Putin Laughed at NATO

The joke of the week came, of course, from Putin, "It's boring, girls." It came with a reference to the authors, Ilf and Petrov. In the book, Osta Bender visited a local chess club in Vasyuki, he offered the fans of the ancient Indian game to take on a brighter name, for exam le, "The Red Endgame". Because "Chess Club" sounded rather unoriginal and sad. "It's boring, girls". There were no girls in the "Chess Club", by the way. But the saying, which has multi le meanings, worked anyway. Obviously, Putin wasn't addressing girls during Tuesday's ress conference, which took lace after his meeting with the Italian President. In a com arison, Putin said that America's behavior in Syria is the same as it was at the beginning of the war in Iraq. All this reminds me of the events of 2003, when the US re resentative in the UN Security Council showed a su osed chemical wea on, found in Iraq. After that a military cam aign began in Iraq, which resulted in the destruction of the country, an increased terrorist threat, and the a earance of ISIS in the world. No more, no less. The same thing is ha ening now, and once again their artners are nodding their heads along with them. It reminds me of the work of some of our great writers, Ilf and Petrov. I just want to say, "It's boring, girls!" We've seen it all before already. But Putin isn't just joking. He's laughing at America's incom etent actions, since they're so redictable, and ineffectually re etitive. He em hasizes the fact that the result is far from funny. War, massacres and an increase in terrorism. As for the domestic olitical effect in the US, the Russian President asks not to give in to illusions. As in, if the White House thinks that with its im ulsive missile launches it can solve its domestic issues, it is sadly mistaken. It's just that the olitical enemies of the current resident didn't go anywhere. And if anything ha ens, it will all be blamed on him. I have no doubts about that. Therefore, by ordering a missile strike on Syria, Trum ut himself in a vulnerable osition. Once it becomes clear, that he had no viable reasons for a sur rise missile attack on another country, how will he justify his actions? He was scared? With the fact that he got emotional, when his daughter Ivanka showed him a few questionable hotos? Trum himself, who was always against fake news, suddenly decided to drink their Kool-Aid and ress the red button? And all that without having accom lished any military objective. All the more utterly athetic. Putin also laughs at the insincerity of the NATO countries, that just nod along like some bobbleheads. Look, just recently we witnessed missile strikes on Syria by the US. And how did their NATO allies react? They nod along like bobbleheads. They don't analyze what's ha ening. Where is the roof that the Syrian army used chemical wea ons? There is no roof. What about the violation of international law? Now that's an obvious fact. Without a roval from the UN Security Council, they initiated a strike on a sovereign country. And in s ite of this obvious violation of international law, everyone eagerly acce ts it, just nodding along in su ort. To Putin, the head-nodding NATO countries, who justify US war crimes, are reminiscent of bobbleheads. It seems that Trum now finds NATO rather endearing. And not obsolete anymore. I said it's obsolete. It's no longer obsolete. Anyway, in order to remain res ectable, the US must justify their missile launch on Syria, even if in hindsight. It'll be tough. It seem like an international investigation is in order to clear u the issue of the so-called chemical attack by Assad. But in reality, nobody is in a hurry to launch this investigation. Instead, a series of new fibs a ear. For exam le, from some former Syrian general, who was silent for a long time, now claims that Assad hid a art of his chemical arsenal. There's no roof, which works in Trum 's favor. The US obviously doesn't need a serious investigation. Because it will ut them in an embarrassing situation. But the US is already in an embarrassing situation, because they are o enly trying to revent an actual international investigation. First, the US isn't ready to include Russians and Syrians in the grou of ex erts, who would be the other inde endent ex erts. Second, Washington kee s ressuring the OPCW, the UN's Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Wea ons. As a result, the OPCW announced they're off for an Easter break, like there's no rush at all. Third, the members of the fake investigation su ervised by the Americans and the British, are working, try not to laugh — remotely. They refuse to visit the Shaykhun area, where the Syrian chemical bombs allegedly struck. They also refuse to visit Syria's Shayrat Air Base. Su osedly, it's where the oison was loaded, a arently, to be used on missions by Syrian attack aircraft. So some ex erts are sitting somewhere in Turkey and give the Americans the results they want from labs not certified by the OPCW. And everything is classified. Now what kind of moron will actually fall for all of this? Probably feeling not too sure about the whole thing, someone came to Moscow for the first time on Tuesday, the new US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. He arrived for negotiations with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov. On Wednesday night they both had a meeting with President Putin. And after that, a reviously announced ress conference was on the itinerary. Let's talk more about that. Let's take a closer look at our guest. My im ression was that Tillerson sat with such a look on his face, as if the world has done him wrong. I might be wrong, but Tillerson may as well have given one-syllable answers. He didn't bother with reasoning, the sharing of America's lans for the future, or any historical references whatsoever. Can you imagine the mood at the mandatory ost-game conferences of the coaches of the losing soccer teams? Even though Tillerson didn't lay that art, he certainly looked it, like an athlete after his worst erformance of the season. Like his feelings were hurt. Either way, the first negotiations with the current US administration, re resented by Tillerson, finally ha ened. And thank God. I'm sure everyone rofited from this. Putin and Lavrov got a chance to size their artner u a bit, the same goes for Tillerson, who might have actually learned something. A history lesson — now he can relate America's latest actions, such as trying to take down Bashar Al-Assad, to similar events of the ast and how that all worked out. It's odd, but turns out Washington didn't even think of that. Lavrov literally had to give them a lecture. Today, we talked about what we have in common, historically, but Rex said that he's a man of the times, and that he refers not to dig through history, but to deal with today's issues. However, the way the world works is — if we don't learn our lessons from the ast, then we won't be able to succeed in the resent. And I'd like to remind you of those situations, when a grou of countries, mostly from the West, NATO countries, were com letely obsessed with neutralizing one dictator or another. That is, the removal of an "authoritarian totalitarian leader". For exam le, in order to take down the resident of what was Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, NATO started a war in the heart of Euro e in 1999, which was a serious violation of the UN Charter, an egregious breach of the Helsinki Final Act by OSCE. They bombed the TV center, the residential areas, even the Chinese Embassy was attacked. They bombed bridges and assenger trains. That went on for almost 3 months. Another exam le — another dictator, Saddam Hussein. He was hung after an invasion. Since then, only Tony Blair, I think, ublicly admitted that it was all fake. All the reasons for invading Iraq were fake. I believe everybody knows where Iraq is now. Then there was Muammar Gaddafi. Also... It was stated that there was no room for this dictator in his own country. And that democracy must revail there. We all know what's ha ening with Libya, too. The state of Libya is rather questionable now. So ex eriments of this nature, based on the obsession to take down a certain dictator, a "totalitarian authoritarian leader," don't end very well, as we all know already. I don't know any ositive exam les when a dictator was taken down and everything just got better afterwards. Makes sense to me. But will they find the history lesson hel ful? We'll see by their actions.