Question: Obama vs Chávez & Putin, or McCain?

Do you even have to ask? The professorial theorist or McCain? The community activist or McCain? The community activist or the life long warrior? A man who gave blood for his country or a bench warmer in Reverend Wright's "God Dammed America Church"?

How could this even be close?

In the previous post:

bobal said...

Excellent caller from KGO.
Says he been in the hiring business all his life. Two kinds of people, talkers and knowers, doers. Always hire the knowers, doers. Talkers use abstractions, and, with the proper voice inflextion, tone and cadence, you can make a statement such as, "I would use our military wisely", which any 6th grader can say and agree with, and make it sound profound, even though really nothing has been said.

McCain is the knower, doer of the two, Obama the talker.

Hire McCain.

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Medvedev and Chávez sign $1 billion military loan

By Graham Bowley and Michael Schwirtz Published: September 26, 2008
IHT

Russia stepped up efforts to project its increased might on the world stage on Friday, welcoming President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela by signing a $1 billion military loan to the country and announcing wide-ranging plans to modernize Russia's nuclear deterrence.

The Russian Navy also dispatched a warship to the Indian Ocean to try to intercept a Ukrainian vessel reportedly carrying 30 battle tanks that was seized by pirates. The United States also sent a warship in hot pursuit.

After a military exercise in the southern city of Orenburg, near the border with Kazakhstan, President Dmitri Medvedev declared Friday that by 2020 Russia would construct new types of warships, including nuclear submarines carrying cruise missiles, and an unspecified space defense system.

"A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020," Medvedev said, in comments reported by Reuters.

"Large-scale construction of new types of warships is planned, primarily of nuclear submarines armed with cruise missiles, and multipurpose submarines," he was quoted as saying. "A system of air and space defense will be created."


Irritated by Western recognition of the independence of Kosovo, NATO's expansion into the former Soviet realm, and the United States' insistence on establishing a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, Russia has become increasingly determined to project its military might and defiantly ignored American and European warnings when it sent troops into Georgia last month.

In a sign of increasing antagonism, Moscow has withheld some cooperation with Western countries on international efforts to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The Russian government said Tuesday that it would boycott a meeting that had been scheduled at the United Nations for Thursday to discuss a fourth round of sanctions to force Iran to give up what many countries think is a program to develop nuclear weapons. The session was to have included the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany.

The Russian announcement was viewed by many diplomats as retribution for a tough speech that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered last week in which she denounced Russia's behavior in the Georgian conflict.

At the Pentagon on Friday, officials were calm, even muted, in their response to the statements from Russian leaders, with the highest-ranking American military officer saying the announcement on upgraded nuclear deterrence was a reaffirmation of military modernization plans the Kremlin already had described to their American counterparts.

And the officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said that closer Russian ties to Venezuela at their current levels did not constitute a significant threat to American national security.

Mullen said that in his previous position, as the American chief of naval operations, and in his current post, his Russian counterparts have made "very clear to me that their intention was to modernize their strategic forces."So the newest statements, he said, are consistent with Russian policy going "as far back as a couple of years."On growing Russian cooperation with Venezuela, Mullen said, both nations certainly had the right to "work together if they see fit."

"I just don't consider that a really significant threat at this particular point in time," Mullen said during a Pentagon news conference.

Although some Bush administration officials have urged a more punitive response to Russia after its invasion of Georgia, voices from the Pentagon have urged a calm and deliberate response. To that end, Mullen's comments were closely in line with the tone set over recent weeks by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

In Britain last week to meet with NATO defense ministers, Gates said that while Moscow seemed to be returning to "czarist habits and aspirations," these are far less of a threat than the Communist-era Kremlin's "ideology-based effort to dominate the globe."

Russia and the United States agreed Friday to seek a new United Nations resolution calling on Iran to comply with earlier demands to suspend uranium enrichment, The Associated Press reported.

The move was a sign that the two countries at least were talking, though the statement only reiterated previous positions.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband of Britain said the brief resolution would affirm the three previous ones, which imposed progressively tougher sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its enrichment program and urged Tehran to comply, The AP reported.

Emboldened by oil revenues, and the United States' distractions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia has said it wants to build alliances to stand up to American power in the world, and has sought closer relations with Chávez, a longtime critic of the United States.

On his second visit to Russia in two months, Chávez met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday and on Friday traveled to Orenburg to meet with Medvedev.

The $1 billion loan for weapons purchases and military development was announced in a Kremlin statement released Thursday night. The statement said Putin and Chávez had spoken on enhancing economic cooperation and trade in commercial goods as well as military technologies.

The $1 billion loan will help finance programs related to military-technical cooperation, the statement said. The Kremlin would not elaborate on the deal.

From 2005 to 2007, Venezuela has signed 12 weapons contracts with Russia valued at a total of more than $4.4 billion, the Kremlin statement said.

The announcement was the latest gesture of military friendship between Russia and Venezuela, two counties that have increasingly positioned themselves as mavericks vis-à-vis the West.

The Kremlin says its economic and political stability has allowed it to broaden the scope of its military and economic cooperation beyond what it calls its traditional sphere of influence.

This month, a pair of Russian Tu-160 long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons received a warm welcome when they landed in Venezuela.

Russia has also dispatched a squadron from its North Sea Fleet to the Caribbean to take part in joint naval exercises with the Venezuelan Navy sometime in November.

"Latin America, of course, is becoming an obvious link in the chain making up a multipolar world," Putin said during his meeting with Chávez.

"We will allocate more and more attention to this vector of our economics and foreign policy."

Russia has already delivered Sukhoi Su-30 fighters, Mi-17 transport helicopters and thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles to Venezuela. There are also plans to build a factory in the country that will manufacture those weapons under license.

Graham Bowley reported from New York and Michael Schwirtz from Moscow.