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How to Solve the Putin Problem
American Thinker ^ | August 4, 2014 | Herbert E. Meyer

Posted on 08/04/2014 12:10:17 AM PDT by No One Special

Especially when dealing with Russians, subtlety gets you nowhere; you must tell them, bluntly, what you want to happen....

[...]

Last month’s shoot down of Malaysia Air Flight 17 over Ukraine has made clear to just about everyone ... what should have been obvious a long time ago: Russian President Vladimir Putin is a serious threat to world peace.

[...]

If there is any lesson to be learned from studying European history ... it’s that thugs like Putin don’t stop because they’ve been punished or because they see the error of their ways. Thugs have a high tolerance for pain, and they are incapable of changing their behavior. They keep going until someone takes them out -- permanently...

[...]

Since subtlety doesn’t work with Russians, the president and his European counterparts should also make absolutely clear that we have no interest whatever in how these people solve their Putin problem. If they can talk good old Vladimir into leaving the Kremlin with full military honors and a 21-gun salute -- that would be fine with us. If Putin is too stubborn to acknowledge that his career is over, and the only way to get him out of the Kremlin is feet-first, with a bullet hole in the back of his head -- that would also be okay with us.

[...]

Nor would we object to a bit of poetic justice.... For instance, if the next time Putin’s flying back to Moscow from yet another visit with his good friends in Cuba, or Venezuela, or Iran, his airplane gets blasted out of the sky by some murky para-military group that somehow, inexplicably, got its hands on a surface-to-air missile.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: ukraine
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Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. He is author of How to Analyze Information and The Cure for Poverty.
1 posted on 08/04/2014 12:10:17 AM PDT by No One Special
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To: No One Special

2 posted on 08/04/2014 12:17:39 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: No One Special
"Nor would we object to a bit of poetic justice.... For instance, if the next time Putin’s flying back to Moscow from yet another visit with his good friends in Cuba, or Venezuela, or Iran, his airplane gets blasted out of the sky by some murky para-military group that somehow, inexplicably, got its hands on a surface-to-air missile."

That works both ways. Does the author suggest that Barry doesn't realize that? Then what? President Biden? President Boehner?

3 posted on 08/04/2014 12:21:05 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This author is almost openly advocating a restoration of Communist rule in Russia.


4 posted on 08/04/2014 12:23:58 AM PDT by wetphoenix
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: No One Special
♫ How do you solve a problem like Vla-di-mir? ♫

6 posted on 08/04/2014 12:37:11 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Conservatism is the political disposition of grown-ups.)
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To: ansel12; No One Special
"You sure cherry picked what you wanted, but the article is actually pretty good."


Ansel12, Americanthinker.com must be excerpted per copyright threat. Your post will now have to be removed because you continued the article in your response.

Please do not continue excerpted articles in any responses. Here's the link to Free Republic's copyright restrictions list. Please keep it handy and refer to it whenever you post published material.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1111944/posts

Thank you.

7 posted on 08/04/2014 12:54:39 AM PDT by Admin Moderator
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Barry who? ;-)


8 posted on 08/04/2014 1:00:38 AM PDT by No One Special
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To: Admin Moderator

Thanks, didn’t know that.

I do recommend people read the article for the useful point of view of the author.


9 posted on 08/04/2014 1:02:04 AM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
That works both ways. Does the author suggest that Barry doesn't realize that? Then what? President Biden? President Boehner?

Maybe shooting down Putin's aircraft, is about the only thing that bathhouse Barry could NOT get away with.

10 posted on 08/04/2014 2:32:02 AM PDT by Mark17 (Obama & Nero? Both Emperors. The difference is Nero played a fiddle, while Obama plays a "flute")
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To: Mark17

Oh, another thing: Russia has more thermonuclear weapons than we do. Did the author take that into consideration? I don’t feel like being incinerated in a fireball, does anyone else?


11 posted on 08/04/2014 2:50:07 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: No One Special; ansel12; A.A. Cunningham; andyk; AlexW; BatGuano; bayliving; Belteshazzar; bert; ...
If you want to be on this right wing, monarchy, paleolibertarianism and nationalism ping list, but are not, please let me know. If you are on it and want to be off, also let me know. This ping list is not used for Catholic-Protestant debates; all confessions are welcome.

***

I am moving (to Seattle) and have been neglecting this ping list. This, I think, is a good article overall.

I would make one correction. The problem is not exactly one man, Putin, but rather the Soviet remnant in the Russian society, entrenched in the KGB/FSB and the military. They simply cannot think in terms other than territorial expansion by force. Given the loss of the Soviet Empire they regrouped using Soviet remnants in the neighboring countries to foment civil wars while covertly supporting the insurrection. It is therefore not axiomatic that a removal of Putin would by itself cure the problem; rather, the playboy oligarchs need to gain upper hand over the Sovietoid oligarchs. That may not happen for a long time.

12 posted on 08/25/2014 1:29:47 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: wetphoenix

Not at all. Putinism today is the closest that Russia has ever been to Communist rule in 25 years.


13 posted on 08/25/2014 1:31:25 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

I start to agree, to some degree. But it wasn’t so just 7 years ago. What do you think has changed? If the rapproachement with the West is getting derailed whose fault is it and how it has to fixed?


14 posted on 08/25/2014 5:27:44 PM PDT by wetphoenix
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To: wetphoenix

Certainly, the election of Obama contributed to the perception of weakness in America and as a result encouraged revanchism in the Russian Federation. Prior to that, the ruling class there had a fear of unilateral action. We still have that, evident is how hesitant RF is in supporting the irredentists in east Ukraine. There seems to exist a party advocating negotiation and complete withdrawal of support for the insurgents. However, so long as Putin and his neo-soviet clan remain in power or close to the levers of power, RF will remain a regional threat.

Putin seemed attractive earlier for a couple of reasons. First, looking from America, it is easy to confuse his soviet cultural conservatism with genuine conservatism. Buchanan suffered from this delusion. Second, one doesn’t argue with success, and Putin was successful defeating the domestic mafia and bringing the oligarch under Kremlin control or exiling and murdering them. He also presided over the rapid growth of real incomes in RF, fueled by increasing oil prices.


15 posted on 08/26/2014 6:34:40 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Your analysis ignoring improved rule of law and more freedoms under Putin’s presidency, to a level unseen under any previous Russian government dating back to medieval.
This trend has somehow reverted circa 2008 but modern Russia is still freer than anytime in known history before 2000.
It is actually explains why the economy in Russia was performing significantly better than any other oil-exporting national economy in a period of oil bum.


16 posted on 08/26/2014 7:33:45 AM PDT by wetphoenix
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To: wetphoenix

That is simply not true. Tsarist Russia had individual freedom and rule of law on par with the rest of the civilized world after the serfdom was abolished in 1861. In more recent period, under Yeltsin, there was considerable level of civic freedom: press, for example, was free from censorship and privately owned and there was no political prisioners. Putin ended the mafia wars; that was his single accomplishment. However what he replaced the gangsters with is not rule of law but centralized around his person cleptocracy.


17 posted on 08/26/2014 8:07:08 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Were you living there under Yeltsin or it was Clinton who said you how nice and democratic his drunken calamite was?
I’m yet to see Putin ordering an artillery strike on Parliament impeachment him as Yeltsin did in 1993. What about a Yeltsin ‘Banditism act’ of that same year allowing any LEO down to a traffic inspector to imprison every person unilaterally for up to 30 days without trial ‘to check for being involved in an organised crime’? They weren’t obliged to provide a lawyer and your written ‘confession’ taken who knows how during these 30 days could put you on a death row. What about a 1996 presidential elections won by Yeltsin despite a rating of about 2% just a month ago? What about a 120% taxation on small businesses above a 50% protection fees from Mafia? A crime was rampant. You could have been robbed twice a day and a small city could have up to ten fatal shootings daily.
Yeltsinist regime was a step backward comparing to every Soviet regime after Stalin in terms of freedom.
A single freedom one could practice freely comparing to the Soviet regime is a freedom of travel. On the over hand a ticket to New York was way other an average annual income in that economy.


18 posted on 08/26/2014 8:35:59 AM PDT by wetphoenix
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To: No One Special
Last month’s shoot down of Malaysia Air Flight 17 over Ukraine has made clear to just about everyone ... what should have been obvious a long time ago: Russian President Vladimir Putin is a serious threat to world peace.

Might as well stop reading right there. Where' the proof?

19 posted on 08/26/2014 8:37:57 AM PDT by McGruff (You can lead a human to knowledge but you can't make him think)
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To: wetphoenix

I never defended Yeltsin, but what you mention is criminality and corruption, not unfreedom. In fact, civic freedoms often correlate with elevated crime levels. However, Yeltsin opened the KGB archives and abolished censorship; that is a significant measure of freedom. Putin has been reversing that trend as soon as he came into power.


20 posted on 08/26/2014 9:24:26 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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