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Better fat than fascist

~ Considerations into the failures of over goverance & the successes of freedom

Tag Archives: Putin

“Yeah, eh!” Canada Among Midterm Winners

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by BetterFatThanFascist.com in Canada, Keystone XL, oil sands, Putin, Republicans, Russia, Senate

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Canada, eh, GOP, Keystone XL, midterm, oil sands, Putin, rail, Republican, Senate, train

By Greg Smith

There must have been a wave of cheers across Canada last week as Republicans won a majority of the U.S. Senate because the logjam over approval for the Keystone XL Pipeline may finally be over.

The Obama administration’s blockage of approval for construction of the proposed pipeline from Alberta to Texas sums up six years of his presidency: a feel-good strategy that was both doomed to fail at its intended environmental goals while certain to antagonize a key ally in the process. Stopping the pipeline from being constructed offers no benefit to anyone, including the environmentalists who form the heart of the opposition.

The crux of the matter is whether the lack of a new pipeline to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that can process the heavy crude oil coming from the Canadian oil sands will cause Canada to simply stop extracting the oil. During the 2012 presidential debates, Obama pointed out the U.S. is increasing oil production. Due to concerns about pollution and fears of global warming opponents don’t want oil extracted from the tar sands of Alberta.

It seems rather hypocritical for the U.S. to be in an oil boom while telling a neighbor their oil should stay in the ground. It is the usual argument made by too many comfortable, well-heeled environmentalists to save the planet others need to ditch their car and each winter set the thermostat to “Mother Earth thanks you.”

Canada has made it clear it will continue extracting the oil. Without Keystone oil will travel by rail – which requires more fuel and is more dangerous — to the U.S. refineries able to process it, or be sent via a proposed pipeline built to Canada’s east or west coast. In that scenario the oil can be refined in Canada and shipped elsewhere in the world, or sent abroad as crude to be refined elsewhere with lesser environmental regulations. U.S. refineries and oil companies can be cut out of the process with less energy available to the American consumer, and greater pollution in the atmosphere.

With Keystone there is a large construction project employing thousands of Americans, added business for American refineries on a permanent basis and more energy available to the American market. This will mean lower prices and encourage other business and commerce in the U.S.

Without Keystone U.S. companies and consumers could be completely shut out of access to the benefits of Canadian oil, while the oil continues to flow, but at greater economic and environmental cost, and we have jerked around a close ally for years for no good reason.

Forgoing the benefits of Keystone is still less maddening than a sitting president unable to muster the courage to just make a damn decision and live with the consequences. Obama’s unwillingness for a verdict on the pipeline permit may have actually come into the calculations Vladimir Putin made when Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s a pretty easy bet that a man afraid to make a choice on a proposed pipeline probably isn’t much of an adversary in realpolitik with a former KGB colonel.

As Soviet leaders saw decisiveness in Ronald Reagan’s willingness to fire air traffic controllers during an illegal strike in 1981, Obama has shown himself unwilling to ascend the ramparts in a fight. In short order such vacillation moves from farcical to dangerous.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

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American Failure to Act in Ukraine Likely to Have Global Consequences

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by BetterFatThanFascist.com in Crimea, Foreign Policy, Soft Power

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China, Consequences, naval blockade, Obama, Putin, Saudi Arabia, softer power, U.S. Resurgence, Ukraine, Yanukovych

By Greg Smith

The Russian incursion into Ukraine is a good time for the U.S. to better explore the use of a softer power – strategy – to shape world events for the better. Washington needs to get this right quickly or it may soon have greater problems with China, Iran and North Korea – and even Saudi Arabia.

The time line of events indicates this was probably not a snap decision by Vladimir Putin. November 30, 2013 saw pro-Western demonstrations in Kiev met with violence by riot police, which has not abated in three months. Two days later Kiev’s city hall was overrun by protesters, and on Feb. 20 government forces began to murder protesters. Russia responded with only words through these events. Putin is well aware that President Carter cancelled American athletes participation in the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow; the last time Russia hosted the games.

Suddenly, Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych flees to Russia a day and a half before the Olympics end, at which time Putin has a free hand to act without tarnishing his pet project, the Sochi games. The day after the games end Putin’s pool boy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev begins the drumbeat of war by questioning the new government in Kiev. The rest is recent history. It may be coincidence, but who would question whether Putin is willing to orchestrate events to suit his purposes?

President Obama’s response to watching Russian troops rolling into a Central European country is being heavily scrutinized in Beijing, Pyongyang, and Tehran. But the most peril lies in the impression it leaves in Riyadh, Tokyo, Manila, Taipai, Canberra, Paris and London — indeed inside every government that relies on the U.S. — and on whom the U.S. rely — for some level of security cooperation.

As you read there must be arguments in Beijing that there will be no better time to cross the Taiwan Straight, which would back Washington into a choice between a major war or irrelevance.

The best example is the Saudi Arabians, who according to BBC News may have nuclear weapons on order from Pakistan. The Saudis were disappointed to say the least at the Obama administration’s response to and handling of the civil war in Syria and openly questioned whether they could count on the U.S. having the willingness to prevent Iran, the Kingdom’s arch enemy, from acquiring nuclear weapons.

If Saudi leaders had been on the fence, what must they be thinking now, and if they acquire nuclear weapons, will they think twice about using them because they have faith in the U.S.?  ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political strategist who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

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