"The Greatest Geopolitical Catastrophe" of the 20th Century? Oh Really, Mr. Putin?
Today in his state-of-the-dictatorship speech, ex-KGB officer and current Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the fall of the USSR was the greatest "geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
This follows three days after Mr. Putin met with the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994 in a country commonly known as the last dictatorship of Europe, that routienly violates the human rights of its citizens. In that meeting, Mr. Lukashenko thanked Mr. Putin for his support, saying "I want to thank you... for the huge support you are giving us at a difficult time for us in our history as a sovereign and independent nation," meaning support during a time of fierce criticism from Secretary Rice, western nations and human rights groups.
Over the past few years, Mr. Putin has destroyed all non-state-owned media in Russia, eliminated popular voting for regional governors in exchange for appointment by him, jailed Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khordokovsky on pretextual charges for his financing of Mr. putin's political opposition, and is now moving to change the parlimentary election system to virtually eliminate minor parties.
Well, one thing is sure- you have to give credit to President Bush's judgement of character:
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.
I was able to get a sense of his soul." -President Bush on 6/16/2001
Hmmmm... maybe if we didn't import 270,000 barrels of oil per DAY from Russia, we might have some more leverage to convince Mr. Putin of a different course.
Did I forget to mention that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives defeated a bill to raise the automobile mile-per-gallon standard to 33 mpg by 2015 up from 27 mpg the day before Earth Day, mostly along party lines.
Continue your crusade for democracy, GOP.
This follows three days after Mr. Putin met with the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994 in a country commonly known as the last dictatorship of Europe, that routienly violates the human rights of its citizens. In that meeting, Mr. Lukashenko thanked Mr. Putin for his support, saying "I want to thank you... for the huge support you are giving us at a difficult time for us in our history as a sovereign and independent nation," meaning support during a time of fierce criticism from Secretary Rice, western nations and human rights groups.
Over the past few years, Mr. Putin has destroyed all non-state-owned media in Russia, eliminated popular voting for regional governors in exchange for appointment by him, jailed Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khordokovsky on pretextual charges for his financing of Mr. putin's political opposition, and is now moving to change the parlimentary election system to virtually eliminate minor parties.
Well, one thing is sure- you have to give credit to President Bush's judgement of character:
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.
I was able to get a sense of his soul." -President Bush on 6/16/2001
Hmmmm... maybe if we didn't import 270,000 barrels of oil per DAY from Russia, we might have some more leverage to convince Mr. Putin of a different course.
Did I forget to mention that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives defeated a bill to raise the automobile mile-per-gallon standard to 33 mpg by 2015 up from 27 mpg the day before Earth Day, mostly along party lines.
Continue your crusade for democracy, GOP.
posted by Rich at 9:05 PM
2 Comments:
Russia's gonna get worse before it gets better. Putin's personal agenda aside, the challenge for all the post-Soviet countries is to balance market economics (with all the inherent inequalities created by the market) with the demands of a welfare state safety net. Some countries like Estonia have done this better than, well, Russia. But consider that Estonia's only a fraction of the size and population of Russia.
The point is, even if Putin has delusions of neo-fascist grandeur, it could be much, much worse. I think Khordokovsky has a fair shot at beating the charges (or even if convicted, emerging politically unscathed à la Marion Barry...).
I'm not too sure about that- we totally took Yelstin for granted when he was around. It's like Russia pulled their own Clinton-to Bush descent. And I'm not so sure that Russia has a benign socal democratic model in mind- I think Putin really wants to go all the way back to the USSR. And I'm not so concerned about Khordokovsky as an individual- I mean he's symptomatic of Mr. Putin's evil, communist motives and designs.
Post a Comment
<< Home