Posted on 04/27/2007 6:10:54 PM PDT by A. Pole
Headline = No...merely a participant.
It would be a great fund to start...work with an airline that wanted to enhance their PR as a true American airline--course that would target them for terror, but....
Your thoughts?
The difference is that one is working for the benefit of his country (regardless why he is doing it), and the other one was working for the benefits of those whose interest was to weaken and exploit his country.
Politicians of course work for themselves. That is true of ours and as well as theirs.
I suggest this reading (not long) of Putin’s faith...an accurate representation of the man and other culturally relevant issues in Russia today. I’d like your feedback if you wish of course.
http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/REGIONAL/HI/Putin-faith.pdf
What would you say if Putin became Gazprom chairman, the new oligarch?
Putin was an KGB agent, this was certainly anti-religious organization. It is nearly impossible to convince me that he believe in God. An impression of one Russian Orthodox priest is not enough.
Don’t know about “Father of Democracy”, but “Captain of the RedNose Express” seems appropriate.
Well clinton and his third way ilk are anti religious and were not members of the KGB. You are making assumptions based on past association and you cannot do that logically.
What would you say if Putin became Gazprom chairman, the new oligarch?
If I were Russian, I would rather have that than a bunch of closet Israelis running Gazprom.
What would you say if Putin became Gazprom chairman, the new oligarch?
If I were Russian, I would rather have that than a bunch of closet Israelis running Gazprom.
I would chose Clinton above Putin any day. :) Putin was an KGB agent, he is surrounded by bunch of fellow former KGB agents. Are you saying also that they are some Orthodox equivalent of Catholic Rosary Army! :)
I would chose Clinton above Putin any day
You are obviously brainwashed. Anyone who can make a statement like that needs a reality check.
I would chose Clinton above Putin any day
You are obviously brainwashed what is it? the Catholic Rosary Army? Or maybe the Soros Internationale?
Anyone who can make a statement like that needs a reality check.
I think as the scriptures says that most of them their minds have been turn over-
Rom. 1: 28
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
2 Tim. 3: 8
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
Titus 1: 16
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
That’s a poorly worded question, IMO. Naturally, I opposed the Soviet Union on ideological grounds, and opposed the pre-Putin regime for allowing the Oligarchs to rape Russia, to allow Chechens to run amok, and to allow the State Dep’t to pursue a pro-Saudi agenda in Europe and its periphery.
I need to find an article for you from a Russian dissident from the Soviet era who shocked the CIA when he told them (around 1980) that the KGB was actually the most non-ideological institution in the USSR, but that it wouldn’t strike against the regime because of the nationalist/patriotic stance of the KGB at the time. He ended his statement by saying that Andropov’s KGB was a complete 180 from that of Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria. I too always automatically thought KGB=evil automatically until I read this dissident’s comments. Solzhenitsyn echoed the same sentiment some time later.
Lastly, I’d like to recommend Paul Klebnikov’s book on Berezovsky to you. The book outlines how Berezovsky used the Chechen mafia in Moscow to place himself into position thru murder to reap the benefits of the privatization. Naturally, Berezovsky has strong ties to Chechen separatists and funds them. Zakayev, the head separatist, lives near him in London. The author Klebnikov, a journalist for Forbes, was murdered a couple of years back.
In Russia when they converted to Communism they had not only to impose economic restructuring but societal restructuring as well. Which is why the conversion from Czarism to Communism was much more painful than that from Communism to Oligarchism.
What we are attempting to do in Iraq is similar to what Lenin tried to do in Russia: whole scale societal restructuring.
We definitely have a better goal than Lenin did (Free Market Democracy rather than Totalitarian Communism), but we will also fail because our good goal does not guarantee that we will get there by any means.
And we definitely wont get there by expecting the Iraqis to become new people overnight, or even over the course of a decade.
Yeltsin was a far from perfect (small-d) democrat, but he also had to maneuver through an incredibly rough transitionYeltsin wasn’t one of the American Founders — but, actually, the American founders often weren’t the idealized figures we like to remember.
Pragmatism runs head-on into idealism, and a leader has to choose whether to sacrifice some of the ideal to save the rest, or to temporarily defer the dream to preserve the reality. Weimar Germany stayed democratic, and was consumed. Yeltsin had no easy choices, and he had both hits and misses.
That is a lesson worth remembering, especially today. When an Iraqi government is finally ready to take control, it will have to be with restrictions on speech, assembly, religion, and economic controls that we would find unacceptable here. There will be labor pains. Our model is not theirs, and the transition to democracy isn’t one-size-fits-all.
I agree with you. I also find A. Pole to be a valuable poster, and I have always welcomed pings from him.
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