Posted on 05/30/2007 4:58:26 AM PDT by Renfield
Reporting in the Times of London, Moscow correspondent Mark Franchetti adds more evidence that Russians have rejected the concept of democracy and are willingly returning to the dark days of Soviet dictatorship, underlining the extent to which we were misled by the idiots who said, during the first cold war, that ordinary Russians were decent democrats who would do the right thing given a chance, and that they could "never go back" to dictatorship once the Berlin Wall fell.
Seven years after coming to power, Putin, who served a third of his life in the KGB, has few friends left in Europe and America. West of Moscow he is vilified as an authoritarian despot who has crushed opposition to his rule, turned independent media into a sycophantic tool of the Kremlin and jailed or chased his critics into exile. In Litvinenko's case Putin has effectively been branded a murderer by parts of the western press. In Russia, by contrast, Putin enjoys popularity ratings that must surely be the envy of George W Bush and Tony Blair. Well over 70% of Russians support him, according to the latest polls -- by any standards a record for a leader at the end of his tenure. Under the current leadership this is an authoritarian country run mostly by a clique of former KGB agents. And yes, the control of the media is so draconian and pervasive that even the launch of a national children's TV channel has become a political issue. Nor would many dispute that the country's judiciary is a travesty and that corruption in Russia has become far more endemic than it ever was even during the turbulent years when Boris Yeltsin was in the Kremlin. But like it or not, Putin is genuinely popular. Ask most Russians and they will tell you that they would happily vote for the constitution to be changed so as to allow him to stay on a third term (he is due to step down in 10 months' time), a feeling shared by western investors whose primary concern is high returns and political stability rather than democracy and a free press. Many years ago, when I first came to work in Moscow, a political pundit close to the Kremlin told me that the problem between Russia and the West is that Russians are white. "We look like you. We look like Europeans and so the West expects us to think and act like you. As a result, when we don't you get all upset. Why can't they be like us, you fret. But you don't say that about the Chinese, for instance. You don't expect them to think and act like you. Well, we are white but we are different."
As if to show how right Franchetti was, a spate of developments over the past few days served as proof positive of the Kremlin's malignant intentions. More about them after the jump.
On Saturday, even as the Kremlin was refusing to extradite the man British police say was responsible for killing Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident on British soil in an attack that could have poisoned hundreds of Britons with deadly atomic radiation, yet another British diplomat was physically assaulted in Russia.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that the Kremlin had crushed a gay pride parade in Moscow. A British gay rights activist who participated in the march stated:
The behaviour of the Moscow police was some of the worst I've ever experienced. The police stood back and allowed the fascist thugs to attack us. They made very few efforts to stop them. (It) was very reminiscent of the repression by the police in the Brezhnev era of old-style Soviet Communism. They (the police) seemed to be working hand in glove with the neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists to get them to bash us. But either way, the end result was the same. We got arrested, we got bashed, and most of the assailants walked free.
Yesterday, May 28th, the famous Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky declared he would be a candidate for president in the 2008 elections. Nothing could send a more emphatic message as to the neo-Soviet state Russia currently embodies than this decision.
Earlier today, Russia test-fired a MiRV ICBM, which can depoy several different warheads at different targets from a single launch vehicle, a direct challenge to the NATO defensive missile systems now being deployed in Eastern Europe. In other words, it's arms race part II, and Russia doesn't seem to see any hypocrisy at all in giving defensive missile systems to Iran to help that rogue state protect its infant nuclear technology from the West while simultaneously screaming about the presence of such systems in Eastern Europe, which it once tried to enslave. At the same time, the Kremlin continued to discuss pulling out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty unilaterally.
There is no way to interpret this horrifying litany of aggressive, provocative actions by the Kremlin other than as a direct frontal assault on the West, the intentional revival of the Cold War and the arms race that devastated the USSR, a nation with twice the population and far more financial resources than Russia.
It's either an act of suicide, or an act of pure insanity.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Minus the ones that have been sold at garage sales, flea markets, bazaars, and for all we know, EBay.
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