Mike_L wrote:Ihavenofingerprints wrote:Did you seriously sit down and watch that man talk for 40 minutes? I noticed people in the crowd falling asleep after a few sentences.
I had it playing in the background while I was busy doing some other stuff.
And I read the summary on the webpage at Information Clearing House (link in original post).
I'm not infatuated with Putin and I don't agree with 100% of what he says, but the gist of his comments here is ably supported by observation of current events. Does anyone seriously contest the claim that U.S. / coalition / NATO interventions in the Middle East (most notably Iraq) and North Africa (Libya) have had destabilizing effects in those regions?
I certainly don't contest the kernel of truth at the centre of the tissue of lies, Western intervention in Iraq has proved unsuccessful and a balanced view would have to see it as adding to instability in the region.
However if one compares Russian intervention in Afghanistan with Western intervention, in the Ukraine, in the Balkans and the former Yugoslavia, in East Germany. If one looks at Russian obstructionism over Syria and compares with western actions in each of these spheres a different picture emerges.
If one only looks at failures of US foreign policy, they don't come out looking too well (and neither does the UK, the longer term guilty party), but there have been successes as well. One only needs to compare South Korea to North to gauge whether Western intervention is universally unsuccessful.
It's also laughable for him to talk about US expansion towards Russia, the US has claimed not one square metre of sovereign territory as a result of war, while Russia on an ongoing basis flouts the very existence of the UN.
Putin is not "telling it like it is", he's wrapping a small kernel of truth with a wider tissue of lies and I am baffled that anyone outside of the influence of Russian propaganda could be suckered in.