Fausta's Blog

Roger Kimball ponders Putin’s pawns,

What I’m thinking about at the moment is not jailed pop singers, murdered journalists, or poisoned former KGB agents.  There are plenty of those.  No, I’m thinking about Russia’s most helpless citizens (subjects?), the babies who might have been adopted by American families eager for children.  In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, you could be shot for trying to escape.  In the bad new days, Putin signs a bill banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children. “Russian officials,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “portrayed the latest legislation as a tit-for-tat retaliation against a new U.S. law that seeks to punish Russians accused of human-rights violations.”  Right.  Leave aside the question of whether the U.S. law in question makes political sense.  The outrage here is that Putin responds by punishing his own citizens, denying them freedom and a chance for a better life in America. “Critics allege that the law makes political pawns out of Russian orphans,” the WSJ writes, noting that their “living conditions can be dire and prospects for adoption often slim.”  That about sums it up.

Nor are Russian babies the only pawns in this game.  The legislation that Putin signed today also bans U.S. charities from operating in Russia, thus depriving Russians of the sustenance those many charities offer.

Putin’s all about his power.

This ad started airing yesterday,

First saw it at PowerLine, Breitbart has the transcript, but Putin did it first,

and again

Check out #MyFirstTime on Twitter

Unemployment among women 18 to 24 is 12.8%. Forget #MyFirstTime, what about #MyFirstJob?

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 26, 2012

Having not only secured Putin’s endorsement , but also imitated his message (Putin called his U.S. counterpart “a genuine person”; Obama’s ad says “You want to do it with a great guy”), today Obama’s on MTV.

UPDATE,
Steven Crowder rises to the occasion,

Hugo’s BFF Putin sent him a puppy,

Putin Sends Russian Puppy to Venezuelan President. The Russian terrier is known as “Stalin’s dog”, which will certainly do Hugo proud.

Over at Drudge, Hugo has little to celebrate,

Venezuela’s marathon man looks to run down Chavez
Henrique Capriles, an opposition leader who runs marathons in his spare time, hopes to give Hugo Chavez a close race in elections next weekend, reports Philip Sherwell

The election is scheduled for next Sunday.

Hollande, Putin and Ahmadinejad confirm presence at Rio 20

From June 20 to 22, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio 20, in Rio de Janeiro, will highlight the presence of more than 115 heads of state and government. They will focus on discussions on the defense of the environment with sustainable development and social inclusion. Attention will be focused on the presidents François Hollande (France) Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran), among others.

Ahmadinejad’s also stopping by Bolivia and Venezuela to call on his friends Evo and Hugo. Hugo has visited Iran nine times in the past 13 years.

No word on whether Chavez will attend the G20.

Vlad wants you to vote for him,

The Polish Prime Minister knows when he’s being sold down the river, and wasn’t about to make nice:
Polish PM wouldn’t take U.S. calls

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed today that he declined last night to take a call from the U.S. informing him of the decision to scrap planned missile-defense bases in his country.

Two U.S.-based sources close to the Polish government said Thursday that Tusk also rejected a call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — on the grounds that, as the head of the government, he should speak to the president.

“Hillary called — and the reason he turned it down was because of protocol,” said a source.

Questions about the exchanges surfaced in the Polish press after Obama reached the Czech prime minister late last night to warn of the policy change, but did not speak to the Pole until this morning. And the static offers a glimpse at the distress beneath the diplomatic facade being offered by Eastern European leaders.

Polish Radio reports today that Tusk confirmed an earlier press report that he hadn’t taken Obama’s call but denied it was due to “technical difficulties.”

Tusk said he declined to speak with President Obama during the night because he wanted to “properly prepare for the discussion.”

A Polish Embassy spokesman noted that Tusk ultimately spoke to Obama, while Clinton spoke to the country’s foreign minister.

This highlights a few facts:
a. As Michael Goldfarb stated yesterday,

the administration did not undertake any serious consultation with the allies affected by this decision, displaying a kind of unilateralism that became one of the core Democratic criticisms of the Bush administration’s diplomacy

b. The president did not see fit to advise in person any of the allies affected, even when they see this decision as potentially catastrophic. They were not called to Washington, instead they got a phone call.
c. Obama does not understand the niceties of protocol, sending the help to do the call to a head of state, instead of doing the calling. Next thing you know Tusk will be getting a set of DVDs as a consolation prize.

Max Boot writes about More Naiveté

U.S. to Shelve Nuclear-Missile Shield
Defense Plans for Poland, Czech Republic to Be Dropped as Iran Rocket Threat Downgraded; Moscow Likely to Welcome Move

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran’s long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Just as the WSJ is reporting that story, Agence France Presse comes up with this one: France ‘certain’ Iran working on nukes

French intelligence agencies are certain that Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons program, President Nicolas Sarkozy says.

“We cannot let Iran acquire nuclear” weapons because it would also be a threat to Israel, Sarkozy said during a meeting at the Elysee presidential palace with lawmakers from his conservative UMP party on Tuesday.

“It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear (weapons) program,” he said.

The French leader also said he would not “shake the hand of someone who wants to wipe Israel off the map”, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So the French think the Iranians are getting nukes, but the Obama administration is not worried because the Iranian rockets are not ready to deliver them?

But, guess what, Intelligence Agencies Say No New Nukes in Iran
Secret updates to White House challenge European and Israeli assessments.
Not only does the administration think the Iranians don’t have the rockets, they don’t even believe Iran could get the bomb.

Gee, that so eases my mind!

Alright kids, let’s make Vlad happy, then!
Michael Goldfarb:

This represents a complete capitulation to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who had demanded that the proposed deployments be halted as a price for improved relations. Ironically, the Obama administration, which is appeasing Russia in the hopes that Moscow will help put pressure on Iran, has made this mammoth concession just a few days after Moscow declared that it had no intention of supporting sanctions against Iran.

The consequences of this action in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine and in other countries that feel vulnerable to Russian power, will be disastrous. It is a major American retreat in the face of Russian bullying. And we will get absolutely nothing for it.

More Obama-brand diplomacy:

A source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the team in the air to Europe will be making stops in Warsaw, Prague, and Brussels. It sounds like the administration did not undertake any serious consultation with the allies affected by this decision, displaying a kind of unilateralism that became one of the core Democratic criticisms of the Bush administration’s diplomacy.

The Czech Interim Prime Minister got a midnight call. They couldn’t even bother to tell him in person.

From the day Obama was sworn in, the entire foreign policy has been, “appease our enemies, drop our friends.”

Let’s take a look at the map, and think fireworks,

Many other bloggers will be remarking that this move by the Obama administration gives the Czechs and Poles (and Israel) the middle finger. You can also be assured that Chavez is also welcoming the news, big time.

Exit question,
Is the healthcare debate timed to coincide with this in order to distract from the disastrous foreign policy, or is it just another disastrous move out of many?

UPDATE
While we’re at it, let’s appease China and throw the Dalai Lama under the bus, too.

At DEBKA, Sarkozy accuses Iran of hiding nuclear weapons program which threatens Israel

The first Western leader to expressly admit knowledge of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said: “It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear (weapons) program.” He added: “We cannot let Iran acquire nuclear” weapons because it would also be a threat to Israel.” Sarkozy spoke during a meeting at the Elysee presidential palace with lawmakers from his UMP party Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The French president said he would not shake the hand (of Iran’s president at the UN General Assembly) of “someone who wants to wipe Israel off the map.”

DEBKAfile’s militlary sources add:

French intelligence has thus gone further than US intelligence agencies which maintained in an assessment to leaked to the media on Sept. 10: “Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, spring for a nuclear weapon,” and “Iran has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.”

France is one of the five permanent UN Security Council members with veto powers. Together with Germany they have agreed to meet Iranian representatives on Oct. 1 for talks, although Tehran insists they will not cover its “inalienable nuclear rights.”

At least Sarko’s awake.

In today’s podcast
This will be the subject of today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern.

More
The gathering storm, part 168
Surrender and Betrayal Do Not Make Us Safer

Update 2
Adding insult to injury is the timing of the announcement: A friend emailed reminding me that September 17 is the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland. Nice going! Jules has more, lots more, on that.

Michael Goldfarb examines the decision:
(more…)

At Drudge today: Venezuela to Develop Nuclear Energy With Russian Help

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said the South American country plans to develop a nuclear energy program with Russia and doesn’t want to build an atomic bomb.

Chavez said that the country’s oil and gas reserves won’t last forever and the government will seek alternative energy sources. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed to help Venezuela’s nuclear energy program during a meeting in Moscow last week, Chavez said.

“We’re not going to make an atomic bomb, so don’t bother us like with Iran,” he said on state television. “We’re going to develop nuclear energy with peaceful purposes.”

I wonder if that “nuclear energy with peaceful purposes” will have anything to do with those missiles with a range of 300km (185 miles) that Vlad just sold Hugo last week.

Now ponder for a moment the mind of the head of a nuclear country who believes that the Russian missiles he just bought can be deployed underground (and that’s after he fumbles through the catalog):

…God forbid it, but know that soon we’ll start installing on the mountains, on the plains, on the shores, even underground, these rockets.”

But why fret? Hugo’s just a simpleton who poses no threat, as some would like to think, and his keen intellect is controlled by logical, sober reasoning.

Just last week he was tellling Ahmadinejad that Jesus and the Mahdi (the Shi’ite messiah) will arrive soon and establish justice in the world.. Isn’t Hugo Da Bomb?

But speaking of Ahmadinejad, Bloomberg continues,

Chavez is a close ally of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s under international sanctions for continuing with the country’s nuclear energy program under suspicions by the U.S. and its allies that Iran is working toward making atomic weapons.

Robert Morgenthau, New York’s District Attorney, said last week that Venezuela may be helping Iran skirt sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the U.S. by transfering funds through the Venezuelan financial system.

I’ll talk about this in this morning’s podcast at 11AM Eastern.

Related posts:
“Is Iran Building Nukes in Venezuela?”
Hugo and Mahmoud, Best Friends Forever!

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean will be up later.

First there was the question, “Is Iran Building Nukes in Venezuela?”

Now we have this bit of news, Venezuela to get Russian missiles

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has announced that the country will soon take delivery of Russian missiles with a range of 300km (185 miles).

Returning from a 10-day tour of Africa, Asia and Europe, including Russia, Mr Chavez is also planning to buy Russian T-72 and T-90.

“Soon some little rockets are going to be arriving… and they don’t fail,” he announced at the presidential palace.

But he denied they would be used for offensive purposes.

Of course, what do you expect?

“We are not going to attack anybody, these are just defence tools, because we are going to defend our country from any threat, wherever it may come from,” the president said.

Any threat, real or imagined, that is?

Hugo didn’t specify how many missiles he’s buying from Russia.

In other shopping news, Evo Morales is buying a new presidential jet from Russia. I wonder if Hugo gets a broker’s fee on that transaction.

———————————
Chávez’s trip wasn’t all a bed of guns and roses, he was resoundingly booed when he arrived at a bookstore in Madrid:

The crowd “welcomed” him with cries of “Dictator!”, “friend of Ahmadinejad”, and “corrupt!”

Today we remember the horrifying terrorist attack on our country eight years ago.

We are at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

We have an enemy of our country, who is procuring nuclear technology from another enemy country, embracing Russia, which in turn promises

“We will supply Venezuela the weapons that Venezuela asks for,” Medvedev said after their talks.

The federal government has embarked in the most ruinous course of spending in the history of mankind, and the President is proposing even more ruinous spending.

And I go to Memeorandum, where their top story is, I kid you not, Wilson took caffeine pills in 2007.

An obscure congressman whose only claim to fame is having yelled during a presidential speech had too much caffeine two years ago, and that’s top news?