It’s the Russians, Stupid
It's up to the GOP to work to prevent a neo-Soviet state in Russia: the Obama administration certainly won't.
Like the police and district attorneys described by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, the streets outside these days are besieged by Republicans running about with their noses to the ground, trying to discover the identity of their redeemer. They should look up — and east.
It’s the Russians, stupid.
His name is Vladimir Putin.
It hardly ever happens in history that the partisan, parochial interests of a political party line up perfectly with the national security interests of the nation, its core values, and the best interests of the Western World, but such is the case right now. If the Republican Party doesn’t realize and capitalize on this golden opportunity, it will richly deserve being consigned to the dustbin of history.
Republicans cannot hope to oust the Democrats from their heavily fortified position in the field of domestic policy, at least not until their economic plans prove fruitless. But the nation does not trust the Democrats to handle foreign policy now any more than it did when Jimmy Carter — brought in to cure the domestic evils wrought by Richard Nixon — governed. Barack Obama’s policies towards America’s enemies abroad are benighted, naïve, and ignorant — exactly what one would expect from a man who has no foreign policy credentials of any kind. Given America’s perilous financial condition and the encouragement it gives to our foes, this is a time when the country can least afford such policies, and it is high time for the white knights of the Republican Party to ride to the nation’s defense, pulling their own political bacon out of the fire in the process.
Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation has shown the way. In a brilliant and exhaustively researched white paper published a few days ago and cumbersomely entitled, “How the Obama Administration should deal with Russia’s Revisionist Foreign Policy,” Cohen makes, in essence, a five-point proposal the Obama administration should take in response to Russia, as follows:
- Refuse nuclear arms reduction negotiation until a review of U.S. strategic interests is complete and until Russia cooperates in neutralizing Iran and gives strict guarantees on U.S. business interests being protected from nationalization
- Press forward with missile defense in Eastern Europe
Obama won’t do any of these things (he’s already signaled weakness on missile defense and may actually end up doing the opposite in many cases if left to his own devices), so it’s up to the Republican Party to force him to do so. In the process, Republicans can expose the inability of the Democrats to defend the nation from its enemies and, in fact, to uphold the core values of democracy and liberalism that Democrats supposedly hold dear.
Americans must remember that the economic crisis has hit Russia far harder than it has hit the West. Russia has experienced a breathtaking collapse in its stock market, radically depleted its reserves, and endured a massive currency devaluation. Inflation is soaring out of control and unemployment is going right along for the ride. It’s a perfect storm, and it gives the U.S. and its NATO allies the perfect opportunity to press Russia hard in all the areas where its behavior is most outrageous. Russia, of course, wants to buy time.
Contrast, then, Cohen’s brilliance (he’s a seasoned Russia scholar) with the shabby, cowardly, and idiotic musings of Democratic flameout Gary Hart and Republican turncoat Chuck Hagel as part of a “committee” sponsored by Russian Dmitri Simes of the wacky and disturbing Nixon Center. They are two relative Russia laymen, who say they are “deeply concerned by the gap between the current U.S.-Russian relationship and the level of cooperation that the United States needs with Russia in order to advance vital American interests.”
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Kim Zigfeld is a New York City-based writer who publishes her own Russia specialty blog, La Russophobe. She also writes about Russia for the American Thinker and for Russia! magazine and is researching a book on the rise of dictatorship in Putin’s Russia.
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36 Comments
1. Mike2:I have been telling people for years that we are going to have terrible trouble with Russia and probably not too far off. We all thought that after the fall of the Soviet government things would get better but Russia is much more dangerous now than during the Soviet era. They are wealthier, better armed, have much better technology and are not as hampered by the stultifying effects of Communism.
Mar 19, 2009 - 5:30 am 2. adrian:—————————–
Who is John Galt?
If Obama would only start reading world history now,we might have a fighting chance.but he won’t,he is too busy,,, you see, watching basketball,apearing on the tonight show,etc.it shows how smart,brilliant,best educated the chicago machine has to offer.}od help us.
Mar 19, 2009 - 7:27 am 3. RAH:Russia has great problems, a fiscal crisis and reduction of population, an oligarchy and a desire to resurrect the glories of the USSR, but now as Russia. They do not want to retreat to communism but to harness the production of capital and labor to the betterment of Russia and the Russian state. Russia has an authoritarian bent and getting worse with the prosecution of independent businesses that may pose a problem to the goals of the Russian state. The murders of reporters and the imprisonment of any who challenge Putin’s power lead Russia on the route to dictatorship.
Russia had a legitimate interest on their border and the countries that used to comprise the Soviet Union. Russia has not accepted the concept of independent sovereignty of Ukraine, George. Azerbaijan and many others. They had to accept the humiliation of Kosova and want to exact a measure of revenge. They feel that US has moved into their backyard and that is true in a sense. NATO countries now include many East block countries and previous Soviets satellites countries. Shaskavilli pugnacious rhetoric and actions had enraged Putin and he has a personal vendetta against him.
Plus the installation of radars in Czech and the interceptors in Poland are two pronged. They can protect against Iranian missiles, their purported mission, but also to diminish the effectiveness of the Russian nuclear threat. They do not eliminate the Russian threat, but in nuclear strategy the goal is to reduce the capability and introduce ambiguity in the effective threat. Plus the creation of more interceptors is just a matter of time. Once these get into full production the numbers could easily increase to the point of making the threat of Russian missiles ineffective.
Russia had let its military slip and the short victorious Russian war against Georgia showed the inadequacies of Russian military. They suffered shocking losses to a bomber from air defenses that they should have been impervious to since it was a Russian system. To airplanes before the Georgian were defeated. These losses were minor but still shocking and a wake up call that Russia needed to modernize it’s military. This is not because Obama got elected, but Obama’s vacillation and weakened thinking that talk is the equivalent to a strong policy and strategy backed up by a credible threat and deterrent encourages Russia to make bellicose statements to intimidate Poland and Czech and messages to Ukraine and Georgia and the other Central Asia and Caucus states to not screw with Russia in their attempts to become more independent. Russia goal has been to lock up the gas and oil monopolies for revenues and power over Europe. Georgia had threatened that with the BTZ pipeline and Azerbaijan meager attempts to get a Western Oil Company to transit a pipeline is against Russian interests.
Please recall the attempts to demonize and criminalize the BP Oil and Gas Company and its executive who had to flee Russia for safety that had a contract in Russia and Putin and Medeyev resistance to a truly independent gas company in Russia.
So Russia’s actions are rational and do not mean that Russia is an enemy of the US but a competitor that wants to be taken seriously and respected for its power both economically and militarily.
US have to have a hard assessment of Russia and not misgauge the seriousness of Russia concerns while not appeasing Russian adventurism and retreat in response to Russian bellicosity.
Regrettably Obama’s worldview is too naïve and shortsighted to reasonably expect that to happen. So expect Russia’s advance in its influence over the former block states and Europe and it greater ability to control oils and gas supplies
Mar 19, 2009 - 9:16 am 4. AThinkingPerson:Anyone remember during the debates when McCain said he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw “KGB”? Of course the sheeple didn’t hear that, they just heard President Teleprompter promise to talk things out. I guess we’ll wait until after his round of the evening comedy shows, basketball season is over and they have finally selected a family pet to learn if and when he’s going to start “talking”.
It seems eons ago since Bush was in office and we actually HAD a foreign policy. Those were the good ole days.
Mar 19, 2009 - 11:29 am 5. Mike T:And how are we going to do that? It’s bad enough that trillions of dollars are being spent on bailing out American businesses that failed. Now you want to add on American resources to getting Europe out of a bind. Screw them. Take away our troops too while we’re at it. That’ll take away their ability to avoid dealing with these problems which has allowed them to indulge in socialism for so long with little liability.
Mar 19, 2009 - 12:51 pm 6. William:How about weaning America off foreign oil and gas first? The Ecowackos in Europe are more Green than ours are. They would probably be protesting off shore drilling as a Russian boot squashes their last breath.
Mar 19, 2009 - 1:16 pm 7. Pops in Vienna:With the present Obama administration, I’ll place all my bets on the Russians. Yes, they have a serious financial problem but they are a lot tougher than we are. It won’t deter them from retaking control over Central Asia and exerting defacto control over the Baltic States. They can shut down Estonia’s internet network in a nano second anytime they wish. The denial of service attack a couple of years ago was a warning shot. Georgia and the Caucuses are already dominated by Russia. So, they’ve recovered much of their empire without firing a shot.
Western Europe is on a short lease as well. Whenever they get to fiesty, Russia only has to turn off the gas supply for a few days. Russia is supplying high tech arms to the bad boys in the middle east and in South America. Nobody is going to stop them.
Obama is a wimp and his lefty advisers will never suggest that he stop Russian expansion. NATO is a paper tiger. There’s really no need for the Russian tanks to roll back into Berlin, but if they wanted to, there would be nothing to stop them.
The only good thing about a Russian dominated world is that they’ll never tolerate Islamic terrorism in areas under their dominion. They don’t care what the press thinks. If somebody attacks them they will have no reservations about making a brutal response.
Mar 19, 2009 - 2:04 pm 8. Mike2:5. Mike T:
“Now you want to add on American resources to getting Europe out of a bind. Screw them. Take away our troops too while we’re at it. That’ll take away their ability to avoid dealing with these problems which has allowed them to indulge in socialism for so long with little liability.”
Yes! My sentiments exactly. The Western Europeans are dead while walking anyway. They will all be in turbans and burkhas in another generation.
Mar 19, 2009 - 3:25 pm 9. Mongo:————————————-
Who is John Galt?
To Kim Zigfeld (no one really knows who this person or people are) Russia is the center of existence. The Alpha and the Omega. The cause of, and solution to, all of the world’s problems.
No gesture is too small to be hailed as a giant act of courage. So Hillary gave an NGO leader an award? I bet Putin is shitting his pants in fear. It boggles the mind that someone thinks getting tough on Russia is a way to win votes. Who in America gives a damn about Russia right now? Kim Zigfeld certainly does. Not very many other people do.
Mar 19, 2009 - 7:01 pm 10. wancow:I dunno, everything you say here is probably true… but can’t we just kinda sit back and just ENJOY watching Il Duce Obama screw up a few more times first? It’s both fun and productive.
Mar 19, 2009 - 8:27 pm 11. Whitehall:If I were a Polish leader, I have a clandestine nuclear weapons program going full speed. Sure, Poland is part of NATO now but do they expect German boys to die for Polish freedom? Where’s the historical precedent for that?
With the coming Russian demographic collapse, should we just wait them out? Of course, the culture that picks up the territory will be Muslim.
Mar 19, 2009 - 9:53 pm 12. kabud:We should understand who rules Russia and they are NOT THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE:
Russia is in the hands of:
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/111/ill022509.pdf
Nature of the current political regime in Russia
Mar 20, 2009 - 2:19 am 13. deguello:Today’s Russia is not a democratic country. The international human rights
organization Freedom House assigns “Not Free” status to Russia since 2004 for each of
the last 5 years. According to the classification of the political regimes, the current one in
Russia should be considered as hard authoritarianism. The central place in the Russian
political system is occupied by the Corporation of the secret police.
3
The Corporation of Secret Police.
The personnel of Federal Security Service – both in active service as well as retired
one1 – form a special type of unity (non-necessarily institutionalized) that can be called
brotherhood, order, or corporation. The Corporation of the secret police operatives (CSP)
includes first of all acting and former officers of the FSB2 (former KGB), and to a lesser
extent FSO3 and Prosecutor General Office. Officers of GRU4 and SVR5 do also play some
role. The members of the Corporation do share strong allegiance to their respective
organizations, strict codes of conduct and of honor, basic principles of behavior, including
among others the principle of mutual support to each other in any circumstances and the
principle of omerta. Since the Corporation preserves traditions, hierarchies, codes and
habits of secret police and intelligence services, its members show high degree of
obedience to the current leadership, strong loyalty to each other, rather strict discipline.
There are both formal and informal means of enforcing these norms. Violators of the
code of conduct are subject to the harshest forms of punishment, including the highest
form6.
CSP and the Russian society.
Members of the CSP are specially trained, strongly motivated and mentally oriented
to use force against other people and in this regard differ substantially from civilians. The
important distinction of enforcement in today’s Russia from enforcement in rule-based
nations is that in the former case it doesn’t necessarily imply enforcement of Law. It means
solely enforcement of Power and Force regardless of Law, quite often against Law. Members
of the Corporation are trained and inspired with the superiority complex over the rest of the
population. Members of the Corporation exude a sense of being the bosses that superior to
other people who are not members of the CSP. They are equipped with membership perks,
including two most tangible instruments conferring real power over the rest of population in
today’s Russia – the FSB IDs7 and the right to carry and use weapons.
The GOP has enough on its plate preventing the creation of a new soviet state in the USA.
Mar 20, 2009 - 5:25 am 14. Kevin Mahoney:Kim Zigfeld is a pseudonym and not a real person. For all that we can know, the name is the pseudonym of an anonymous writer’s collective running a hateful site that not only pours vemon on the Russian government – which it probably deserves – but propagates hatred against the Russian people, Russian culture, and even the Russian language.
That site also has a miserable technorati rating.
Mar 20, 2009 - 6:35 am 15. AThinkingPerson:I’m afraid I’m going to have to second #13 deguello’s thoughts on this topic.
Mar 20, 2009 - 7:08 am 16. kabud:>Kim Zigfeld is doing great job if in this small discussion
several suspicious pro-kgb individuals are trying to attack Kim’s image)))
God Spedd Kim Zigfeld!!!
Mar 20, 2009 - 8:30 am 17. Antifo:God Bless
I really have problems to understand why NATO should care about Russia?
As I see it the US has more than enough problems on it’s own.
http://antifo.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/fear-of-torture-is-no-phobia/
Mar 20, 2009 - 8:32 am 18. kabud:>17. Antifo:
-because Russia has enormous strategic advantage in nukes and
-their missiles are targeted at you
-because they effectively killed around 100 millions of their own people in the 20th century and continue to do it as we speak in some provinces there
-because their strategy is to make a first, surprise strike at USA
-because they are ruled by killers who were professionally trained to kill, who killed through their careers and going to kill more
-because their effectively bought and sold american politicians, journalists and educators
-because they arranged with Chavez to use his runway for russian nuclear bombers
-well, they DO plan a war with us and they plan to win it by using Islamic stocking horse
thats just from the very top of the pile: USA is under attrack and attack originates in KREMLIN
Mar 20, 2009 - 9:11 am 19. Steve J. Nelson:Kim’s “advice” to the Republican Party here reads like it came straight from her real boss, former McCain advisor and Orion Strategies PR guy Randy Scheunemann. Has anyone heard from him since the ignomious circular firing squad end of the McCain campaign and Scheunemann’s outing as the guy who leaked rumors about VP nominee Sarah Palin behind her back to the press in The New York Times? Of course not.
http://larussophobeexposed.blogspot.com/2009/02/devil-and-beltway-bandits-went-down-to.html
Mar 20, 2009 - 9:35 am 20. Steve J. Nelson:The Devil and Beltway Bandits Went Down to Georgia
These are the idiots who thought they could turn Georgia into an anti-Russian client state, have their boy Saakashvili crush a Russian client state (South Ossetia) without any consequences. Even if they felt perfectly justified, were they so stupid as to think the Russians would do nothing? Well, Saako lied, people died, and the whole thing has since been swept under the rug by an embarassed Washington establishment. Move on, nothing to see here folks…
Bottom line: Kim is a sock puppet for this anti-Russian lobby crowd, which is finding its influence rapidly declining to zero and thus has to thrash about trying to convince you that Russia is the West’s enemy.
Mar 20, 2009 - 9:37 am 21. narciso:No, nitwit, he defended her against exactly those slanders, by unnamed sources, but we now can surmise came from Nicole Wallace and Meghan McCain. Russia’s little games in South Asia and now the Caucasus, first Chechnya, now Georgia,
Mar 20, 2009 - 10:00 am 22. kabud:have been wasteful, and created AQ, as part of a backlash, inspired many of the 9/11 hijackers
and likeminded figures like Zacarias Mussaoui, Meanwhile they provide Iran with the men and material to make a bomb
Wow, Kim, KGB regards you very seriously
look at these clowns here)))
seems like they come to read your articles just to figure out who you are
it is intimidation.
And it is russian failed state` organized crime structures
We should catch everyone of them when they travel , arrest them, put them to justice and hang: murderers of millions should be put to death and our LAW has the mechanism for it.
Mar 20, 2009 - 10:13 am 23. flashwoman:John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.
Mar 20, 2009 - 10:44 am 24. Marie Claude:uh, seems that the Russians’defence sales market is going bankrupted, they are looking for a bail out
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/286uzncs.asp
Mar 20, 2009 - 5:44 pm 25. Wally Lind:No one in the United States is going to have the decisive say in whether a “neo-Soviet” state emerges in Russia.
Mar 20, 2009 - 9:35 pm 26. Steve J. Nelson:Narciso, could you please supply a link defending Mr. Scheunemann or substantiating your claims about Megan McCain? Or could you explain what Scheunemann is doing now that he drove the McCain campaign into the ground, along with several other overpaid flacks that still see conservatives who believed in Palin as so much useful sheeple? No? Of course not. You just tossed out insults like yet another Kim Zigfeld sock puppet. You don’t have any facts on your side.
Perhaps the most interesting question the Russia! magazine article I linked to asked: was there any way Saakashvili could have afforded Scheunemann’s steep lobbying fees? If not, then where was all that money coming from, as the article asks? George Soros (in another example of how the anti-Russia lobby creates strange bedfellows)? Oil and gas companies that backed the BTC pipeline? Where?
kabud, if I’m “pro-KGB”, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. I don’t have any interest in defending FSB, KGB, anyone in Russia. I’m just sick and tired of the Cold War Lobby pouring our taxpayer dollars down a rathole for their own personal enrichment and Ukrainian nationalist jihad against all things Russian.
Mar 21, 2009 - 9:02 am 27. typos_R_us:The Russians are hosed. They had a chance back in the early 90’s but blew it. Putin is doing the same stooooooopid stuff the Soviets did. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.
Russia is a paper bear. Back in the day, the CIA estimate of Soviet ICBM reliability was 60%, targeting 90% and warhead reliability ate 75%. The breakup of the Soviet Union allowed access to the internal figures used by the Soviets to go public. The CIA was overstating the effectiveness by a good margin.
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/whanowit.htm
Dunnigan has a very good section on the topic in “How to make War”
Things have gotten worse, not better during Putin’s reign. The Russian military is a joke. Russia is running a bluff based off the once formidable Red Army.
The first time the run up against an American President with some balls, they will get slapped down and their entire social structure will implode.
If Bush had ordered the Air Force to close the tunnel into Georgia, the Russian invasion would have been cut off at the knees. Putin would not be in power today. Putin wasn’t worried because he looked into Bush’s eyes and saw a bully and a coward. It was a perfect opportunity to bring regime change to Russia for the cost of a JDAM or three.
There is going to be a massive war in the next decade or two. If we start it, we can win without to much trouble.
The sooner we start, the sooner it is over and the smaller the butchers bill.
“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”
- Niccolò Machiavelli
“The first method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
Mar 21, 2009 - 5:40 pm 28. Reaganite Republican:- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
The sad reality is that the Russians clearly see an opportunity for strategic and diplomatic gains.. and are moving in haste to put him back on his heels, with new threats and maneuvers reminiscent of the Cold War.
Mar 21, 2009 - 6:06 pm 29. Chuvak:-
They have already outwitted Barack, who was caught dozing while the Kremlin nabbed the Kyrgizstani airbase that was so vital for any potential Afghan “surge” plans. Since Obama was elected, the Russians have announced major weapons programs and ICBMs…. and threatened to point nuclear weapons at NATO-members Poland and the Czech Republic. Recently it came out that Obama asked Moscow in a secret letter to assist in dealing with Iran, and for this he was willing to give up our missile defense programs as N Korea and Iran prepare nuclear ICBM’s that can reach the US mainland. Even then, the Kremlin basically told him to shove it. –
North Korea, Iran, and Russia all think that his “open hand” to them is a sign of weakness… the same as conservatives said all-along. And the worst is yet to come-”Yes We Can” invade Ukraine… and what are you going to do about it, Barack?
-
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-to-do-about-russia.html
Steve,
kabud is a pretty old sock-puppet of the “Kim Zigfeld” team. Don’t expect any kind of rational or sensible argument from him.
It’s kind of funny how some people – fewer and fewer by the day – still think Zigfeld is legitimate.
Fortunately, the Larussophobe shtick is getting tired, and the blog is losing ground. Most people who read it by now are probably only folks who actually don’t like LR at all, but go there just for the laugh (such as I).
One thing the Zigfeld team should worry about is that in the long run, no secrets can be kept. Too many people are involved in the project, and sooner or later they will trip up. Probably within the next 24 months or so.
Mar 21, 2009 - 6:13 pm 30. narciso:Well considering that he and Biegun spoke out in the first week of the election, against the nameless slanders, yes no one put their names to them; curious no. I name Megham McCain and Nicole Wallace, because they were in her entourage, and yet chose not to defend her, or even comment. We know that at least on of the socalled sources, Mr. Eisenstadt, was a internet prankster named Gorlin. Now why the defense of the Gazprom/siloviki crow. The Medveyev/Putins and the likes of Gen. Shamanov, and Nagovitsyn, and Zhilikov, who threatens to provoke a South American version of the
Mar 22, 2009 - 7:06 am 31. dan:“Missiles of October”
Actually your defense of this third incursion into Georgia, 1799 and 1921, is most strange, it seems to indicate that the fabled Russian army couldn’t really hold out against a token force of American mercenaries, is that what you called it. Maybe being called out into two no win quagmires, Afghanistan & Chechnya, in twenty years has something to do with it. Is Steve Levine a fraud, was the late Anna Politskayava, or the poisoned ex SVR man, those were all accidents.
Just by watching Associated Press wires roll by sites like Breitbart.com or other mass-headline sites it is obvious that Russia is the grand conspirator behind almost every single strategic crisis point in the world – every single one of them. The only country they have appear to have no hand in the fight is Pakistan, but then where intelligence agencies go anti-US and anti-government, especially by a circuitous and cunningly oblique route, one would not be wrong to wonder what influence Russia may be exerting in the region. There is nothing extraordinary in Kim’s observation. And look – now Russia seems to be poised to join OPEC.
How, for example, can anyone possibly believe the West can address Iranian nuclear technology without addressing Russia? To continue to follow that policy is essentially just an admission of failure and impotence. And both the Russians and Iranians (to say nothing of the Israelis) know it.
Readers of Pajamas and other sites have got to stop being distracted by the apparent internal collapse of the pillars of society within Russia which we, outside of Russia, take as measures of strength and health. Russia is not Europe; Russia is Asia. Strength and health are measured differently there. Russia is not weak. And Russia is not a democracy of any kind. And Russia is behind all these crises. So why should the Republican party – particularly when the Russians themselves are no longer overt devotees of the “brotherhood of man” – not make containment of Russia their policy? Russia is the arch-foe, because that’s what the Russian government is doing. Period.
Mar 22, 2009 - 9:17 am 32. Steve J. Nelson:On narciso, on Dan, on dasher, on dancer, prancer and vixen…you get my point. I’m one American person, I don’t have a bunch of pseudonyms rocking and rolling along all defending myself the way you guys defend “Kim”, without displaying the slightest interest in who “she” is, what gives “her” the right to trash others credentials on Russia while offering positively zero of “her” own, or who pays for all of this rubbish, including La Russophobe’s Russian translations (Jamestown Foundation? Anyone? Bueller?). Or more suspiciously, why you guys defend Randy Scheunemann, who before the 2008 Georgia War, almost no one outside of Washington D.C. and Tblisi had ever heard of the guy.
Other than Meghan McCain, I have no idea who you are talking about “narciso”! Who is Biegun? What connection does he have with Scheunemann? What is Scheunemann’s current occupation now that he is no longer running the McCain campaign into the ground trying to play the Russia-bashing card for his own personal enrichment? Why has he never answered questions about his role lobbying his boss McCain on behalf of his real boss Saakashvili? Why can’t you Zigfeld sock puppets ever spell and write complete sentences?
Huh? What about Steve Levine? LeVine is a reporter for BusinessWeek. And the poisoned Litvinenko, lest you forget, worked for Boris Berezovsky. That’s the Godfather of the Kremlin Boris Berezovsky, who probably had a hand in the killing of Paul Klebnikov too — a Russian journalist who was personally friendly with Putin and whose family Putin visited after his death. You can read about that on my blog.
Mar 22, 2009 - 9:32 pm 33. narciso:Schueneman, started as a staffer to Sen. Trent Lott, he was an advisor to the Dole campaign in ‘96, had Dole won, he would have been deputy
national security advisor. he then worked for a gun rights group, and yes at one point he did argue for the liberation of Iraq. You could have found that out in maybe 20 minutes.
Biegun was one of the other campaign staffers, that spoke out publicly in her favor, after all the lies that were told in the immediate aftermath of the campaign. Yes, he screwed up in that call from those Canadian pranksters.
In retrospect, we fell for the biggest joke in the world, and it’s not funny, Frankly I don’t think the Governor needed much convincing about
Russia’s intentions, MIG’s have been buzzing the former Russian territory on an increasing basis, Wassila (formerly Vassily as in the suburb of St. Petersburg) and Sitka are reminders of that, as is the Kodiak launch site and the BMD radar at Ketchikan.
Saakashvilli, although Western educated, is naturally worried how Abkhasia and Ossetia were used twice in the last two hundred years, 1799 and 1921, as pretext to annex Georgian independence, so there probably was a lobbying effort, which I assume the BTKpipelines might have a role in, Russia has not been an ally in these endeavors despite all the Bush
Mar 23, 2009 - 8:56 am 34. Steve J. Nelson:administration gave in the last 7-8 years. They supported the Chechen massacre, for that’s what you call Aldy and Grozny & Stare Atagi were. In return they helped build up the Iranian nuclear problem, notably at the Bushehr plant.
I didn’t ask you for Scheunemann’s bio, I asked you how much he gets paid, and who’s paying him now. And I ask you again: why is Georgian independence worth American boys fighting and dying for?
Mar 25, 2009 - 4:53 pm 35. a38602:in fact, Abkhasia and S.Ossetia are independed(out of georgian control) since 1989. Since then, there have been several attempts by the Georgian military invasion. Now please reply me, how much time should be passed to get a country international recognition?
May 14, 2009 - 7:23 am 36. Corey:It is perfectly obvious to me that Mr. Medvedev’s trips to Latin America are his attempt to underscore his country’s belief that its sphere of influence AND behavior in that sphere of influence should be recognised and adjudged in about the same way. Simply put we are hypocrites about this “pushing around and minding other people’s business thing.” However it must be said that two wrongs do not make a right. This can be no justification of bullying another country. Let us hope the Russians understand this.
Sep 5, 2009 - 6:40 pm