And to nobody's great surprise, but to the dismay of the usual suspects, Vladimir Putin is once again President of Russia.
A leading public figure, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all the Russia, casts his vote.
A leading public figure, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all the Russia, casts his vote.
"God grant that as a result of this election, our Fatherland continued peace, calm, purpose , and spiritual development, and in the material field, and let the blessing of God abideth on all today, all the inhabitants of our Fatherland, who perform their important civic duty."
I think maybe the people in Homs who are getting shelled and shot, and other Syrians resisting the Ba'athist Marxist dictatorship that Putin sells arms to, has a naval base in and which is allied to Iran, might be disappointed too. Along with the people of Georgia who he bullied into ceding territory, and the friends and relatives of journalists killed for investigating the regime.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take much to be dismayed at the appointment of a man who leads the world's biggest gangster state, who swaggers about spreading the tired old nationalist "everyone wants Russia" ideology he got filled with at KGB training school and who has a personal wealth estimated at over US$5 billion.
Libertyscott, weren't you carrying on about the "democratic promise" (or somesuch term) of the Arab Spring just a few months ago? How did that work out?
ReplyDeleteInteresting Liberty Scott that you mention Homs but not Ham where the rebels are killing their own country men.
ReplyDeleteIts a civil war, bad things civil wars and this one is also raging in Yemen and Egypt and Libya.
Democracy is not about to break out and flourish in the ME - that is not Putin's doing. If anything the civil war raging across the ME was engendered by the West.
You think American Democracy is working well? You think that Obama's mates are not lining their pockets through his patronage. You think Obama isn't lining his pockets?
Russia has no friends - there is nothing that the EU and the US would like to see more than a weakened and fragmented Russia.
Putin stands in their way.
And he didn't bully Georgia into ceding territory - Saakashvili foolishly attacked South Ossetia and bombed Tskhinvali - Putin responded.
I was carrying on about getting rid of dictatorships, which I will always carry on about. Better to keep the Arabs under the jackboot of Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali, even if they are unreliable or provide havens for thugs? Are you saying Putin is better than having a leader who actually believes in rule of law, who wants to give up territorial aggressiveness, who wants to attack corruption and build the foundations for a judicial and police system that is independent of politics?
ReplyDeleteThe Assad regime has been propped up by the USSR/Russia for decades, it has always been anti-Western and provided bases for Hezbollah. One doesn't need to be arguing for Western intervention to argue against Russian intervention.
I'd be astonished anyone who claims to embrace Western civilisation can embrace a man who provides succuour to Iran and Syria, and whose most recent exchanges with Europe have been about threatening behaviour against countries that want to join NATO.
Putin is not a particularly deep thinker, he is parroting the confrontational ideology he was weaned on and taught to embrace, that means he is instinctively anti-Western, and takes such a position on almost all foreign policy issues.
Pardon me for once actually hoping Russia could have become a sustainable ally in trade, foreign policy and confronting Islamism (and being a counterbalance for China), rather than a fiefdom for a rather short man whose still fighting the residue of the Cold War wherever he can find it.
Andrei, Putin doesn't have bases in Libya, Yemen or Egypt. He has blocked discussion of arms embargoes or trade sanctions against Syria at the UN Security Council, whilst exporting arms to the regime. That's intervention in a civil war and it's intervention on the side of an anti-Western totalitarian state that is the only one bordering Israel not to have signed a peace treaty with it (excluding its client state of Lebanon of course).
ReplyDeleteI've never said the US was perfect or things were going well, but to grant moral equivalency between Russia and the US is extraordinary. You think all of the judges and Police in the US are completely corrupt? You think there isn't rule of law in the US? You think US state and federal officials can be bought easily? You think Transparency International's rankings are worthless?
Fear of a "weakened and fragmented Russia" is the pseudo-nationalist scaremongering Putin was brainwashed with. Russia is weakened internally by its own intelligent, entrepreneurial, creative, educated people leaving and investing elsewhere, and by the low birth rate.
It is weakened because it is corrupt to the core, because property rights and contracts are unenforceable without bribes and your own gangsters to strongarm, it is weakened because it is NOT capitalism, but the kind of charade of mobster/crony capitalism that the left accuse all capitalism of being.
I actually think the West would love a friendly ally in Russia that it can trade with, without its investments being confiscated, that will help encircle the Middle East and will provide a trade route from Asia to Europe, as well as a reliable source of oil and gas that isn't sold from a state owned monopoly.
South Ossetia is in Georgia, Saakashvili was recapturing territory that Russian backed separatists had made into an annex of Russia. Or are the borders of the Russian Federation extendable?
Or is it ok for Georgia to become fragmented, because big strong nuclear armed Russia is so bloody scared that a tiny relatively free pro-Western state in the Caucasus actually wants to maintain some territorial integrity?
It's astonishing that Russia, as enormous as it is, can whip up such a frenzy of hatred and fear about tiny states on its periphery - just because it no longer can jab its jackboot on their throats, like it did throughout most of the 20th century. It is telling, of course, that Russians really haven't reflected appropriately about the Soviet era and what Russians did to Russians for generations, in the name of the Party. Putin remains, after all, a Stalinist at heart.
Come on Liberty Scott - look at the world you are living in.
ReplyDeleteIn case you hadn't noticed Greece has lost its sovereignty and so has Italy.
Putin didn't do that, the gnomes in Brussels did.
Yugoslavia was dismembered and its President put on trial. Clinton administered the coup de grace by bombing the hell out of what was left of it. OK. Wouldn't have happened if Russia had been strong then.
Brussels would love to extend its influence into the Caucasus and so would the US.
But the West is in decline so they can't.
Its all a game and we are all pawns.
And I'm fairly sure a major War is not far away
"Are you saying Putin is better than having a leader who actually believes in rule of law, who wants to give up territorial aggressiveness, who wants to attack corruption and build the foundations for a judicial and police system that is independent of politics?.."
ReplyDeleteWhich leader would that be, you're comparing Putin with?
"It is telling, of course, that Russians really haven't reflected appropriately about the Soviet era and what Russians did to Russians for generations, in the name of the Party."
ReplyDeleteThey haven't? Russians in general haven't, or are you speaking about specific Russians?
In fact your statement is a load of crap.
I've read one hell of a lot by Russians examining, analyzing and criticising what Russia was and what it has become.