Published with the permission of the author, first published by Unz.
I watched the God Emperor’s ascension to the Golden Throne at a bar night for American expats in Moscow. The mood there was largely pro-Trumpist, though obviously there was a self-selection mechanism involved. Everyone disliked HRC, though there were a fair number of Bernouts.
A report from the Russian Defence Ministry yesterday 23rd January 2017 caused a minor flap when it said that Russian aircraft had bombed ISIS position near Al-Bab on the basis of coordinates provided by the US military.
This caused some excitement, with some seeing this report as the first sign that under the new Trump administration US policy in Syria is at last changing, and that the US and Russia are finally working together to fight ISIS.
CBS has run a factually false and philosophically inane hit piece on RT.
Writing under the headline, “Vladimir Putin’s English-language international mouthpiece”, I knew the story wasn’t going to be anything but more of the same asinine absurdities I have heard time after time.
I wasn’t disappointed.
First of all, Vladimir Putin has no more to do with RT than Queen Elizabeth II has to do with British state-owned broadcaster, BBC.
The supremely unfunny Saturday Night Live has produced a segment where a man badly impersonating President Vladimir Putin, addresses the American people about President Trump.
The ‘comedy’ sketch is rife with untruths and misinformation about modern Russia. It’s the stuff that if used to attack any other group, would be called racist.
As Obama finally departs from the scene, this seems as good a moment as any to assess his Presidency.
In my opinion it has been a disastrous Presidency, which has hugely deepened divisions in America – a fact which more than any other explains the exaggerated reaction to his successor – and which has brought international relations to its most dangerous point of crisis since the end of the Second World War.
Observing Russian practice, Russian President Putin has been careful to avoid making any personal comments about Barack Obama, now no longer President of the United States.
I would add that it is a courtesy that was not reciprocated. Obama on occasion personally, and his officials frequently – including especially Vice-President Biden – spoke of Putin, and did so in the most offensive terms.
The Russians are playing down speculation of an early summit meeting between Russian President Putin and US President Trump.
President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov is reported to have told the BBC that a meeting is months away, and that preparations for it have not even begun. Supposedly, they cannot begin until after Putin has telephoned Trump to congratulate him on becoming US President.
This is what RT reports Peskov as having said in part
With the position of the Syrian forces besieged in the desert town of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria remaining extremely precarious – latest reports suggest they were forced to surrender hard-won gains they made there against ISIS yesterday – the Russians have brought the full weight of their air force to bear, striking at ISIS positions near Deir Ezzor with 6 TU22M3 bombers.
The Russians have taken their first practical step to challenge the previously undisputed authority of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) on Russian legal decisions.
In all the discussions of possible areas of cooperation between the US and Russia, one stands out because the prospects for it look so straightforward: the joint struggle against Jihadi terrorism.
Both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have repeatedly made clear their utter abhorrence of Jihadi terrorism, and in Putin’s case he has repeatedly made clear Russia’s wish to work alongside other powers to defeat it. Here is what Putin had to say about this in his famous address to the UN General Assembly in September 2015
