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Putin, Obama and Body Language

It sounds like something I’d expect to see on The Onion, but this is apparently true. The Pentagon spends around $300,000 per year studying the body language of Vladimir Putin and other world leaders. Seriously. Next I’ll be expecting to read that they’re paying someone to do handwriting analysis and palm reading.

National Journal – The Defense Department is spending about $300,000 a year studying the body language of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Friday.

The findings haven’t been used to help decipher the close-to-the-vest Russian leader during the ongoing tensions over Ukraine, Kirby said. “The reports are given right to the Office of Net Assessment, and as I understand it, that is where they stay,” he said.

Kirby didn’t know who specifically had seen the reports but said that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hasn’t read the studies. “I can tell you for sure that […] → Keep reading

Putin On Syria Deal: Israel Should Give Up Nukes

Just a few days after Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart reached an agreement calling on the Assad regime to turn over its chemical weapons to the international community, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be already undermining that agreement. Putin said yesterday that he can’t guarantee Syria will give up all their chemical weapons as part of a U.S.-Russian deal and suggested that Israel could help the situation improve by giving up its nuclear weapons. “Syria came into possession of chemical weapons as an alternative to Israel’s nuclear weapons,” Putin said at a gathering of political analysts. “The technological superiority of Israel in the region is so obvious that it doesn’t require nuclear weapons, which makes it a target and creates a special problem for it.”

This seems to me to be an attempt by Putin to pressure Obama into cooling the U.S. policy toward Israel’s nuclear program. Since Israel first acquired a nuclear reactor about […] → Keep reading