Russia's Hostility to U.S. Is Rooted in 1990s

LAT ^ | 08/21/2006 | Rajan Menon

[Tailgunner Joe]

The Bush administration's imposition of sanctions on two Russian companies this month for selling military technology to Iran certainly sends the Kremlin a message -- but it won't be the one the White House has in mind. The penalties will only deepen the hostility that Russia's political establishment feels toward the United States.

That attitude came through loud and clear in many discussions I had with Russian academics, foreign policy specialists and senior officials during a recent trip to Moscow. President Vladimir V. Putin echoed it in his caustic dismissal of Vice President Dick Cheney's recent complaint that Russian democracy was eroding. And his condemnation of the sanctions as an "illegitimate" attempt to foist U.S. laws on Russian companies was no less acerbic. He will doubtless respond in kind.

The anti-American nationalism so palpable in Russia today is rooted in the 1990s, the decade of Boris N. Yeltsin, whom many Americans credit with ending Soviet totalitarianism and introducing the country to democracy. Russians have a different take on those years. They remember the chaos; the economic contraction; the extreme poverty; the robber barons who, with the connivance of the government, made billions after taking over state-owned industries at bargain-basement prices; and the Yeltsin family's rampant corruption. Rightly or wrongly, they associate these bad experiences with the United States. As one Russian official told me, "We followed your advice, and look where it landed us."

[Tailgunner Joe]

Russian President Vladimir Putin was Boris Yeltsin's chosen successor. Putin was appointed as President by Yeltsin before there was ever any election. Russia's enthusiastic embrace of Yeltsin's chosen successor was hardly a repudiation of Yeltsin's policies. Yeltsin's Russia was every bit as much friends with Saddam, Assad and the Ayatollahs as Putin's. Yeltsin's Russia amassed enormous wealth doing business with Saddam through the crooked UN "Oil for Food" scam, just like Putin's Russia. Yeltsin condemned NATO and stood with Red China against the US just like Putin does.

[silverleaf]

Yeah, the Russians just LOVED Eisenhower, Truman, Nixon, Kennedy, and Reagan ... that's why we had a little "cold war" thing going on for over 50 years....

damn George Bush for screwing up a mutually trustworthy friendship

SARC

(notice I left out President Peanut ... the reds probably really DID love him as a useful idiot) )

[A. Pole]

Russian President Vladimir Putin was Boris Yeltsin's chosen successor. Putin was appointed as President by Yeltsin before there was ever any election. Russia's enthusiastic embrace of Yeltsin's chosen successor was hardly a repudiation of Yeltsin's policies.

Actually it is. Yeltsin at the end implicitly admitted the failure of his policies and the nomination of Putin was part of that.

The straw that broke the camel's back was the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia (followed by not abiding by the Kosovo compromise) and Western political support for Islamists in Chechnya.

[Carry_Okie]

The straw that broke the camel's back was the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia (followed by not abiding by the Kosovo compromise) and Western political support for Islamists in Chechnya.

Thanks to Bill Clinton and our leftist Department of State.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Putin hasn't changed Yeltsin's policies. He still supports Iranian jihadists. Is that supposed to make us reverse our own policies?

Actually we already have, but we got nothing in return. It was Clinton who attacked Serbia and supported the Chechens. The USA voted his party out. Russia punishes Bush for what was done by Clinton but forgives Putin for doing exactly the same things as Yeltsin did.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Russian President Vladimir Putin was Boris Yeltsin's chosen successor

Putin is ex KGB - there's no way he should be trusted, even if Dubya looked "looked into his heart, soul or eyes" or whatever part of his anatomy.

[omega4412]

The US and Russia both need to consider the history of the last 1500 years, not just of the last 15 or the last 100. The Moslems have long exploited divisions in Christendom -- the Greek vs Latin churches, divisions among the Eastern churches.

[thoughtomator]

The driving of Russia into the anti-American camp is surely attributable to one Mr. Bill Clinton.


Clinton Legacy ping

[ex-Texan]

MEGA Dittos! And Many Complex Open Anatomy Dittos, too !

[GSlob]

"...Is Rooted in 1990s"
They are off by about 1000 years. It's not 1990s, but more like 988. Compare the historical fate of the lands [in the same area] which got christianized from Rome [even if indirectly] and ended up as Western civ - and those who ended in Byzantium orbit. Say, the Baltics, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia versus their Orthodox civ [Huntington's terminology] neighbors. And the civilizational hostility dates from about the same times.

[ozzymandus]

So what. They're still in mourning for Stalin.

[GSlob]

You are absolutely right; no kegebun* could ever be trusted, even if he chances to speak the truth or do a right thing.
*small play of words in Russian here:[= KG[B]-effer]

[JerseyHighlander]

The average Russian is 100% correct in posting the blame on American WTO and IMF advisers, mostly from the faculty at Harvard and related consultancy groups. And Clinton's parade of thieves he sent to Russia to help destroy the economy of Russia doesn't help America's lasting image in the eyes of Russians either.

[MNJohnnie]

Putin is ex KGB - there's no way he should be trusted, even if Dubya looked "looked into his heart, soul or

It would be wise to remember we were going hat in hand asking the Russians to help us get bases in the 'Stans for the attack on Afganistan at the time. It would be nice if the Freepers remembered that part of the President's job some times is kissing up to thugs and bully boyes inorder to get what the US needs. Knee jerk Ideological purity may make for good talk radio or TV, it is utterly stupid in real world politics.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Point well taken. I've always felt that Dubya portrayed Putin as he wanted him to be, not as he really is. That can be a useful tactic sometime to get people to change, but "a leopard doesn't change his spots" and a KGB rat is still a rat.

[M1Tanker]

If you are correct, and I think you are, that Clinton's "Ivy League" educated, crooked advisers and cronies are the ones who caused the CIS/Russia's woes, then the Russians have only themselves to blame.

Their government and political thinkers were the ones who infiltrated these campi, spread the filth of Marx/Lenin/Stalin/Mao/Castro/Guevara, and brainwashed many into thinking Capitalism and the West were failures. It was the products of this leftist garbage which failed to help the post-USSR CIS prosper. The same ex-Soviet republics which are sitting on vast oil reserves, mineral deposits, and have a huge potential for growth.

The Soviets failed to prosper, and their American Leftist progeny failed them after the USSR's demise.

[A. Pole]

So how the policy toward Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo changed?

[A. Pole]

but we got nothing in return

In exchange for what exactly? In Afghanistan it was Russian allied Northern Alliance which did most of the fighting.

[Trailerpark Badass]

You mean Russians look anywhere, everywhere, for a scapegoat, before looking at themselves?

Kind of like the russian guy who used to tell me that 75 years of Communist misery was forced on the poor Russian people by foreign ethnics. Oh, yeah, he told me that here on FR.