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From Russia with Love: #bidenputin #BidenPutinSummit - Biden vs. Vlad the Impaler

 

By Finian Cunningham

Both sides acknowledge that relations between the United States and Russia are at an abject low point. And both sides have said they want to make relations better. But who is actually making a positive effort to reduce tensions and give peace a chance?

It should be obvious that the Russian side is the only party that is acting responsibly and with a generous spirit of trying to improve bilateral relations. 

President Vladimir Putin says he hopes to open personal communications with American counterpart Joe Biden when they meet for their summit in Geneva on Wednesday. The Russian leader has played down expectations of a breakthrough, but nevertheless, his stated aspiration is for a productive detente. 

There is little to no reciprocation of benign spirit from the American side. Biden and his aides may say the US does not want a conflict with Russia. But apart from that rhetorical concession, the Americans are pushing aggression and making the Geneva meeting sound like a showdown.

The unwillingness of the US president to hold a joint press conference with Putin following their private discussions is a telling sign of the obnoxious American attitude. 

There are two reasons why Biden doesn’t want to appear side by side with Putin in front of the world. 

The first is he would not be able to handle Putin’s intelligent arguments and criticism of American policy. Joe Biden’s mental faculties are in serious doubt following well-publicized gaffes and missteps of forgetting names and incoherent speech. Not meaning to sound cruel, but Putin would demolish Biden in a public discussion. 

Biden and the entire American political establishment constantly accuse Putin and Russia of malign conduct, everything from being a “killer” to interfering in elections, cyberattacks and threatening the national security of the US and its allies. 

The depiction is a fantasy based on Russophobia and bigoted prejudice. As Putin pointed out in a recent US media interview: there is no evidence ever presented to back up these wild pejorative claims. It is all unsubstantiated, rabid nonsense.

If Putin was on the same public platform as Biden, we can be sure that the veil of lies would be torn from the American facade of acting tough and sanctimonious. Biden would be left quivering and mumbling like an impotent idiot. Indeed, any American politician would be since they are all brainwashed idiots bloated from their own propaganda. 

Thus, the world would see in a wonderful moment just how ridiculously naked the American emperor is and all his NATO minions are.

The second reason for why Biden could not abide standing alongside Putin is that that image confounds the American propaganda of demonizing “Vlad the Impaler”. Any appearance of a smiling Putin in a normal friendly setting with Biden would undermine the narrative of Putin-the-bogeyman.

That’s why the meeting has to be held in private and afterward the Americans can spin some account of the talks to make themselves sound morally superior by claiming to have brought up concerns about  “human rights” and “malign behavior”. We can be sure if Biden dares to act self-righteous, Putin will deftly slam the absurd hypocrisy. 

But it’s also vital for the American side to portray the encounter as a showdown between a good guy and a bad guy. The charade only works if kept in private. 

 At least in the past, Ronald Reagan was photographed having convivial fireside talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when they met in Geneva in 1985 and produced a landmark arms control treaty. To his credit, too, Donald Trump held a joint press conference with Putin when the pair met in Helsinki in 2018 and there was no acrimony.

But Biden, like most American politicians and media, is full of stupid antipathy towards Putin and the Kremlin. He warned menacingly last week he’s going to tell Putin “what he knows”. Biden says the Russian leader “needs to change his behavior” if there is to be any improvement in relations. 

It’s going to be very difficult to engage in productive dialogue when the American mindset is so indoctrinated with false propaganda.

Some observers may wonder is there any point in Putin meeting Biden under those circumstances? After all, it was Biden who invited Putin to meet him. 

The willingness of the Russian side to engage – in spite of the American animosity – is a clear sign of political maturity and generosity to try to create a more peaceful world. The onus is on the Americans to change their behavior and stop malign conduct. That’s the real challenge. 

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202106141083147091-biden-vs-vlad-the-impaler/

Biden-Putin summit agenda revealed: Presidents to discuss Covid-19, Ukraine, hacking, climate change & situation in Middle East

By Jonny Tickle

When Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden meet in Geneva on Wednesday for their eagerly awaited summit, they will discuss a wide range of topics, including coronavirus, the war in Donbass, and the fight against cybercrime.That’s according to Yury Ushakov, a Russian diplomat and long-time aide of Putin on foreign policy matters, who announced the plan for the summit on Tuesday. The two heads of state are due to meet at 1pm local time at Geneva’s grand and historic Villa La Grange.

The meeting will be the first encounter between the two presidents since Biden ascended to his post earlier this year. Alongside the two leaders will be their closest advisers, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov.

According to Ushakov, the Russian delegation will also include Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to Washington, as well as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, among others.

The two groups will discuss strategic stability, the fight against coronavirus, the situation in Ukraine, and prospects for economic cooperation. They will also look to find common ground on other issues, such as information security, the fight against cybercrime, climate change, and the Arctic.

“We’ve left regional problems for dessert,” Ushakov explained, according to Moscow news agency TASS. “The Middle East, Syria, Libya, the situation concerning the Iranian nuclear program, Afghanistan, the Korean Peninsula, and Nagorno-Karabakh. And, obviously, Ukraine.”

They may also talk about jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny and the closing of consulates in Russia and the US, Ushakov said.

The presidential aide also revealed that the summit will take place in three separate parts, with different sized delegations, and the two leaders may, at some point, step aside and have a one-to-one talk.

No decision has been made on holding a joint press conference of the Russian and US presidents after the summit, Ushakov said, noting that a final statement or agreement is yet to be confirmed. Both individual leaders will host their own press conferences, however.

“I have no confidence that any agreement will be reached,” Ushakov continued. “We’ll see, I don’t know. I look at this meeting with practical optimism, but not with much [of it].”

https://www.rt.com/russia/526586-biden-putin-summit-agenda-plan/

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Opinion: Censorship is suffocating Pakistan

By Hamid Mir

For some elements in Pakistan, it is not enough that I have been taken off the air. They want to see me behind bars. Last month, I was banned from appearing on the talk show I have hosted for two decades, “Capital Talk,” on Geo News. I was also stopped from writing my column in Pakistan’s most popular Urdu-language newspaper, Jang. Now I face the prospect of sedition charges. The maximum punishment under the law is life imprisonment.

My apparent crime was a speech I gave at a protest in solidarity with journalist Asad Toor last month. On the night of May 25, three unidentified men entered Toor’s apartment, tied him up and tortured him. It was the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. We know about some of the attacks, but most have not been reported.

Toor paid a price for his decision to speak out against his assailants. Within moments, he was accused of faking his wounds to seek fame. Pakistan’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, claimed that journalists stage the attacks to seek political asylum abroad. These remarks angered the journalists standing with Toor. For me, it was personal. It reminded me of the attempts on my own life, and how, after being shot six times, I was also accused of making it all up.

In my speech, I said that if the attacks on journalists don’t stop, we won’t remain silent. I didn’t name any individual or any organization, but my tone was harsh. I was quickly accused of maligning Pakistan’s top generals. A carefully coordinated campaign smeared me as a traitor on social media and, with suspicious haste, a flurry of complaints was filed against me around the country. Management of my TV channel informed me that I wouldn’t be able to host my show. They took this action without any court order or showing any notice of cause. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists denounced the pressure brought on media owners “to shut down critical voices.”

Pakistani journalism organizations decided to defend me in the courts, but they asked me to explain my position because I had spoke on their platform. I clarified that I never named anyone in my speech and I respect the army as an institution, but that I can’t remain silent on attacks against journalists. I even asked to be excused if my harsh tone caused any inconvenience to anyone, but reiterated my demand that attacks on journalists must come to an end.

In 2007, the then-military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned me for several months when he imposed a state of emergency. In 2012, a bomb was found under my car after I criticized the Taliban’s attack on Malala Yousafzai. I still carry two of the bullets inside my body from when I was nearly killed in 2014. After that, I faced allegations of blasphemy, but I was cleared by a court of law. The attempt to charge me with sedition is part of a well-organized war on dissent in Pakistan. Journalists, human rights activists, politicians and academics have all been charged under the law. It is deliberately vague, and broad terms enable its abuse. You can be charged with sedition for merely “liking” a Facebook post, for drawing a cartoon or for making a speech. Two members of Parliament from the opposition are currently facing sedition charges. One, Mian Javed Latif, was recently released on bail. The other, Ali Wazir, has languished in a cell for the past six months.The sedition law — 124-A of the penal code — is a 19th-century British instrument of colonial repression. It was used to arrest the father of India, Mahatma Gandhi, who famously said it was “designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen.” The founder of my country, constitutional lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, defended journalists accused of sedition in court — and won.

Ironically, the same governments that pride themselves on their patriotism today remain beholden to archaic British traditions. In India, the Modi government has wielded the sedition law to target academics, lawyers, activists and students. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina’s government has sought to silence journalists reporting on human rights violations and corruption. And in Pakistan, an attempt to finally rid us of the law was defeated last year by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government in Parliament.

Alongside old draconian laws come new ones. The Pakistani government recently proposed a law to establish a body called the Pakistan Media Development Authority. It would have introduced media tribunals to decide what can and cannot be said or written, without notice or a hearing. Offenders would be punished by up to three years in prison and millions of rupees in fines. This law would enforce total silence in Pakistani media.

Journalists, lawyers and human rights activists all condemned the draft law with one voice. This new show of unity offers a ray of hope. If we all speak loudly and without fear, I’m certain that we will be heard. This is how our forefathers resisted British rule, and it’s how we’ll continue to resist the colonial mind-set that seeks to silence us today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/15/hamid-mir-assails-censorship-in-pakistan/