Showing posts with label Kommersant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kommersant. Show all posts

Monday, February 23, 2009

from russia with no love


Now although I could talk loot, like how J.C. Penny’s profit fell 51% last quarter, or how Lowe’s profit fell 60% last quarter, or even how down here in Georgia, more than 120,000 folk filed for unemployment benefits in January – I won’t. Instead something else caught my eye while reading my favorite Russian News daily -the Kommersant.


Kyrgyzstan, which is located in Asia in between Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, just kicked out the only representative of the United States military in the region. Manas Air Force Base, which may be our closest military base to Russia, will be no longer in about 6 months. The base is only about 8 or 9 years old and formed ex post facto to 911. Not that this is an indication of how the new administration relationship with Russia will be in the future (which it is) or the fact that Russia flexing will continue to be a thorn in the side of America’s foreign policy objectives (which it is), but more so how this will play with respect to the administrations locution concerning Afghanistan. Manas was most likely our major supply hub to troops in Afghanistan. The President of this small nation,Kurmanbek Bakiyev made his announcement ironically right after the Russian government agreed to give his country $2.1 billion in economic aid.

As we read and twit and blog and type, the war in Afghanistan is growing and becoming more out of control each day. President Obama stated last week that an additional 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Which is strange to me when the current President of the country, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more troops into his country? However, he was “informed of the deployments via a telephone call from Obama” on February 17.


I do not know what to anticipate with respect to the new administration approach to Afghanistan. I do hope that they do more than just chase the Taliban around the country back and forth; to and from Pakistan. Meaning he cannot continue the Bush approach, for Bush was so busy palling up with the former military dictator/president of Pakistan that he dropped the ball on Russia. And as of now, it seems as if Obama has been so enthralled, that he has over looked Russia as the player they are on the world stage, especially in their own backyard
A while back I wrote that Obama has to do some serious consideration to his dealings with Russia, specifically that Russia “may be the first head bump for Jones… Russia (Putin) is making a fat cat move to buy allegiance from Latin American states that are right in our own backyard. Plus they mad because of our decision to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. So as a result, they have decided to place some similar equipment in Cuba – or so they say." That was then, now he cock blocking with respect to US war efforts in Afghanistan. I can’t wait, for this will make for some good opinion editorials from Jones here.