Posted on 11/09/2007 12:05:26 PM PST by Wuli
What is the Status of U.S. - Russian Relations?
"PUTIN THE TERRIBLE? Vladimir Putin and Russian Democracy"
In this Uncommon Knowledge episode, Peter Robinson interviews Michael McFaul, the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Steven Fish, associate professor of political science, at the University of California, Berkeley
"Putinism means no bill of rights, no right of free speech, no right of free press, no right to assemble or seek redress of grievances, no right against unlawful search and seizure, no habeas corpus, the essential foundation of any country blessed by a rule of law."
"The Putin regime is actually quite fragile. It sits at the apex of an unjust social system and tolerates just enough liberty to make it extremely vulnerable to a serious investigation of its apparent crimes. Mr. Putin has systematically eliminated other centers of power. As a result, the bureaucracy rules alone--without interference from society but also without its support."
Six years have passed since...........
(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...
The man is confused. The issues were that the League of Nations was a failure and the United Nations is a failure. One could not oppose the dictator (Hitler - U.S. was not in the League of Nations) and one would not oppose the dictator (Saddam, as the UN failed in its own powers of enforcement). The applicable analogy in both cases was how ineffectual the institutions were; there is no analogy between Hitler and Bush. Hitler was attempting to expand his dictatorship, Bush was putting one down.
"Putin only furthered Russia’s maverick identity when he recently announced that the SVR (Russia’s civilian intelligence service) will, due to “growing imbalances” between Russia and other intelligence-gathering countries and “the international situation and internal political interests,” markedly increase its intelligence-gathering operations.
Which corresponds precisely with recent UK complaints that both China and Russia have greatly increased their intelligence operations in Britain.
It concludes with the question:
"With Putin still in power, will the United States and Russia find an opportunity to revisit, revive, and repair relations? Or will the United States, already overwhelmed with international crises and an unpopular war, ignore the fearless bear in its backyard and unwittingly help usher in a new era of uncertainly over the future of U.S.-Russian relations?
The UK needs to deal with its own vast problems and stop pestering Russia, a natural ally in the war on Islamic terror.
It would be disastrous and incredibly naive to not forge a strong dynamic alliance with Russia.
The US’s primary enemies in the post cold war world are not the nutty Islamists it’s the Russkies and the Chinese. Most of the Islamic stuff is proxy wars with the commies over oil. Darfur too.
“The UK needs to deal with its own vast problems and stop pestering Russia”
How is the factual acknowledgment by British intelligence that Russia has greatly increased its intelligence operations in the UK twisted into (in your mind) a matter of “pestering” Russia.
Maybe it is also (to you) mere “pestering Russia”, when the UK, Norway and Denmark (all NATO countries) announce recent increase in the number and frequency of incidents of Russian military jets intruding on their airspace; causing their defense establishments to intercept them and escort them out of the area?
Now that sounds like one of the nutty theories of R Paul
Now that sounds like one of the nutty theories of R PaulGo read some PNAC policy documents. They're quite explicit.
...Russian military jets intruding on their airspace...
Oh come now—you are reporting like CNN does—disingenously and marginally..the incomplete and fatuous side of the story.
I will respond reasonably when your comments reflect a modicum of logic and objectivity, not irrational and hysteric russophobia.
PNAC-—they seem to be geniuses at getting things wrong..why on earth would I want to subscribe to their mushy projects?
Aging cold warriors need to retire or they will end up as shills for the carnegie endowment for “peace” bending over obediently for the international pimp Soros.
PNAC-—they seem to be geniuses at getting things wrong..why on earth would I want to subscribe to their mushy projects?I'd say they're quite intelligent and their opinions reflect the views of the current political(not military, I can't emphasize this enough) establishment.
“Vladimir Putin and Russian Democracy......are like oil and water”
My latest view (subject to smarter opinions) is that it might be that culture is stronger than ideology and technology, even when they are combined.
(and there is growing discussion of this sort of idea, in think tanks and academia)
Maybe its simply a fact that Russia is Russia - they had their royal Czars, then they had their communist czars and now Putin and his mobocracy simply continue the Russian pattern. And because it fits a very long, very ingrained historic cultural pattern there are not riots in the streets.
This is not offered as a defense of a form of rule, but as possible explanations for why some countries seem to change only the appearance of things, in a remake of an ingrained cultural motif.
Japan adapted quickly to western technology, while its governing system merely changed how it was expressed, not the underlying form - junction of executive and military, enforcing the rule of a strong bureaucracy under moral sanction of the emperor. Now, after two major wars and many smaller ones, the military may no longer call the shots, the emperors blessing is not called for as often and a defacto executive is “elected” under a “democratic” constitution. But, in the day to day world, the central bureaucracy and its regulatory hold on day-to-day life in Japan remains nearly as strong as it was when it supported the Shogun and at a level of “rule” by mere regulation that “democracy” loving Americans would never accept. Japan’s chief executive’s biggest battles do not occur between that chief executive and the legislature, but between that executive and an entrenched and very powerful bureaucracy. The political intrigues evolve from that central bureaucracy - as if they inherited their power from Japanese history - outward to obtain or deflect “representatives” to either support or object to the chief executive’s attempt to steer the ship of state without the approval of that bureaucracy. Americans cannot imagine our chief executive’s cabinet officers installed merely as place holders over bureaucrats with the power to have the appointed cabinet officers removed (not by any “Constitutional” power, but because the politicians in the legislature allow the bureaucrats lobbying of them to operate that way).
Did China actually end its domestic imperial system, or simply establish a permanent bureaucracy with which to maintain a new one, with that bureaucracy itself, not royal blood lines, choosing each new emperor?
It is possible that Russia can only be changed, in democratic terms, marginally and very gradually - or maybe not at all.
Everything you need to know about Putin can be answered with one bit of knowledge. If there is a political choice to make, Russia will choose whichever choice either sustains the high price of oil or drives it higher.
“Aging cold warriors need to retire”
The “aging cold warriors” are not around, and neither are the Soviet’s Bolsheviks, and in the current “new world oder” Russia is reverting to type, paranoid type like the Czars, in which everyone who is close and independent must be “against” Russia.
Now you’re regressing again...but you are right about the new world “oder”..more like a stink
“Oh come now—you are reporting like CNN does—disingenously and marginally..the incomplete and fatuous side of the story.”
The Danish, Norwegian and UK governments are not CNN; at least I am led to believe that their parent company has not bought those countries yet.
“I will respond reasonably when your comments reflect a modicum of logic and objectivity, not irrational and hysteric russophobia.”
The only thing “irrational and hysteric” so far in our conversation is the lack of any “modicum of logic and objectivity” in your infatuation with Putin’s Russia. Given that is the level of your “reasonableness” on the issue, I can’t imagine how your “response” can improve what little fact or knowledge you have offered - which has been nil.
You are making a mountain out of a molehill - get over it
from
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/110888.html
“Russian Ambassador Alexander Rumyantsev said in a statement that the “violation of airspace was not intentional” but was attributed to “inadequate exchange of information between the flight crew and ground stations.”
Finnish Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva welcomed the statement and a Russian proposal that “specialist discussions be held.”
You are dreaming. Look, we had somewhat of a partnership after 911 but in 2004 the US helped support the Orange Revolution of Ukraine. This was a mistake. The Ukrainians did not need our involvement and it turned Russia from a semi-ally to an enemy overnight. That’s point one. Point two is that Putin is KGB, brainwashed for life. Once we even slightly betrayed his paranoid mind it was over. Russia is an enemy now. They are finishing helping Iran build plutonium. Hydrogen bombs in other words.
Putin made peace with Islam last year. Did you miss that? Russia is more dangerous now as a wounded by healing, paranoid animal then they were as the Soviet Union. They cannot contain creating Frankenstein monsters (Iran/Syria)like they could during the Soviet years because they lack the resources. But creating them they are and now these Frankenstein monsters have nukes. Same with North Korea and China providing nuclear know-how via way of Pakistan. These countries are not our friends.
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