Posted on 12/12/2004 6:10:15 PM PST by wagglebee
WASHINGTON – The political crisis in Ukraine has touched off a fresh debate inside the White House and foreign policy offices over how President Bush should handle Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly authoritarian rule at home and assertive presence abroad, according to administration officials.
The relationship between Bush and Putin had been strained by the Kremlin’s crackdown on political opposition, but it has taken a turn for the worse over the fraud-ridden presidential election in next-door Ukraine unleashed an angry torrent of Cold War-style rhetoric from Moscow.
Putin denounced the U.S. “dictatorship” in international relations, accused the West of acting like a “kind but strict uncle in a pith helmet” lecturing Russia and ridiculed Bush’s plans for elections in Iraq next month. The tone has surprised some on the Bush team, according to officials, and demonstrated that Putin might be evolving from a partner into a foreign policy headache for Bush.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortwayne.com ...
If this is true, then I am impressed. Let's see the same kind of thinking in regard to China.
If the Russians want democracy they need to stand up for it like the Ukrainians did.
Looks like a good time to have Condi as Sec. of state. Yes she is Fluent in russian.
Bush invited the Russian to his Texas ranch and Camp David, and affectionately called Putin “Pootie-poot.”
Reminds me of FDR calling Stalin "Uncle Joe".
Is there some reason why we should be meddling into the internal affairs of former Soviet Republics? I think we'd be pretty pissed if Russia was trying to exert similar influence in the Western Hempisphere.
I think they should be checking the Crawford ranch, the White House and anywhere else that Putin has ever been for bugs and other surveillance equipment.
Are there any major countries that aren't pissed at us?
I suppose the UK, but it isn't clear that they qualify as major, and besides, Blair's party disagrees with him.
Possibly Japan, but it is always hard to tell with a culture where "yes" means "I understood what you said".
Bingo! My sentiments exactly!
I think we'd be pretty pissed if Russia was trying to exert similar influence in the Western Hempisphere.
No. It should be:
Washington sours on Putin after obvious election tampering -- assassination attempt of Ukrainian presidential candidate raises possibility of diplomatic sanctions against Russia
You made a lot of excellent points on the other thread.
I can see how some people get taken in by the carefully propagandized "freedom fighter" image of Yushchenko, but it is disturbing to see that Soros and EU appear to be successful in creating a rift between the US and Russia, and see the US falling for this.
We have made significant advances in our alliance with Russia, which would totally overshadow the EU. That is exactly why the EU wants to break up this budding alliance. Now we are becoming adversaries with Russia, just to help a socialist EU stooge be installed into power in the Ukraine.
While it's different in some sense, it's similar in the sense that people didn't have a clue about what is really going on, it reminds me of Carter and the Shah of Iran.
We have a faithful ally in the Shah of Iran, who was finally cracking down on the extremist Islamists. But the US under Carter decided to keep attacking him, under the excuse of "human rights", so the Shah ended up being toppled and the current Islamist regime was born in Iran. Some say, that was the resurgence of this extremist Islamist element and terrorism.
Obviously we ended up seriously hurting the US with our "do-good" involvement, full of good intentions, but without understanding the real situation.
Our turning against Russia over Ukraine is a major mistake, but we won't realize it, even when we see the consequences.
Half of the Ukrainians want Yanukovich, NOT Yushchenko.
Certainly not in such a blatantly overt manner.
Look, the USA has chosen to openly side against Russia in a country that's right along Russia's border. That is bound to sour relations in a bad way.
It's not just the Ukraine. Putin is on a roll. He has been going out of his way to oppose us in every way he can.
I have been very much in favor of mending relations with Russia. But it looks as if that simply won't be possible while Putin is in office. It's too bad, because we could use Russia as an ally, but evidently it's not in the cards.
You are forgetting, that Putin came out strongly supporting Bush prior to the election.
Relations between the US and Russia were improving, until this Ukrainian election, which the US should have stayed out of, beyond releasing a token "we support democratic elections in the Ukraine" announcement.
Ukraine doesn't matter to us, but it matters to Russia. Do you know how many non-Democratic countries are in the world, that we don't seem to care about?
And another parallel. They just had elections in Romania, there were accusations of fraud, there probably was fraud, they just had the rerun today, nobody seems to care about the fraud in Romania, or whether the pro-communist government supported guy or the challenger wins, even though there it may actually matter to us.
The Ukrainian election is not a fight for democracy, it's a contest between Russia and EU/Soros and we are supporting the EU against Russia, very unwisely.
"Looks like a good time to have Condi as Sec. of state. Yes she is Fluent in russian."
I do agree with that. She is also very knowledgeable and understands the situation. I trust her, but I don't trust Powell. I think Powell engineered this ill advised latest policy of the US siding with the EU against Russia over Ukraine.
You are being very sensible and I agree.
The same tirades against Putin you hear from the leftists are also used against Bush. Both are accused of being too "agressive" against Islamic fanatics and curtailing freedom at home. I just don't understand why so many conservatives are buying the Human Rights Watch /SOROS propaganda against Russia when we saw some of the same stuff used against Bush and our own military in our recent election.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.