The three trillion dollar war

Excerpt: The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have grown to staggering proportions

The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.

Most Americans have yet to feel these costs. The price in blood has been paid by our voluntary military and by hired contractors. The price in treasure has, in a sense, been financed entirely by borrowing. Taxes have not been raised to pay for it - in fact, taxes on the rich have actually fallen. Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed, that we can have both guns and butter. But of course the laws are not repealed. The costs of the war are real even if they have been deferred, possibly to another generation.

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Tavis Smiley criticism of Barack causes firestom

Tavis Smiley, the bestselling author of the "Covenant With Black America," is in a world turned upside down. He said he's being "hammered," "barbecued," and is "catching hell" from black Americans for suggesting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a major mistake by declining to speak at the State of the Black Union event that Smiley plans to host next week in New Orleans.

"There's all this talk of hater, sellout and traitor," Smiley said to me in a telephone interview. Smiley even mentioned getting death threats, but wouldn't elaborate. He said his office has been flooded with angry e-mails. "I have family in Indianapolis. They are harassing my momma, harassing my brother. It's getting to be crazy," Smiley said.

Smiley's problems started early this month after he invited Obama to speak at the State of the Black Union, an event Smiley founded nine years ago. Held annually during Black History Month and broadcast by C-Span, the event gathers a Who's Who of black intellectuals, pundits, activists, entertainers and politicians to discuss and brainstorm about where black America is and where it is headed. This year's topic is "Reclaiming Our Democracy, Deciding Our Future."

The State of the Black Union has grown into a key event for black people since its start, but as Smiley has discovered, Obama's presidential run is far more highly regarded.

As the first black person to have a legitimate shot at a presidential nomination, defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton's rich campaign juggernaut, Obama is virtually a third civil rights movement, the manifestation of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. His candidacy has produced a fervor in black America born of centuries of wanting. Nearly every black vote that Clinton thought was hers at the beginning of the race has been siphoned by Obama.

Each of the presidential candidates were invited to speak, but only Sen. Hillary Clinton accepted. Clinton is desperate to bolster her flagging campaign with a larger share of the black vote after losing all but a small percent to Obama. Smiley said he wants the candidates to focus on the issues that black Americans care about.

If the blogosphere is any reflection, however, black America believes Smiley should check his ego. Commenters would much rather see Obama campaigning against Clinton in Texas and Ohio than at Smiley's confab in Louisiana, a state he's already won. Critics burned up Internet chat rooms, taking turns at denouncing Smiley. Pundit Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an Obama supporter, authored a biting anti-Smiley opinion on TheRoot.com (which is owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive), entitled, "Who Died and Made Him King?"

A fan of Smiley commented on one blog, saying, "Tavis, Ya Killin' Me, Man." An angrier writer headlined his comment, "This is just dumb." "This man is involved in the fight of his life for the presidency of the UNITED STATES, not black states," he wrote of Obama. "I don't know if Tavis got the memo, but Hillary is leading in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the governor said that his white folks won't vote for a black." Other comments would likely be blocked by Net Nanny and can't be printed on the Web pages of a family newspaper.

For Smiley, the tumult is a major turnabout. Until now he was a darling commentator in black America. His passion for the people endeared him to many. People listened to his commentaries on the popular Tom Joyner Morning Show, and snapped up so many copies of the "Covenant" that it made the top ten lists of the both the New York Times and the Washington Post. When Smiley talked, black people listened.

"One of my friends said, 'you are being barbecued in the blogosphere,'" Smiley said. He told Black America Web writer Michael Cottman's that "I'm catching hell." In our interview, Smiley said: "This is the first time in my entire career that I have found myself in this kind of relationship with some folk in black America. I now know what it feels like to have the weight of the Internet world bearing down on you. Man, it's an eye opener when you get caught in the middle of it."

Obama's campaign said he called Smiley twice on his cell and office phones. Smiley said he returned the calls but got no response.

On the Tom Joyner Morning Show recently, Joyner brought up the controversy during an interview with Obama, relating how Smiley was taking heat for saying he thinks Obama doesn't want to talk about issues black people care about.

Obama chastised Smiley, but spoke as if the two were friends. "I'm going to have to call Tavis up and straighten him out on this," Obama said. He said he's addressed issues that Smiley cares about, such as health care and eliminating the legal sentencing disparity that allows judges to send mostly black crack cocaine offenders to prison with sentences that are five times longer than powder cocaine offenders who are mostly white and Latino.

Obama followed up with a letter to Smiley, dated Feb. 13. In it, Obama explained why he declined the invitation, saying that he needed to campaign in states that Clinton must win to in order to topple her candidacy.

"I will be on the campaign trail every day in states like Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin talking directly to voters about the causes that are at the heart of my campaign and the State of the Black Union forum such as affordable housing, economic opportunity, civil rights and foreign policy," Obama said in his letter. He had offered to have his wife, Michelle, speak in his stead at the State of the Black Union, but Smiley had declined. "I ask that you reconsider," Obama wrote. "Michelle is a powerful voice for the type of reach change America is hungry for."

Smiley responded in a commentary on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, condemning Obama's decision with his usual strong, passionate, rapid-fire delivery. He recounted the gist of his statement in the interview. "I think it is a miscalculation on his part not to appear and a missed opportunity."

"I love Barack Obama and I love black people," Smiley said. "I celebrate his past accomplishments and I celebrate his future aspirations. I never wanted to stand in the path of his growth."

However, he said, "My job is to ask the critical question, to raise these issues and keep these guys focused. There are some people who are disappointed that I'm not jumping up and down saying, 'Vote for Barack Obama.' That's not my role as a journalist. That's not what I do."

Source

Mike Malloy rips Bill O'Reilly over his lynching comments

The racist Bill O'Reilly of Fox News is at it again with more racist and vile comments, this time he used the phrase "Lynching Party" when referring to Michelle Obama. Check out how Mike Malloy goes off on him.

Hillary's House Negroes Vs. Obama

Video - 1:54

HILLARY FADING FAST AS OBAMA MOVEMENT BUILDS

The handwriting is on the wall ~ Hillary is a shrill desperate candidate with weakening support but Obama is a rapidly building movement gaining believers every day. If she doesn't recognize this soon ~ she'll be trampled and humiliated by her own self serving arrogance and sense of entitlement: Allen L Roland

As we rapidly approach a world wide shift in consciousness by 2012 ~ it is imperative that America be led by a man who can cross race lines of blacks, whites and latinos and offer a new vision of hope versus greed to not only the American people but also to the world.

James Taylor, a race and American politics scholar at University of San Francisco, says Obama " presents an opportunity to deal with race in an unconventional way .... If an African American man can become president of the United States in the 21st century, then it tells us that the remainder of the 21st century represents all kinds of possibilities ~ because in his person there is a representation of both black and white experiences. He allows us to exorcise some of the demons we've had in our history of race in America."

Christopher Malone, a Pace University political scientist, writes of a recent display of the unconventional racial dynamic at Obama's recent appearance in Kansas ~ " He goes to the hometown of his grandfather on his white mothers side and points to a cousin in the audience ~ a 72 year old woman who is as white as any other Kansan. Could you imagine him accepting the nomination and standing there and bringing up his family members, Kenyans and white Americans, and saying ~ I am America, this is America ! It really seems like a perfect storm here "

A perfect storm indeed and one that could well wipe out the divisive race tactics of the Bushes and recently the Clintons as America finally recognizes and celebrates its true diversity and comes together as one wherein 35% of its population are now minorities.

Meanwhile there appears to be an air of desperation in the Clinton camp, who were expecting a coronation on Super Tuesday and instead met the Obama express which is still building momentum while a fading Hillary tries to bully her way to victory ~ putting her on a potential collision course with Democratic party leaders who are increasingly seeing Obama as the future of the party.

Sarah Baxter, London Times, writes on February 17th ~ " With her rival ahead in the polls and wooing her bedrock Hispanic and female voters, Clinton is trying to force her way back with a risky strategy that could split her party."

It appears the Clinton's will not go quietly into the night but Obama could make it all but academic with expected solid victories tomorrow in Wisconsin and Hawaii along with pre-election polls showing Obama with a growing edge in Hillary's self declared last stand state ~Texas.


Source

"We're a Nation of Dunces"

From AMERICAblog.com

Today I gravitated towards Susan Jacoby stories both in the Times and the Post. Her new book "The Age of American Unreason" is about the anti-intellectual and anti-rational epidemics in America. Only last night we had a similar discussion with a Franco-American group over dinner. How do you move a country forward when that country is debating creationism versus evolution? We are not talking about a poor and uneducated country, but a wealthy and educated country. What still surprises me is that many of the uninterested and anti-intellectual people are educated. You don't have to be a pointy-headed intellectual to show interest in the world around us, do you?

Whether we like it (or know it) American money and influence around the world is substantial. Our decisions in Washington do have an impact yet so many care so little. It's "over there" so who cares? As a country we lack curiosity in the world around us as if it doesn't matter. USA is number 1 so who cares? How could anything possibly be any better than what we have? We tell ourselves that we are the best at everything, so it must be true. There's no country that is perfect and you find insular people everywhere but those other countries fail to have the same global influence as America. How can we be so proudly ignorant and still compete? It certainly doesn't bode well for our future economy or especially our foreign policy when we are so proud to be ignorant. As this trend continues, selling the next foreign invasion is going to even easier than Iraq.

Angry Okinawa wants smaller U.S. military presence

Angry lawmakers on Japan's southern island of Okinawa called for progress on shrinking the U.S. military presence and tighter discipline among U.S. troops after the arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.

The 38-year-old Marine, Tyrone Hadnott, based at Camp Courtney on the island, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of raping the 14-year-old Japanese girl when the two were in a car on Sunday. He has denied raping the girl but acknowledged forcing her to kiss him, an Okinawa police spokesman said.

"Considering the fact that such vicious, atrocious incidents have never ceased to occur, we must question the way the U.S. military enforces discipline and educates its soldiers," the Okinawa assembly said in a resolution protesting the incident.

The lawmakers demanded an apology and compensation for the girl and her family, steps to prevent similar crimes in the future, and a reduction of U.S. forces on the island, reluctant host to the bulk of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

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Election fraud in NYC

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.
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Dumb Americans - Video

If you ever wondered how could america be so dumb to elect a moron like President Bush and allow him to get away with so much shit, take a look at this video and you will see why. Either Americans are just dumb as hell or are just arrogant to the point of stupidity.

Tortured Patsies To Take Fall For 9/11

From Prison Planet After half a dozen years of waterboarding, genital zapping, sleep deprivation and brainwashing, the Pentagon has finally found six patsies who will readily welcome their 72 virgins and take the fall for 9/11, providing debunkers with ample ammunition to dismiss questions about the gaping holes in the official story of the terror attacks.

"Among those held at Guantanamo is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack six years ago in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Five others are expected to be named in sworn charges," reports the Associated Press.

The fact that KSM's confession included a plan to target the Plaza Bank building in Washington state, which was not founded until 2006, four years after the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind's arrest, should provide a clue as to the reliability of the "terror mastermind's" culpability for 9/11.

But that was not the only plan that Sheik Mohammed was alleged to have hatched, as he claimed responsibility for everything from three assassination plots against Clinton, Carter and the Pope, to the FBI sponsored 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He surprisingly stopped short of accepting the blame for global warming and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Even CNN's audience was not buying the propaganda at the time, with 74% saying they disbelieved the authenticity of KSM's confession. CIA veteran Robert Baer wrote a stinging Time Magazine piece dismissing the supposition that KSM was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z" as he claimed in between cattle prod sessions.

It would be very clear why the establishment would be interested in hanging out the Ron Jeremy of terrorism to dry as the scapegoat for an official 9/11 story that holds about as much weight as a Milan cat-walk model. By invoking the "but he admitted it" line, any debate about the mountain of unanswered questions surrounding the attacks, which prompted 9/11 families to demand a new investigation last week, is effectively silenced. The fact that the 9/11 Commission was riddled with Bush administration cronies can also be swept under the rug.

But this cuts both ways.

In his first interview following 9/11, Osama Bin Laden denied any involvement in the attacks.

"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle," Bin Laden told the Pakistani based Ummat newspaper.

If Bin Laden wasn't involved in 9/11 then KSM's "confession" is rendered obsolete.

Does the Republican Party Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Brownshirt Party has chosen John "hundred year war" McCain as its presidential candidate. Except for Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and Billy Kristol, McCain is America's greatest warmonger.

In a McCain Regime, Cheney will be back in office with another stint as Secretary of War. Norman "Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran" Podhoretz will be Undersecretary for Nuclear War with General John "Nuke them" Shalikashvili as his deputy. Rudy Giuliani will be the Minister of Interior in charge of Halliburton's detention centers into which will be herded all critics of war and the police state. Billy kristol will be chief White House spokesliar.

The whole gang will be back--Wolfowitz, Perle, Wurmster, Feith, Libby, Bolton. America will have a second chance to bomb the world into submission.

With the majority of voters sick of war, sick of lies, sick of fraud from the Federal Reserve and Wall Street, and sick of stagnant and falling incomes, McCain is poised to capture 20 per cent of the vote--the Christian Zionists, the rapture evangelicals, and the diehard macho flag-waving thugs who believe America is done for unless "Islamofacists" are exterminated.

The accumulated lies, deceptions, war crimes, the shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, Bush's police state assault on civil liberty, countless numbers of Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and children murdered for the sake of American and Israeli hegemony, and the collapsing US economy indicate a political wipeout for the Brownshirt Party. In a country with an informed and humane population, the Republican Party would be reduced to such a small minority that it could never recover.

What will happen in America? Polls show that Americans have had it with Bush, and the 2006 congressional election showed that the voters have had it with Republicans. But the Republicans have seen the message and ignored it, and the people and the Democrats have continued to tolerate and to enable that which they claim to oppose.

Meanwhile Bush holds on to his determination to find a way to bomb Iran, dismissing along with the neocons the unanimous National Intelligence Estimate that there is no Iranian weapons program, just as Bush and the neocons dismissed the Iraq weapons inspectors who reported truthfully that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. What the American people and the Democrats have not understood is that a party with an agenda could care less for the facts.

The Democrats are far from pure, but they lack the fervor and determination that only ideology can provide. The Democrats might have issue-specific ideologies, but they lack an over-arching ideology that makes it imperative for them, and only them, to be in power.

In contrast, the Brownshirt Party is fueled by the neocon ideology of American (and Israeli) supremacy. The neocon ideology of supremacy is more far-reaching than Hitler's. Hitler merely aimed for sway over Europe and Russia. The neocons have targeted the entire world.

Neocons have prepared plans for war against China. They are ringing Russia with military facilities and paying millions of dollars to leaders of former constituent parts of the Soviet Union to sign up with NATO, which the neocons have turned into a mechanism for drafting Europeans to serve American Empire.

All this work, the neocon Project for a New American Century, the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the demonization of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, the ghettoization of the West Bank and Gaza, the police state measures that Bush has succeeded in putting on the books, the concentration of power in the executive branch, these are successes from which the Brownshirts will not walk away.

Possibly the neocons and their Brownshirt followers are so delusional that they do not realize that their glorious aims are not shared. Maybe they are no different from Americans, maxed out on credit and unable to make mortgage payments, who believe that next week they will win the lotto.

On the other hand maybe the Brownshirts have a plan.

What could the plan be?

They can steal the election with the Diebold electronic voting machines and proprietary software that no one is allowed to check. There are now enough elections on record with significant divergences between exit polls and vote tallies that a stolen election can be explained away. The Democrats have been house trained to acquiesce to stolen elections. The voters, whose votes are stolen, dismiss the evidence as "conspiracy theories."

Or what about a well-timed orchestrated "terrorist attack" to drive fearful Americans to the war candidate. False flag events are stock-in-trade. Hitler used the Reichstag fire to turn German democracy into a dictatorship overnight.

And what about the widespread spying on Americans? The Bush regime's explanation for its violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes no sense. Bush's violation of the law is clearly a felony, grounds for impeachment, arrest, indictment, and a prison sentence. Moreover, no intelligence purpose was achieved by Bush's illegal acts. The FISA law only requires the executive branch to come to a secret court to explain its purpose and obtain a warrant. The law even allows the executive branch to spy first and obtain the warrant afterward. The purpose of the warrant is to prevent an administration from spying for political purposes. The only reason for Bush to refuse to obtain warrants is that he had no valid reason for the spying.

Does this mean that during the presidential campaign we will hear from Attorney General Michael Mukasey that candidate Hillary is under investigation for a Whitewater-related offense, or that candidate Obama is linked to an alleged crime figure or Islamist?

The neocons control most of the print and TV media, and the right-wing radio talk hosts are no friends of Democrats. As Americans have fallen for every other fraud perpetrated upon them, they are likely to be suckers as well for "investigations" or rumors of investigations of the Democratic candidate. Hillary is widely disliked and easy to distrust. Obama is a new face with which voters have little experience. He is partly black and has a funny name.

John McCain is a graduate of the US Naval Academy. His father and grandfather were admirals. On his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam in one of America's orchestrated wars, he was shot down and injured. He was a POW for 5.5 years, and tortured by the North Vietnamese.

McCain has been in Congress and thus in the public eye since 1983. The only scandal with which he is associated is that he was one of "the Keating five," one of five senators associated through campaign contributions with S&L owner and real estate investor Charles Keating and alleged interveners in his behalf. Keating was entraped by prosecutors, but was later exonerated by a federal judge.

Adolf Hitler never had the support of a majority of the German electorate. In the November 1932 election, he received 33.1 percent of the vote. His peak was March 6, 1933, with 43.9 percent following the Reichstag fire a few days before on February 27, blamed on the communists. Hitler's minority support in a democracy did not prevent him from becoming dictator of Germany.

Source

John McCain Ineligible for Office?

Excerpt:

Three simple facts:

1. John McCain was born on a military base in Panama.

2. According the United States Department of State, children born on U.S. Military installations abroad do not acquire citizenship by birth.

3. No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President

Seem pretty straight foward to me

Conyers Must Decide or step aside

Excerpt:

The best of icons risk losing their luster, no matter how well-deserved, if they falter at the gates of greatness. Rep. John Conyers, the Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, resists all pleas that he begin the process that could lead to impeachment of George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney. Although the evidence of their criminality is overwhelming and both are held in widespread contempt by most of the population, Congressman Conyers appears to fear impeachment more than the consequences of his inaction to the nation and the world. "Those Democrats, especially those on the Judiciary committee, who oppose impeachment must themselves be opposed."

HELP WANTED:

"Democrat in Michigan's 14th district needed to replace House member. Must stand up to evil, tyrant boss from San Francisco. Long hours required to uphold Constitution. Applicant pledges to fight Bush regime. Must also be willing to fight Democrats."

Congressman John Conyers has served 21 terms in office and is now Chairman of the House Judiciary committee. He once promised to hold impeachment hearings against President Bush or Vice President Cheney, but now those words mean nothing. If he cared about the future of the country he would either fight for the Constitution as he once did, or make plans to retire. If he makes neither choice, he needs a hard fought primary race to convince him that his political time has passed.

Bush is using every moment of his lame duck year to destroy civil liberties at home and expand the American empire abroad. As usual Democrats act like needy supplicants, hoping they can run out the clock without confronting a president with a 31% approval rating.

In 2006 Bush's plummeting popularity made Democratic victory and Conyers' committee chairmanship a probability. It was a hopeful time, especially because Conyers said he would hold impeachment hearings. Joy was short lived when Nancy Pelosi declared that impeachment was off the table. Conyers waved the white flag in the pages of the Washington Post in an op-ed entitled "No Rush to Impeachment":

"So, rather than seeking impeachment, I have chosen to propose comprehensive oversight of these alleged abuses. The oversight I have suggested would be performed by a select committee made up equally of Democrats and Republicans and chosen by the House speaker and the minority leader."

That so-called oversight has accomplished nothing. In July of 2007, the Senate and House Judiciary committees investigated the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys. Both committees issued subpoenas to White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers. Bolton and Miers claimed executive privilege and ignored the subpoenas. Bush faced no consequences for breaking the law and treating congress like an irritant to be ignored.

Politicians understand one threat more than any other, the possibility of losing their jobs to electoral defeat. Most incumbents have safe seats, and little reason to be bold when political bosses give them marching orders. Conyers is no different in that regard, but he is also shrewd, and he continues to keep hopes alive by claiming that impeachment is still possible.

In a recent interview he testily claimed that Pelosi "can't stop me from anything really." In the same conversation he immediately back pedaled, claiming that the Republicans would use impeachment to demonize Democrats in the upcoming elections. He didn't mention that Republicans' efforts to do the same thing in November 2006 failed when Democrats won the day. He makes the bizarre claim that a losing strategy should be feared.

Democratic voters across the country must do anything and everything in their power to impeach Cheney and or Bush. Those Democrats, especially those on the Judiciary committee, who oppose impeachment must themselves be opposed. Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the rotten leadership will be forced to take notice and act as most Americans want them to act.

Putin warns of new arms race

Excerpt:

Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned the West it had started a new arms race.

He criticised the expansion of Nato and said Moscow would respond by modernising its military and weapons.

"We are being forced to take retaliatory steps," he said. "Russia has and always will have a response to these new challenges."

He added: "It is not our fault because we did not start it."

In a farewell address as he prepared to step aside as president, with less than a month remaining before the election for his successor, he reminded dozens of top government officials, cultural figures, religious leaders and military officers of his own achievements and his wide popularity among Russians.

It was also a signal that "Putinism", a doctrine of assertive economic and military policies and unwavering centralised power, should be expected to continue under the man he has prepared to succeed him - First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

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Yes we can - Obama song by Will.I.am, John Legend and others