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Home Front: Politix
[sKerry’s Nightmare:] Putin Takes Bush’s Side Against Democrats on Iraq
2004-06-11
Hat tip to Drudge. EFL
Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped into the U.S. political campaign on Thursday, saying the Democrats had "no moral right" to criticize President Bush over Iraq. ... He went on: "I am deeply convinced that President Bush’s political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same. "It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don’t like what President Bush is doing in Iraq."
Oh dear, what is sKerry left to say about Bush’s "failure" to build an international consensus on important international issues -- that Bush is now a commie? Nuance alert in 5, 4, 3 . . .
Posted by:cingold

#25  What is Putin? A very clever opportunist.

How, exactly?
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 7:41:10 PM  

#24  ...Russia and Putin personally *did* oppose what USA did in Iraq *and* Serbia. So his statement is transformed into "The Democrats don't have the moral right to attack Bush because they are as bad as the Republicans -- the Russians on the other hand do have that moral right."

This seems like a pretty close interpretation to me.

What is Putin? A very clever opportunist. Hate to say it, cause I kinda like George, but George? You didn't see his soul in his eyes...you saw a maze.
Posted by: jules 187   2004-06-11 5:18:27 PM  

#23  Kerry may perhaps be better than generally believed here, if Putin doesn't want him in the White House

LMAO!! That's one of your best yet, Aris.

Mitch, I shall try to be more precise. It's just that "the former Soviet satellite states" is so awkward to use. Besides, I think Aris got the point.

But Russia-as-imperialistic-power that causes unrest and dominates her neighbours through force and the threat thereof... that's real *now*.

There might be some influence, confined to the states that made up the USSR. That's about as much as I'll give you.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 4:38:17 PM  

#22  B> Yeah, that's indeed the bottomline -- which makes me think that Kerry may perhaps be better than generally believed here, if Putin doesn't want him in the White House. Or atleast not as bad as Bush was.

Or perhaps Putin simply doesn't want the Europeans to have an excuse to make up with the USA and help it out in the Middle East.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-06-11 4:23:26 PM  

#21  So far I don't see that happening

Russia is the lone supporter of the one remaining full-fledged dictatorship in Europe, that of Belarus.

Hell, Putin isn't even interested in invading his neighbours.

Actually he's already put army in Georgia IIRC and encouraged pro-Russian secession movements in Moldovia (Transnistria), Ukraine (Crimaea) and Georgia (South Ossetia and Adjaria I believe). And ofcourse as long as Russia has not even managed to put down the Chechenyan's revolt, they aren't going to overextend themselves.

Again, so far I don't see any concentration camps in Russia,

More than 250,000 Chechens were killed -- one quarter of the entirety of the Chechen population. Putin and his fellow KGBers would have to consolidate their tyranny a bit further before they do more, and as always not play their hands too soon.

Mitch> To an extent, Rafael is right -- Greece is not one of the Slavic nations populating most of the Eastern Europe.

But it is Eastern Orthodox, unlike Roman Catholic Poland, and I *have* seen some madmen visualising a great Orthodox arc reaching down from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia-Montenegro and including Greece. Such an arc would be a new Axis directed against the West, caring little about democracy or human rights, and lots about religious-nationalistic fanaticism.

That's the nightmare worst-case scenario ofcourse -- and decades in the future either way. And only possible if the EU is first destroyed.

But Russia-as-imperialistic-power that causes unrest and dominates her neighbours through force and the threat thereof... that's real *now*.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-06-11 4:18:13 PM  

#20  LOL! This is politics, not philosophy or even economics. Who cares WHY Putin said it, or how badly Aris the Geek needs it to "really be" a put-down of all Americans

.... the bottom line of the exchange was that Putin dissed Kerry on a world stage.
Posted by: B   2004-06-11 4:17:15 PM  

#19  I'm amused that someone would accuse a Greek national of not understanding Eastern Europeans. Has someone moved Greece recently? That might explain the construction delays on the Olympic facilities, come to think of it...
Posted by: Mitch H.   2004-06-11 3:58:09 PM  

#18  I missed one more thing:

It took far less than that in the smaller countries of Eastern Europe

Yes, the operative word there being smaller.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 3:50:17 PM  

#17  whether Russia is a reemerging imperialist power that will become again an opponent to western liberal democracy

So far I don't see that happening. The probability of that happening with Putin in power is....0% I'd say. That's like worrying about a civil war in America. Sure it's possible, but not in the foreseeable future.

that'd be a repeat of the Hitleric industrial success

I knew you would revert to the Nazi analogy. Again, so far I don't see any concentration camps in Russia, neither is Putin bent on destroying an entire race. Hell, Putin isn't even interested in invading his neighbours.

Bull. It took far less than that in the smaller countries of Eastern Europe to undo most of the harm done by communism

Not everywhere in Eastern Europe. And *most* of the harm hasn't been undone yet. All you have to do is compare wages, and employment prospects for university graduates. Not to speak of pensioners and those without higher education. But this is Eastern Europe, now part of the EU. Russia itself is in far worse shape.

KGB has reclaimed the fullness of its power, and so Russia is still ailing.

That's not why Russia is still ailing. Like I said, it has to do with economics, and to some extent with sociology (perhaps equal measures of both).

Transitioning from communism to democracy and capitalism, for Russia, is like walking a tightrope. So far I don't see any reason for panic. And I don't see any widespread unrest in Russia just because Putin is in power either.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 3:47:30 PM  

#16  Raj> "I am deeply convinced that President Bush’s political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same." Forgive me for not being as 'nuanced' as my Eurpoean betters counterparts, but it's nigh impossible to infer an anti-American intent of such a statement

Yeah, you also need to have the memory cells to recollect that Russia and Putin personally *did* oppose what USA did in Iraq *and* Serbia. So his statement is transformed into "The Democrats don't have the moral right to attack Bush because they are as bad as the Republicans -- the Russians on the other hand do have that moral right."

It'd be indeed different IF it had come from a person that had supported either war on a moral level.

But as I said you need to have the memory cells to remember certain annoying facts.

Rafael> Right now there are millions of people in Eastern Europe, much more so in Russia, who are disenchanted with capitalism and for that matter with democracy. Just because YOU think it is good for them

Yeah, you see, whether it's economically good for them or not is a *triviality* compared to whether Russia is a reemerging imperialist power that will become again an opponent to western liberal democracy or not.

Putin has yet to show that he will be economically bad for Russia.

I HOPE he is economically bad for Russia, because if he's *only* politically bad but economically he's splendid then that'd be a repeat of the Hitleric industrial success. I believe the Nazis also caused a financial marvel.

It will take 100 years to undo communism.

Bull. It took far less than that in the smaller countries of Eastern Europe to undo most of the harm done by communism.

But the healing must begin by the defeat of the old state mechanism like KGB and Stazi and so forth. In East Germany Stazi was BURIED, and so East Germany was allowed to begin to heal --- but in Russia, KGB has reclaimed the fullness of its power, and so Russia is still ailing.

How many decades will it take to undo the *continuing* rule of the KGB?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-06-11 3:19:54 PM  

#15  I don't believe I said anything about economics in my post above.

But you see, economics has everything to do with it. You can't make a leap from communism to full fledged capitalism overnight and expect everything to be rosy. Right now there are millions of people in Eastern Europe, much more so in Russia, who are disenchanted with capitalism and for that matter with democracy. Just because YOU think it is good for them, it will not make things easier for people whose pensions have dwindled, whose jobs have disappeared, and whose standard of living basically dropped like a ton of bricks (on their heads). Entire generations have been lost because of this conversion to capitalism. In an environment such as this, it is not inconceivable that a despot worse than Putin can climb his way to power and wreak havoc (such as Zhirinovsky). That this has not happened so far is a sign that there are indeed people who are prospering under the current system (aside from the super-wealthy). So the situation is not hopeless.

Putin has yet to show that he will be economically bad for Russia. For the time being, for the average Russians the concern is whether their next paycheque arrives on time, if at all, and not whether Putin controls the local newspaper. If Putin is still president 20 years from now, I *might* be concerned. It will take 100 years to undo communism.

Comparing this to Afghanistan is ridiculous since Afghanistan was never an economic power to begin with. It is easier to start from scratch, then attempt to regain what you once had.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 2:47:55 PM  

#14  "I am deeply convinced that President Bush’s political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same."

Forgive me for not being as 'nuanced' as my Eurpoean betters counterparts, but it's nigh impossible to infer an anti-American intent of such a statement. I read it more as an attempt (successful or otherwise) by Putin to earn a few brownie points with Bush; he probably realizes by now Kerry has next to no chance at beating Bush in November.

BTW, how are those stadiums coming along?
Posted by: Raj   2004-06-11 2:11:02 PM  

#13  I don't believe I said anything about economics in my post above.

And as for failing to understand the Russian people, that's a bit like saying we failed to understand the Afghani people, and the Islamic dictatorship of the Taliban is just what they wanted in their "culture".

Possible, but also quite quite irrelevant -- the new Soviet block would be a threat to more than just Russians, same as the old Soviet block was.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-06-11 1:44:50 PM  

#12  You're paranoid Aris. You fail to understand the Russian people or the eastern european mentality, not to mention your basic grasp of economics is lacking.

You might be right OTOH, if free elections in Russia result in a Zhirinovsky-like head of state. Then all bets are off.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 1:09:09 PM  

#11  Some people may be too blind to see it but Putin is not "siding with Bush" but playing the anti-American card instead -- instead of blaming Iraq to Bush's administration or even just the Republicans, he's blaming it instead on the whole of the American system and calling both major political parties equally rotten.

I can recognize it for what it is because it's the same rhetoric that I've heard the Communist Party of Greece use. It's not an effort to support or excuse any specific American administration, it's instead an effort to aggravate Europe towards the entirety of America, REGARDLESS of whether Democrats or Republicans are in governance.

Unless you people think that the Communist Party of Greece that still has fond memories of the Soviet Union and currently supports Cuba, China and North Korea, also supports Bush when it calls the Democrats equally bad?

Yeah, it's not helping Kerry, the same way that anything hurting the whole of America or its unity with Europe isn't helping Kerry.

The game is bigger than a November US election. Russia is turning dictatorial again, the center of the neo-Soviet block. If it happens as B said and it sides with the US in the "war on Terror", which I personally doubt, that still won't make Putin any less of a dictator wannabe, or his new Russia any less of a Soviet-Union wannabe. And as much an eventual enemy of Western civilisation as the old Soviet union was.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-06-11 12:23:06 PM  

#10  guess putin isn't one of those world leaders skerry was harping on a few months ago..
Posted by: Dan   2004-06-11 11:30:31 AM  

#9  Darn...I need a spell checker!
Posted by: B   2004-06-11 10:01:26 AM  

#8  Mitch, maybe...but there are a couple of things I think I'm right on which others often disagree with me and one of them, IMHO (or in this case, should it be IMO), is that

... ulitmately...
Russia will side with the US on the war on terror , just like it did in WWII, because it is in their own best interests to do so.

Excluding the Islamist and dictator-supporting EU types, the other world leaders can see that Kerry is a smarmy, empty-headed, flip-flopping, egomaniacal worm. With the WOT threatening us all, much as they don't like our super-power status, they'd prefer Bush.
Posted by: B   2004-06-11 9:59:53 AM  

#7  Ugh. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want that man supporting me in a free election. How do you avoid getting tarred by association? His FSB is "disappearing" public officials at home. Putin actually is what the paranoids accuse Bush & Ashcroft of being.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2004-06-11 7:54:05 AM  

#6  Al-Rooters throws in the last line that both men go out of their way to avoid criticizing each other publically, is that because they can't believe KGB Master Putin actually means what he is stating?, and that he doesn't wish to criticize Bush?
Is it me or is that a hunk of opinion in a "news" piece?, another example why I no longer bother with the mainstream media.
Posted by: JerseyMike   2004-06-11 7:27:20 AM  

#5  My guess is Putin won't get invited to any Speaking Truth to Power rallies.
Posted by: john   2004-06-11 7:24:42 AM  

#4  I guess Putin wasn't one of the "many" foriegn leaders to endorse sKerry.
Posted by: Anonymous5190   2004-06-11 6:58:39 AM  

#3  You may be right Anon, but I don't see how this helps the Dems at all. What Putin said is true. The reason he said it is mostly irrelevant.
Posted by: Anon   2004-06-11 6:47:14 AM  

#2  Let's keep in mind that Vlad the ImPutin is not endorsing America's actions. He's merely pointing out the America has the long habit of interfering in Russia's playgrounds with this "wierd" habit of defeating dictators, ethnic cleansing and bringing freedom and prosperity to people.
I'm proud of that.
Rather live in Iraq in five years, than Chechnya (or the German-French Republic, for that matter....according to the polls).
Posted by: Anonymous5189   2004-06-11 6:02:02 AM  

#1  "Pull my finger" joke in 5, 4, 3...
Posted by: Rafael   2004-06-11 4:13:09 AM  

00:00