{"id":244016,"date":"2016-05-17T00:18:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T00:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=244016"},"modified":"2016-05-17T02:06:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T02:06:43","slug":"vicious-liar-trump-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/vicious-liar-trump-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is the More Vicious Liar: Trump, or Obama?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a drastic refocus by U.S. President Barack Obama away from being anti-jihadist and toward being anti-Russian, after his first Presidential term ended and as soon as his second Presidential term began; but the signs that Obama presented during his re-election campaign in 2012 were in exactly the opposite direction \u2014 that he was going to reduce, not increase, American armaments against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

A major reason why the American people re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama, instead of elected a new President Mitt Romney, was Romney\u2019s\u00a0having said of Russia<\/span><\/a>, on 26 March 2012,<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They\u00a0\u2014 they fight every cause for the world’s worst actors.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0Russia is the\u00a0\u2014 the geopolitical foe.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Not just \u201ca\u201d geopolitical foe, but \u201cthe<\/i>\u201d geopolitical foe.\u201d (Wow! In a world with growing jihadist movements, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS?)<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama responded to that at the re-election campaign\u2019s end, by springing this upon Romney during a debate, on 22 October 2012:<\/span><\/p>\n

Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia,\u00a0not Al\u00a0Qaida; you said Russia. In the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s campaign had very successfully presented himself as having killed Osama bin Laden and many other Al Qaeda leaders; and, though no polling has been done on whether the American public considered jihadists (fundamentalist-extremist Islamists who seek a global \u201cCaliphate\u201d) to be \u201cour number one geopolitical foe,\u201d or Russia to be that instead,\u00a0the poor polling that has been done<\/span><\/a>\u00a0relating to that matter, suggests the majority of Americans would have selected \u201cjihadists,\u201d not \u201cRussia,\u201d as being \u201cour number one geopolitical foe\u201d; and, in the final analysis, the 2012 Presidential contest exit polls did show Obama (who was publicly<\/i> less hostile toward Russia than Romney and the Republicans were) with\u00a0a 42% to 36% advantage<\/span><\/a>\u00a0over Romney on the national-security question: “Who Do You Trust To Handle International Crisis?\u201d The exit polls showed Obama winning the total vote by around 50% to 48%; so, \u201cInternational Crisis\u201d went for Obama, and against Romney, considerably more than did the overall exit-polled Presidential vote, and this at least suggests<\/i> that Obama not Romney gained from this public disagreement over \u201cour number one geopolitical foe.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding the incident on 26 March 2012<\/span><\/a>, when Obama spoke with Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev at the South Korean \u201cNuclear Security Summit\u201d<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0Politifact reported<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

In March 2012, at a summit in South Korea, Obama was caught in a “hot mic” incident. Without realizing he could\u00a0be overheard, Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more ability to negotiate with\u00a0the Russians about missile defense after the November election.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it\u2019s important for him [the incoming President Putin] to give me\u00a0space,”<\/i><\/b>\u00a0Obama was heard telling Medvedev, apparently referring to incoming Russian president Vladi\u00admir Putin.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

“Yeah, I understand,”<\/i><\/b>\u00a0Medvedev replied.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Obama interjected, saying,\u00a0<\/i>“This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

So: Obama was telling Putin there, through Medvedev, that his next Administration would soften its stand on America\u2019s installing in eastern Europe, near and even on Russia\u2019s borders, missiles that are designed to disable Russia\u2019s ability to retaliate against a U.S. nuclear first-strike \u2014 the U.S. ABM or anti-ballistic-missile system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama wasn\u2019t lying only to America\u2019s voters; he was shown there privately lying to Putin, by indicating to Medvedev that instead of becoming more aggressive (by his planned ABMs) against Russia in a second term, he\u2019d become less aggressive (by negotiating with Putin about\u00a0the matter<\/span><\/a> \u2014 as you can see there, the nub of it was George Herbert Walker Bush\u2019s lie to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990).<\/span><\/p>\n

The missile system to disable Russia\u2019s retaliatory force is extremely aggressive (the termination of the nuclear balance \u2014 called \u201cMutually Assured Destruction,\u201d or MAD \u2014 replacing that by nuclear weapons as instruments of conquest<\/i>), and Putin had been constantly making clear that he wouldn\u2019t accept it without hiking Russia\u2019s armaments so as to counter it, if Obama goes forward with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s double-lie there \u2014 both to Americans in public, and to Putin in private \u2014 was as vicious as can possibly be imagined, because it could produce a nuclear war, which is something that neither the American people want, nor the Russian people want, nor Vladimir Putin wants, even if Barack Obama might (and he\u2019s certainly playing a bold game of poker over it, which is the most vicious part of this entire affair).<\/span><\/p>\n

But actually, Obama\u2019s lie was even worse than this, because,\u00a0from the very moment when he entered the White House in 2009, he already was hoping to invade Syria so as to eliminate Russia\u2019s ally there, Bashar al-Assad<\/span><\/a>. And, furthermore, Obama at the very start of his second term began preparations to overthrow another key Russian ally, the democratically elected President of Russia\u2019s next-door neighbor Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. The\u00a0coup<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Ukraine started being implemented on\u00a01 March 2013<\/span><\/a>, which was well before the excuse for it (Yanukovych\u2019s 20 November 2013 turn-down of Ukrainian membership in the EU<\/span><\/a>) had even occurred; so, the lie that Obama\u2019s anti-Russian sanctions are because Russia accepted Crimea\u2019s return to Russia, after Obama actually stole Ukraine from its former Russian alliance, after Yanukovych rejected the EU\u2019s offer\u00a0to sell, to Ukraine, EU membership for a cost of $160 billion to be borne solely by Ukrainians<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0after Obama had set all of that up almost immediately after his second term began, is actually a string of lies by Obama about what he was doing and about what Putin was doing, and about what it all meant \u2014 and means.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, when Obama did\u00a0spring his coup, in February 2014<\/span><\/a>, which was\u00a0an extremely violent coup<\/span><\/a>, it was very reasonably seen to be a dangerous threat to the regions of Ukraine (Crimea and Donbass) that had voted over 75% for the man whom Obama had just overthrown, and they seceded in Crimea and in Donbass, because not only of the very real threat (and the Obama-regime\u2019s ethnic-cleansing campaign against Donbass<\/span><\/a>), but because they saw no legitimacy in their being ruled by their enemies, who are fake proponents of \u2018democracy\u2019, but actually aspiring global dictators.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does there exist any lying by Donald Trump which trumps that? I have never been a Republican, but I certainly won\u2019t vote for Hillary Clinton, who, in all details, has been similar to Obama on each of these matters, only even more reckless about her aggression than Obama has been \u2014 she was the Administration\u2019s \u201csuper-hawk\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 9 January 2012, the geostrategist F. William Engdahl presented relevant immediate background for Obama\u2019s lie asserting his alleged disagreement with Romney about Russia, when Engdahl headlined \u201cWhy Washington Wants \u2018Finito\u2019 with Putin\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he opened (and he was one of the first Westerners to have read correctly the tea leaves on this):<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington clearly wants \u2018finito\u2019 with Russia\u2019s Putin as in basta! or as they said in Egypt last spring, Kefaya \u2014 enough!.\u00a0 <\/span>Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia\u2019s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower<\/i> [to clarify: dominated by U.S.-based international corporations].<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

On December 8 several days after election results for Russia\u2019s parliamentary elections were announced, showing a sharp drop in popularity for Prime Minister Putin\u2019s United Russia party, Putin accused the United States and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fuelling the Russian opposition protesters and their election protests. Putin stated, \u201cThe (US) Secretary of State was quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust even before she received materials from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (the OSCE international election monitors-w.e.) observers.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s hostility against Russia, and his reasons for it, were known to his targets, but in America\u2019s \u2018democracy\u2019<\/span><\/a>, were not only kept secret from the electorate, but Obama blatantly lied to them about the matter, and he won re-election on the basis of lies such as this \u2014 lies such as his calling Romney on ugly designs that Obama too (though secretly<\/i>) held. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not enough for America\u2019s voracious<\/span><\/a> aristocracy to control their own country; they\u2019re determined to control all others, regardless of how much bloodshed<\/span><\/a> and misery<\/span><\/a> (all otherwise entirely unnecessary, including in Libya<\/span><\/a> \u2014 which, likewise, under Gaddafi, had been friendly toward Russia) they\u2019re creating in the process<\/span><\/a>. And that\u2019s what the most vicious lying is really all about: to hide their psychopathic<\/span><\/a> intent, and their fundamental ugliness, as they go about their dirty-work<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse There was a drastic refocus by U.S. President Barack Obama away from being anti-jihadist and toward being anti-Russian, after his first Presidential term ended and as soon as his second Presidential term began; but the signs that Obama presented during his re-election campaign in 2012 were in exactly the opposite direction \u2014 that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":244019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[115,698,907,59,1023,753,804,543,524,754,92,6257,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-244016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-hillary-clinton","10":"tag-isis","11":"tag-military","12":"tag-nuclear","13":"tag-police-state","14":"tag-politics-2","15":"tag-putin","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-syria","18":"tag-terrorism","19":"tag-trump","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-usa-news","22":"tag-warfare","23":"tag-white-house","24":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}