designed to resist US earth-penetrating warheads, the command and control facility was said to be equal to the American Cheyenne Mountain Complex." Note that all this was going on after the phony "collapse" of the Soviet Union.
Don't think, however, that the US will stop at renewing the START treaty. They intend to ratify other treaties once this "renewal" paves the way and softens up what opposition there may be. ABC continues: "One of the major sticking points so far has been Russia's continued frustration at US plans for a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, an issue Samore said would 'have to be addressed in the new treaty,' though he would not specify just how." In Moscow, Obama and Medvedev simply put off the issue for "further study."
On disarmament specifics, "President Obama told Russia's ITAR-TASS/ROSSIYA TV that his 'goal is that both countries reduce their nuclear stockpiles in a way that doesn't leave either country with an advantage, but reduces tensions and the expense of maintaining such high nuclear stockpiles when they're not necessary for our defense and our deterrence.' But how to make sure neither side has an advantage is not a simple matter of numbers - because the counting is complicated [made complicated by the US desire to help facilitate Russia's ability to not count certain weapons systems].
"Another sticking point includes how to count nuclear weapons reductions given the asymmetrical nature of the US and Russian forces. Russian nuclear warheads are more land based; US warheads are more sea-based. Russians favor more warheads on fewer launchers; the US favors fewer warheads on more launchers.
"US negotiators are also arguing that weapons once used as part of the nuclear arsenal but since changed for conventional use - three Trident submarines with 48 launching tubes; the entire B-1 bomber force; and a number of B-52 aircraft that haven't been eliminated but aren't currently in operating condition - shouldn't be counted as nuclear weapon delivery vehicles. How the Russians would be able to verify the continued conventional use of these submarines and airplanes, as well as how general inspection rules for how the US and Russia will be able to verify their commitments, is also proving complex." Notice ABC makes no mention of the more difficult issues of judging Russian compliance, which has these same superficial variations, but also a number of sites off limits to US inspectors.
Another sore point in U.S.-Russian relations is Georgia. As Scott Horton pointed out, "In the weeks leading up to Obama's visit, Russia launched heavy military exercises on the Georgian frontier and has worked to get international observers out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia." Russia will continue to exacerbate tensions in Georgia as long as Russian citizens make up a large minority of the population and puppet president Saakashvili remains in power. Russia has also sabotaged the NATO observer mission for the ceasefire as a test of whether or not NATO is willing to act on its threats or just continue to talk. Obviously, it's the latter. The US and NATO will continue to use the Russia threat of carving out enclaves for Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a way of fomenting more conflict in the area. These two parts of Georgia are under de facto Russian control.
Eric Walberg of the Online Journal spoke to the NATO membership issue. "No public mention was made of Georgia and Ukraine actually joining NATO, with Obama stressing, 'NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.' But he nonetheless sent (allowed?) Vice President Joseph Biden to fly directly from Moscow to Georgia and Ukraine after the summit. 'We're not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense,' warned [Obama advisor Michael] McFaul. Here again, the US administration is not united [at least publicly], with Obama having made no firm commitment to further NATO expansion. Just how much say he actually has in such strategic decisions is a moot point. Obama was hoping to throw the Russians another bone by assuring them admission to the World Trade Organization. But Putin unexpectedly suspended Moscow's membership bid in June, deciding to approach the issue jointly through a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, without the need for US 'help.'"
News commentators continue to tout Russia's role as a partner in negotiating a peaceful settlement between the US and Iran and between the US and North Korea. This is a pipe dream. Russia should be correctly viewed as an instigator of trouble and not as a facilitator of peace. Ariel Cohen, a neocon type at the Heritage Foundation says that he "sat through numerous briefings by senior Russian officials who poo-pooed Iranian missile and nuclear programs and swore that Iran would never develop long-range missile and nuclear programs. To Russia's feigned surprise, Iran recently launched a satellite----a fact that indicates much progress in their ballistic missile program. In fact Russia may not have been so surprised. Russians have much better intelligence out of Iran than we do [being Iran's principle supplier of missile and nuclear technology]. The Kremlin has sought to use Iran as a battering ram against the United States, and against U.S. allies: the moderate Sunni states of the Gulf, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. Iran is a major market for Russian technology and services. Iran generates instability in the Gulf, which contributes to high oil prices. That's good for Russia, which is a high-cost oil producer."
Cohen also noted that "Russia demonstrated support for Ahmadinejad when the Basij militia was cracking skulls and shooting young women in the streets of Teheran." It is my view that Ahmadinejad has been selected to rule and remain in power because his rhetoric will eventually inflame war. But I think this provocative choice, while accruing to the US globalist's benefit--who want an excuse to attack Iran, is a product of Moscow's intervention with Iran's Mullahs rather than the CIA. If anyone is working for the CIA to destabilize Iran's political rule by theocratic tyranny, it is Mousavi and his opposition forces.
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