Windows to Russia

To the horror of the West and their paid lackeys! Monday, May 7th is a terrible day for them. Putin is taking the reins again at the helm of Russia. This is his third term as president and as of right now, people communicate as to the fact that he will at least be around for a 4th term, if all goes well for him. I will wait to see as to that last remark…

Ourselves, Sveta and I will be in the village on Monday, God willing and Moscow can have the joy of the presidential inauguration to themselves. To me, to much pomp is made out of a president taking over and I think that money spent on elections and election results is a slap in the public’s face…

But I am glad that Putin is back and I have hope for the world again. My hope is that Russia guided by Putin can stop some of the crap that is happening around the world and that Russia will get the damn counter balance back in place against the West. I see that happening as a Russia and China team up and that as Sveta always says, “Is Just Right!”

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Something struck me today as I was reading some more articles about the gay issues in Russia. I myself am thinking that Russia is correct in her stance on gay issues. Russia is also dealing with many issues like this and most of them have to do with minority issues. I really don’t know if Russia is going about it all in the right way, but I do know from my experience in America, that if you allow it to get out of hand then the pendulum swings all the way in the opposite direction and it gets real bad…

I am not anti-gay, but I am anti-gay propaganda and that is the issue in Russia. What you do in your home and in your life behind closed doors is your business, but do not dance in the streets and promote your gayness. Just like I do not want you to promote your sexuality no matter what your flavor is. It is not necessary in this world. I put it all in a nutshell, “It is like watching a movie from Hollywood and during all the battle scenes of death, mayhem and total destruction of the world! We have a sex scene between the two main characters and the girl runs around naked for us all! What the hell does that have to do with destroying the world? Keep her clothes on and destroy the world for gods sake. Who the hell wants to have sex when you have been running for days from Zombies or something and you all stink to high heaven. It would be like – Hey baby! I haven’t brushed my teeth for two weeks or scrubbed my armpits and I am bleeding from twenty mortally induced wounds, but hey baby you are hot…”

I am not a prude or anything, but I do know that America has been knocked down many notches on the morality ladder when it comes to promoting and accepting gay and lesbian issues over what is predominately normal society. We have allowed minorities in America to rule the roost and gay and lesbian’s are part of those minorities. I have written about this partly before, but today I realized that I no longer am control by job threats or social stigma’s that affect the way I can think, react and respond to what I feel is correct…

I watched business after business falter and fold the door mat up because of failing to or not caring to deal with the power of a minority. I have been called to the carpet many times because I refuse to treat a minority with anything other than the being the same as everyone else. I am one who has been faulted for treating all people as equals and have been forced by gun point at one time in my life to accept that I will look upon a minority as being my superior, regardless as to whether he really was or not. I have been forced to meet quotas of workers and it matter not that a minority was not qualified, I was told to hire or else. I have had to put propaganda all over my cafeterias that came from gay and lesbian associations, but one tiny bit of propaganda from anyone else would get me fined and possibly fired…

I have been persecuted for expecting everyone to be equal and I expect if you need help to better your life, then you work harder and educate yourself and work harder and train yourself to do better. I believe that only a few of us out of the masses, do not have the ability to be something and or anything we want. I understand that some of us in this world need help from the masses, but that is a very small percent of the population in normal circumstances. For we all, are really equal and if we desire we can compete with anyone on earth. I am a believer that “If you can do it, I can do it too!”

I do not believe in minorities and I do not believe in majorities. I believe that if you are black you can be my boss, if you desire to be my boss. If you are gay you can be my boss, but only if you desire it and you work hard at your job. But I am a hard worker and will most likely be your boss, because I strive to be. No one ever gave me anything, I earned it and worked for it…

So I am more than anti-gay propaganda, I am anti-minority propaganda. Because that as I have experienced life in America, has caused huge rifts to appear in society and these rifts are unrepairable as I see them now…

If Russia does not take a stance against minority propaganda, be it gay or whatever, then one day Russia is going to wake up and find that only gay/minority people have the right to do something and the rest of the Russian population will look around and wonder – Why?

Russia does have this same stand against many things, but the gay issue is a Western driven propaganda machine. Just like other political aspects are being driven in Russia. This anti-gay talk is not driven by hate or despise for gays, but it is driven by a need to stop what can become a terrible blow to society as gays are allowed rights that no one else has. Also a huge potion of the society in Russia is definable against gay being promoted openly…

I have had a lot of gay friends and went out with many of them to eat dinner and go to movies. As I have said, I look at anyone as the same. Never one time did anyone try to cross the line between us that there ever was anything more than friends. I had many gay employees and never took that in account as to their abilities to be promoted or whether they would be hireable or not. I had many Mexican workers, black workers and women who worked for me. Never was the fact that they were considered a minority and lessor than me in the governments eye, was ever considered by me appropriate way to deal with them. I looked at people as to their abilities and if they lacked in abilities then I need to look at myself and see what I am doing wrong and what I could do to help these people gather more abilities, to do their job better and be promoted. I got in hot water many times by my corporate bosses and government people. I refused to deal with people as if they were unequal. I hired who was the best or who I thought could be trained for the job the best. My crews had very low turnover and my people stood behind me as they knew that I would stand behind them. The color of their skin and their sexuality had nothing to do with it…

I really do not believe that people have to be forced to accept things as the government tries to force us to accept. I believe that the act of being forced by threats to put unqualified people to work creates a barrier in our society. An example of a government act of stupidity is this: When I was in high school, I use to work summers in a Combine factory in Kansas City. It was called Allis Chalmers and we made combines. Every summer they would hire hundreds and hundreds of foreign people and blacks. All of a sudden we would have lines and lines of all these new people and they were anyone that they could get to come off the street and say that they would work. Now these people would last maybe a week and or two weeks max. I asked my foreman why we were doing this every year? He said, “We are forced to hire minorities, the government says we have to! If we do not have enough minorities on the payroll at any given check point in time then we are fined extremely heavy in violations of the law!” He then said, “We do this 4 times a year just before the inspections!” I learned right then that it was all just a game and the game created huge issues between the people all over the country. Our government was instigating…

Now the real work force of the combine plant was very typical of the populace of Kansas City and I would say that 20% was black workers. That would have been very close to the real percent of blacks in the city at that time and that would have been appropriate. But I remember that we had to have something like 50% minorities or we were in violation of the rules. That just did not make sense to me at all…

I use to have government officials come t my place and check on the percent of minorities to majorities. Then I would get a report that said when they came back in three weeks, I would have to have this many blacks hired, this many Asian hired and my total amount of white workers could not excceed this many people and it all was broken into percents. People were not associated with what they are able to do or can do. They were associated with what color their skin was. By the way this all is also based on percent of population all over the country. What ever the population racial spread is where you lived and worked, was what you had to base your workers on. In Cincinnati I had to in certain units maintain a 75% black ratio and that just is not easy to do. But I paid the piper if I could not find enough workers to meet the quota…

I look at everyone as being my equal and those people should be treated as such. For when you allow special privileges to a part of society and make that part of society which is very small to begin with, the power of the whole of society. Then we have failed…

If we have to give, give give give to make a gay feel better, or a Asian feel better, or a black feel better, or a woman feel better. Then we have something wrong with society and we need to step back and rethink how we got to where we are in the first place…

How we got there many times is more important than where we are at. For how we got there is what we need to learn from and not do it again.

So I do not want to play anymore when it comes to having a minorities opinion stuffed down my throat by my government. I will accept that opinion if it is acceptable and I will do it on my own free will. I do not want to stay silent anymore about why a minority gets favors and when I am down and out and to the point of collapse, I am told sorry, you are a white male and you have no rights…

I do not want to see a society that secretly under the wire, whispers that this is wrong and that is wrong and this is just terrible and that is just really against our morals and so on and so on and so on and so on. I want to see a society that if you want to be gay then be gay but don’t dance around the streets in a thong and proclaim your gayness as if we all want to see it. Just like I do not think that we need to proclaim our hetero-ness and run around naked in the streets either. One of the sickest trips I ever made was to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans in America. People everywhere doing the act of love (as we like to call it) right in public. The streets were a mass of every type of perversion that I have ever seen. I remember wandering if it was safe to be here, because I remember that bible story about Sodom and Gomorrah and as I looked around, I understood what it might have been like back then…

I respect your right to be homosexual, but respect my right to be heterosexual and don’t force me to be propaganda to death by it. I promise that I personally will not propaganda you back the opposite way…

Is that a deal?

And oh for your information! My dad was a homosexual and I never held that against him. In fact I loved him just like a son should love his dad who caress about him and wants the best in life for him. So I can say what I feel about the subject, it has been part of my life for a long time. Just like being a majority in a minority ruling world…

So I do not know what the exact right or wrong is in this situation. Just like when it comes to abortion. I only know how I feel inside myself and I have to base my thoughts on what I have experienced in life…

My experience says that there is a better way, than what we have done in the past…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: OMG did I just write an article about – GAY? I mean I sounded almost anti-gay at times! Heaven forbid and OMG! Can you talk that way in public? That is a good question and in America – No! You can not and most of what I said, while being very true will be attacked royally by the peanut gallery…

This is the kinda media trash that main stream media loves, but it means nothing in the real world. It is plastered all over the media that, The March of a Million has been approved. Then you see the fine print – you know the part that is at the end of the article and they hope you do not see…

The head of the Left Front movement and one of the rally organizers, Sergey Udaltsov, has said that the expected turnout at the event was “up to 5,000” and added that the organizers were ready to pay a fine if more people turn up. The media has variously dubbed the event “People’s March”, “March of a Million” or even “March of Millions”.

It has been well known that this is partly the work of the new Ambassador from America, McFart or wait McFaul, I am sorry! The money backing this March of a Million has already been pinpointed to the NGO’s sponsored by the US government. It is a sad thing to see our tax money in America go to pay the dredges of society all over the world to rally against their own governments…

I wish someone would pay me to rally against my government! I rally enough and it would be fantastic to be paid, I have a whole bunch more interesting things that I can say about the workings of the American government. As it is since I do this for free basically, I try to limit my attitude to one good opinion article a day. I leave the rest up to the rest of the world…

Maybe we need to have a “March of a Billion!” in the West…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Now That is a Village...

I am so excited! We are going to our village this Sunday and stay for at least 5 days…

Now that is something to dance about. I just love the village and there are so many things that I want to go check on and do while we are there. Remember all the posts that I have done about the village? There is a holy water spring nearby, lots of old monasteries and churches nearby, a wonderful little cafe in the main village, the fish farm and the beautiful lakes should be filling up with water, the river that flows so peacefully and calm near the village, Fence work, village house work and about 100 other things to do and check on…

I get to take pictures and write articles about the Russian Village…. 🙂

So it is dance for joy time and in a few days we will be exploring the Russian Village again…

Kyle
Windows to Russia!

PS: Maybe I can convince Sveta to let Boza and I to stay a month! 🙂

http://video.kylekeeton.com/2008/07/video-of-peaceful-russian-village.html

http://windowstorussia.com/our-russian-village-called-sunrise-to-freedom.html

http://windowstorussia.com/when-traveling-russia-or-in-the-russian-village-this-is-why-gaz-volga.html

http://windowstorussia.com/the-russian-village-and-those-stars-at-night.html

http://windowstorussia.com/market-day-in-sarai-the-big-russian-village.html

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership”. His email lawrence.sellin@gmail.com

You will not see an article like this appear in any American mainstream media outlet.

Barack Hussein Obama is an illegal President. He is not now nor has he ever been eligible to be a candidate for or hold that office because his father was a British subject at the time of his birth.

Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires that all candidates for the Presidency be “natural born citizens.” As defined in the binding Supreme Court precedent of Minor v. Happersett (1875) and confirmed in the subsequent ruling of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and others, all candidates for the offices of President and Vice President must be second generation Americans, that is, US citizens of citizen parents at the time of birth.

President and Vice President are the only U.S. political offices with that requirement. It was the intent of the American Founding Fathers that the chief executive and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces would not have dual allegiance or loyalty to a foreign power.

There is no ambiguity, although the Democrat and Republican parties and the media are and have been deliberately trying to confuse the American public as to the true meaning of natural born citizenship.

Case in point.

On May 1, 2012, Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier posted an explanation of the term natural born citizen that was so factually incorrect that it must be considered propaganda.

It is well beyond the scope of this or perhaps any single article to document the full extent of the censorship conducted and the amount of disinformation disseminated, which has continued non-stop since the onset of the 2008 election cycle.

Why did that happen? The cause stemmed from political expediency and cowardice.

Since 1975, there have been numerous attempts by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to redefine or amend the Article II “natural born citizen” clause.

Having failed to change it legally, politicians seized the opportunity to amend the Constitution by a political fait accompli through the unexpected victory of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democrat Presidential primary.

Long before the 2008 campaign, however, Obama supporters were already helping the candidate either hide his genuine personal history or create a false one.

The censorship and disinformation campaign about Obama’s ineligibility had its origins in February 2008 about the time he began to overtake Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Presidential primary.

Anticipating a likely challenge, Obama supporters, instead of reacting defensively, went on the attack through a fabricated controversy, sustained by the media, which questioned the eligibility of Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain. The basis of the challenge was that McCain was born in a Panamanian hospital while his U.S. Navy officer father and his U.S. citizen mother were serving at a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone.

The fake controversy was settled in April 2008 through Senate Resolution 511, which, in essence, was a political deal was struck between the Democrats and Republicans that would provide validation for McCain and, at least, cover for Obama on the issue of eligibility.

SR 511, a non-binding resolution with an unrecorded vote, had no force of law, but by passing it Congress created the conditions whereby the Constitution could be amended de facto through a back-room political agreement.

Republican involvement in SR 511 and the fear of being branded a “racist” prevented any meaningful vetting of candidate Obama after he secured the Democrat Presidential nomination in June 2008.

Thus began the conspiracy of silence and the disinformation campaign by the political establishment and the media.

Given the effort to prevent discussion of Constitutional ineligibility, it should come as no surprise that the politicians and media also protected Obama from investigation of allegations involving a forged birth certificate, a forged Selective Service registration and the use of a Social Security Number not issued to him.

The Democrats and the media don’t want to discuss ineligibility and criminality because they want Obama re-elected.

The Republicans can’t talk about those issues because of their dereliction of duty, their complicity in a cover-up and their unashamed cowardice.

Regardless of who wins the election in November, it is and has been the intention of both political parties and the media to bury forever questions regarding Obama’s ineligibility and crimes.

The truth would shake the American political system to its core because exposing Obama would also expose the endemic political corruption in Washington, D.C.

It is all about power and the financial rewards it reaps. The politicians and the media have it and they intend to keep it by any means necessary.

Lawrence Sellin

Windows to Russia

It is a true miracle. The attacks are still going and the load is there but we have finally gotten a server situation that will handle some crap that is constantly being slated toward Windows to Russia on a daily bases. I actually feel rather good about it and maybe, just maybe I can get Windows to Russia back on track again. It has been so long, in fact years now that I have been under constant attacks from the US government. It all started back when I was on Blogger and has never been easy since we were singled out on Blogger as a threat to the America way of life…

That last statement is what gets me: I thought that the American way of life was freedom, liberty and being able to voice my opinion openly and without reprisals… (Guess that is not true!)

So while I have no doubt that they will gather the resources to take us offline again. I am still going to smile at the fact that we went two full days and did not go down one time…

Now that is a blessing that makes me feel good inside…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: 124,000 page views just from the TSA yesterday! Either they love me soooooooo much and sooooooooo long, or they are plain disgusting…

Update: Three full days and counting…

OSCE: US, UK among most censored countries:

A representative for freedom of the media at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that governments across the world are posing a threat to internet freedom. The governments in the US and UK, known for their willingness to blame their political partners for violating human rights and freedoms, have turned out to be particular tough in suppressing internet freedom. Internet freedom has become one of the most acute challenges faced by nations worldwide. For some governments control over online content has become a kind of an obsession. The Arab Spring uprising and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests have proved that the Internet has long become a very effective tool, even a weapon. The question is who uses it.

Read More
Source: Voice of Russia.

Galactic and Extragalactic Radio Astronomy: that is the subject that I was translating yesterday!

Sveta brought me an 8 page report on Galactic and Extragalactic Radio Astronomy and it was in Russian and had to be translated into English. A few weeks ago I wrote an actual abstract on Symbolic Dynamics and it brought back all my energies that were spent in the old days on science and mathematics…

I am one of those over qualified individuals that never got to use their education for any purpose what so ever, at least until I came to Russia. Here in Russia I have been able to dwell on subjects that I never was able to in America. Hell, I could never find time to read a book as an adult in America and now I am reliving the series of Gor Books by John Norman and enjoying them more than I did the first time, so many, many years ago…

Now I find time to read and write papers on the usage of mental stimulation in monkeys and what is has to do with the correlation to Symbolic Dynamics. I know, kinda boring isn’t it?

Well not to me and I feel like my brain has finally woke up after all these years. When I was in school, I read a library full of books and then once the army, work and family became prevalent, it became impossible to ever find time to read anything more than a spreadsheet or magazine…

I use to wonder why did I get all that education in Science (Genetics none the less!) and act like I could only get a job that required a high school degree? Why I have a minor in history and psychology on top of a bachelor of science degree. Then I went on to get a degree in human resources and then I topped that off with a degree in quantitative and qualitative management. Plus I iced over that with a degree in dietary management and then sliced it all up nice and neat by getting a degree as a chef. I have a few more expertise’s laying around but those are better left unsaid as they have to do with a past that was intertwined with the armed forces and the terrible things that are done by America…

Never once though have I used my education to do a job until I have come to Russia and then I only lately have expanded myself and use my science background to help out some scientists translate their works into English. That is where my background shines and the ability to think analytically…

I guess that is another reason why I love Russia. They have what seems like a thousand more days of available time to get things done. They are never in a hurry and you have the time to get things done. Working with Russians only requires patience and stay firm on what you believe. They will respect you and desire your expertise…

I have found it interesting that the Russian’s talk opposite of us Americans. What I mean by that is summed up in this statement: “Americans and Russians say the same things, except Russians say it reversed!” Other words you translate something a Russian says and then you almost always inevitably have to move the ending (last half) of the sentence to the beginning of the sentence so that an American can understand it…

example – “See Spot Run!” in Russian looks something like “Spot Run See!” Just move the ending and it makes more sense to me… 🙂

Think and say what you want but that is how I see it and it works for me…

I never realized that the Russians had so much involvement in the scientific world as they do. The schooling that I received was so biased against the Soviet Block countries and Asian countries that it should have been a crime to have called it schooling. I am not saying that I did not get the information, but the information was not properly presented with total accuracy, according to who really discovered and developed ideas and theorems…

The waking up of a brain is a wonderful thing and everyday is a learning experience that I would not want to miss…

Have a nice day!

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

This morning was cold and frosty in the low lying areas. So that cup of coffee was extra special on this May morning. It did not get cold enough to hurt anything but it came close. We finally have crocuses, tulips and jonquils blooming… 🙂

So as I usually do, I was doing some thinking’s while sipping that coffee…

There is times that I am just amazed at my little sweetie! She is the smartest girl I know and she does not even realize that she is that smart. Everything about Sveta is the same as I am, but with different attributes to use those abilities. She has tons of patience and I have tons of “jump of the cliff” and make it work. She loves my ability to instigate and create, new and better. I love her ability to make my creations come to life. Her an I think alike, but we go about solving the issue different ways. I have said before that Sveta is the IBM Server administrator at the huge Gazprom Bank in Russia. She has a job that I could have only dreamed about while living in America in the past. Now I see first hand what a computer wizard can do…

So while sipping that cup of coffee this morning, I am thinking about how Sveta and I moved the to a new server and it was just plain slick. We even changed our name-servers to Free DNS and the response times have improved drastically. As I said yesterday, we are out from under the giant elephant that was sitting on our back and that is a tremendous relief to me. Now maybe I can get back to writing again and not trying to keep the dogs at bay…

Now I was also thinking about the fact that Sveta and I are going to try to make it to the Village this upcoming weekend. Moscow is a madhouse this week coming up, due to Victory Day Parade on the 9th and it is better for us to just leave town. Maybe I can convince Sveta to leave Boza and I at the village for a month! The village home needs the work and I and Boza need the country life. Besides we have to finish the fence that did not get done before Winter slammed us last year…

I would rather Sveta be with us, but her vacation days need to go to better things such as a trip to China or something. Actually I also want to go to Vietnam and revisit some places from the old days…

But what I want and what we do is always two different things! That is okay because I like to dream about somethings, like going to Iran, Pakistan, India and about 100 other places in the world. The perfect life would be to live 5 years in as many countries as you can. Live 5 years in China and 5 years in India and so on and so on and so on…

Okay now it is time to jump for joy and dance in the streets with all you might! Russia jumped one position in the 2012 Press Freedom report by the Washington-based Freedom House think tank, from 173th in 2011 to 172nd in 2012, but is still ranked on par with Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe.

What a fantastic thing to have done! The Western sponsored think tank was very generous and we should all bow down and thank the great Western monolith for the honor…

I find it strange that we, an American and Russian who have 30+ blogs and websites on many many subjects that have to do with virtually everything in the world. Would work so hard to move our websites to (not away from) Russia and other countries to keep our freedoms alive and not be squelched by the Western tyrants…

So after my coffee this morning, I am going to dance for joy at the fact that Russia has made great strides in freedoms and the West has been so nice as to acknowledge those freedoms. Even though the West says that Russia is “Not Free!”

You do realize that they call Russia “Not Free!” But yet here I am living, breathing, walking, traveling, dancing, working, dealing, communicating, analyzing and transacting on a daily basis in Russia and have no issues with freedoms. Neither does anyone else and it seems that no one asks me to report on the state of Russian freedoms. I guess they would not like what I have to say in the Western world think tank called Freedom House…

Do you realize that I am so free in Russia, that I can chose what coffee I want to drink and what coffee I want to brew and I have a thousand types of coffee to chose from? Do you realize that I am so free in Russia that I can have my coffee with cream or milk and or just plain black if I so desire? Do you realize that I can brew my coffee or even buy freeze dried instant and make my coffee exactly how I want to? You say that so can you as you drink your coffee this morning? Well then that is my point! Wat makes Russia “Not Free”? I can do everything you do and most likely do many more things than that you use to be able to do, but now have lost the ability to do them…

Actually I will dance for joy and it has to do with the fact that we got our website out from under a repressive system of censorship, stifling of freedoms and deceitful lies. Somethings are really worth dancing over and Russian freedom of the Internet is one of those things…

Don’t like it? Then come to Russia and find out the truth!

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: What irks me is that to call Russia “Not Free” as they do in the report is such a flagrant lie that it makes the whole report worthless and very biased…

http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/FIW%202012%20Booklet–Final.pdf

Oh I have to mention something: Americans like to toss around the fact that they have guns! Guns and more guns! As if that is a freedom and the cats meow to all freedoms. Well sorry to disappoint you but Russians have guns and many many Russians have guns. Hunting is a huge sport in Russia and shotguns are very common in the villages and so are rifles. There is hunting seasons for animals just like in America. Who would have thought – Huh! Anyone who desires a gun can get one and it is not a sterile world of no weapons. That is confusing to many Americans and actually I was surprised years ago, when I realized that many Russians have guns of various types. Handguns are not very popular but hunting weapons are and they are common…

On the eve of the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s elimination, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser John Brennan for the first time officially disclosed the open secret that the U.S. is using drone strikes against its enemies. Among other characteristics Mr. Brennan ascribed to the use of drones, most notable are “legal”, “ethical”, “wise” and “conforming to the principle of humanity”.

In fact, Mr. Brennan hardly created any sensation by acknowledging what the rest of the world has known for years. The use of drones has become too commonplace for the Washington strategists to be able to conceal it any longer. But the logic used by the counterterrorist adviser is worth looking at it in detail.

The use of drones is legal, because “the United States is in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces…, and we may also use force consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.” Also, “there is nothing in international law that bans the use of remotely piloted aircraft for this purpose, or that prohibits us from using lethal force against our enemies outside of an active battlefield.”

Well, maybe the U.S. is at war with its own sibling, Al Qaeda, as well as with the Taliban, whom the U.S. indirectly supported via its allies in the region, namely Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, throughout the 1990s. But what about Pakistan whose territory has become one of the main targets of drone strikes? Or does Mr. Brennan want to say that the U.S. “is in an armed conflict” with Pakistan as well?

“Second, targeted strikes are ethical,” because “individuals who are part of al-Qaeda or its associated forces are legitimate military targets.” Mr. Brennan is probably too shy to mention that much too often innocent civilians, including children, fall prey to the drone “targeted” strikes. Or, maybe this simply conforms to the ethics he is preaching.

“Targeted strikes conform to the principle of humanity, which requires us to use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering.” Definitely, what suffering can be inflicted on the operators guiding the strikes from hundreds and thousand miles away as if playing some computer game? As shown above, Mr. Brennan hardly meant the sufferings inflicted on the civilians on the ground.

And this logically brings us to the next thesis. “They (the strikes) can be a wise choice because they dramatically reduce the danger to U.S. personnel, even eliminating the danger altogether.” Indeed, this is a Washington strategist’s golden dream – to be able to eliminate whoever wherever and whenever, while sipping morning coffee somewhere in Bethesda.

The only thing that surprises an outside observer is the fact that not everyone is ready to subscribe to this point of view. The Pakistani leadership has made it a point that the restoration of the strained relationship and reopening of the southern supply route for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan requires an unconditional end to drone strikes on Pakistani territory because they violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Mr. Brennan did mention national sovereignty twice in his speech presenting it as an “important check” and “constraint”, and stating that “The United States of America respects national sovereignty and international law.”

And if so, the U.S. authorities seem much more inclined to follow the guidelines presented by Mr. Brennan rather than listen to the objections coming from Islamabad. On Sunday, two weeks after Pakistan’s parliament officially demanded an end to the drone strikes, the U.S. carried out one in North Waziristan, thus prompting a harsh reaction from Pakistani Foreign Ministry which regarded the strikes as being “in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations”.

It remains doubtful, how the U.S. is going to implement the strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan signed during President Obama’s overnight trip to Kabul without Pakistan’s assistance. But since the drone strikes have been classified as “legal, ethical, wise and conforming to the principle of humanity” by a renowned expert, maybe this will give the U.S. additional leverage in trying to persuade Pakistan that its sovereignty is being respected.

by Boris Volkhonsky, senior research fellow, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.