{"id":135253,"date":"2014-08-06T17:29:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T17:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=135253"},"modified":"2016-11-30T04:33:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T03:33:57","slug":"obamas-war-russia-backfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/obamas-war-russia-backfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s War Against Russia Backfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse\u00a0<\/em>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

U.S. President Barack Obama’s war against Russia isn’t only causing Russia to cooperate more strongly with the other BRIC countries to break the U.S. dollar’s reign as the global reserve currency, but it’s also causing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s job-approval rating in Russia to soar, and the confidence that the Russian people have in their own Government to soar likewise.<\/p>\n

The latest of these signs came on 5 August 2014 in a report from Gallup Analytics (by subscription only) headlined “Russians’ Confidence in Many Institutions Reaches All-Time High.” Especially sharp has been the rise in “Confidence in national government,” which was only 39% in 2013 prior to the overthrow by Obama in February 2014 of Ukraine’s government which had been friendly to Russia, but which confidence-level stands now at 64% — a gain of 64\/39 or 1.64 times higher than it was a year ago. Confidence in the military has risen from 65% in 2013 to 78% now. Confidence in the “honesty of elections” has risen from a very low 23% in 2013 to 39% today (which is 39\/23 or 1.70 times higher), as increasing numbers of Russians have come to conclude that their political system is producing better results for them than they had expected, perhaps better than in the longer-established “democratic” nations, such as the United States, whose President Barack Obama is far less highly regarded now by Russians, after his overthrowing Ukraine’s Government, than he was prior to that. Remarkably, more Russians than ever before, 65%, answer “Yes” when asked “are you satisfied … with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?” Last year, only 56% did, down 2% from the prior all-time high of 58% in 2006.<\/p>\n

A Gallup poll issued on 18 July 2014 headlined\u00a0“Russian Approval of Putin Soars to Highest Level in Years,”<\/a>\u00a0and reported that\u00a0\u201cPresident Vladimir Putin’s popularity in Russia is now at\u00a0its highest level in\u00a0years, likely propelled by a groundswell of national pride\u00a0with the annexation\u00a0of Crimea in March on the heels of the Sochi Olympic Games\u00a0in February. The\u00a083% of Russians saying they approve of Putin’s leadership in\u00a0late April\/early\u00a0June ties his previous high rating in 2008 when he left office\u00a0the first time.\u201d\u00a0Furthermore, \u201cThe 29-percentage-point increase in Putin’s job\u00a0approval\u00a0between 2013 and 2014 suggests he has solidified his previously shaky\u00a0support\u00a0base. For the first time since 2008, a majority of Russians (73%)\u00a0believe their\u00a0country’s leadership is leading them in the right direction.\u201d Pointedly,\u00a0Gallup\u00a0says: \u201cAt the same time that their faith in their own leadership has\u00a0been\u00a0renewed, Russians’ approval of the leadership of the U.S. and the EU are\u00a0at all-time lows. The single-digit approval of the leadership of the U.S. and\u00a0EU at\u00a0least partly reflects Russians’ displeasure with the position each has\u00a0taken on\u00a0their country’s ongoing involvement in Ukraine and its annexation of\u00a0Crimea.\u201d\u00a0Moreover, \u201cDespite U.S. and European sanctions earlier this year over\u00a0Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, more Russians see their economy getting\u00a0better now than has been the case since 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of these changes are largely attributable to Obama’s replacement of the democratic but corrupt government in Ukraine by\u00a0a dictatorial but corrupt one (now elected only by voters in the areas of the country that the new regime isn’t ethnically cleansing to get rid of the people who had voted into office the President — Viktor Yanukovych — whom Obama and the CIA overthrew in February 2014).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, there was no serious possibility of Crimea’s rejoining Russia (of which Crimea had been a part between 1783 and 1954) until the new Ukrainian regime massacred hundreds of its opponents inside the Odessa Trade Unions Building on May 2nd, the event that\u00a0caused Yanukovych’s voters to fear for their lives. That massacre was co-masterminded by\u00a0Ihor Kolomoysky, the billionaire gas oligarch who recently hired Joe Biden’s son<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On 2 July 2014, I headlined\u00a0“Gallup Poll Finds Ukraine Cannot Be\u00a0One Country,”<\/a>\u00a0and reported that, “The 500 people that were sampled in Crimea were\u00a0asked ‘Please tell me if you agree or disagree: The\u00a0results of the referendum on Crimea\u2019s status\u00a0[whether to rejoin Russia, which passed overwhelmingly] reflect the views of most\u00a0people here.’ 82.8% said ‘Agree.’ 6.7% said ‘Disagree’.\u201d Moreover, “Additionally, in the Crimean region \u2013 Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0farthest southeast area, which our President,\u00a0Barack Obama, says that Russia forcibly seized\u00a0when the people there voted overwhelmingly on 16\u00a0March 2014 to become part of Russia again (as they\u00a0had been until 1954) \u2013 only 2.8% of the public there\u00a0view the U.S. favorably; more than 97% of\u00a0Crimeans do not.” Moreover, Gallup surveyed Crimeans a few months before Obama’s coup in Ukraine, and headlined\u00a0“Public Opinion Survey: Residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, May 16-30, 2013.”<\/a>\u00a0They found that when asked “Regardless of your passport, what do you consider yourself?” 40% said “Russian,” 25% said “Crimean,” and only 15% said “Ukrainian.” So: when the Autonomous Republic voted after Obama’s coup, when even fewer Crimeans self-identified with the now-fascist-run Ukraine, it had to have been a foregone conclusion they’d choose Russia, because even prior to that, there was nearly a three-to-one preference of Russia over Ukraine. That same poll showed 68% favorability for Russia and 6% favorability for “USA.” 53% wanted to be part of the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, while only 17% wanted to be part of the EU. Obama lies through his teeth about Crimea. On 25 March 2014, the Los Angeles Times<\/em> headlined\u00a0“President Obama Says Russia Seized Crimea.”<\/a><\/p>\n

On 15 July 2014, Newsweek<\/em> bannered,\u00a0“BRICS Conference Plots a Challenge to Western Economic Domination,”<\/a>\u00a0and reported that, “A new monetary organization that aims to be a rival to the World\u00a0Bank\u00a0and the IMF was launched today by leaders of the BRICS\u00a0group at their\u00a0annual summit. Leaders of Brazil, Russia, India,\u00a0China, and South\u00a0Africa, banded together as a set of emerging\u00a0nations, announced the\u00a0long-awaited\u00a0bank and contingency fund, a\u00a0clear move away from the dominance of the\u00a0West in global\u00a0economics and the dire consequences of an unstable\u00a0dollar.”<\/p>\n

Obama’s takeover of Ukraine — or of the rump western portion of it that will remain as “Ukraine” after the civil war that Obama started there — will leave a weakened United States, and a world far more hostile to us. He, and his stooges in Europe, may succeed in harming Russia, but the public in every nation will be harmed by what Obama has done in Ukraine. A few aristocrats who will be grabbing former Ukrainian assets will gain, but they and their U.S. and EU partners (such as Exxon, Chevron, and Shell) will be the only ones who will. Aristocrats are the only people that Obama really cares about. He certainly doesn’t shed crocodile tears over the hundreds of thousands of residents in southeastern Ukraine who are either being murdered or else fleeing into refugee camps inside Russia, all due to him \u2014 due to people he has appointed, decisions he has made, and actions he has taken.<\/p>\n

For everybody except Obama\u2019s patrons, his policies regarding Ukraine are disastrous.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and of \u00a0CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse\u00a0 RINF Alternative News U.S. President Barack Obama’s war against Russia isn’t only causing Russia to cooperate more strongly with the other BRIC countries to break the U.S. dollar’s reign as the global reserve currency, but it’s also causing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s job-approval rating in Russia to soar, and the confidence that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":132703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[115,30,32,535,524,523,49,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-135253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-global-news","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-usa-news","15":"tag-warfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}